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The integrationists - exploring the experiences of third culture

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1. You've spent more than your share of time in an airport and you know a number of three-letter airport codes by heart.
2. You speak more than one language or dialect fluently. The best way to say something is where you learned it first. 3. You absentmindedly reply in a different language. 4. The concept of home becomes a matter of people rather than an actual place. 5. Buying electronics is a nightmare because you never seem to have the right plugs. 6. Being asked where you're from (and not knowing how to answer) becomes a routine question. 7. You have most time zones down by heart. 8. You constantly have to explain the nationality of people in your photos. 9. You've used your passport more than your driver's license. It's also a work of art. 10. You're fascinated by different languages, cultures and people. 11. You have this never ending urge to go live somewhere else, somewhere new. 12. You relate more to other TCKs than people from your own culture. 13. You know all these quirks and traditions from different cultures. 14. You're always converting currencies in your head. 15. Returning to your home country actually gives you culture shock. 16. You're considered "exotic". WE SAID THIS: Don't miss "10 Things You'll Relate to If You're an Egyptian Who Grew Up Abroad".
by Aliaa El-Nashar

Aliaa is a 22 year old polyglot. She has a less than healthy addiction to reading and spends more time than she should creating both literary and illustrated worlds. Coffee is a vital necessity in her life.

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Aliaa is a 22 year old polyglot. She has a less than healthy addiction to reading and spends more time than she should creating both literary and illustrated worlds. Coffee is a vital necessity in her life.

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The Perks and Drawbacks of Being a Third Culture Kid

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1. You've spent more than your share of time in an airport and you know a number of three-letter airport codes by heart. 2. You speak more than one language or dialect fluently. The best way to say something is where you learned it first. 3. You absentmindedly reply in a different language.

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Whenever I meet new people, there is that one dreaded question that always comes up within the first ten minutes of conversation. "Where are you from?" I'm American by accent, British by bank account and Czech by birth - but answering questions about my cultural identity is not as easy as ABC.
Third culture kid or TCK is someone who was raised in a different country than the one they were born in. Personally, I only moved once - to Austria at the age of 13 - but many of my old international school classmates, most of whose parents were employed by the UN, moved to a new country every five years or so.

It seems swell, doesn't it? Your life sounds and looks like a permanent exotic vacation and your Facebook check-ins are full of names most of your friends cannot pronounce. But being a TCK also has its disadvantages. From constantly feeling a little homesick to never quite feeling at home, being a TCK makes you a little different from all of your "normal" peers.

Buzzfeed ran two popular articles about TCKs - one about the things they have in common and the other the hard decisions they have to make. In my article, I want to give a balanced - albeit inevitably subjective - account of what being an international baby jetsetter is like. First, let's look at the positive things and then delve into the deep dark abyss that is a TCK's restless soul. Don't worry, I've included gifs to make it less terrifying.
1. You always have the coolest stories.
It'd be hard not to seem at least a little bit cool with all your globetrotting adventures. You may be a dime a dozen among your fellow TCKs, but regular mortals will find your stories from abroad oh-so-worldly.
2. You also have the coolest clothes.
Whether they're one of a kind designer items, edgy outfits from local boutiques or cute vintage pieces, you'll certainly be the only person in the room sporting those shoes.
3. In fact, you're basically superhuman.
You are immune to jetlag, no longer experience culture shock and you've been to places no one's ever dared visit before (yes, that tiny McDonald's in Jakarta counts). Face it - you're basically a real life superhero.
4. Foreign lads and lasses are ten times cuter.
Foreigners with their quirky accents and unfamiliar features just have that je ne sais quoi that makes them at least three times sexier than your average Joe from back home. Jose > Joe. Fact. I'm sorry, Joe.
5. Your passport is a fascinating read.
All those stamps tell exciting stories of love, laughter, loss or... something! Your passport is like a little travel diary and is probably more fun to flick through in the queue to border control than the person's behind you.
6. You quickly get comfortable around new people.
This might not be an advantage for them, but it is for you. From your new university flatmates to the lady who sells bananas on the corner - no one is safe from you and you will make them your BFFs, whether they want it or not.
7. You can impress people with your grasp of foreign languages.
Even if you can only say few unrelated words in them, no one will ever know. Which brings me to...
9. You can swear at people without them knowing.
Grasping even the very basics of a foreign language gives you many liberties. And one of those liberties is being a complete asshole, but instead coming off as well-travelled and educated.
9. Your CV kicks ass.
Adaptable, flexible, independent - you're all the things employers look for. Changing high schools faster than most people change their jeans was bound to pay off at some point!
10. You are a boss at flying.
Ain't nobody can pack a carry-on as well as you. Or look as comfortable/stylish/relaxed on a long-haul flight.
11. Someone is always up and ready to talk to you.
If you need advice on anything from nail polish colours to 3am drunk texting, one of your friends will be awake, somewhere in the world.
12. You can be whoever you want to be.
Is your passport country losing in the Olympics? Well, that's fine - you've got a dozen others you can root for.

