My Positive & Negative Characteristics

I would like to think that we can all improve. Upon identifiying my positive attributes aswell as my negative attributes as a teammate, I have been given the opportunity to reflect on them, and establish how I contribute to a group and how I can negativly impact a group.

Growing up as a Canadian kid, playing hockey was my life. It is a sport unlike any other for building many skills, and comradery and teamwork skills are the major ones. Hockey binds together not just the players on the team, but the coaches as well. In order for the team to be success, everyone must pull their weight, and contribute positively to have success. A team is only as string as the sum of its parts, and everyone has the ability to effect the outcome. This translates to not just graphic design, but any profession or function in life that requires working together to acheive success. Each memeber must acknowledge their own strengths and weaknesses so that they may be active contributers.

POSITIVE
My positive team attributes would be that I am adaptable, c0-operative, hardworking, open minded, and helpful to all members. I look at myself as a leader when it comes to group work as well. A good leader supports his or her teammates ideas and offers support and direction. I have always been an adaptable person, because sometimes you need to sacrifice personal views for the greater good of the group, and I have no problem doing so if its going to benefit the solution. Working hard is certainly something that my parents stressed on me, and every member of a group should be willing to work hard to to achieve a positive result. I like to always help others, even outside of the group, to make sure everyone is getting the most out of a situation as they can. A good group member pulls up their teammates when they are falling.

NEGATIVE
If there is one thing that studying graphic design has taught me, it is that you must be willing to openly accept constructive criticism, and not take it personally. My negative attributes are that I can become to attached to an idea, flighty, passive, complacent, and unrealistic. I have found myself many times were someone or myself proposes an idea and I get excited about it and don't focus on other ideas proposed. I know this is contradictory to me being open minded, but the thing is I am still willing to discuss other ideas and make the right decision for the job at hand. Sometimes during a project, I can find mt mind wandering off to other things. Imagination is a great thing, but I sometimes do not focus enough on the task at hand. One attribute that really bothers me about myself is that I can be very passive. I don't like to make other people feel bad, and I like to hear what everyone has to say because they have a valuable opinion, but this can result in me not voicing my opinion strongly enough. I have really been trying this semester to develop my creative process and open-up my creative mind to all projects. This has resulted in me coming up with great but unrealistic ideas at times. I recently developed a concept for a Hard Rock Cafe shopping bag that would be made out of leather and un-zip like a leather jacket to reveal a t-shirt underneath. While it was a great idea, it was really unrealistic for me to create, so the solution was effected because of this.