Oooo I like that too!

Today I was strolling around an antique store in Savage Mill. Most of the items were little trinkets like jewelry, china, silverware. Or they were larger then large pieces of furniture and old carousel pieces. My friend and I turned the corner and saw a wall full of old radios from the 30's to the 70's. My favorite radio was this one from the 1940's. The part that really drew me in was the use of lines on the front. A set  curved from the bottom to the area where the numbers are and the other set ran straight across. You can also get a sense of the type face that they used back then as well. I think this could be a good piece to draw inspiration from for a future project.

Oooo I like that!

This week I tried to pay attention everywhere I went to see if any designs caught my eye. I really liked this lip balm that my friend had. It was called Smith's Rosebud Salve and it reminded me of our last project. Because this was container was round as well I really wanted to see how they solved the issue of getting all of that information onto the top. I like how the name and the logo are the dominant pieces. They kept the color scheme very simple and certain areas stick out more because of that. My eye is drawn to the red immediately. I also like the use of the curved words at the bottom, I think it ties in with the roses at the top.

Is that a real word?

I thought this chapter was extremely interesting, especially the section about approving or not approving new words to go into the dictionary. There is a ridiculous amount of slang used in our everyday lives and I know I am one of those people who use it, but just because we use it does it make it a real word? I am a little torn on this subject. I think that if it becomes common place then people should probably accept it as a real word. Should it be used in a very important paper that you are writing for an english class.... probably not. I think there is a fine line between what people can say and get away with and what people can write and get away with. I thought I would share a funny website that has just about every "word" you can think of and some that you never thought you would. www.urbandictionary.com

Just to show you a few examples from the site...

First World Injury-

An injury mostly likely to occur in an advanced first world country due to the high standard of living.

Karma suffered a first world injury walking into a dumpster while tweeting on her smart phone.

Longversation-

The quality of a conversation that is both long and rambling, without a fixed purpose and lacking in concision. Generally used in a negative sense.

The other day, Julia and I had such a longversation. I thought I could never leave!

And the list goes on and on, you should go check it out.

CORRECT USAGE

Correct Usage vs. Jargon

I found this part of chapter 7 to be very interesting. I would have never thought that certain words were jargon and others were considered correct usage, like using prioritize instead of a more simple word like rank. Using bottom line is considered correct because it is taken from a universal term and means only one thing. 

I feel like I use a similar type of word when I say shoot instead of photograph. I think that because it makes us (or at least me) imagine looking through a lens or scope to line up whatever it is that I am going to shoot. I think in this case it is ok to use this term. I can understand how certain words can be taken out of context. If I am not carrying my camera around it might not be as easy to understand and I should use photograph instead of shoot. So is this jargon or correct usage? What do you think?

From the Desk of....

I was just clicking my way through the internet looking for interesting design and stumbled upon this site http://fromyourdesks.com/ From the Desk of features different artists and asks them questions about their process or favorite peices. You actually get to see someone's workspace and inspiration which is really inspiring in my opinion. Check it out when you get a chance.

Jessica Hische

I was talking to a friend about our assignment and how we needed to find a design that made us say WOW and she recommended looking at a women named Jessica Hische. She is a letterer, designer, illustrator and a few more things. Her work is really great and I recommend that everyone take a look at her site. The one piece that I wanted to show was her Summer Book Preview. It's so simple and perfect. The use of type works wonderfully and fits right into the design. It doesn't compete with anything. I think it's genius the way she made the tiles at the bottom of the pool the type.

Everyone go look at Jessica's site, its amazing! ---> http://www.jessicahische.is/lettering/pixelytiletype

Goucher College

Goucher College reminds me a lot of Eugene Lang. It is a liberal arts college that focuses on hands on experience along with a strong education. I believe the students who go to Goucher are socially and environmentally active. It seems that Goucher's theme is education without boundaries and that ties into a lot of the copy that I found on the site.


Some information that I found on the website that sums up what Goucher is all about... social justice, community service, hands-on experience and a global education.


strong belief in the importance of staying connected to the world outside campus through community action, intercultural awareness, and international exploration.


As a dynamic community of learners, we renew our commitment to social justice and reaffirm diversity and multiculturalism as fundamental and valued components of our liberal arts mission and institutional ethos.


