EGD problem 2

Okay, in my Environmental Graphic Design class, our second problem is stage graphics and event collateral for the SEGD expo in DC. The theme is ‘Design for Change’ and amongst a group of 5 we have been struggling to come up with more than a SINGLE worthwhile concept, and I personally find I work best feeding of the energy of others, and after I brought the one idea to the table I’ve been having a hard time forcing another out without any creative fodder.

There’s too much “realistic” thinking! What the fuck, we’re students, we shouldn’t be considering cost! We should be coming up with the most off-the-hook ideas imaginable, and then tone them down to something “realistic”

I know this is a total cheese-fest cop out right now but how about LED arrays coupled with maybe some motion detectors or some shit to have colors and maybe messages change as you walked by them. I remember someone talking about a Mini-Cooper store that did something like that. I know it sounds outlandish, but I just want to think of the craziest shit I can.

How about paint that changes color in response to light?
Or like some kind of kinetic panels on the stage, like above the person talking, they could just be slowly rotating on a central axis and then also rotating independently like those old mechanical models of the solar system?

I still don’t think this shit is crazy enough though!

How about signage that dissolves? Why? Cause it’s about changing…though maybe stuff dissolving sends a bad message? How about shit that grows instead? Not organically cause there is only 3 days, but I was imagining these sorta simple geometric sculptural forms as placemarkers, so maybe they could be made of modularl panels so different panels could be slotted on to it, so in the beginning of the expo it’s really simple and by the end it’s all crazy looking. I dunno, maybe not.

How about, if not paint or LEDs, just lights whose glow adjust in intensity, like up and down…maybe not, sounds kinda weird and ethereal/space station shit. Either way, just gettin’ it all out.

This Headline System is Broken

Okay, I have had enough of coming up with cheeky headlines all the time. Also, I am shifting the purpose of this blog. From now on I am going to start posting more of a random menagerie of shit, non of this psuedo-intellectual rambling…

This Zen is Broken

Another year of school.

It’s quite odd actually…

I was at a friends going away party reminiscing with a teacher of mine from way back in middle school, and she asked me how I was liking school, and I was at a bit of a loss for words. As I stumbled through my description I babbled something or other about feeling like I only just recently figured out how to learn. Sure, I’ve done pretty well in school up to this point, testing, writing papers, working on design projects, and what-not. And I’ve learned and become more educated, and my grades are satisfactory. But, I’ve been realizing that in almost everything I do, I am so focused on succeeding in the end that I forget to actually LEARN anything. I have had my share of lightbulb moments, but they have been extraordinary labors because I have been so closed up due to my taking things way too seriously.

I do NEED to get good grades to keep scholarships and stay in the Honors College and various other malarkey, but I feel like I have been missing the main point of it all. I have heard ‘it’s okay to fail, it’s trying that counts’ and all the bullshit akin to it plenty of times, but I guess I wasn’t seeing anything to support it. I mean, a grade is a measure of your success, not some fool-hardy well-wishing about what you learned, right? After all. that can’t be measured. So, I grew more and more dissatisfied with what I was studying, I was exhausted of these classes and so I looked at other schools, to see what they were like. And I looked at other disciplines, maybe I jumped into the wrong field. But, as odd as this sounds, I started cooking over the summer and for some reason, the process of making my own food jump-started something in my brain.

I realized that the only way to make good food, was to make food, and if I never started the recipe, I would have nothing to eat. If I concerned myself that the consistency of the dough wasn’t JUST right, I’d end up kneading it to death, or if the falafel was too dark and I wanted to remake it, I’d run out of batter.I just needed to shut the fuck up, stop worrying, and make some food, or I was going to starve.

And that’s just it, I’ve been starving my brain. So, concerned with these nit-picky details on the first try, that I totally killed the recipe. So concerned with getting a good grade, I forgot to think about the project. It’s an exercise not a job, it isn’t supposed to revolutionize design, it’s supposed to make me realize something. It’s a meal, not my life, if it turns out a little too dark, I am not going to be poisoned.

But over the summer, I just COOKED. I just looked up a recipe and did it. I made pizza the almost every week, at least once, and at first it turned out…so-so, sometimes it was terrible. But, each time, I still ate it, and it still sustained me, and I knew better for next time. And now I am seeing that I just need to DO these projects, it’s the process of realizing something you didn’t see before; these classes are just batting practice.

