Self Portrait Mind Map

Bella Fidjeland
2 min readFeb 3, 2021

The Assignment

As our first assignment in our Book Lab class, we were given instructions to design an artistic self-portrait using mind maps and infographics. The purpose of this project was to capture your character the best you could. For me, this project required lots of patience and self-construction.

Self-Portrait Drawing

Process

The first step was to gather the data for my project. I started with a messy creative process by making a mind map and writing down everything that came to mind about my current self-perception, including feelings/emotions, interests, passions, motivations, personality, etc, and also used family members for input. I created another mind map where I wrote down everything that came to mind about how I want to be perceived by myself and others in the future. The next step of my process consisted of drawing a self-portrait on paper of half of my face. I wanted only half of my face to be drawn out in fine lines. I left one side of my face with white space so that I, later on, could use it for the content in my mind-map about how I envision the future me. I traced my self-portrait in illustrator and made the stroke lines thicker. I wanted to focus on the areas I wish to improve, so I used lighter colors to demonstrate what I am currently good at, and darker colors for areas where I need to improve and used my content from the mind maps I created to create trends and patterns.

Final Artwork

Experimental Creativity

This project helped me understand the importance of practicing experimental creativity. My project started with developing concepts, and then as I experimented with making new connections between form and content, I realized how my creativity suddenly unleashed into something very powerful.

Mind Mapping

For this assignment, mind mapping was necessary to explore the scope of my inner and outer self. Mind Mapping is a fascinating tool because, as I went on, my brain would automatically and efficiently plot out concepts associated with the topic.

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