Education, by this compass, is necessarily transformative, aiming, no less, to transcend boundaries of historic and systemic oppression and power.

The first college in the nation to pair required study abroad with a special travel stipend of $1,200 for every undergraduate, Goucher believes in complementing its strong majors and rigorous curriculum with abundant opportunities for hands-on experience in the world. 

As for the design of the site, its very simple and clean. They have a a few photos on each page that rotate through so you can see more then one without them cluttering the page with multiple photos.

http://www.goucher.edu/x1106.xml

Variety Show

I got the chance to work on a poster for a Variety Show at the Mobtown Ballroom. I know that I sent out an email to everyone saying you should come check it out and you should. But I never got the chance to show you all what it looks like and since I think it looks pretty sweet hopefully you will too. I collaborated with a friend and illustrator Marissa Lanterman, she drew the portraits and we both worked on the design together. Come to the Variety Show!!!

Writing to Entertain

One point that I found interesting in Chapter 8 is the questions Zinseer wants us to ask ourselves before we begin writing like "What attitude am I going to take toward the material?" (Involved? Detached? Judgmental? Ironic? Amused?) Also in Chapter 10, Zinseer mentions that some writers like long latin words over short Anglo-Saxon words. I believe I found someone who has both these qualities in his writing and I find it very entertaining to read whatever comes out of his head. Some examples...

In the average day most of us brave a tempest of platitudes, advice, criticism, plans, and good, old-fashioned common sense. You have to budget money, pay your bills, respond to emails, and tolerate the tiresome discourse of the well intentioned and responsible.

On the other hand, maybe right after failing an exam in your second year of med school, you find yourself extremely distressed, so you call me to have a drink. As you get out of your car in Reservoir Hill, a roving band of feral cats overpowers you and you never make it to the front door. When I leave to go to the ballroom in the morning (let’s be honest, in the afternoon), I find a pile of bones and tendons, licked clean by the raspy tongues of countless man-eating felines.

Humor is the main staple in the blog posts that Michael writes on a somewhat regular basis. He always has a point to make and always gets to his point, but its usually through humor. I love to read his posts and I know everyone else does too.

COLORS

Here is a pretty cool site that will help you create color schemes for future projects. I'm sure most of you know about this already but I thought I would share it just in case. http://colorschemedesigner.com/

Call to Arms! not so much...

Last semester in my rhetorical criticism class I read a really interesting article about how the "We Can Do It" poster of WWII fame was not as famous as most of us think. Now maybe some of you knew this already but I did not and was fascinated by what people perceived as the truth about Rosie the Riveter.  the first myth about Rosie was that it was done by Norman Rockwell for the Saturday Evening Post but it was actually done by J. Howard Miller for Westinghouse as a way to motivate people already in the work force at Westinghouse. It was not a "call to arms" for the women of America and it was only seen during the month of February in 1943.

There is a lot of information on Wikipedia as well and it seems correct from what I remember of the article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Can_Do_It! If you would like to see a few more pieces of J. Howard Miller's you can look here http://americangallery.wordpress.com/category/miller-j-howard/

Safeway Logos

The first logo/brand that came to mind when I read this assignment was the Safeway brand chips. I really enjoy how simple the bag is and it stands out from all the others. All the other bags are extremely colorful but the Safeway bags are brown. Each bag has a different illustration on it as well and a clever saying like "Chip Outta Luck."

Vector Images

I thought I would share a website that lets you download free vector images. I get a lot from this site and thought it might come in helpful for some of you. They have a ton of images, sometimes they send you to shutterstock but for the most part they offer their own downloads. Here are a couple examples from http://all-free-download.com/

Journalese

I found an interesting and funny article on "The Onion" that I thought would be fun to look at. You can read the article here http://www.theonion.com/articles/new-breeding-program-aimed-at-keeping-moderate-rep,27371/

Here are the couple things I found in the article that I believe are journalese...
critically endangered
complete extinction
Beltway-area
dire need
three-election-cycle
once-teeming
totally eradicated
trapped up - in a quote
poor little guy- in a quote

Words, Words, Words!

My new favorite words...

Obliteration
Jotting
Ghastly
Wistful
Adorn
Ruffian
Iota
Saunter
Bestow
Illustriousness

I also decided to ask all of the writer's I work with to tell me their favorite words too...

