Week 2 in the Vision Journaling Workshop involved a process to elucidate your core values. I did not follow the initial directions and started this at work, which turned out to be a good thing as it was a major mid-day de-stressor and led me to focus on what is important to me. I also have a long commute and do a lot of thinking in the car with new age music in the CD player so ideas come to me easily that way, even when doing 75 on the interstate (in the slow lane just keeping up with traffic and everyone is still passing me). I struggled with this exercise somewhat as it was hard to narrow things down to just 10 items and my initial lists were very long. In the car on the ride home Friday night I visualized exactly what I wanted to do - get my yet unchosen 10 words into the computer with a pastel box behind each word on a page that I could print and cut out and then add the words to a paper collage. And I still want to do that as well as make ATC cards… later.
When I started on this with InDesign yesterday and the 2002 Land of Forever CD playing, my graphic design gene led me down a different path. After working through the exercises I had 29 words and could not choose only 10 words so I finally settled on 12 that truly resonated with me. I typed my words in, first the whole list and then the list of 12. On the next page I took the 12 words, made boxes behind them, and chose different pantone colors. Then an idea came… I thought why not make a background with all the words repeated over and over, faded color and leading (line spacing) spread out. What next? Why not adjust the colored boxes the way I would have cut them and place them randomly around the background and do this piece digitally? The stark white background did appeal to my minimalist senses but I added a color screened back as a transparency and was pleased with the results. I have included the 4 page PDF to show my thought process. Once I get started it seems that one idea leads to another.
January 24th, 2010 at 9:08 pm Hi Mary, Thank you for your encouraging comments on my blog! I just finished a personal visioning exercise at work. We are starting with our personal values hoping to translate them into our organizational values. I love how you put a visual spin on yours. It really resonates with me.
January 24th, 2010 at 9:44 pm How exciting to be taking an online journaling course! Enjoying my visit with you this evening! oxo
January 25th, 2010 at 2:57 pm Love this!! I am a writer, primarily - so anything word related gets my attention…. YAY us!
January 26th, 2010 at 6:28 pm I love how you made this exercise your own. I too had a hard time narrowing down to ten words. I like your final layout and what a clever way to bring in your many words! Your commute sounds like a wonderful time for reflection and ideas. Thank you for sharing your experiences with the prompts.