13. You get to celebrate all the holidays.

Good luck tryimg to fit All Saints' Day, Dia de los Muertos and Allhelgonadagen into one November evening while still wearing your skimpy Halloween costume and nursing a logic-defying hangover.
14. You can save on holiday accommodation.
Having friends scattered across the globe has many advantages - free international lodging is one of them.
15. You can feel at home pretty much anywhere.
No matter where fate brings you, odds are you've already been to a place like it - or at least infinitely worse than it.
16. But you also never quite feel at home anywhere. 17. Explaining where you're from takes inappropriately long.
Oh, and now for the more depressing half of this article! Growing up in different locations is cool, yes, but it also leaves you a little confused about your place in this world. You'll never be British/Russian/Chinese/whatever enough to truly fit in anywhere in the world.
18. You always miss someone.
Eh, if you didn't want to listen to the (drastically shortened) hour-long story of my life, then maybe you shouldn't have fucking asked. Just saying.
19. You live half your life online.
Platonic or romantic, long distance relationships suck. And, unfortunately for you, the majority of your friends live on the opposite side of the globe, miles away. That is why...

The Internet is a mysterious land with no borders where you and all your international friends can live happily ever after. Unfortunately, living online makes you slightly antisocial and requires you be glued to a screen of some kind 24/7.

20. You are more likely to become depressed.
21. Your stories can make you come off as pretentious.
TCKs are more likely to suffer from depression, because their lives are filled with constant loss and unfamiliarity. Moving to a new place is always exciting - saying goodbye to your temporary home and all the people you met there less so.
22. #FOMO, that's the motto.
It's not your fault you have to preface most of your stories with "when I was living in xyz". No, that doesn't mean you're a spoilt heir(ess) or that you exfoliate with crisp dollar bills. Not that you'd particularly mind either.
23. People don't get half your jokes.
No matter how good a time you are having at home, moving around makes you realise how many exciting events you are constantly missing out on.

Many of your jokes fall flat because they require knowledge of location-specific trivia and, perhaps, a different sense of humour altogether. Either that, or it really is just me and I'm just not as funny as I'd like to believe. But obviously, that's nonsense. Right?

24. In fact, people don't really get you half the time.
25. Getting your favourite food is almost impossible.
With all the foreign slang and foreign concepts coming out of your mouth, sometimes people look at you like you're a different species altogether.
26. Nothing surprises you anymore.
Fancy a plate of authentic Indian fish curry or Sichuan dan-dan noodles? No problem - just pack a bag, shell out hundreds of dollars on a plane ticket, spend half a day criss-crossing the sky and... voilà!
27. People can never guess where you're from based on your accent.
Baby monkey going backwards on a pig? Yawn. When you were living in Lesotho, you saw... Yeah, we get it.
28. You constantly have to do math.
Your strange accent and foreign lingo are confusing enough, but the fact that you pronounce certain words differently based on who you're talking to just takes it to a whole new level of weird. On the bright side, you're kind of like an undercover spy. If only you could figure out which country to work for, that is.
29. You can't stay in one place for too long.
From converting currencies to calculating time differences, math is more of a presence in your everyday life than it should be.
30. You don't know which country to settle down in.
No matter how much you like the city you're currently in, after a while you always get restless. There's a whole world out there and you have to explore it! This also means that...

