You Have To Be Careful With Eggs

Wow, cutting it quite close now aren't we?

Sorry, I have been feeling a tad scrambled lately.

So design community, are you tired of having all your eggs sitting together in that carton box?  You know, where they are free to converse and plot together to take over the world with their shameless yokes?  Well you need not worry any longer.  Now eggs come to you in solitary confinement cells.

Designed by Lindsey Sherman

Justice has been served.

In all seriousness though, I really do like these packages.  They completely embody a simple, beautiful aesthetic that is both practical and modern.  And what's more, this solution probably allows for a little more leeway in how carefully you have to treat your eggs. Which as we all know, are very vulnerable to the bottom of the grocery pile.

I take my justice over-easy, Nicole

It Is Alive

Or I am, rather. 
So it is midway through September. I had meant to resume my regular posting at the beginning of the school year but, well, it is Conestoga Graphic Design after all, and I really should have known it would take me longer than a day or two to settle in and get all my angles pointing the right way. (shameless pun-plug).

Nonetheless, full of worthless excusess, here I sit.  Back on my regular and horrible sleep cycle and able to burn some thoughts into this blog.

So lets do this thing shall we?  Nicole

Post Scriptum, 

I will be officially resuming my weekly posts as of Wednesday, September 21st.  I am hoping to do more than one post/week but lets not be too ambitious to start. This may not be MACBETH, but we don't want to risk killing you all with my overreaching ambition now do we?

Time To Despair

Never has it felt so good to be in such a state.

Modeled in mocking of the classic 'inspirational' posters that deface the walls of most office buildings, Despair Inc. www.despair.com is a website that functions with the soul purpose of de-motivating as many people as possible.  Their witty, harsh and just a little empathetic vantage point on office life provides a nice and needed escape from the mundane reality of every day tasks.  Although, optimists beware it may belittle your sunny disposition.

 

There is something here for everyone.  You can order your very own de-motivational posters, mugs, glasses, mouse-pads, t-shirts and calendars - customized to your hearts dis-content. Check it out, if nothing else it will help you forget how deathly bored you are at work right now. Just don't get caught, you could get fired.

Go to your sad place, Nicole

Joe, Average: Karen Kavett

Karen Kavett is a relatively well known youtuber.  She has done a lot of design work for youtube related projects and has done a very nice job at networking and marketing herself as a nerdfighting graphic designer through and through.  Apart from her personal vlogs she also does a lot of videos that are geared towards the design industry.  She has made videos on all kinds of topics, but her introductory videos are full of good streamlined information that can help you remember key details of the fundementals of design.  As an added bonus she is witty, personable and entertaining to watch, which makes learning about any subject more fun.  And, when you get bored with learning, you can watch some of her personal vlogs which are always entertaining and usually thought provoking.

Here are her new and really quite clever business card designs that she recently posted to her blog.

"The idea is that I can fill in the blank with whatever I am to whoever I give it to – when I go to internship interviews I can write in graphic designer, and when I go to YouTube gatherings I can write in video blogger, and when I go to Hogwarts I can write in Slytherin." - Karen Kavett

You can check her out here:

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/xperpetualmotion 

Second YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/karenkavett

Blog: http://karenkavett.com/blog/

Twitter: http://twitter.com/karenkavett

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Karen-Kavett/165315740154374

Market yourself as you, Nicole

When Life Gives You Lemons

 

You probably just found lemons, Nicole

Stopping To Turn

And so ends the project.  Alas, I am very happy with the product I have turned out. It is no secret, I am sure, that I love writing.  I love leaving an impression of myself, illustrated in words.  I love the words, I love the letters that form the words and I love the forms that shape the letters.  And this is me.  Never fear, invisible audience, I will not abandon my post.  There are many more a post to write and this world is a never ending story of sights and sounds and feelings that must be conveyed and thought upon.  So this is what I will continue to do, as it is what I hope I have been doing.  As the semester draws to a close I feel myself changing as a person, as a writer, as a designer, and as an observer of this tiny blue-green dot in the universe that we call 'home'.  It is so much more exciting and expansive than I could have ever imagined.

