Lloyd Humphreys

I was thinking while I listened to MTG today. What do I ultimately want to achieve?

What does any 15 year old boy want to achieve?

I suppose by now you’ve gotten that I’m not your typical 15 year old boy. I don’t want to be a footballer, I don’t really want to be famous… I’d like to be respected within my circles. Hell - I’d like to change the world! I’d like to be one of those people all the nerds and geeks look up to, the one with all the answers, the one who’s great at his job but also a right laugh. And to be honest, I reckon I’m quite on track to getting there.

So anyways, I was thinking.. what do I want to do?

There’re a few things.

I love graphic design. I seriously, seriously, seriously love it. I do a lot of it now, and I’m starting to get really good at Photoshop – which is great. It’s interesting, it’s different and it’s creative. I also love user interfaces, and designing them. I’m good at it! I hate to blow my own horn, it’s so awful, but hey, I’m being frank. Designing them: yes. Implementing them: getting there. Expression Blend is amazing. I love it – but I’ve not spent much time in it recently, so I’ve gotten a bit rusty -  but I recently learnt that with Blend 3 you can import PSDs into it – which is an interesting turn, and that’s definitely something I’m interested in playing with. My problem is that I while I pick things up with relative ease, I just can’t be bothered. I need my motivation. So since I’m already pretty decent at Photoshop, and I want to get as good as I can at that, (for some reason my motivation to become the best I can at Photoshop is never-ending, I just wish it was the same for doing homework on time, or maths) being able to use Blend would sortof tie in with that.

I’ve also got a lot of interest in advertising. I’ve never really expressed this or explored it, but I love it. I’ve got a couple of books here about advertising campaigns, and I think they’re really clever and interesting – creating one would be a dream come true for me. After listening to MTG, I’m only more interested in doing something like that. The best thing, I think, is that I can combine both advertising and graphic design. By the way, Creative Advertising by Mario Pricken is a great book, it’s basically a picture-book of all the coolest advertisements. Great for inspiration. Great picture of me, too, right?

Out on a different tangent now – performances. I absolutely *love* running shows. I’ve been doing it for a good couple of years with school now, and I’ve recently done some work with M.A.D Sound and Lighting recently, and I’ve got to say, Arwel and Dafydd didn’t do anything but cement my thoughts that that could be a great, fun, unusual/interesting career. I’d hate to be cooped up in an office – I love how hands on the work is, whether it’s setting stuff up, pulling it down or just running on Red Bull fumes at midnight after working for 15 hours straight (I’ve done it, it’s great!). Not that being cooped up in my own office would be bad, I love being alone in my zone, with only messenger and GTalk and email to keep me company – I hate being interrupted from my workflow by real people. But when I’m on my PC, music blaring and creative juices flowing, I love being cooped up in an office! What I’d hate, more to the point, is being cooped up in an office doing boring crap like data entry. No offence to those of you who do data entry. It’s just it’s not my cup of tea. And I don’t like tea, so I reeeally don’t like it.

Politics. Seriously. I always thought that politics would be really boring and not really for me. But recently, with Obama being so pro-IT and the Pirate Party coming into the spotlight I’ve seen a whole new side to politics. It’s interesting – and I reckon I’d enjoy it. Then again, I wouldn’t want to be the type of sly, underhanded, rat bastard politician who effectively defrauded tax payers, I’d be the kung-fu shake up one, fighting for the right to download free-to-air television and music without the BBC or RIAA wanting to murder you! I’d be the Obama of British politics, shaking stuff up and changing our bloody retarded nation. No more welfare for lazy bastards without a job. No more fiddling the system for dodgy old codgers who want a duck island! Yeah, I’m talking about YOU. Make things fair, make things right. Would be hella cool.

So er.. discuss. I really want some opinions on this, because I’m at that bit in life where it’s really kinda important. Thanks.