There is an old zen…proverb, for a lack of a better word. I can’t quote it, but I can try to butcher it as little as possible. Essentially, if you make your arrows straight, string your bow taught, have a good stance, and take the time to aim, you cannot miss the target.

Another year of school.

Shut the fuck up, and try to learn something.

Currently Obsessed With: My Kitchen Table (pictures later)

My Jump Drive Is Broken

This time I mean it literally. My jump drive is actually broken. I plug it in and nothing comes up, and the little light doesn’t turn on. I guess this is what I get for keeping it rubber banded to my debit card and IDs and jammed in my pocket so often. It’s actually oddly saddening, not only because there were many files on it that I really wanted to retrieve, but also because, it doesn’t LOOK broken, it looks fine. Wake up jump drive!! WAKE UP!

Speaking of meaning things, THIS TIME I MEAN IT, I am going to start posting to this regularly. I think a big part of the reason I stopped is because I started hanging out with Bethany so much (my summer squeeze, who actually shipped off to Italy this morning) and I would just rant all my nonsensical ramblings while we laid around all night/day. So, while my posting my have suffered, my brain has had a fairly recuperative summer thanks in part to her. So, maybe my brain’s not broken anymore, maybe I need to change the name of my blog. HA. Just kidding. It’s still a horse drawn carriage with square wheels. Plus, like I said, Bethany shipped off to Italy, so now she isn’t around to coo my idiotic bitching about things as inane as where bananas come from. Besides, Barry Moser told me I ought to keep a journal, and this blog is sorta like a journal, and that guy was fucking smart, so I should probably start posting again. You should probably Google him.

Okay, so this was a half-post…I’ll post a more M.B.I.B.-ish post later…

Currently Obsessed with: Saying “Shang-Hai’d”, also when something is of dubious origin, (particularly food products) saying that it’s made of “New Jersey chemicals”.

Something about Something being Broken

I couldn’t think of a clever headline for this entry, maybe it’s that it’s been a while and I am rusty, or maybe I really screwed myself by setting a precedent that’s so hard sustain. Anywho, it’s been a while, and I suppose this entry really isn’t about much. I don’t really feel like going back and retreading the past month or so…a lot has happened, but, not really anything. I guess I’ll summarize. Work, wayfinding design workshop, being very tired, experimenting with making my own pizza, my stupid roommates moved back home (except Julia), hanging out with my quasi-girlfriend/lady friend/it’s a little unclear maybe to both of us, and I guess just being a dude (as Dave Roll would say). I fell off the horse there for a while in terms of posting, but, I think I ought to start doing this thing again. I want to start two offshoots of this blog, so, I need to figure that out. One for my “design” “work”, the other to document pizza making ventures (including the stone oven I am finally coercing my pops into building in our backyard. Sick.) Okay, it’s the fourth of july, I am off to celebrate my countries heritage by blowing up a small part of it. Peace.

Currently Obsessed with: Fireworks

My Banana is Broken (heh heh)

This morning I was eating a banana–actually that’s a blatant lie, it was yesterday morning, but it just sounded better so…Yesterday morning I was eating a banana, and I noticed that the sticker said Dole (they make a mean banana…that shit was good), but then I noticed that under Dole in little red letters it said Ecuador. So, I turned around and picked up an apple that was on the counter, it said some company name and then U.S. underneath, and a peach that I had brought from home was similarly labeled. Then, in my normal fashion, I just began to fixate on the thought that the banana I was eating, and had payed about $0.52 for, had come all the fucking way from ECUADOR! Are you kidding me! here is a link to a map, which gives you a pretty good idea of where the banana came from. If you don’t know, or don’t like clicking links, it’s between Colombia and Peru, in South America, and if you couldn’t guess by the name, it straddles the Equator of the globe. That’s really far. Somebody had to grow the banana, harvest the banana, load the banana, ship, unload, reload, ship the banana, unload the banana and take it to the market. Then I bought it and drove it home. 

In a book I was reading recently the author mentions a concept called Embodied Energy. That is, if you’re using wood to build a house, you aren’t  just using the tree that the wood was harvested from, but also the gas it took to harvest the tree, the gas it took to transport it, the chemicals potentially used in it’s treatment, and even the electricity it took to mill the log down. Thinking about the banana in this context really blew my mind. That’s a long way to go for a banana.