And moving forward from that point, Nicole

Joe, Average: The Readables

It is always fun to point out some everyday people who make awesome things happen.  This time I would like to point out The Readables (a.k.a Priscilla).  The Readables are the collective works of my fellow Canadian Graphic Artist/Book Worm.  Priscilla does online book reviews and lately has been using her creative side to make visual pull quotes from the Harry Potter Series.  On her tumblr account she also picks a song that best represents the book she just read, which I find to be a unique approach to the book review process.  I deeply enjoy her views on books and I think she has a lot of intelligent and thought provoking things to say. 

You can check her out here:
YouTube http://www.youtube.com/user/thereadables
Tumblr http://thereadables.tumblr.com/
Good Reads http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/4731097-priscilla

Living life with my head stuck in a book, Nicole

Such Manor

Turn your swag on like it's 1799

Just whip it.  Whip it real good, Nicole

Bent Into Shape

If you have not been able to tell (because it's not like I have been short on posts as of late) I have been suffering through a creative slump of serious epicosity.  Yes, so serious that real words can not possibly attempt to describe it properly.  Today was the first day that I felt truly back to my awesome, designer self and part of that is because I allowed myself to step away for a few days, even after having been under the weather (literally and metaphorically speaking) for about 3 weeks for different but nonetheless equally unhelpful reasons. 


Why am I boring you with my life story?

"This is a design related blog isn't it?  Use your personal blog to ramble on about how hard your life is, I came here to get some serious insight on some serious stuff."   

- Overly Critical Bitch

Well, not today, so shut-up random 'overly critical bitch' in my brain. ("And for the children in the audience, we have used these words in a sentence.  I don't care it's still stupid." Smile if you caught the Robin Williams reference) What I have allowed myself to re-realise (because I have realised it many times in the past) is that sometimes you just have to laugh and once you do the world becomes brighter and better in every way. 

So I would like to reference a different Robin (it is the day of Robin's; apparently) and give props where props are due. Robin: thank you for showing me this in class and for contributing to my already good day.  Check Robin out here: http://design-4-change.blogspot.com/

This is "Bent Objects" by Terry Border.  Check Terry out here: http://bentobjects.blogspot.com/

"Modest Pear"


Today I remembered something that I somehow forgot over the last month.  Design is fun.  Design creates awesome things that would other wise be missing from the world, like modest pears and linguist dinosaurs and eggs that think they are birds. 

More importantly I remembered that design is fun and I am good at it.  I know you don't really care that much (anonymous reader), and I am not expecting you to.  But you can't exactly have a blog, and have a great day, and discover something fantastically awesomtackular and not post about it.  Can you? (You won't answer because you are a computer... I am going to continue writing now).

I am the egg on the latter.

I am a tired yet refreshed, awesome design student, clutching the feathery wings of my work ethic and visual nature and perched atop the questionably safe evaluation latter about to leap.  Hopefully the metaphorical red-bull I gulped down today really did give me wings.

Flying high with 25 days until permitted to land, Nicole



I Can Haz Bad Logo?

Yes, apparently you can!

Today is a special day.  Today is the depute of the Design Angles Awards.

If you haven't guessed already, today I will be giving out the Logo Design Failure awards.















Let the crescendo of failure begin!





The award for Stick Figure Fail goes to...

... for bringing us a whole new reason to be afraid to go to the dentist.

The award for Good Font Gone Bad Fail goes to...

The Office of Government Commerce (OGC)

...because just like their logo, the government is only interested in pleasing itself.

 

The award for Legibility Fail goes to...

...because I am fairly sure this is not the message they meant to convey.

 

The award for Product Mascot Fail goes to...

... because a penis juggling fruit does not make me want to buy and drink your product.

 

The award for Illustration Fail goes to...

... because sometimes the secret ingredient should stay secret.

 

The award for Not So Subliminal Message Fail goes to...

