Art and Design personal statement sample

personal statement sample: Art and Design personal statement: Art and design are the central interest of my life, my passion, and the focus of my own particular skills and talents.  I am strongly aware that the appearance of everything that surrounds us in the modern world, from the cars we drive, to the furnishings and fittings in our homes, to the electronic devices that entertain us and allow us to communicate, is the product of the creative design process.  I believe that I have considerable creative ability and technical skill, as well as an eye for artistic composition, which are the essentials of the successful designer’s frame of mind and inspiration.  I have a love for figurative art, and will always remember my first discovery of the artists of the Renaissance and their revolutionary ability to understand, envision and render the human form with such detail and grandeur.  At the same time I love the practical skills I have learnt, in accurate drawing, in carpentry and woodwork, as well as in the use of Photoshop on the computer.  A designer like Jonathan Ive is my ideal model of the sort of artist I should like to be myself.  His stress on the equal role played by the inspirational – the artistic vision in the design of an object – and the practical – what it will involve to engineer and manufacture – seems to me to show the perfect understanding of the needs of the modern world, and indeed the spirit of the age. It is this cooperation between art and engineering that I should like to explore in a degree course and pursue in my career. I look forward to developing my tastes and skills through a degree course in design, particularly in visualisation, prototyping, and computer-aided drawing.  I should like to learn much more about the properties of materials and fabrication, as well as the importance of branding in product design.  I understand the way that customer culture changes and thus makes new demands on the designer.  The subject is full of exciting possibilities for human satisfaction.  The designer knows he is providing a benefit, or answering a need, he can use his creativity, play with ideas, watch his visions come to fulfilment, and, I believe, have a lot of fun in the process.

In many ways it was my first trip to Rome that made me understand the sheer richness of the world of design.  The Villa Borghese enchanted me.  I stood in front of Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne in a rapture that made me oblivious to the crowds around me. I was overwhelmed by the great structures of the city, seeing them for the first time not just as tourist attractions but as design products, the fruit of an artist’s vision, and the technical skill of the builder and the engineer.  I have carried this enthusiasm and excitement into my own work, including, as an A-level project, the plan for a magazine about trends in current furniture design. I did much research in planning the work, looking at magazines and styles of visual communication, carefully revising my ideas as I progressed, and exploring as many styles as possible in order to stretch myself creatively.  I was very gratified to receive a top grade for this work.

Outside the studio I have many other interests.  I am keen on physical fitness, enjoy music and the cinema, particularly film noir.  I am also something of a gourmet cook.  At school I led an enterprise team, designing a product and planning its production and marketing.  It was good to work with others and to explore ideas with my colleagues.

My teachers and peers see me as something of a perfectionist.  I am very hardworking, and meticulous in my attention to detail, but I also welcome my own errors, which always lead me towards improvement and development. I feel confident about my own artistic ability, and crave the opportunity to discuss and debate artistic topics with like-minded people.  I know that the design process is one which demands total commitment, of time, patience and sheer human energy, but I can imagine no more satisfying occupation.  I hope you will consider my application.

personal statement sample