Football Wallpapers
I was trying my best to get into the Indian Institute of Technology. The IIT is guarded, visciously, by the Joint Entrance Exam. The cruelest of cruel exams, it allows 0.9% of its applicants through the gates every year, leaving more than a million kids pretty broken up over failing to do so
It was a strange time in my life. I am, usually, excellent at giving up. It's a gift, really. I know when it's the time right time to quit and I can power through the lingering what-ifs with great elan.
Every mock exam, every professor, and every shred of common sense pointed clearly in one direction – give up! But I didn't. And I failed. Miserably. It wasn't even close. My special gift had let me down.
In the middle of my preparations for the exam, I picked up a pirated copy of Photoshop and started messing around on the computer. I wasn't very good at Photoshop either. But this time, my gift didn't let me down. It's been 14 years since that day and I've done alright for myself as a designer.
My very first project was to design football graphics for desktop wallpapers. I was quite shit at the basic art classes in school. I spent most of the time on the football pitch. I think my love of football overpowered my shiti-ness at art. I found a really nice forum called soccer-art.co.uk where people posted their work and got feedback. There were several much superior designers there and it was hard getting noticed! This was my introduction to any sort of art or design, and it was addictive.
The work is not great but I have fond memories looking back at it. Nobody around me knew how to work the software and nobody around me was remotely close to working in or around design. It was just me and some online tutorials and a forum run by a bunch of lads in Birmingham.
Design is how I see the world, it takes me to my happy place when the void comes calling – it's something that I am especially thankful for. And it started with these not-so-great football wallpapers.
It was a strange time in my life. I am, usually, excellent at giving up. It's a gift, really. I know when it's the time right time to quit and I can power through the lingering what-ifs with great elan.
Every mock exam, every professor, and every shred of common sense pointed clearly in one direction – give up! But I didn't. And I failed. Miserably. It wasn't even close. My special gift had let me down.
In the middle of my preparations for the exam, I picked up a pirated copy of Photoshop and started messing around on the computer. I wasn't very good at Photoshop either. But this time, my gift didn't let me down. It's been 14 years since that day and I've done alright for myself as a designer.
My very first project was to design football graphics for desktop wallpapers. I was quite shit at the basic art classes in school. I spent most of the time on the football pitch. I think my love of football overpowered my shiti-ness at art. I found a really nice forum called soccer-art.co.uk where people posted their work and got feedback. There were several much superior designers there and it was hard getting noticed! This was my introduction to any sort of art or design, and it was addictive.
The work is not great but I have fond memories looking back at it. Nobody around me knew how to work the software and nobody around me was remotely close to working in or around design. It was just me and some online tutorials and a forum run by a bunch of lads in Birmingham.
Design is how I see the world, it takes me to my happy place when the void comes calling – it's something that I am especially thankful for. And it started with these not-so-great football wallpapers.