Satellite and Antenna Systems

... because we all know dealing with a satellite company is hell, but at least they are honest about it.

 

 

The award for Cultural And/Or Language Barrier Fail goes to...

Locum, a Swedish property management company's Christmas season logo.

... because unless they manage brothels, this is an extreme case of miscommunication.

 

The award for Self Deprecation Fail goes to...

The Pepsi logo as seen by http://www.demilked.com/

You fill in the blanks.

... because if we didn't know Pepsi would make us fat before, we certainly get the picture now.

 

The award for Religious Fail goes to...

The Catholic Church's 'Archdiocesan Youth Commission', 1973

... because this is already a touchy (pun intended) subject, so maybe they shouldn't have illustrated it. 

The award for Ironic Fail goes to...

TGV (Train a Grande Vitesse) is France's high-speed rail service.

... because the snail is defiantly not a symbol of speed and efficiency. Enjoy your commute, France.

Well, there you have it, no shortage of bad logos in the world. 

This award competition is not a legitimate competition and is completely biased to my opinion.  The winners are not compensated or recognized in any way. This competition is sponsored by design.angles.  The Design Angles Awards are ongoing, therefore at any time new winners may be crowned and new categories created.

Check yourself before you wreck yourself, Nicole

Ba Ba Black Sheep... Have You A Mind Of Your Own?

What does this look like to you? 

If you say a beautiful piece of art then this post may not be for you.  I won't take it personally, and I trust that you will react similarly to my opinion.

The first week of February my design-mates and I headed out on the open highway in search of inspiration in the form of New York City. During this trip I witnessed many things, mostly people and how they interact with each other, but I also paid a visit to some artistic museums.  One such museum was The MOMA (museum of modern art).  Here I was faced with one of the most difficult questions to answer in the artistic world. 

Is this art?

The above black square is one such 'piece of art' that I saw.  And, was perhaps the most important one, as it is the one I have been fixated on for the past month. 

The problem most people (artists included) have with modern art is that it can be very hard to define and also very hard to understand.  Since there was a painting of a black square hanging in The MOMA some might think that by default it automatically takes the question away. 

Well if The MOMA thinks that it is art, I should as well. Right?

Wrong. I can not in good conscience call a black square art. 

And, as my friend and I sat on a bench and contemplated whether or not three different coloured rectangles painted with rollers on a giant canvas could pass as art I was struck with a notion. 

People are sheep.  And, in my highly imaginative brain, the room in The MOMA that showcased the black square turned into a petting zoo. 

I like to be optimistic when it comes to modern art.  I don’t want you to misinterpret this post because there are many modern artists that I love.  Some of them include Bauhaus and Jackson Pollock.  So in some cases and with the right context behind it, I can truly love modern art. 

But this was just a black square.

Yet, despite its innate lack of ‘artistic-ness’, it was one of the most popular paintings at the time when my friend and I walked through that room in The MOMA.  There were more people surrounding that black square than any other painting we had seen, and I couldn’t help but raise the point that the multitudes of people standing by and staring at this black square were nothing more than sheep. 

It is human nature to want to be normal, to want to blend in with the crowd.  But I could only imagine that all of these people were standing there looking so intensely at this black square simply because someone else was and they didn't want to openly disagree with the paintings importance.  I stood back, putting as much effort into interpreting the sheep as the sheep were putting into interpreting the black square.  In my mind I could hear their conversation. 

“It must represent death.” One would say. The sheep would non in unison.

“It is a depiction of the emptiness in the depressed soul.” Nodding sheep.

“It is the universe, ever expanding outward.” Nodding sheep. 

The black square succeeded in one aspect.  It made me think about the black square.  Which I suppose is why it was in The MOMA in the first place.

Just thinking outside of the proverbial black square, Nicole.

Post Scriptum,

My father is not an overly artistic man, but he has never been more right than when I was in the ninth grade.  I was furiously working on a paper for my English class, struggling to find the right words, to say exactly what I wanted to say when he told me; “You can stop worrying about it.  It is just a paper.  Write whatever comes to mind.

