Summer: __________

Finally I found some time to post a few things from summer so far...

Wiibounce was an interesting experience that really opened my eyes. It's kind of hard to explain, but I read a quote that relates:

"So, here I sit - the equivalent of a graphic design short order cook just waiting for someone who might appreciate a true gourmet."

That's basically what I felt when doing designs for Wiibounce. I was just doing quick turn arounds for a client who really could care less about how good the design was. Which is fine, I'm not bashing that side of design, I realize there are clients that just want something done to get the information out there and don't have a huge budget to hire a design studio. But that's not what I want to do with my career. I don't want to be churning out frequent buyer cards, and gift cards (which don't interest me at all). I want to be creating interesting, thought-provoking stuff and that requires interesting clients that actually care about the design. I just hope when I graduate I can get a job at a great design studio, because it seems that is the key.

This summer has also been the summer of Studio Ghibli I've watched just almost every Studio Ghibli film now. I think my favorites are: Spirited Away, Whispers of the Heart, Pom Poko, and My Neighbor Totoro, Nausicca, and Laputa. I do not like: Grave of the Fireflies, Ocean Waves, or Porco Russo. I hope Ponyo is good. Its got the cute character down.
This is a little drawing of Totoro and Mei. Totoro turned out a bit skinny and leaning to one side and the two are standing on different levels, but oh well. I'm going to create the girl into a vector image and try and make it an amazing color vector to try and get better at vector-ing.


Audrey Kawasaki is my favorite artist and about once every few months she sells prints of her new paintings for around $300. I would love to own one, but definitely do not have that much money to spare. And all the ones recently have been very small (8.5/11) and dont seem to be worth the money. So... I decided to create my own. So I picked one of my favorites and traced it on a window (I knew I would never be able to draw it as good as her, and I wanted it to be as close to the real thing as possible, so it was a guilt-less trace. Normally tracing is like quitting to me). So then I painted it with gouche and I the original Kawasaki is painted transparently on wood, but I didnt have wood large enough so I used water color paper, and painted it opaque with bright colors instead of transparent just to see what it would look like. Plus I knew I could never replicate her painting skills so why not do my own?

Of course its no Kawasaki original, but it will do as a Kawasaki tribute on my wall. She is so talented. I really love all her stuff.

Paper Craft Fishies

After all our final projects were done, some studio friends and I finally had time to do a collaborative Fish Market project! The theme of May's Fish Market (which is the College of Design's gallery downtown) was "scale". So the 5 of us made about 20 paper craft fish. We hung them up the night before the gallery show at about 2 am, and the unexpected shadows made the whole thing look amazing! The shadows really make it look like they are swimming in water. I love happy mishaps.

Final Projects Part 4: Extended Design!

Studio Collective 2009
Here's some photographs I took at studio collective (a sort of design school gallery crawl) a few weeks ago.

Our sophomore studio!

The super cool screen printed studio collective poster.

My leetle section of stuff.

Some cool laser cutting work from the junior GD studio

Other cool junior work.Some clay heads we found in an art and design sculpture studio.

A swing/chair in an art and design studio. i had permission to sit in it... really...

Art to Wear 2009
This year was even more amazing than last years! This set is by Alyssa McNamara, and they are all based on garden foods. They're so cute, and detailed. Photography by various other people.

Sadly, I dont know whose collection this is, but i love it. Photographs by Grace Yang.

Speaking of design:
This is my awesome new Samsonite! Its a suitcase from the 30s. So cute! I got it from a flea market in charlotte for $15. It was pretty dingy, but I cleaned it for hours and now it looks brand new! If only trains were a feasible way to travel, I would be so 20s with my samsonite, 20s hat, running to the train to see my man in the military...


Ok well, there's my blog purge. Hundreds of hours of work (and play) all put into a blog in one day. This summer I am going to try to do a blog post 5 times a week at least, maybe even every day. Im going to also try to draw/paint/make something every day. Summer is for art! I've got lots of materials ive been saving, like wood to do some audrey kawasaki inspired paintings. And of course I have my obsession with jellyfish and siphonophores—that will come into play im sure.

