Welcome to yjl creative!
Well, how scary is this? My first blog post on my first website. To be honest, I am struggling to find the right words to say ‘welcome’. How do you produce a punchy, yet meaningful, first blog post?
Maybe I should start with why I am doing this. After graduating this summer, I found myself struggling to work out what to do. I won’t dwell too much on the intricacies and save this for a future blog post, but in a nutshell – I was lost.
So when you’re lost, the best solution to find your way is to retrace your steps. For the purposes of this post, I took a trip down memory lane. Besides, what is better to celebrate anything than brief nostalgia?
The first thing I noticed when I cracked open my digital folders is how thankful I am that every year of my degree I was required to produce a portfolio of work. I also discovered how frightening it is to see the person I was during each year perfectly encapsulated in a single document of work – messy memories and all.
The Beginning
First Year
When I had this much confidence it didn’t matter that I was coming to terms with ‘master pages’ and struggling to scan A2 sheets in a dark corner of the Architecture department. I am not sure why I gravitated towards teal and yellow then, but at least I can tell that the colour palette reflected me back then in the name of ‘cool’. The logo, on the other hand, is a whole other matter and when I saw it for the first time in three years, I laughed, having forgotten what it looked like……..
Second Year
I remember that this infinitely frustrated me in what I call the original design identity crisis. This lead to a complete rehaul in style and colour palette. I wanted drastic, I wanted different….. I wanted something that reflected me (or whatever that meant two years ago). However, In a manner of perfectionism, I can say that it never felt quite right in the end. I couldn’t put to screen what was exactly in my head, and I was no closer to knowing what it was I was looking for.
This was also the start of using the @ style logo and you could say the rest was history.
Third Year
Produced during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic to apply for placements, this reminds me of when my confidence was at the lowest and I was most apathetic in regards to design and my work. It shows. Either moving backward or staying stagnant, it didn’t feel like it moved forward.
There are multiple versions of it saved on my hard drive, each one I deemed not good enough. With that impostor syndrome impossibly crushing, this is all that this particular portfolio reminds me of. No matter how much I had grown over the years, I’d come to the inevitable conclusion that after three years of trying to finesse it, it still failed in my eyes.
The Beginning of an End
After this rather somber period of last summer, I set up a design Instagram account titled yjl_designs to overcome this. I wanted to show that in reality, the whole creative process is so much more than the perfectly polished output. I wanted to bring fun back to it all without having that pressure of producing something for an employer to dissect.
This was the final catalyst for where I am today. Having the time to reflect this summer on what I wanted, yjl_designs didn’t fit. Why? Because I felt like it didn’t describe all of who I am and wanted to be. Especially not when pursuing product design as a career felt like it had slipped over a precipice.
Thus yjl creative was born.
I want yjl creative to showcase my whole self in a way that none of my past work or portfolios have. A creative with so many interests in various areas – from graphic design and product design to writing. An appreciation for music, theatre, dance, and media.
After so many years of trying to fit my work into one facet of myself, I figured it was time to pull the covers back on what I wanted. Somewhere along the way, I stopped having fun and started caring far too much about what others think. I stopped taking pride in my work.
After antagonising over this and being inspired by fellow friends endeavours, a website portfolio and blog seemed to be the right next step.
A New Beginning
Irealise why I am struggling to find words to say. In stories, the beginnings are always the hardest to write, and it is a struggle to put into words the feeling of being at the very edge of a new beginning. This is a new chapter in life. The one where all of my different selves come together in a wonderfully Neapolitan-Esque ice cream palette (that may or may not have been lifted from Pinterest). All completed with a deliberate facelift to a logo that has stuck by me, creating a balanced yin and yang.
The remaining story is uncertain, but one thing for sure is there is always uncertainty. This is what I want yjl creative to show. To show my past regrets, show the imperfect person I am now, and then ultimately, how I will change in the future.
There is no guarantee that this website will look the same in a year’s time. Heck, there is no guarantee that it will even be here. Change is inevitable, but at least for now, I feel a bit more like me. A person figuring out life one step at a time.
When I question what I want, I find that I want to tell my stories, I want to show off what I enjoy, I want to help and inspire people, I want to do this for myself. Underneath the thick varnish, that hasn’t changed and this medium is the perfect way to do that.
In a world where it is hard to practice being your authentic self, trying is better than nothing, even if you are imperfect at it. I hope you try too.
So I welcome you to yjl creative. A place to be messy, raw, and authentic.
And most importantly, to have fun.
