April 26, 2017. I aint never never never gonna forget this date. This is the day I did my final portfolio show; This is the day I showed what I've been doing over the past 4 years; This is the day we gathered around as a family..........We graduated.
My start of ACAD was pretty dramatic and I'm sure I was the very last one who got accepted by the school that time due to my issues with the high school transcript. I almost failed the registration, but I made it eventually.
The very first photo I took at ACAD 4 years ago.
My first year was....pretty awkward, I remember the very first class I took at ACAD was Silas' Colour Fundamentals. The first day was Thursday, and I was still a kid swaggering around the campus in a Spongebob T-Shirt, having my headphones on. And I spent over $500 dollars on the supplies, which was massive. I was pretty young that time so I didn't really know what college meant to me. And of course, I think that Spongebob T-Shirt, a pair of heavy headphones, hoodie was the very first impression I gave to most people at this school. When the name "Jimmy" was brought up, people always associated it with rap music at that time. I was wearing my headphones like 24/7, and I even got my first warning letter because of it. That was in Justin's MADT class. I was wearing headphones during the class presentation. Like I said, I didn't know what "College" was. It was just another building outside of high school.
Colour Fundamentals definitely was one of my favourite courses in first year, I did make a lot of fantastic friends from that class. Every Thursday after school, we spent time on mixing colours, making charts and doing projects till midnight. We played loud music, we watch films. It was just a room full of creative heads doing things they loved. We had the craziest time every, my friend Lara, the sweetest of all time, wearing my green winter coat and jamming to the Eminem song we were playing. I loved the environment when everyone gathered around, doing things. Every late night, every fun talks we had, music we shared, these things were what I wouldn't get in upper years. When people getting older, those things are disappearing sadly.
I was never a rule-following kid back then, I broke the rules like all the time if I thought I had to. Actually, I forgot about the rules when I was getting high on the project. Every creation was spontaneous, and I was just the person who watched myself creating.
Halloween 2013 I remember Silas was wearing a gorilla costume walking into the room while I was dressing up like a rock star? Anyways, it was fun, and before the actually Halloween day, we had a really fun party at Camillie's house, and it was that party I met Zack, the guy who got stabbed to death in 2014.
My first year was very exciting and overwhelming at the same time. One of the biggest things that is worth mentioning is me discovered the AV recording lab up on the top floor. It was Kyle taking care of that room at that time, and he was a really nice guy who would let me use the room all the time recording stuff. Trust me, Kyle was like a shorter version of Justin Timberlake. I remember that room was my biggest passion back in first year, for I could spend the whole night and weekend recording in that space along with myself without taking any washroom breaks. And it was that time I decided to make an entire album to track my 4 years college life, for every emotion I had, everything that happened, I wrote them on the paper, I recorded them into the song. Sometimes I recorded at school, sometimes I recorded in my closet where those clothes did a fantastic job on noise cancellation. I called it my "casket" because the space was so tight, and it was that small space which made something big happen.
I say no one's life was a typical ACAD life if you aint taken Design 101. The class which got tons of people stressed out and dropped out, the class which got your hands on over hundreds and hundreds of thumbnails on the paper. I was with Suzanne for that class, and I remember the first time she asked each of us what we wanted to do in the future. Everyone gave her an answer, but I didn't. I simply told her "I don't really know". It was not that because I got no plans, I just wouldn't speak out my plans easily. And again, I met some fantastic people from that class too: Julius, the guy who were deep into rap music and graffiti; Alexandra, the sweetest sweetest sweetest girl! Also a shy person, too. At the first time I told her she looked like Selena Gomez, and I didn't get too much focus on her untill 2nd year.
One of the most fun classes I took in first year was Ceremics, the class which was totally out of my expectation for my career. Before, I'd never see myself doing ceremics. But I actually took it, and I found it pretty fun! At least that gave me a little break from those design classes, I felt like I was in the elementary school. One of the pieces I remember the most was my Michael Jackson pot. I hand painted it, and it turned out really good. Again, I had a lot of fun time with that class. Like I said, that was the only class that differetiated from the rest of the design classes.
Another thing that was proud of myself was Art History 120. That class was like rollercoaster to me, for I failed the essay assignment because of plagiarism (I only got 10%), but I made 86% for the final test, which saved my ass from failing the course. The fun part was, it only took me 2 days to memorize all the flash cards and stuff. I guess my good memory is why my mom always wants to send me to law school.
Then we got into second year, the most frustrating year for me. My goal for second year was to become a better rule-following student compared to my first. I tried, and I failed, obviously. But that was the year I started to feel real about myself, get aggressive and explore what design really was to me. And yes, I made a lot of songs in that year, because I was getting more and more aggressive at that time. I had a lot of troubles with most of the instructors there, which made me want to transfer to OCAD in Toronto so bad. But for some reasons, I didn't. And I'm glad I didn't.
Some good instructors I met in second year: Jeff, the guy who used the word "provocative" a lot, I used that word a lot after him; Trevor, the Toronto guy who appreciated my industrial design feel on making the typeface. (Before I got into ACAD, I was applying to Industrial Design at OCAD cuz I wanted to make my own smartphone that time.) Also, there were some hard ones, Neil, the guy who signed me with the "F", because I failed in following the rules. The way I described my second year was like.....a what-the-fuck year.
