What's inspired my creativity as a young, budding creative.

Walking the line to being a young and successful female creative!

Hiya Friends of the Fish! Welcome to another introduction to the other integral 50% of Fisheye.

Ironically my name is Feish. There’s a brain tickler for you. Formally I’m known as Andrea but hey… we’re all friends here right?

So… Creatively I’m a little everywhere in my young design career and my life as a whole. I’ve always had a flair for things a little off the wall and am oddly creative! I grew up in the home of an incredibly talented fine artist. My mother left in me an incredible eye for looking at something differently. What mark on Fabriano could a Guinea fowl feather leave in Croxley ink? What pattern did little dun beetle’s feet leave in the African soil? Where could we leave an impression of creativity on a wall in our sleepy little town to be frequented by passers-by? So I can’t really tell you why I moved with such difficulty through my creative developing years from high school into university, then a second university and now into the big wide open communications industry we find ourselves in as Fisheye but, I can tell you that when I stopped trying to push myself into the arms of something conventional and rational, I came to succeed where there was never anything conventional and rational in the first place.

I am what some may refer to as a Jack of all trades. I Illustrate a little, I’ll write you a couple of banging lines of copy and I try my hand at capturing all that inspires my overworking creative brain on 35 mm film on my beloved little Minolta. By qualification, I am a Graphic Designer. Moulded and produced under the careful critics of the Stellenbosch Academy of Design. By the end of one’s three year period there, we’re given a label and we’re sent out into the world with an incredible tool kit of ideas and visual philosophy and an understanding of the creative world that came before us but how does one small title of “Graphic Designer” sum up every small detail of this creative life I’ve been so privileged to live?

I have been lucky enough to gain some of the most incredible industry experience in my young career working beside Designers, Art Directors and Strategists of the highest skillset within the Ogilvy South Africa group. Here I pushed products, planned campaigns, I designed thoughts and ideas and spaces for these thoughts and ideas to go to grow into new and greater things. What I was mostly left with, however, is the sense that there is so much more we can do with such a simpler focus.

So where do you see yourself in five years, Feish? When we contemplate this question as young people it sparks a million different neurons all firing the most wonderful thoughts and hopes for our near future. We picture the booming career, we picture the car, the life partner sitting on the couch of the wonderfully lit and homey apartment… goodness, some may even picture a pair of little feet tottering around and gaining their balance. For me, this question sparks thoughts sprung from the central most inherent values I hold dear. Where I see myself in five years is being able to proudly look back at the influence and the change that my creative and conscious mind has had for the people who need it the most. We, as South African’s, are unfortunately divided sharply in two… Those who stand by #I’mstaying and those who are gradually making a move to where they feel their futures and their livelihoods will be protected. Despite living as a member of the latter, an ex-pat now working from the comfort of my home in Greece, I feel unbelievably blessed to know the kind of human influence I can evoke through such simple efforts of design and execution. One of the deep and fundamental values we hold dear at Fisheye is that if we’re not creating for good and for change then what the f*ck are we actually doing it all for. Herein will be my measure of success in five years.

So essentially I am the nuisances I was taught to notice as a young girl. The consciousness I was left with for all things around me and the part that they play in the greater scheme of things. It leaves me at the age of 24 years with beautiful attention to those who need a foot up to truly be able to play their part but also a hyper-awareness of the part that I must play.

Don’t ever hesitate to get in touch with us at Fisheye if there’s a passion project you’ve been thinking up and you could look to use a little bit of help!

Okay then, now you know a bit about the Feish. Thanks for keeping an eye on me!