Published on | Prototyping: From UX to Front End — Medium Martin Jeremiah Jarmin Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

Every now and then some form of new tech or feature in a software is released to the market. If this is related to your field of work then you have to immediately sit down and study it. Although it ultimately depends on you if you want to undertake several personal training sessions to master this new entry. In my case, I have to in order to stay relevant in the motion design industry.

My line of work revolves around the computer and I honestly spend most of my time in a day in front of a monitor. Day and night my eyes are glued to that bright screen. I’m always connected to the Internet so chances are I’m always updated with what’s going on around the world. Whenever a new tech or feature in a program lands I look it up, read, and watch what I can about it. Although most of the time I miss the opportunity to try them out because they’re either too expensive, or I’m too busy.

Having enough is never enough

You think you know it all? You’re wrong, unfortunately. I do print designs from time to time but I honestly always have a hard time doing them. I was so focused on improving my motion design skills that I forgot about designing for print. I had to re-learn and learn new concepts.

What I previously had was just the fixated knowledge that I should use Photoshop for any print-related work that contains pictures. There’s so much more to that. I was taught to use InDesign whenever the project involved creating a layout. I had to learn about using grids (Oh what a journey that was…), setting the right kerning, using the right font/s, etc.

To this day I’m still more comfortable in doing motion design rather than print. But I’m getting the hang of it. Slowly but surely am I right?

Importance of knowledge in your work

As of now, I’m the only one in my office who does motion design. The pressure involved is relatively high so I’m constantly looking for ways to enhace my skillset to meet the demand. I pretty much don’t have someone in the company to turn to for opinions regarding the quality of my work. So I take it upon myself to find out what’s in the “now” and what’s the future.

There are numerous articles in the Internet about the future trends in design and it’s interesting that some of them actually came true. Take a look at the article written by Nick Babich here. All of the items that he listed are happening right now. He wrote the piece on January 2017. It’s October now.

Staying ahead of the game can be rewarding. It opens our mind to the possibilities and it further reenforces the idea that creativity has no limits.

Dedicate your time to learning

As the old saying goes, time is gold. We’ve heard this a million a times since it’s true. I myself am a bit obsessed with time. I always look at the clock for some reason. Maybe I want to make every second count? Or it could be something else. Improving your craft and adding more skills to your arsenal require patience. The thought of having to question yourself if this will be worth it will pop up. Honestly I sometimes end up in this situation but I’m well aware of the fact that I need to do something.

Back in the day when I was a fresh graduate and had no job, I dedicated my time and effort to learning new techniques in After Effects. I knew I had to keep up with the others. Along the way I also built my portfolio. While watching several tutorials on Youtube and browsing through a couple of websites, I came to the realization that I had so much more to learn. I was way behind other motion designers. So I spent most of my days on the computer playing around with After Effects. Eventually it paid off.

But I knew that my job was not done. I still had so much more to learn. Hence up until now I’m still learning and growing.

Be passionate

I’ve heard a couple of times that if you love what you’re doing, then you’ll definitely succeed. What’s the point of exerting all that effort to keep yourself up to date if you don’t even like what you’re working on. The competition nowadays in the creative industry is very tough. It doesn’t matter what school you came from or from what country. There are millions of brilliant creative minds all over the world and you’re just a single star in the universe. All of them are just as passionate as you are.

It’s a driving force for some of us to keep on improving and learning something new. They may require a little bit of patience, actually a lot since you’ll have to dig deep to reach the core.

Parting words

Whatever field you may be in, it’s important to keep yourself updated on what’s new and what’s ahead to keep yourself in front of the pack. Dedicate some of your time to learning and be passionate. You never know where your passion will lead you.

Thanks for reading!

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Want to discuss something? You can send me a message through email: mcjarmin@gmail.com or click here.

Stay updated to stay relevant was originally published in Prototypr on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Stay updated to stay relevant

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