Oh no! You just keep doing you, you fabulous little creature. Keep trotting that globe and just doing you. You can bet I will - and you can continue to follow my adventures right here, on Girl vs Globe.

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30 (Dis)Advantages Of Being a Third Culture Kid

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Whenever I meet new people, there is that one dreaded question that always comes up within the first ten minutes of conversation. "Where are you from?" I'm American by accent, British by bank account and Czech by birth - but answering questions about my cultural identity is not as easy as ABC.

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Poster Templates & Social Media Graphics

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Customizable flyers, posters, social media graphics and videos for your every need. Choose from thousands of professionaly designed templates and customize in minutes. Web quality graphics for FREE! Anyone can do it, no design skills needed! Prices start from only $2.99!

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If you want to know how to design a poster, then you can do no better than turn to the experts. With that in mind, we've quizzed three top illustrators and designers on their poster projects and got them to offer tips on how you can design better posters.

Whether you're doing client work or creating a collectors' series to sell on the likes of Society6, your poster design needs to convey information at the same time appealing to the aesthetic tastes of your audience. But where do you start and what do you have to bear in mind? Read on to find out how the pros do it...

01. Find a focus

"Behind a good poster should be a message or idea," says Jesús Prudencio, the illustrator/designer behind the fantastic Cars and Films series of posters. "It must communicate something and should reach everyone.

"One of my passions is movies," Prudencio explains. "I saw that there were many people making alternative movie posters," he says, "but I tried to give another approach. I wanted to create a series, which I'm still working and I hope to grow, but not only legendary films, but also films that I admire and where cars are not as well known." It's a great example of a personal project that can generate some serious cash (A3 prints are for sale for €21 each - and great for film fans).

Make an impact

"I like to follow the trends, but do not usually apply them to my designs," he adds. "I like minimalist design and simple lines. I try to convey what I want with a few elements that make an impact and have a lasting message."

In other words, before you design a poster make sure you have a good idea, so it will not only appeal to designers due to the aesthetics, but will also appeal to fans through the focus.

02. Be consistent with details

Prudencio's next piece of advice is especially important if you're doing a collectable series - that details should be consistent.

"I'm primarily a graphic designer so I'm used to working with fonts," continues Prudencio. In the case of my Cars and Films project, the most important aspect was obviously was the car.

"I chose the same font for the titles of all the series for consistency. And I used a contrasting font for the detailed information accompanying the car. But for me, just as important as the font is the background color. The background colour I chose was based on what I felt the film symbolized and what would combine well with the other elements."

03. Choose references carefully

"I saw that there were many people making alternative movie posters," he continues "but I tried to give another approach. I wanted to create a series, which I'm still working and I hope to grow, but not only legendary films, but also films that I admire and where cars are not as well known."

"My process for this project was as follows: I did a sketch and then vectorised using Illustrator. My references were obviously the pictures of the cars and watching the the movie. I didn't go into too much detail - analysing particular frames - for example to see what was on the label hanging on the chair of the Mr Bean car." It's about balancing artistic interpretation with authenticity, in this case.

04. Have fun, but be tight on the details

Sam Gilbey's stunning illustration work - particularly his recent painterly interpretations of film characters for the likes of Virgin Media - have brought him much critical acclaim within the poster design world. He was recently commissioned by Picturehouse Cinemas to design and illustrate a poster to promote a '90s action movie all-nighter featuring Die Hard: With a Vengeance, Speed, The Last Boy Scout and Con Air, as part of the Scala Beyond season, at the Duke of York cinema in Brighton.

