advocacy for design students.

My friend Luke created and hung this amongst all of the ads it so accurately mocks on the cork board outside the BFA lab.
It gets me every time.

love + ¡nternsh¡p

Sometimes blogs are for making announcements:

1. I will be moving to the fine city of New York sometime not long after finals to intern at Modern Identity. (Check out their incredibly minimalist website here.) I cannot fully describe my excitement.

2. I've been dating a guy so incredible that I've been not only willing, but excited, to sit through an entire basketball game without opening my sketchbook or laptop once (with finals quickly approaching) in order to watch him play. I'll be attending a soccer game tonight with the same enthusiasm and purpose.

50 ft woman!

Made this for my motion graphics class. It had to be a promo for the SyFy channel usind 3d layers in AfterEffects. I finished it at 5:30 this morning.

balancing act.

In a brief, but emergency state of loneliness last week, I recognized I had the impulse to pull out my laptop and work on my UNO card redesign instead of clamoring for human interaction.

Design is a good friend to have. It doesn't make you vulnerable the way relationships do. It always yields visible results based on your effort, sensitivity, and skill. And it always needs you because there is perpetually something more you could do to make it better.

But there are those times when design feels like it's rejecting you: when a trusted design authority looks you in the eyes and tells you just didn't hack it; when a project just isn't gelling regardless of the hours you've put in; when you feel no sense of personal satisfaction despite the praise/encouragement of others. In these moments, I only want to be held by human arms and appreciated for anything but my artistic sensibilities.

There must be a balance I can strike...

i am a nonstop design worker.

iamnotanartist.org
Thanks to Jenny for the link. It hits home.

natural triumph.

I don't remember using the locker room in high school. It's possible I avoided taking all P.E. classes that involved such an uncomfortable place. Maybe I just changed my clothes in a large bathroom stall intended for people in wheelchairs.

I do distinctly remember using the locker room in 7th grade. If I were standing in Mountain Ridge Jr. High School right now, I'm pretty sure I could walk to the exact locker I used. It was two rows up and 3 from the right. I'd heard locker room horror stories my whole life about kids getting beat up and having their anatomy made fun of from my older siblings. I'm pretty sure that reading R.L. Stein's "Cheerleader Evils" series didn't help either. It was a scary place even though I can't remember one unkind or scary thing actually happening there.

I had occasional rashes then that grew out from the crook of my left arm. In the same year I developed some sort of oozing sore on my neck as well as the first signs of breasts. It was emotionally sensitive to have to change from a training bra into a sports bra (which was pretty much the same thing.) And although I probably weighed only 90 lbs, I felt like a mammoth compared to the girls who only weighed 80.

Then there were the team sports that followed changing: Football, basketball, soccer. I'd never played these games before and everyone seemed to assume that everyone else automatically knew all the rules. I'd hoped that like in all my other classes that if I simply didn't talk I'd be left alone; but P.E. required participation. I dreaded it in a daily basis and muffled my way through running, kicking, hitting, and catching enough to get a grade.

Now I voluntarily shower in a locker room at least twice a week after swimming in a class of all males and change into/out of a swimsuit in front of other girls with no issue or hestitation.

How happy I am to have grown up.

i'd be lying if i said i wasn't obsessed with this.

Suvi entered her Brooklyn living room dramatically dancing to this song on her iphone as she held it in one of her hands. I've been hooked ever since.

Pop music is such a funny thing. I genuinely love this song--I think it has an addictive quality that's reacted perfectly with my brain chemistry--but I laugh almost every time because of the words (which are only accentuated by the cheesiness of the video.) It arises within me a question. Does everyone listen to it as casually as me or are there people who genuinely feel like making love to this? In reality though, I'm sure there are large groups who lie on both sides of this spectrum. Maybe I'm just jealous of the people who can take it seriously? No, probably not. And maybe it doesn't matter because it's served its purpose well: It may be one of the only songs I'm willing to pay $1.29 for on itunes in order to get my fix.

this is why i never get bored.

More from my nyc trip.

macro.

I took more photos of the ground outside my airplane window than any person or thing in New York City. I find them completely irresistible, like they hold some greater knowledge about typographic grids and visual structure than I could ever hope to learn from a book.

If only my trip had stayed so subtly artistic.

Sometimes I'm certain my life could be made into a movie; or a soap opera. And if I didn't hold personal blog rules about talking about direct events that involve others, I'd have quite a yarn to spin. I'd explore the sting of broken dreams, betrayal, the desperation of separated lovers, confessions of unrequited love, cutthroat competition, the joy of new friendships, and the comfort that can only reside in the company of the oldest of friends-- all ending neatly in a satisfied package of personal victory (I hope).

At the very least, I'll provide the illustration of most of these events. It'll be like a choose your own adventure story. Use your imagination to fill in the details: