Retracing Steps

Images from my thesis:

A monument to thirst...

I cracked open my thesis project for the first time today since January.

I've mentioned it before. In fact, my original intention for creating this blog was to continue with the idea that my thesis stemmed from.

A hand-made, one word a day, typographic journal.

Par exemple:

This was the general idea: List a calendar page for each day with a generally brief, maybe even mysterious, description of the day followed by the illustrated word used to describe the day on the next set of spreads.

I would like to keep up with this. I think I shall. I'm thirsty for ways to express myself while keeping up the experimentation I grew so accustomed to before I graduated. I haven't had anywhere near enough self-expression or experimentation lately. So it's time I burrow back into the toy box and see what there is to create with, see what new interesting things I can make.

I've never met a Triceratops I didn't like.

This entry is going to revolve less around the act of designing, and more around a concept that I feel I will probably encounter often once I really throw myself into the dead center of the deep sea of the work force.

First, an introduction:

This is me kissing a bronze casting of a triceratops somewhere along the Mall in Washington DC:

:)

I just returned from a week-long trip to Maryland to visit one of my best friends. It was fan-frigging-tastic. The actual act of traveling down and back left much to be desired; if I never step foot in another Greyhound bus for the rest of my life it will be too soon. But aside from our travel trials, the adventures in DC and Maryland were really enjoyable for everybody.

Our first day there commenced when we met Steve at Union Station and took the subway to meet his mom, where we then took a trip to a magical place called the CDepot in College Park. It is a land full of danger and mystique, intrigue and whimsy...filled wall to wall with CDs and albums, galore. I spent more than I probably should have on CDs that I've only ever had digital copies of in the past because they were either too difficult to find, or they were just too expensive to buy upon finally finding them. Honestly though, when you average everything out they come to less than ten bucks a CD. I'm certainly not complaining.

I'm a music junkie so it's absolutely necessary that I include a list of what I bought in here, but I assure you, immediately thereafter we will return to our regularly-scheduled programming:

Weezer's Blue Album

Elliott Smith - XO

Smoking Popes - Destination Failure

At the Drive-In - Relationship of Command

Joni Mitchell - Court and Spark

Brand New - Daisy

Ben Folds Five - The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner

AND WE'RE BACK.

I really feel rejuvenated after going on this trip. Sometime around Tuesday evening while sitting around the Greyhound station in DC, I suddenly felt much, much better about a concept that had left me feeling a little distraught on the way to see my friend. I was thinking about the future generally and abstractly speaking, my future in design, figuring out where the lines and boundaries exist regarding work and play, and whether a line should even ever be drawn to divide and conquer the two...

This was my dilemma:

On the eve of our trip to DC last week I attended a lecture by a renowned pioneer of industrial design. I shall refrain from using his name or the company he established. Although I would really quite fancy dropping his name a few times, honestly, that probably wouldn't be wise. His entire shpiel left me feeling pretty glum because I was essentially left with the impression that he was just another corporate yuppie douche bag who once passionately dreamt of doing good things, but succumbed to the ways of a tailored designer suit before too terribly long.

"Isn't this genius?!"

"Aren't we dazzling?!"

"We took this idea from a graduate student and had it mass produced in Indonesia!"

That is quite stellar...You take other people's ideas and manufacture them in countries where the labor is cheap and the factory workers are dirt poor because it increases your profit margin. You, yourself possess no creative seeds of your own and are therefore left to hold contests and competitions in which young creative minds unknowingly fuel your consumptive fire. Keep up the good work. It is exquisite.

This lecture combined forces with a terribly blatant display of utter indifference when I started talking about "what [I've] been up to these days" from someone I know and still sort of hold in high regard. It left me with the impression that success really is measured in monetary values as opposed to an individual's happiness. It felt like a family gathering in which your Great Uncle Roberto asks you how your life is, but as you begin to explain what you've been up to you begin to realize that all he really wanted to hear was an, "I'm awesome, but enough about me. Now please do tell me all about that giant boil you had surgically removed from your neck last month..." Why do you ask if you don't care? Better yet, why does the glory attached to the story matter so much to you? If I'd told this person that I just ate lunch with David Carson last week, you'd better believe that this person would have been all ears, but as soon as the words, "I've recently started volunteering to design for a friend's...." fell from my mouth, the individual couldn't have seemed any more disinterested.

Please excuse me as I declare, "Bullshit."

How disappointing it is to see that someone who believed in you when you were at the top of your class gives a significantly smaller hoot as soon as the words, "volunteer work" caress your lips. What does that teach students and/or peers? What kind of values do you wish to instill within them? That greed is good? Were you an extra in Wallstreet? Ridiculous!

Ok, so I may not have a steady design job...yet. I've been getting more involved with Broken Teeth, volunteering to design articles and whatnot, and I have a few paid freelancing jobs underway. Plus I have free time to work on personal projects again. I'm happy as far as my creative endeavors are concerned. I'm content with pursuing those projects as I work somewhere else that isn't necessarily design-oriented for now to maintain a steady income. As long as I can save up so that I can eventually venture out on my own to do the things I really want to do in life, I'm happy right here, right now, in this moment. Shouldn't that mean something? It definitely does to me at least, and I suppose that in the spectrum of things, that's all that really matters.

Regardless, it's still frustrating to see people frown upon this. This is what I'm passionate about, and to see someone shoo-shoo it is slightly troubling.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but a six figure income does not yield happiness. It can buy you a lot of cool menial shit on a rainy day, but it will never buy you a blue sky, a better relationship with your mother, a true friend, a successful marriage, an appreciation for your favorite meal, time to relax after a hectic week, solace or comfort when you're sad...

All of this stuff was waltzing through my head on the bus ride down to DC and I lost a lot sleep over it. But over the course of my week there, something happened. I don't know what...I can't pinpoint an exact moment in which these apprehensions faded. Maybe it was the collective series of events that took place while I was there that led me to ease up about this, but whatever it was...I'm glad that it happened. I feel lighter. I feel more motivated. I feel like I'm ready to fight my own justifiable battle for my work, for my leisure, for my happiness. For the life that I want to lead. Not the life that a former professor or a friend or my father expects of me. It's all me, it's all mine. Once I reach the end of the road I am the one who must live with the choices I make. If I'm happy, and if I can share that seed of happiness, maybe spread it around and infect a few others with it, then it's a job well done as far as I'm concerned. It disappoints me to see how superficial or elitist some people are, but I know that there is a niche out there somewhere for me where that won't be a concern.

So that's that.

On another note, this was on display in the American History Museum:

Look at that typography. It's gorgeous!

I also bought a Pantone 363 C Chip mug from an outlet store near my friend's house for three bucks. It looks identical to this one. My friends can attest to how ridiculously jubilant I became when I found it. It was....man, I'll just say that I'm glad there's no video of it. We'll just leave it at that. Haha.