"Originally I was planning to do a collage-style piece, featuring the protagonist from each film, but this was scuppered by the fact that Bruce Willis in the star of both Die Hard: With a Vengeance and The Last Boy Scout," he explains. "I then remembered reading once that Under Siege, the Steven Seagal vehicle, actually began life as a Die Hard script.

"Basically the wise-cracking heroes - and antiheroes - of so many action films, and especially from that era, are pretty interchangeable. I love the genre, and in way that's part of the fun, but I then figured it would be fun to illustrate this literally, and have an action figure with interchangeable heads."

Factually correct

"When creating an image like this, with such a clear inspiration point, it's all about having fun with it, but making sure there are plenty of interesting - and factually-correct - details in there," he continues. "For instance, I included the actual guns from the films as accessories, and of course the Con Air bunny had to be in there!"

For a promotional piece such as this aimed at true fans of a genre, it's a great idea to put some in-jokes in there - thus confirming the fans' knowledge and giving them a bit of a chuckle at the same time.

05. Balance the composition

"The core skill is learning how to balance a composition, and looking at how the viewer's eye will - ideally - bounce around the image, rather than being taken out of it," adds Gilbey. "That's no different to creating any other artwork, but if you're including type as well, then the challenge to weight everything just right can be tougher.

"Use a grid wherever there's a significant amount of type to include, Other than that, it's about finding your own style, and then within that, trying to find a way to tell a bit of a story with your image."

06. Balance type and images - but sometimes go crazy!

"Balancing the type and images is essential in that first up you want people to notice the image," continues Gilbey. "But then, if the actual event is of interest, the info needs to be easy to understand too.

"Of course restraint with type is normally advisable, but in this case it was time to let loose. That said, it's all set in Garage Gothic, so it's only the style that varies for the different areas of info."

07. Mix up your typography

Radim Malinic is one of the UK's best-known and established creative forces. With clients including Acer, Arts Council England, BBC and The London Film Museum, he is known for his incredible use of colour and composition and his straining photo-montage work, but turns his hand to just about anything. He recently completed this stunning poster to promote the designer's talk at Montreal Meets 2013.

"This was a personal piece to promote the debut of my latest talk - When Worlds Collide," says Radim. "I wanted to do kinda of a gig poster, which was only available on the day/night of the event at Montreal Meets Three.

Typography

"Ever since I'd discovered the font Graphik, I wanted to use it and this was the right opportunity," adds Radim. "Graphik possesses a beautiful combination of boldness and elegance.

"To illustrate the contrast, I used SF Movie Poster [a free font from dafont.com] for the super condensed font. Then it was a question of mixing the two fonts to find the right result." Be playful but considered is the message here.

08. Spend a day with it

"Even though deadlines can be pretty tough, it always pays to spend a day with the design," Radim continues. "Especially when you create both image and type.

"This poster looked a lot different the night before I finished. The overall design can become better and more complete." It's essential to do this for any design - not just a poster - and if you can try and get some feedback from your peers as well.

09. Theme = composition

"The backbone of my presentation was about stepping into the different worlds of interest and adding them to the our creative worlds," adds Radim. "Therefore I wanted a focal point, albeit a bit abstract, to be a huge letter W which is fragmented to symbolise everything that goes on within one discipline. The other coloured fragments represent the outside influences.

"Before print supply, I added white border within the canvas to make elements 'spill' out, to once again emphasise the crossover of ideas and styles." The lesson here is to draw your composition ideas from the theme your design around."

10. Further reading

Looking for further advice on poster creation and sources of inspiration? Then check out these articles:
Do you have any poster design tips to add to our list? Let us know in the comments!

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If you want to know how to design a poster, then you can do no better than turn to the experts. With that in mind, we've quizzed three top illustrators and designers on their poster projects and got them to offer tips on how you can design better posters.

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English a Global Language?