Manifesto - What do I want to be as a designer?

As part of the same PPD session last Thursday we were asked to produce a manifesto relating to the new brief, updates and details of which can be found on my Design Practice blog.

Who did I used to be?
Since I was very young I loved painting and drawing, I've always been drawn towards things that look interesting, or things that are cleverly put together.
As I got older I got into character design, and looked up to things like the Final Fantasy series and Zelda for inspiration (you wouldn't believe how much illustration is involved in making games like those).
Throughout college, I never felt like I had any kind of direction as far as actual design was concerned. I just liked making things look good. By the end of my further education I thought I had a real direction, I loved to work with traditional media, and then rework what I'd made in Photoshop. I designed mainly posters and illustrations for my own enjoyment, It was how I relaxed. After the first few months on this course my idea of what design should be was totally destroyed, and as I slowly began to piece it all back together, I lost interest in my old style of working.

Who am I now?
Well I never did piece back together my idea of what design should be. I doubt I ever will now either, I've found things change far to quickly to ever have that set in concrete. I feel that the past year has been a huge learning curve, I have come such a long way since September. I'm becoming more confident in my own work, and I'm slowly beginning to discover what I'm good at, and I'm getting an idea of where I want to be in the future. Right now I'd say I was an illustrator first and foremost. Secondly I am a handcrafter, and I prefer to create one off, unique pieces than designs for mass production, though I would say I am reasonably competent when it comes to flyer/poster design.

Where to now? - 3 things I want to be doing in the future.

1. I want to hone my illustrations, develop a style, but not be constricted by that style (eg Si Scotts designs are amazing but that style has already become alot less poplular than it was, and where does that leave him if he can't draw in any other style?)
2. I want to become a bookmaking wizard.
3. I want to be able to make my own website, this is something I have never touched on before, so hopefully over the next 2 years I'll be able to get a grasp of it, enough at least to put up my own site. Fingers crossed.

As a final point, I'd still like to keep a level of sustainability within my design choices. I am still deciding how I feel on this matter of being green, though I think regardless of this, it's important not to be wasteful, so reusing and recycling will always be a consideration for me, in all areas of life. It's hard to write a manifesto when my ideas of what I want to be in the future keep on changing! I hope one day I'll at least have a set of ground rules to design by...