Last week in my type class, my professor revealed a book project that she wants us to work on for the remainder of the semester (in between all the other projects she gives us). Being a typography class, she wants us to make an alphabet book - photographs of found letterforms (yes, another alphabet...It is graphic design after all. We're obsessed with type).
She gave us a week to come up with 3 concepts to be presented in class today. As she was telling us this, she reminded us that we're designers. From here on out, we're to be constantly conscience of what we create and how we present our work. Makes sense right? I go home thinking, man, I've got to put a lot of work into this. You know, like I'm really going to be presenting this to a client or something.
So I come up with my three concepts, and, no joke, spent about 12 - 15 hours over the weekend polishing my presentations for them.
This is the one I'm going to pursue: concert photos. For the concept, I created a 7 in record and record album. Everyone else in the class presented their concepts on 8.5" x 11" sheets of paper. I think I might be crazy (but also very happy with the end result).
About 5 years ago, when I was living in beautiful Fremont CA, I went to get some groceries at Safeway. Not finding the ground pork that I was looking for, I did what any reasonable person would do: I asked the nearest Safeway meat guy (yes, I think that's what he's called).
Me: "So. I can't find any ground pork. Do you have any?"
Him: pause. "No. It's not pork season."
I do believe it took me a few seconds to react, by which time he'd already walked away.
Not pork season? What?
Why do I bring this up? One, because it's always a great anecdote (you should see me do this live. It kills. Ok, not really). And two, because I had another of these experiences the other day. But instead of looking for ground pork, I was getting my hair cut. And instead of a Safeway meat guy, I was talking to the hair lady.
Me: "So. Should I be alarmed that I'm losing an inordinate amount of hair lately*?"
Her: "No. It's the fall. We all shed in the fall."
Huh.
*yes, I occasionally exaggerate for humor sake. I don't think she caught that. But she did give me a terrific hair cut, so I'm sure I'll go back. I'll just not talk though.
We presented our work in class today (we were very proud of ours), and it caused some interesting discussion, as well as pointing out examples of real body art (vs our found pieces). A classmate of mine showed us the following AIGA poster of Stefen Sagmeister.
He's probably one of the most well known graphic designers, having worked with the likes of the Rolling Stones, Talking Heads, Adobe, etc. He's extremely talented and the reason that many graphic design students went into graphic design. Heck...I wanna be able to design like him.
Sagmeister says of the poster:
"For this lecture poster for the AIGA Detroit, we tried to visualize the pain that seems to accompany most of our design projects. Our intern Martin cut all the type into my skin. Yes, it did hurt real bad."
I know that many people will look at this poster in disgust, or say that it isn't art and he's a lunatic for doing that to himself. Perhaps. And that's ok.
I find myself very drawn to this. I look past the fact that someone took a knife (most likely an exacto knife) to his body and see the raw beauty of the letter forms, and the way they sit on his body. This also begs the question of would I ever do this? Would I purposefully harm myself for art? I think maybe. Not in a severe way (and I can tell you that this is not severe. It's all surface cuts and I doubt that he even has any scars from it), but if I believed in a piece enough, or saw a need for it, maybe.
I'd love to know what you think.
For one of my classes, we were to do human alphabets. I know, sounds incredibly lame right? That was my first thought, and I groaned inwardly at the thought of taking photos of people trying to make themselves look like letters.
*shudder*
But we had a really great in-class brainstorming session and my friend Jessie asked me and another girl to partner with her on using scars as letters. We got some of our friends to send us their scar photos, then today we ran around Providence and RISD talking to random people.
It was a great...Jessie and I are pretty shy and introverted, but our friend Nikki would walk up to random people and ask them if they had any interesting scars. No introduction. No, "we're working on a project". Just straight out asked, and would just walk on if they said no. You'd be surprised, she actually got two random girls to drop their pants (in the ladies room, of course) and let her take photos of their scars. You'd also be surprised at how many people actually want to show off their scars...oh wait, maybe you wouldn't. It was all very "12 year old, look at my scars".
What do you think? This is actually a 18x24 poster that we're printing out.
I'm quite happy with how it turned out (click for a bigger version, of course). Especially the "p". Beautiful.
On a random, musical sidenote, is it totally weird that I'm re-getting into the Wallflowers? Man...I'm loving me some Jakob Dylan.
I spent most of this afternoon in the photo lab. I definitely love my digital camera, with its convienence, memory, etc., but there is just something about manually developing photos. I love getting my hands in it, and the unpredictablity of what you'll get.
In one of my classes (not a photography class, actually), we were asked to do photograms. There's absolutely no skill involved at all. You just put the paper down, pile objects on the paper, and expose it. Then develop it.
I did about 20, and picked the 10 best for my class tomorrow (these are 8x10). These are a few of my favorites. The quality is bad because I just stood over them and took the picture with my digital camera. I'll post better ones once I get them scanned.
