Word.

This isn't so much design related as much as it relates to just about every 17 to 23 year old who has either contemplated, is currently attending, or is dealing with the aftermath of having graduated from a degree-granting institution.

I enjoy frequenting this website even though I've already "been there, done that."

Josh Barsch, or "Judge Josh," as he calls himself, is a scholarship judge who bestows college advice upon his readers. He's kinda funny, and he tells it like it is with a light veil of humor, as opposed to using sickeningly sweet cookie crumbs or jimmies like my high school guidance counselor did.

How Not To Destroy Your Future With Student Loans

In retrospect, I do wonder...

Scraps and extensions

Yesterday I found a giant sheet of raw canvas left over from the painting class I took a few years ago in college, and have since brainstormed a new project, kind of based on a few little personal projects I've taken under my wing...and still have yet to photograph to show you. Sorry about that...

I like to doodle bizarre little creatures in my sketchbook. Every once in a while I get bored with sketches based in reality, so I'll touch pen or ink brush to paper and just sort of have at it. Some of the illustrations are kind of cute, others are honestly mildly repulsive. Many possess each of these characteristics. I think I enjoy those characters the most.

As a kind of extension of the sewing projects I've conjured up lately, I'm going to take my sketches a step further by recreating some of them in the 3rd dimension. Now, thus far, I've stained a few 8x8 inch squares of the canvas I found with washes of acrylic paint (I tried food coloring first. That was a riot). Next I think I need to create more sketches to figure out how I want these little guys to appear in 3D. Then I can start figuring out patterns and all that jazz.

In the meantime, I'm pretty excited.

Quatre: Just a thought

I never know if I should post progress from freelancing jobs on here. So I usually don't. Does that breach some sort of unspoken, yet assumed confidentiality between myself and my clients? Or does the basic premise of graphic design -- visual communication of information to the masses -- prevent this from even being an issue? Especially if this is work that upon its completion is going to be viewed, free of cost, by the public anyway.

It's food for thought.

To be safe, I tend to reserve this blog for my personal work and experimentations in addition to including things I've seen that strike some sort of chord with me.

I was thinking about this. I also began to ponder over the idea that while I'm usually pretty intuitively driven I constantly try to understand why a certain thing moves me. Is it the construction? The execution and style? Or is it the content that moves me? When we're referring to design, I don't think you can really have one without the other.

This is just a thought I had, another contemplation amidst a sea of many...

There's so much visual stimulus constantly surrounding us; how do we determine what's good, what's bad? Why do certain concepts in design have a greater inclination to move us over others? Is it all in the execution or the concept? The style or the content? It's an intuitive harkening to a great degree and it's sometimes difficult to articulate, but I think that the ability to understand our psychological responses to the things we see is what really distinguishes a great designer from a good one. Having that ability to understand how and why, in addition to being able to articulate these ideas and thoughts, gives a designer a certain strength that designers who work solely from intuition might lack slightly. And I'm always trying to think about that -- the why's and how's -- as I work.

I leave you at that. Time for lunch, and then some more pencil illustrations in...Illustrator.

Trois: A sea of plenty

I remember seeing this a while ago. While taking a break from some pen illustrations just a moment ago, I began to peruse the web in search of sights to see, and I found it again. I laugh every time I see it. It simultaneously conjures a mild feeling of nausea.

This is a screen shot of David Carson's desktop circa 2003. I can't imagine that it would look any different today.

I love David Carson:

http://www.ted.com/talks/david_carson_on_design.html

P.S. TED.com is an amazing website and if it were a boy I would consider marrying it.

I guess it's back to the Wacom tablet for now. More later...

Deux

A first attempt at hand-stitching letterforms:

Un

We'll begin with something simple for day one. How about I share a few things I've seen that seem to spark my childlike curiosity for one reason or another?

I enjoy these, and I wish to share them with anyone who is willing to watch them:





One of my favorite professors showed us this video during a class lecture a few years ago, and it's pretty flippin' sweet:


Have you seen either of these commercials? They're not only ridiculously charming, but I also think it would be interesting to attempt something stop-motion like this...probably on a much smaller scale because I have no film experience what-so-ever, but it's still something that I've always really, really, really wanted to try. They're neat:

Seven Days To Change Your Life

I am the type of individual who must find constructive things to do with her time all the time in order to feel as though she is living life.

I don't like sitting around watching TV.
I can't sit still.

I can't stand sleeping in too late.
It's not productive.

I don't like being trapped indoors for too long.
I feel like it makes me stagnant creatively.

I can't go too long without touching pen to paper or stylus to tablet.
It's cathartic.

I haven't done much experimenting these days. And today, I realized that a line must be thoughtfully drawn with a paintbrush, sopping wet with rich black ink, so that I may cross it to get to where I want to be: inky and messy, my mind thick and full of ideas...of fragments of pictures and paintings and poetry and lyrics that won't be overanalyzed and drawn down, stripped and streamlined. I want to delve into my ideas and get messy. I want to feel them permeate my skin and ooze from every pore...

I need to tap into the things that so often drive me toward new and different directions. I crave something different. I just feel like it's been a while, you know? It's been a while since my last post, and I'm not okay with that.

I love the feeling that's conjured up when I look at my hands to see that my finger tips are ink stained or covered in dye or chalk or bits of oil pastels... This sight is a reminder that I've just filled ten more pages in my sketchbook with a limitless number of ideas and new things I can now begin to experiment with...

I think I need to challenge myself in some way.

Let's see if I can write in here or post a picture, a video, or...something...everyday for the next seven days...

If I can do that, then there's no reason why I can't keep on truckin' after that point.