why we're better than you.

Designers often carry a reputation of snobbery around with them whether they like it or not. (And how unfortunate that some really do like it.) I'm happy to announce that I've figured it out and that it's certainly not unjustified. I've had to think about it a lot though. I don't like being labeled as a snob, but, admittedly, my perspectives on design and how it fits in with other visually-based disciplines has served as a source of conflict in the past; namely in romantic relationships. I've dated two painters and a photographer in the past couple of years and in each of these cases, aesthetic philosophies ran deep. It wasn't so much that we squabbled over theoretical specifics; it came down to a matter of respect.

For those of you completely unfamiliar with art culture, I'll spell out the basics:

First, some definitions as I'll be using them:

studio artists- People who typically sell work in galleries, or show it in museums; the traditional role that you think of when you hear the word "artist." Painters, sculptors, performance artists, etc.

designers- people who plan and produce everyday objects for specific clients: shopping bags, cereal boxes, water bottles, magazines, wedding invitations, books, web sites, movie credits, brochures, annual reports, etc.

So here's the rub:

Studio artists think designers are snobby (because they are; I'll explain) and think of themselves as artistically superior (in many cases) because they have the courage to actually make the stuff they want. They are free to pursue the personal, the unconventional, the idealistic, the academic. They often hope to establish a gallery clientele large enough to sustain them so they don't have to teach. (Of course some of them want to teach too.)

Designers think of themselves as superior to studio artists because often the artistic, political or social statements made by studio artists are seen only by a tiny crowd composed of peers, critics, or the extremely wealthy who may be in the market for a painting. Designers believe that because we have access to such a large audiences with budgets to back us up, we have the power to change the world.

The best example of this justification for design snobbery lives in the example of Alexandr Rodchenko, a Russian artist born in 1891. Rodchenko was making it on the Moscow art scene as a painter. He was palling around with Malevich and all of these famous artists who were producing some deeply philosophical and groundbreaking work. But when the October Revolution broke in 1917 with a peasant uprising and the Bolsheviks took power, Rodchenko vowed to harness his artwork to promote their cause. By 1921, he'd tossed away his brushes and palette altogether and created this manifesto:

“Construction is the demand of our age for organization and the utilitarian use of materials. Constructive life is the art of the future. Art that fails to become part of life will be catalogued in the museum of archeological antiquities. It is time for art to organize itself and become a part of life…Away with art that is a form of escape from a life that is not worth living. Contemporary art is a conscious and organized life that is able to see and build. Any person who has organized his life, his work, and himself is a genuine artist. Work for life, and not for palaces, churches, graveyards, and museums. Work amongst all, for all, and with all, away with monasteries, institutes, studios, studies, and islands. Awareness, experience, purpose, construction, technology, and mathematics-these are the brothers of contemporary art.”

I feel like a crazy Bolshevik saying this, but I find myself agreeing with him. I love that he touches on sustainability (a big topic for designers, as the bulk of our work meets its end in the trashcan.) To me, this concept expands the idea of art to something certainly more design-centric, but also toward a greater awareness of regular people living out their regular lives.

Viewing Rodchenko's work speaks even more loudly to this idea. The beautiful composition and typography of the poster at the top of this entry imbues a timeless quality to this simple piece. It has been reinvented to advertise for Franz Ferdinand and hand bags; there is even a cute rendition involving a cat. But this poster serves a functional purpose equally well as it's aesthetic one. It translates: "BOOKS: FOR ALL INDUSTRIES OF KNOWLEDGE." It advertises reading in a simple, exciting way for a largely illiterate audience comprised of Russian peasants.

What I love about design is that we share in a responsibility to make access to information easier, directions simpler, usability of regular objects more enjoyable, all the while (hopefully) making beauty more common for the everyday person.

Rodchenko spoke of commodities as comrades in building up their new nation: meaning that the intent and purpose of every object could be designed to lift society upward, hand-in hand with the efforts of the people.

Maybe I'm a snob; maybe I'm a crazy Bolshevik. Regardless of the labels that come attached, I am so happy to be a designer.

james victore.

James Victore. Hilarious, honest, entertaining, brilliant, crude? Yes. Yes oh yes. I saw him speak last night for AIGA. I laughed a lot.
I woke up this morning and realized something about him though. Something that apparently had to be processed in my subconscious overnight. He referred to women in only two different contexts:

1. He used live chicks on a project once and ordered them in from Iowa to his studio in Brooklyn. He said he told his female intern to figure out what chicks eat to prepare for their arrival.

2. He said things a few times about how he likes naked women and how they like him back. He showed us a few sexy pictures as proof where he'd painted all over their skin.