Currently Obsessed With: Mattel Toys’ MindFlex, Network Effects, Solar Water Heaters, The new Star Trek and various time-travel paradoxes (check the wikipedia).

My blogging is broken

Man, it’s been a while since I’ve scrawled anything on here…rough end of semester. Totally out of gas, don’t want to go to school anymore. I just need to get out of classes for a bit, until I care about what I am to be studying again. I am trying to stay out in Kent for the summer, but…it’s all about money, so we’ll see what happens. Meh.

My Voting is Broken.

I got into a argument with my parents a while back. I can’t remember exactly what it was about, maybe hybrid cars? Either way, I got really worked up and I started on yelling to/at my mom and dad (like a dick) about how every dollar you spend is a vote. You vote everyday through the purchases you make. Every dollar is a small, but definite, sign of support for each product, company, or service etc. you pay for. And though it came to me in a rage-induced haze, I find it is a pretty good way to think even when settled.

I am going to keep this brief, the short version is: I am lost in a sea of measures and relativity. I try to vote for the things I support, but, I find myself constantly weighing practicality against my passions and ideas. Sometimes I vote terribly out of sheer laziness, other times I am trying to save a buck, but I realized, that those things suck, and I if you REALLY want to be practical, you need to PRACTICe (roots of words) what you think/feel, vote for the shit you actually support, don’t reach for what you see first, investigate it, think about it, try to do what’s most inline with how you feel all the time. That’s why I made this new mantra: Examine your life. Think twice. Don’t be an asshole.

Currently Obsessed with: playing softball, doing something outside because it’s beautiful out, grid computing, green roofs.

My airport is broken.

What the “eff”! I am at work, trying to lose myself in the depths of the internet, reading about things that have absolutely nothing to do with my job, and the wireless won’t work! This won’t do at all…right now, I am using my laptop, which isn’t bad, but, I would much rather be using the beauteous iMac display I’ve got rocking at my desk…but since that’s a no-go I have three options: Continue to use my laptop until I get inevitable wrist pains, (lame); go upstairs to the book store and read the books I don’t have the disposable income to buy (not bad, but I just did that yesterday); or actually do something work-related in the office (but today is not that day…)

Decisions, decisions. The truth is I don’t feel like doing SHIT. School, or work, and it’s getting nice outside. I played (sortve) a show over the weekend which was really fun, it’d been so long since I actually played live, it was quite exhilirating. Me and my dude Nick (or does he shorten it Nich?…I don’t know) and my roommate Brett played a sortve sound/noise set. Me and Nick had run-through a thing or two the night before, but Brett had ZERO idea what was going on. After covering “You Will” by Bright Eyes, we busted right into some noise insanity. Nick had some bizarre keyboard/laptop/microphone/mixer set up and I was just running my guitar tuned open Cmaj through some pedals, switching between that and my photo-theremin, and we were getting ambient, but then Brett just busts into some super open back-beat thing, and all hell broke loose. That’s the thing about improvising, especially with ZERO plans, you have to adapt to whoever decideds to be the biggest asshole and goes crazy. As it turns out, it ended up being fairly sweet by my standards, and by sweet I mean, fucking weird. Later, I talked to my buddy about it and he said at times it was a 1 out of 10, at times it was a 10 out of 10, so, you win some, you lose some. Maybe there are pictures? Maybe I’ll put them up?

Anyways, the weekend was fun, the days were beautiful, I was basking in the afterglow of Junior Review, aka not doing shit, and I also read alot. I finished that Cradle to Cradle book, it was fucking amazing–frustrating, but amazing. I say this earnestly: it should be required reading in highschool or freshman year at college or something. If you’re at all into sustainability/have zero faith in humanity/are into progressive business practices, you need to read this book.

I guess I am on some sort of reading kick, because last night I started a book my sister had bought me for Christmas, called Let My People Go Surfing. It’s by the owner/founder of Patagonia, a company that makes outdoorsing clothing and related equipment. It’s pretty cool, it’s another responsible business sortve book, retaining a soul while being a corporation. It’s really interesting, or I guess I forgot how much I like reading, or at least, how voracious I am about it–I read like a crack addict, I read 150 pages in one sitting last night, and I only stopped because my wrist was cramping.