Final Projects Part 3: Studio

Project 02- Culture Book
For this project we had to read a lot of readings on visual culture and such and then through numerous essays and more readings, we came to our own individual topic. We then wrote our essay on that topic, and everyone posted their essay to the class blog. Then we each picked 6 of other peoples essays that were somehow related to ours, and had to compile them into a book. We could choose to use pieces of their essays or the whole things; i chose to use their whole essays. The theme holding the essays together, and also the title, is How We've All Been Duped. The essays talk about companies/society "duping" you into thinking things that aren't true. Plus i got to use this awesome typeface, Simcha, that ive been dying to use all semester. We had to use all the book making knowledge we had from all our books in typography, plus we had to have at least 2 sections (i had 3) each with openers, and a table of contents.
We also had to perfect bind our books which was a new production technique for us. It was so stressful the first time! To perfect bind: first you square up the pages to make them aligned, then you secure them with two wooden blocks. Then you bend the pages over and brush book making glue on the edges, and then turn the pages over the other way and brush glue on again. the you set the pages straight into the air and put wax paper and plexi glass over the tops and let it dry over night. The next day you take the plexi glass and wax paper off and put another layer of glue on the spine and let it dry 3 hours. Then put another layer of glue and let dry 3 hours. Then its bound! Then you just glue the cover to the spine and let dry 3 hours. Heres the set up after i took off the plexi glass and wax paper.


And just as a side note, i think i did every single production step twice because I messed it up everytime the first time. The first time i printed the book (all 40-something pages) i accidentally added an extra page at the beginning of the indesign file, so every spread had the wrong two pages on it. So theres goes $15. Then the next time I printed it out it printed perfectly, and I got to the binding and did every step (a 24 hour process) before i realized i bound the book on the wrong side. There goes another $15. Then I printed the book again, bound it completely again, and then glued the cover on backwards and didnt realize it until after it was dry. Thankfully it came off cleanly and I just reglued it without having to print AGAIN. You would think after the first mistake i would have learned my lesson. I think i was just overly stressed. oh well!
These arent all the spreads, theres really like 45 pages.












Project 03- Learning Game
For this project we were to choose a college level course that we were currently taking or had taken a previous semester, and create a game around it to help the class be taught. I chose my self-defense class, which I knew would make an awesome game. The class is geared towards girls and how to defend yourself against robberies, fights, rape, or someone trying to kill you. So the class itself is pretty serious, but we also have a lot of fun in the class, so i wanted the game to walk a fine line between funny and serious.

Here are the directions (that are printed on the inside of the box):
1. This game can be played with 2-4 players.
2. Pas out the “Attack” cards so that each player has 3 cards. Set the rest of the deck aside. Study your cards.
3. Set the “Senario” deck in the middle of the playing area.
4. Flip over the first Scenario card. Each player studies the scenario and quickly decides which attack in their hand best fits the situation. Each player lays down that card as soon as they decide.
5. Players then look at the other cards played. Sometimes it will be obvious which attack is best, but if there is more than one appropriate attack played, the players must debate on which attack is best until an agreement is made between all players.
6. The winner of that round takes the scenario card.
7. Players then discard the attacks played and draw a new attack card so that you always have 3 cards.
8. If a player doesn’t have an appropriate attack card, they can choose not to play a card, but they forfeit the chance of winning that round.
9. The game is over when all the attack cards are gone or all the scenario cards have been played. The winner is the player with the most scenario cards. If there is a tie the two players must fight to the death.

The packaging.

Cards in packaging, and directions.

These scenario cards were so fun to make... especially the ones of justin pulling megan into the woods by her hair. I wanted the scenario cards to be photographs because they represent the real life situations and represent the player having to analyze the situation. There are really 8 cards, but i just photographed 4.

The back of the attack cards.

The front of the attack cards. These were also really fun to make. I took a bunch of people down to the photography light room and took pictures of them doing the self-defense moves on the green screen. Then I made them into black and white silhouette type images in photoshop. I wanted them to be more vector like instead of photographs because they represent the move, not the situation the move is in. A vector image takes a lot of the detail and situation/reality out of the image. On the card there is also the name of the move and a description of the move. The description is where a lot of the playfulness came into play. There are 16 cards, 8 pictured here.

Everything together!