Here is the clincher for me. He brought up his son multiple times. He referred to his son as being the most important thing in the world to him, his favorite and best work he's ever created. He wore a wedding ring on the correct hand and finger, but never mentioned his wife, not once, not even in passing.

Another big-time graphic designer visited BYU and spoke to our class a few months ago. He referred to his wife only as his "business partner" (they run a studio together) and later told us a story about flirting with a younger woman on the subway.

It is disheartening coming from these men whom I admire in so many other contexts.

One last thing. Radiolab. I just love it. I could gulp it up and swallow and listen for hours on end. Public radio is a lovely thing. It is an education for those who aren't in school, a friend to the friendless, a lover to the loveless. It wants to tell you stories and keep you laughing as well as informed. I have a new celebrity crush on Jad Abumrad.

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.

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:

tulsa sunday.

I made this for my motion graphics class in the wee hours of the morning. Thanks to Wayne for introducing me to Lee Hazlewood.

making waves.

My ad campaign for the Nissan Cube. I actually enjoyed working on it.

Environmental ads:

design.

There are so many reasons why I haven't been blogging much lately. Blogs are not for making announcements. Much is happening in my little Provo life and it will have to seep into the whole of my personage in order to affect the way I write here.

But still, one of the biggest contributing is factors is that I love design. Unlike last semester, my head is now totally in the game. Nothing I'm doing feels like homework because I wouldn't choose to be doing anything else.

I was walking into the HFAC last week when a guy tried to hand me a neon green flier advertising his comedy sports act. He extended his arm toward me with some force, entirely certain that I'd take it out of his hand.
"Sorry...I just..."
There wasn't really time to explain and I'm sure he didn't care. He was busy recruiting an audience.

What I would've said is that I don't like comedy sports and never have. And I am so occupied with obligations that I'm not sure I could attend even if my best friend were performing in it.

As I thought more about the interaction, I started to feel great gratitude that if I am someday a successful designer, I would never have to hand out fliers in order to get peoples' attention. My ideas would be communicated in a manner where nobody would gather to witness my work; I'd never have to point it out at all; it would be enjoyed quietly. Or maybe it wouldn't be noticed all because of its innate appeal in the ease of its use/the function of its form.

Design feels more service oriented than painting or theater or film or music because it goes beyond entertainment to make mundane things beautiful and easier to use. You always consider your audience first. I love it so much.

home for holidays.

Isn't this a little scary?I find myself feeling just a little creeped out every time those green eyes twinkle at me as I'm using the bathroom at my parents' home this Christmas season.

Also, this quote gets me so excited that I'm studying graphic design. I'd love to claim someday that I am, in fact, a real typographer:

"In a world rife with unsolicited messages, typography must often draw attention to itself before it will be read. Yet in order to be read, it must relinquish the attention it has drawn. Typography with anything to say therefore aspires to a kind of statuesque transparency. Its other traditional goal is durability: not immunity to change, but a clear superiority to fashion. Typography at its best is a visual form of language linking timelessness and time."

- The Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst

Thanks to Luke for this book recommendation. (I found an older edition in the BYU library.)

gasp.

Last week a man who was late bringing sacrament bread to church hit my car head-on. I didn't even watch him cross over into my lane, he was already driving in it. Fortunately we were both moving slowly because the roads were thick with snow, but it's still likely that my car was totaled.
I was upset that it happened right before finals week.

The previous Friday I experienced my semester-end review where you meet with all of the graphic design faculty in one room. I slapped my dog-eared stack of process work down on the table. One professor grabbed it and shuffled through it a bit as another stood over his shoulder.
"Laura, have you had a lot of personal stuff going on this semester?"
I lied without thought. "No, not really."
"Where is all your work? Is this it?"
My stomach tightens like it's just been punched.
"Yeah. This is it. But I feel like I've been working really hard."
"She's here all the time," another professor pipes in.
"Maybe you just have a hard time making decisions."
"Yes, that could be the case," says another.

I stayed at school that night scanning new images and checking type options until a custodian kicked me out of the building. "I will prove them wrong, I will prove them wrong," was the song I kept singing in my head over and over again.

The wreck struck me immediately as more of an inconvenience than a near-death experience or the loss of a possession. But I was instantly grateful to be alive once I stepped outside in the snow and surveyed the damage. It was bad. I couldn't believe it was actually my car once it was hoisted on the back of the tow truck.

I spent half of the following morning negotiating with the insurance company and making arrangements for a rental car.