The guy in the book reminds me alot of myself in someways, though I envy him because he is a fucking badass climber/camper/fisherman, and I am a pussy design student who’s freetime activities include eating, staring off into the distance, and bitching. He talks alot about not being into business, but just having a knack for it, constantly trying to do things for himself, making shit for himself, giving it to his friends, selling; a bitter attitude with a side of entrepenuership. I did this alot when I was into skating. Bagging nuts and bolts I got from the warehouse/hardware store I used to work at to sell. Pouring cakes of wax in my kitcehn and injecting them with WD-40 so it oozed out as you used it. I didn’t make a lot of money or anything, though I did at one point retail them through a local skateshop, which made me feel like a badass business man. For a tenth-grader, that’s pretty fucking good.

Well, finding this bit of myself in the author, combined with my cramping wrist, the nice weather, and oddly enough, wiping out over the weekend while borrowing a friends skateboard momentarily, I realized I need some kind of hobby, or interest. A physical activity that will keep my body from atrophying. Something I can get really into (as I tend to), but also, that isn’t incredibly expensive/time consuming. I like to ride my bike in the summer, but right now, my Kent bike is rusted out, gotta fix that puppy and then I’ll be doing that like mad. I did just join a softball team, so maybe once the season get’s rolling, I’ll be into that, but maybe something I can do long-term. I don’t know, I need something to distract me from school, and that used to be work, but now I really am bored of my job, and I need something to actually enjoy doing. Fuck it, this post is way too long, I am going up to the book store…

My wrist (maybe) is broken.

I was just running my fingers along the wall as I often do when I inadvertently jammed the shit out of my wrist by lifting my hand off too late, and of course right before the thumb, where my wrist ALWAYS hurts from typing got whacked right on the edge of this protruding section of the wall.

Oh well, that ain’t gonna rile me up today. This morning I had my Jr. Review, which is a faculty review at the end of the third year in my design program. It went…reasonably well, I think. I got there early, no body was there, so I went and found the director of the school, she showed me what was up. I ended up having the first slot due to a registration snafu, and since there was no body else there yet, I was hanging my stuff up in solitude, it took a little too long, the faculty started coming in and I didn’t manage to hang my last (and best, I think, but that’s a relative term) illustration up, but whatever, I DO like illustration, but it isn’t going to be the basis of my career.

So, the faculty floated in, some checked it out, some just hung out, they may have already seen some of it. After standing silent for a bit (not my strong suit necessarily haha) I just started talking about the projects closest to me. I explained my non-traditional book, and that was a doozy. The book is about taking a trip to Sheetz every weekend, and how going to Sheetz is a descent into lower-consciousness. It consists of a series of 6 text passages, each followed by a corresponding image board. The images becoming increasingly complex and saturated, the final one looks really bomb, and it all comes in this weird wood box held shut with a leather strap. I am pretty stoked on it, I should put up pictures or something. So, yeah, I explained that thing, then a professor asked me if I used letterpress in a different book I made (this one was about Sam Beam), which I took as a compliment because I actually just photoshopped the hell out of them with some brushes. I was asked which assignment a three-series of ads was for, and then, explained an illustration very briefly.

Oh, did I leave out the part where right as they began looking at my work we had to re-arrange the furniture in the studio? That was pretty funny.  All in all, they didn’t say much and neither did I, currently, I am supposing this to be a good thing. They asked me what I wanted to do, as far as a potential concentration (I want to do 3D/Environmental Design) explained why a little bit, then they said “Okay, you’re done, any questions?” I said “Uhh…” they said “you’ve got 30 seconds” I shook my head no, said thanks, they said “Thank you.” and I was out.

I then proceeded to call my dad back, who wanted to know what was up, and then Ruth to give her the 411, during which I just wandered around campus, my feet just naturally walked me to Taco Bell haha, but it was closed. Frowny face.

Did I leave out the part where the point of this review is to determine whether you receive the B.A. or B.F.A. degree? The B.F.A. is what I am shooting for, they have to invite you to do it, so, fingers crossed and what-not. Anyway, I think it went okay. I will find out next week, and let you know.

Sidenote: I am reading this book that will blow your fucking hair back. It’s called “Cradle to Cradle” it’s about recyclying/sustainability concepts and restructuring the way we use energy and resources, but it’s not incredibly esoteric or anything, everyone can dig it. It’s nuts I am telling you. This shit should be required reading in highschools, or at least colleges. Check it out.

Currently Obsessed with: bamboo, Professor Layton and The Curious Village, Cradle to Cradle, Where The Wild Things Are trailer