"Bullshit baffles brains."And I can't help but think that he is right again. 

The black square is bullshit. And the brainless sheep are baffled.

Still, I refrained from posting this immediately. 

I wanted to look into every possible meaning of the black square before I slandered it in a blog post that no one but myself will ever read.   It is a possibility that the painters’ intention with the black square was to have a crowd of sheep surrounding his work in utter confusion.  If this is the case I am still reluctant to call it art, but I will call the painter an artist. 

 

Just thinking out-loud, Nicole.

The Origin Of 'Force Quit'

May the force be with you, Nicole

PC Is Rocking My Design Socks

I know what you are thinking.

PC? You really use a PC? Really? For design?




















Heck no.

I mean PC: President's Choice.  Everytime I go to the grocery store and see their beautifully simple designs and it just makes me smile.   Everything from the shape and size of this package to the colours feel perfect to me.

President's Choice has so many different products that it really is worth noting how good of a job they are doing when it comes to keeping their package designs simple and consistent no matter what the product they are advertising. 

PC for the win, Nicole

Today I Was Walking By The Internet... And It Tripped Me

And when I say 'tripped' I mean that I fell up the stairs and landed flat on my face while the entirety of the free world stood watching.  And like a high school stairwell, no one offered to help me up. Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating a tad. 

This is what really happened.

I was wasting time, looking through my friends facebook updates (don't judge me, you were online while I was doing this), when I saw a post that said,

“Curse you stumbleupon!”

Now unless you are already a design clutz I bet you are just as confused as I was.  So I am going to let you in on the secret, stumbleupon is a website.  One where you make a profile (which is completely free and simple) and choose topics you want to see.  Then, like magic, you press a button, and in my case say the word ‘stumble’ like a comic book sound effect, and BAM! it takes you to a new page.  Design is one of the topics you can choose to stumble through.  Some others are books, entertainment, fashion, etc... Basically anything you could want to trip over on the internet can be found on stumbleupon. While you make your way through the stumble pages you like and dislike the pages that come up and stumbleupon begins to learn what you like, and what you want to see.  With your profile you can also make your own pages for other users to stumble through. 

Now, you know when you fall up the stairs and it takes you a second to figure out what happened and in that second you're mind is kind of blank? Well, that is what being on stumbleupon is like. 

I tripped.  I looked up, stood and brushed myself off.  Then I made a rookie stumbler's mistake of looking at the clock.  I had been stumbling for 2 hours. 

This is the best and possibly the worst thing that has ever happened to me (extreme exaggeration). 

In those 2 hours I found more awesome than I think I usually find in a month.  Some of the pages are blogs, photography, fonts, architecture or something completely different. The list is endless.  In the process I was in complete awe of some of the designs that I came across.  I was even inspired out of the design pit of doom that some of my projects were becoming. 

Stumbleupon Definition: Bittersweet.  It is a blessing for the wealth of information, and a curse for the amount of time you can spend stumbling.

www.stumbleupon.com

Go there, but only when you have no pressing appointments with life.

Heading back to the stairwell, Nicole

Take A Minute To Stop And Smell The Galaxy

Artist Jon Lomberg had a dream.  He wanted to see an accurate diagram of the Milky Way Galaxy mapped out to scale in living plants.  And he saw his dream to completion. 

This once and for all proves that: Science + Art = Awesome

So take a moment and take a jaunt around the galaxy garden.  www.galaxygarden.net

Naturally, Nicole



Hey There Aladdin, It Has Been A While...You Look Different

WARNING:
The content below is possibly offensive depending on your age, sensitivity level and your sense of humour (or lack there of).














Have you ever been sitting at home watching a Disney movie and wondered;

What would happen if the hero of this movie was a Calvin Klein underwear model?

Well, I'm not sure if you have ever asked yourself that question or what your answer would be. But I do know what David Kawena from Deviant Art's answer is. 

I am going to use Aladdin as an example here simply because it is my all time favourite Disney movie.  Besides, we are all familiar with the 'good boys and girls take off their clothes' scandal in the balcony scene, so I am fairly certain I won't be ruining any one's opinion of the movie or characters. 