After that, I remember only the dizzying vortex of finals week. I spent days in front of my laptop screen until Thursday afternoon when I had a therapy appointment on campus. We got on to the topic of why I am choosing to work so hard at school and where my real motivation lies. Is it really to support my future children if my husband dies? No. Is it really because I want to have a steady career upon graduation? No.

In considering my real motivation I have made some valuable conclusions:

1. I have a tendency to get caught up in things. I love to lose myself in new experiences and possess the capacity to appreciate almost anything if I only lend myself to it. I like to give my full effort to whatever I'm presently engaged in.

I think this is the real reason I married Adam in the first place. I allowed myself to get caught up in his world and he liked it and then trapped me there.
I think this is the reason it's important for me to try to stay well-rounded and pursue any new opportunities that present themselves. It insures that I won't allow myself to get trapped. It also tells me that I must marry someone who lacks any capacity to be controlling.

2. I don't think this is necessarily a bad characteristic (which is good, because it feels like an integral part of my personality.) In considering my tendency to get caught up with things, my mind crossed over the work ethic of my brother, Tom. Tom is someone who's pursued many interests and hobbies with great effort and stamina. He is not a dabbler. Tom is an expert lock picker, car mechanic, scrabble master, father, husband, medical doctor, doctor of public health, outdoorsmen, priesthood holder, clock-maker/repairman, real-estate investor, and a host of other titles in varying categories.

He certainly gets caught up in things, but the trick of the matter is that he typically gets caught up with the right things. When he was young, he fell in love with the same passion that I did, but he married wisely; to someone smart and sweet and responsible. (You're great, Keriann.)

Whenever I go for days without sleep because I'm working on a project, I think of Tom. It's always likely that he's maintaining a similar schedule.

Conclusion: I am grateful to presently pursue graphic design with a great deal of passion and freedom and will continue to do so. I am also excited for the other things I will so zealously pursue in the future.

unexpected hope.

I ran into this online while researching graffiti styles and it instantly cheered me up:See, my life is so sad that the design project I'm most excited about is the one I get to spend the least amount of time on. ¡I am redesigning pokemon cards into an edgy/urban/graffiti style! But I feel like I never get a chance to work on it. Here are my preliminary drawings. Wish me luck.

i'm a simple girl, really.

Things I am grateful for:

#1 Space heaters. Post heart-attack, my dad can't shovel coal for our furnace anymore. I am super-grateful for space heaters.

#2 The back float. On even the most discouraging days, the back float is an instantaneous relaxer. Underwater noises calmed me so much during swim class today as I stared at the ceiling.

#3 Unexpected friendships. I am increasingly amazed how close friendships forged in a computer lab can become. I don't know what I'd do without my eclectic little graphic design group. We went on all went on a super hard and scary hike in the snow yesterday and then ate at the Red Igunana with our graphic design class. These are the pics from it that I like best:

guess i'm a design nerd.

I found this on Jenny's blog today.
Confession: Not only do I think it's funny... I find it really sweet.

Kenji brought a sack lunch to the BFA lab today. I peered inside his bag and noticed his yogurt. Being a student of graphic design, I now notice the packaging of all products:

I point to the slender-abs-seal of pro-biotic approval on the front:

"Don't you think this is weird?"

"Yeah. It means you're gonna poop," Kenji declares with a straight face.

"(I first laugh loudly in squealy tones.) Yeah, and it's like they're trying to make that seem really sexy."

(Don't be fooled by the presence of the abs everyone, I know that the stuff is loaded with high fructose corn syrup.) But I guess I should keep in mind as a graphic design student that their campaign is working.

rite of passage.

I received the code to this door last week. But maybe it will only feel legit when I finally have the guts to successfully get rid of that stupid baby.

times-a-changin.

First day of class!
My school schedule is as follows:

M-W:
letterpress
swimming
Spanish
scary web design class where I have to learn Flash, Dreamweaver, and basic html & css.

T-Th:
Spanish
corporate identity design
bfa-level magazine class

F:
Spanish

I guess I'm not used to higher education because the fact that I'm taking almost all design classes blows my mind. In some ways it's scarier, because my expectations for myself are higher. In other ways, it seems really easy, like I can't believe I could possibly get a college degree for this.

The letterpress class is really open in the sense that we just get to pick a project to do. Any project. I've really gotta think of something cool. But of all my online letterpress research this is the coolest thing I've seen that's out there. It was pretty popular among the folks at the BYU graphic design department, but for those who haven't seen it, I thought I'd share (it's from cameronmoll.com):

dragon office.

This is the office that the Chinese Flagship gave me to work in on campus. Good thing I got a laptop...