One Eyed Deer Merchant

I've been scribbling alot in my sketchbook lately, working out ideas and playing around with graphics.

My background is graphic design, my specialism is Typography/ Typographics, but to be more precise I studied Experimental Typographics. Today, I was in an art book store looking at new typographics, that's where my interests lie. I've always had a fondness for the experimental, finding new ways of expression but not necessarily relying on technology to achieve it.

I recall an incident while I was studying GCSE Art. My art teacher would call one of the students, a 'one idea merchant'. At the time, I hadn't a clue what this meant, for a start my hearing was not too good and I have a tendency to distort stuff with my brain; I thought they were calling him a 'one eyed deer merchant'. Now I have no idea why a merchant would be selling one eyed deers. I asked the aforementioned kid, who was more than a capable artist, infact the top of the class, what a 'one eyed deer merchant was. He told me that he had been accused of this title because he would only develop the first idea that came into his head. It took me awhile, but I eventually understood.

I've found that in any field which involves creative thought, the generation of ideas is the most important skill. While studying at university, my professor told us that the clients aren't paying you to think up a good idea: they're paying you to come up with LOTS of ideas, and then select the most viable option. Brainstorming is not just the first stage of any project, but a continual process that is ultimately refined. Some of the best work by students were the ones produced in the last week of a month's deadline; not because these students were lazy, they were working all the time coming up with alternative ideas and not just being complacent.
The people that I have valued most in my life, are not the one hit wonders, but those who are constantly outputting ideas and testing them. Probably a good example of this is the professional photographer who takes a thousand shots of imagery, knowing that most of them will be rejected to select a few usable ones.