I have to say that Jeff is one of the biggest inspirations to me. We had a lot of fantastic talks and he always knew where to find me on campus, the room with the music blasting was probably where I was at. I remember we had a long talk on what "provocative" means in design, and that talk changed me in every way I'm sure. I remember we had this album cover design project which required each of us to pick a song and create an album cover out of it. I picked my own song, I wrote that song to express how I felt about my other classes. It was an angry track, so I made an angry album cover. And by the time I was presenting it, I stuttered a lot cuz I was too shy to show people my music. But I did, and I told the class, that track was made because I got an "F" on a project from another class. Then Jeff walked up to the whiteboard and wrote the letter "F" and told me "This is how you turn an "F" into an "A"...and he did sign me "A" to that project. And it was that time I started to dig inside of me to let that inner energy out, because I was tired of hiding who I really was.
The "F" Project from Design Tech Class
The "A" Album project from Jeff's
Then I was in my 3rd year, the year that I brought the name "JIMMYRECKLESS" to the spotlight. It was actually a nickname I got when I was in high school... I was skateboarding by the school yard. I didn't use that name for my design untill 3rd year, while 3rd year was really the year I started to feel myself, know myself and express myself through every way....Thanks to Jackie, another fantastic instructor who encouraged me on everything I did.
Jackie was....a really nice person, really really nice person. Some people complained about having a hard time with her class, but I didn't feel that stress at all. I think she was one of the few instructors who appreciated students for showing off their own idividualities on a project. And I was that type of person. Like I said I just wanted to be true to myself, and design was all about feelings. I just followed where my passion took me to.
Jackie was one of the intrustors who I had no problems to talk to. I was with her in my 4th year, and she literally appreciated everything I did on the project. Every week, I showed her something new, I loved to surprise people that way. I want heart attacks, I want ambulances.
An infographic project created for Jackie's.
Speaking about my 3rd year, Ian was definitely the one who I would spend pages of pages of pages talking about that guy. Ian was my branding instructor and he was absolutely a fun guy. I was in 2 classes with him, the other one was marketing class. It was kinda embarrassing that someitmes I ditched his marketing class (I hate evening class in general) to play music in the studio room and got caught by him after. He was asking me "Did you understand all that stuff in the class?" And I was like "hum..............yeah?" But anyway, Ian was the one who understood my creativity and way of working. He knew I always got something for him. One time we had this Village Brewery project to do, and each of us were to present a concept, and all the concepts were sent for students to vote. Mine was inspired by my cousin who travelled around the world rollerblading, but it wasn't voted for the final tho. But one time, I met Ian in the hallway, and he told me he really loved the concept I presented and really wished it to go further. And from that time I knew he was my man. He understood a crazy guy's thoughts, he understood a psychopath and his world.
One of the most frustrating things in my 3rd year was the first portfolio show I did at ACAD. A Chinese lady came from nowhere just ripped me off on every single project. She was asking questions that were not relevant to the project at all. That caused me nightmare.
4th year, time flies. It is the fastest thing on this planet. The year that was faster than a cheetah, the year that was faster than a cougar. The only thing I liked about the final year was you got more freedom on the projects. It was the year that required you to show yourself in all ways, and that was what I loved to do. 4th year had really brought a clear definition to "JIMMYRECKLESS": creative, expressive, provocative. My transformation went from being a introveted person on a project to an expressive creative head on a project. 4th year was really an enjoy-your-time moment, for it was the last year, I just wanted to do what I loved to do. And I knew what I wanted to get out from my own education.
So I had this fun illustration course with Charles, and basically what I did for the class was to showcase how well I could do in illustration as a graphic design student. I combined my music, my illustration, my storyboarding skill altogether on a frame-by-frame animaiton video which took me 3 weeks to get over 1600 frames done for the project. Some people said I'm not a pro at animation, but I just wanted to enjoy myself.
Another fun instructor I met was Lynne. I only had her in the second semester of 4th year. It was a pretty short time, but I felt that we were connected to each other. She was just so passionated about the class and I love that attitude. It was a branding class but we literally talked about everything from fashion to music to all that. She was the one who would sit with you to learn about your story, and she was the one who would get high on Alexander McQueen's Savage Beauty. I took advantage of what I could do in 4th year, to express not only my skills but also my philosophy on racism, fashion, design and life. I started to rethink human races in 4th year btw and I always questioned myself "what white people are", "what black people are", "what Asians are". And for all those weird topics I brought up with, I could always shared with Lynne. She was like...a buddy.
4th year was the year I saw design from skill perspective to a philsophy perspective. I started to make design mean something for people and started to make people feel. I see myself as someone living in the fantasy, and that's how Kevin describes me as well, "Jimmy you the guy in the fantasy".
April 26, 2017. I aint never never never gonna forget this date. This is the day I told my story, and of course along with that album I made out of it. I've got so many memories at this place. This place took me on a rollercoaster and got my head squashed like a watermelon.
Now it is my time to leave this school, but I feel like I could never walk out of that red block.
I was born there.