Psychomachia
Hooligan
Unbelievable
Onomatopoeia
Bereft
Legacy
Elated
Magnitude
Vast
Benevolent
Racket
Plethora
Cathartic
Denouement
Myriad
Asteroid
Superfluous
Concur

They also gave me words they did not like...

Moist
Banana (they like actual bananas though)
Pineapple (it has nothing to do with pines or apples
Vicarious
Sherbet
Slice

Think Small

After seeing the VW ad from last week I remembered seeing this ad show up in Mad Men. Thought you all might like to see it too. It's a little slow in the middle but keep watching...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQqVM140Npk

Orange Element

Orange element is a Baltimore-based design company that I have a few pieces by from a few years ago that are now hanging on my wall. I was doing an internship at the Baltimore Business Journal and they were doing a story on Orange Element. The company had designed costume wrapping paper and giving it to costumers as a thank you for giving them their business. In my opinion that is a great way to say thanks and connect with your costumers. They also has some kick-ass designs if I do say so myself which is why I have them in my living room. Here are some of the pieces they gave me a few years ago.

When I thought I would blog about Orange Element, I went to check out their website and found that they made another special poster that they decided to give away as limited editions. The poster was also featured in How magazine's 2009 International Design Annual for posters.

http://www.orange-element.com/project/28/

Logo and Tagline

One of the companies that I have had to do a feature on for our newspaper or magazine is A Bright Idea. They are an advertising/marketing/public relations firm in Bel Air. I really think that their logo is absolutely perfect for what they do. It is simple and clean. http://www.abrightideaonline.com/

A website that I visit on a regular basis is Strobist. Strobist is a small light, lighting tutorial for amateurs and professionals alike. David Hobby, a former photojournalist at the Baltimore Sun started the site a few years back. The site talks about more then just lighting but 80% of the posts are about light and how to use it. I think their tagline is clear and to the point "Learn How To Light". If anyone were to stumble upon the site they would know that it was a lighting website. I highly suggest anyone with interest in photography to check him out. http://strobist.blogspot.com/

Not What It Seems

Last year my friend Lily Susskind won a 2011 Bakers Artist Award grant. She is a dancer and is the founder of Effervescent Collective which is a Baltimore based dance organization. They are amazing and you all should check them out the next time they have a show. http://effervescentcollective.org/

Lily had to turn in a photo for her award to be hung with her profile in the Baltimore Museum of Art and she asked if she could use one of the photos I had just taken of her and clearly I said yes! That meant that one of my photographs would be in the BMA.

I went to the BMA once the Bakers Artist Awards exhibit was up and took a look around at all the other artists that had made it. There was one that I was just fascinated with, it was the work of Nolen Strals and Bruce Willen. It was an installation that from far away just looked like floral wallpaper and even when I got closer all I could see was more floral wallpaper. Once I read the plaque next to the installation I took a closer look and realized that what I thought were just flowers were actually bombs and bullets and explosions. It was completely blown away and couldn't stop looking at all the little details on the wallpaper.

Check out their page on the Bakers Artist Awards page http://www.bakerartistawards.org/nominations/view/nolenstrals/

Turning the World Inside Out

A while back someone sent me a link to a video about a photographer who's one wish was to turn to world inside out. He goes by JR and he was a 2011 TED Prize Winner. JR is a photographer from France and he decided to start a project where he travelled around the world and took photographs of people and posted them extremely large outside on walls or stairs or whatever he could. Each one of his projects focused on something different and was absolutely amazing. Take a few minutes and watch this video, just click on "Watch the Talk" http://www.tedprize.org/jr-2011-ted-prize-winner/

JR also wants to other people around the world to join in on this project and I am going to participate as soon early as summer if school allows me to. A good friend of mine helps at an after school community program in Reservoir Hill and she asked if I would like to teach the kids a little bit about photography. The last time I was in the neighborhood was to photograph an event that she had put on for the community and the kids were fascinated with my camera and just wanted to take a million pictures. Of course I said I would love to and hope to make something happen over the summer. I think JR's project would be perfect for this and I hope to get pictures of all the kids and a photo that each kid took and post it all over the neighborhood. Here is a link to his global project http://www.insideoutproject.net/#@section=home