It's been one of "those" days (in a "laugh with me" sort of way...not a "ahhh, I'm sorry sort of way").
It started when our alarm went off at 5.15 am. I didn't even know they had 5:15 am here in Rhode Island - but they do. And it's cold. See, we're more acquainted with 8, 9, and 10 am (yes, I'm spoiled and have a great class schedule. I'll get it next semester I'm sure). Why were we up at 5.15? Because I had to take Herman to the airport, so that he could go back to the beautiful Bay Area without me.
Which leaves me and Dexter alone for the next week or so. Which means I need to be cooking....yikes.
So after dropping Herman off at the airport, I do what any sane person would do - I go back to sleep. I set the alarm for 10.45 (yes...spoiled), knowing that I'll have enough time to shower and have lunch before I go to class. All goes well until I walk up to the building where I'm supposed to go to lecture, and I see all of the other graphic design students walking out. It hits me: my lecture was at 11.20 - not 12.20.
Crap. It just threw the rest of my day off.
Which led to a really embarassing conversation after class. You know, one of those conversations where afterward you sit there thinking...Man. I really am a dork (I actually have a lot of these moments, not surprisingly). Basically, I saw this really cool person that I know, and said cool person asks me how I'm doing. I sort of unload this total complaining dump on Cool Person. Now Cool Person is very, well, cool and nice, so Cool Person listens, smiles, nods...But afterward, I was thinking....Dork. Cool Person really didn't want to hear that.
Sigh. I will apologize to Cool Person when we next meet.
After I finally got home, I needed to run to Target. And it took me and hour and a half to get to the Target that is 7 miles from our apartment.
But the night was mostly redeemed by eating the yummy leftovers that my dear husband had prepared for me, and heading over to a friends to watch Lost.*
I'm going to bed now.
*you have to know: Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday - super stress days for me. Basically work and class all my waking hours. Wednesday, Thursday a bit more relaxed due to not having studio on Thursday. This little break allows me such luxeries as being able to actually sit on the couch and watch Lost, Alias, and of course, Top Gear.
For one of my classes, we have to keep a visual journal. It's a great idea really, to become disciplined to create something everyday. Every week, our professor gives us a new work to visually describe in 7 2 page spreads. First it was "visual". Then it was "ugly". This week? "Subtle". Like I said, it's a great idea - to create something everyday - if I didn't keep putting it all off until the night before it's due.
Man I'm having a hard time visually describing subtlety.
On a lighter note, we were watching an episode of Scrubs yesterday, and there was this bit about how people who consistently work the night shifts at hospitals are a little...off. Like the nurse who wore glasses with no glass in them (is that even how you describe that?). Today, when I'm walking on campus, I see a kid who's wearing green plastic glasses - with no glass in them.
Psssh. Artists.
Oh. And I love fall.
Yesterday we drove down to New York City to surprise my brother in law for his birthday. Aside from the fact that it downpoured the entire day, we had a great time with Jervis and his girlfriend Michelle.
Lunch at Pastis, saw some cool stores (flight 001, mxyplyzyk, and the biggest Urban Outfitters I've seen), saw the hospital Jervis works at, spent some time at the Met, and had desert at Serendipity before driving back to Providence.
Happy birthday Jervis.
Ok. So I know that I haven't exactly kept my part of the "post-something-everyday" bargain, but unless you all have a burning desire to hear (on a daily basis) about my classes, my projects, and the number of hours put into said projects and classes...then you'll have to wait until I can come up with something else of substance to post.
Oh wait. When have we ever been about substantial postings here? Onward and forward then...
So, there's another band I'd like to share with you all. Actually not a new band by any means, so this is only new for you who've not heard of them. Have you ever been "followed" by a band? I've been followed by Grandaddy lately. I turn on the radio, a cool song is playing, and hey - it's Grandaddy. I watch a Honda Civic commercial on tv, like the song (and thanks to adtunes), and find out - it's Grandaddy. So I decided to check them out a bit more.
This is a great band. And to tantalize you just a bit, here's a link to the video to their new song "Nature Anthem". It made us smile (and laugh out loud) so I'm sharing the joy. Really, this video makes me happy in a way I just can't explain. Watch. You'll see. It'll make you happy too...I think
Which leads me to Tiny Showcase. The idea behind this website is that it'll be a place for struggling artists to get their work out there. They make small prints (thus the Tiny in Tiny Showcase) and sell them at a reasonable price. Also, most of the artists give 50% of their profits to charity...which is very cool.
The illustration under the picture of Grandaddy was done by the drummer of Grandaddy, Aaron Burtch (see how it all comes together?). I thought it was hilarious. You could have bought it for a mere $20, but it's sold out. Sorry.