This is original move Aladdin, who we all know and love. 

And this is David Kawena's vision of Aladdin. 

This is the link to David Kawena's Deviant Art page where you can check out (literally) many more Disney characters and also other illustrations.  http://www.davidkawena.deviantart.com/  I strongly suggest you follow the link to this page because he is a truly talented illustrator (and just in case you were wondering, no... all of his illustrations are not this... graphic). 

I really don't feel like it is necessary to point out the differences here.  I'm pretty sure the artwork speaks for itself.  But I would like to clear up for a second why I am including this in my blog.  I think it is very important for designers and illustrators to think outside of the proverbial box of the status quo.  Most people would not think to put Disney hero's in this type of a compromising position.  I think the lesson here is that nothing is too weird to try. 

Experiment with your work.  Create things that most people wouldn't even dream of.

And, for David Kawena I have only one question.

Why no Disney heroine bikini models?

Always the conservative, Nicole

Authenticity Is Invaluable; Originality Is Non-Existent

Original design is a concept that is hard to describe.  We have all heard it, everything has been done before.  So as a designer when you are faced with creating something new it is always a challenge.  As an artist you hold on tightly to your moral beliefs.  You do not approve of plagiarism or stealing.  Yet as a designer you are faced with a need to provide the right answers for your client, and sometimes those answers have been used before.  

Design is kind of like a mathematical problem in that way.  2 + 2 = 4 is not an original answer, but it is the right one.  2 + 2 = 20 may be original, but it is also most definitely wrong.

So how do you design something that is original and right?

It is so hard to create something new, when in fact everything has been done before. This quote defines this concept perfectly to me, I hope it will do the same for you as well. 

“Nothing is original.  Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination.  Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows.  Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul.  If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic.  Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent.  And don’t bother concealing your thievery - celebrate it if you feel like it.  In any case, always remember when Jean-Luc Godard said: ‘It’s not where you take things from - it’s where you take them to.’ ” - Jim Jarmusch

The concept that you should take elements for your designs from everywhere you find inspiration, and then proudly piece them together in your own way is one that I wholeheartedly believe in and agree with. 

Everything has been done.  Nothing can be original.  So don't try to be original.  Try to be authentic.  Try to take in whatever it is you see before you, as you see it.  Once you have put your work together the world should be able to look upon it, and see it through your eyes rather than their own. 

Keep it simple, Nicole

The Design World Stage Can Be A Fantastically Scary Place... But Don't Worry, I Brought My Textbooks

What happens when you give a design student an assignment to blog their thoughts on the industry and world of design? Luckily for us, we will not have to hypothesize on this question for long.  We are about to find out.  Over the next 10 weeks I will be exploring the world of design, from an experts point of view apparently (which I find to be an amusing notion).  And lucky you, anonymous reader.  You just won a first class, all expenses paid trip into my mind.

What is going on in there anyways? Well self, I'm glad you asked.

My first thought is that it must be a fundamental necessity in the school curriculum for teachers to challenge their students with the impossible task of thinking for themselves.  And then, after having thought, we are expected to share our thoughts.

Go ahead, stand up and look your classmates in their glazed over, uninterested and generally unsupportive eyes and tell them what you really think about design.

This seems like a sufficient task in and of itself, does it not?

Well, unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your view point, because without this next fact you would not be reading this at all), it is the nature of my program to go above and beyond the customary challenges of college and to force us, its students, as far out onto the ledge of our comfort zones as is currently deemed legal by the government of Canada.  In this case, giving me a direct shove out into the spiders web that is the Internet. So...

Go ahead, sit down and look your monitor in the web cam, get your typing fingers ready, and tell them.  Tell the world what you really think about design.

So, what are you waiting for? 

Possible Answers:
a) a dramatic ending
b) an invitation worth more than 30 percent of my grade
c) as any other stereotypical tortured artist type, inspiration

Indecisive as always, Nicole