Photo credit to Randolph Domingo

The world is an interesting place. 2017 has been an interesting year of self-discovery and learning.

The world is not afraid of challenging the status quo

The world is not afraid to make changes. This has been shown by many different companies and people doing fantastic things with both hardware and software.

Serif

A prime example of this challenging in action is Serif, who is taking Adobe head on and are slowly creating better replacements for Adobe products.

I've fully switched over to Affinity Designer for my design work and I couldn't be happier with the decision. The software is robust and performant.

Taking on the industry standard is a big risk and a massive undertaking. I'm glad that Serif is not afraid to do this and is willing to take the leap of faith. I hope that they bring good competition to Adobe so that the whole industry can benefit from their brave choice.

Apple

Hello, world. Hello, X.

Photo credit to Youssef Sarhan

The iPhone X brought a massive design change to the iPhone that was both criticised and praised by many. We lost TouchID and got FaceID instead. I talked about why I think Apple needed the iPhone X in my post here.

While the decision to remove the headphone jack from the iPhone 7 onwards was in my opinion just plain stupid, the changes iPhone X brings are more than welcome. It'll be interesting to see where we end up in a few years time.

Mental health is more important than you might think

Photo credit to Hailey Kean

I finally cracked this year. I reached the lowest point of my life and after 5 months of searching, 10 different doctors and 2 different tests, I'm finally on my way to recovery. This experience really opened my eyes to just how many people are suffering from mental health problems, many of them caused by our modern society.

Notice the people around you and support them. You do not know everything they might be going through.

However, at least in my country, there is a sliver of hope, there are organizations that urge others to strive towards a healthy and supportive environment in their organizations. Another thing I learned is that schools are willing to help you if you need more time or less work, you just have to talk with people.

Please take the time to educate yourself about mental health and urge others to do the same. You might be able to save someone from falling off a metaphorical or a literal cliff.

Conclusion

These are the two biggest things I learned about the world in 2017. There is obviously more, but these are what I would call the most important out of the things I learned. I hope that 2018 brings many more discoveries about the world and myself for me.

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Call to Action

What did you learn about the world in 2017? What do you hope to learn in 2018? Let me know by replying to this post and let's have a chat!