Adjusting to the Bamboo

I think it's pretty clear that the Bamboo tablet and I are not friends yet.  A couple nights ago I opened one of the most exciting presents I received this holiday season, and by the title of this post I'm sure you know what it was. I was beyond thrilled because all through P1 I kept thinking about how my life would be infinitely easier if I had a tablet to help me in creating my campaigns. I'm not sure why exactly I thought I would be such a natural at it, because one of the first messages I created is shown up above, and, like it says, "its not lookingood..." (sheesh, I can't even spell on this thing!) As someone who's been drawing my whole life, I started out thinking the tablet would be just like drawing on paper. That definitely is not the case. The fact that you have to look up instead of at your hands as you draw, to see the result actually makes a huge difference, one that I was not prepared for. There's a disconnect there that you have to get used to, and I guess I'm just not there yet. Shortly after this, I tried writing out the whole alphabet and it looked slightly better, so I'm counting on the fact that if I practice enough I'll get the hang of it. Let's just hope I'm right.

Staying Creative

I don't know how I did it, but I survived the most intense, work-heavy semester of my life. I'm not complaining even a little though, because a majority of my work included drawing out creative ideas and creating things on photoshop and illustrator, all of which I tend to do in my spare time anyways. I don't think I've ever been so dedicated to class assignments in my entire life like I was to P1, but hey, that's how you know you're in the right major.
It's been a week since final critique, and I'm still not used to the fact that I suddenly have all the free time in the world. I've been using most of it to so catch up on all the shows I didn't have time to watch during this crazy semester, but Dexter and Gossip Girl can only hold my interest for so long. I went to my other favorites shows for further distractions, and it worked for a few days. Several season finales later, however, I was back to having nothing to occupy my time.
Needless to say, I'm still not used to having no campaigns to work on after being so engrossed in three all semester. It's been worrying me that if I advance onto P2, by the time I'm back I'm going to have to relearn how to be creative and come up with good campaign ideas. Which is why my best friend and fellow P1er David Bassine and I came up with the best idea EVER. (Well, I think it's the best idea ever.)
To keep from losing touch with our creative side, David and I decided to work on a campaign together over winter break. I'm really excited about it because let's be real, what else am I gonna do in El Paso for a month? We're still figuring out a client but will probably be starting soon on that. Looks like my lazy break just got a whole lot more productive.

How you know you're in love

My popcorn campaign is finally complete, tentacles, popcorn kernels and all. Flashback a few days before today and cue to me curled up on the floor rocking myself back and forth slowly into insanity, yet now I'm seeing just how much the chaos was worth it. I couldn't be happier.
For the past few months I have made P1 my priority. While all my friends were downtown slamming shots and stumbling down sixth street, I was at home immersed in some combination of brainstorming, thumbnailing, photoshopping, and illustrating. Creative has pushed me like nothing I've ever experienced before. My social life sufficiently decreased upon my acceptance into the program and my other classes received significantly less attention than I alotted to it in other semesters of school. Because of all these reasons, and more, that is how I know how perfect my major is for me.
The Texas Creative Sequence has an unspoken requirement of 30 + hours per week of your devotion, and the way I see it you have to really love something to not only spend 30 hours a week with it and not get sick of it. I've never actually counted, but I wouldn't be surprised if I surpassed that thirty hour mark, and I've enjoyed every minute of it.
Though the sequence has pushed me to my breaking point many times over, I wouldn't trade it for anything. To do well, you really have to make it your life, and that's how you know if you love it. Even if you just kind of like it, being forced to spend that much time with something you're indifferent to will make you start to resent it. You have to really love it to be willing to spend so much time with it. That's how I know I'm in love.

Creative Lesson Learned

I'm pretty sure not even ten minutes have passed since my last post, and I already have something new that I learned and am ready to share. Call it me passing on a lesson that I learned the hard way, call it me wanting to knock out another blog post before this impending deadline, or call it me not wanting to face the damage I've done since getting back to work on this torch that I now hate with a fiery (heh) passion. They pretty much all apply either way. But I digress, I think it's important for you to know that when you're working on something very very important, make sure you PRESS SAVE, LIKE, EVERY FIVE SECONDS. Or at least every time you make some decent progress. I'm pretty sure you can infer what just happened to me, and my torch ( or lack thereof, thanks to my stupidity.)

Okay so like I said, it's only about ten minutes of work that I lost. It could have been infinitely worse. Either way though, with critique just a little over a week away and so much work to still get done, every second is precious. Even taking the short bit of time to write this blog is stressing me out right now. (I also just pressed 'save' on this blog post, because well, you never know.) As much as I feel like I'm about to sound like a bank or insurance or wal-mart commerical, I have to say it, because I promise you'll thank me later- ALWAYS SAVE. Even if you have the world's second-slowest computer (mine is the slowest) and it takes longer to save your work than you would like, it's gonna take even longer to get it back if something happens. NOT WORTH THE RISK. Just save everything, and save it often.

Now, it's time for me to get back to work on this campaign, I'll keep you posted (pun intended).

Those six dreaded words

Small update from my last post: after those seven attempts to make perfect tentacles, and then add about four more, I finally got the perfect look for my campaign, but before I could even stand up to do a victory dance I was back to illustrator for execution number two. This one involved a statue of liberty, seen only from her crown up since she's buried in a popcorn bucket of epic portions (yes, I did just work the tagline into my blog). Before I got started on that, I was doing my best to turn a kernel of popcorn into the look my copywriter envisioned for these executions, aka a vague combination of  vectored but not too cartoony, painted but not too textured, and realistic but slightly more cartoony except not really. With all that in mind, I did my best to create the perfect popcorn kernel which would be worked into all our executions several times over to fill this bucket of epic portions (oh look, I did it again!). We realized after a good amount of time that the only way to get it right would be to vector it then apply about eight different effects, much like we did to the tentacles. Not at all in the mood to undertake that task, I worked on illustrating a statue of liberty. The crown was easier to recreate, but when I began with the torch, the thought of tracing all the intricate engravings, as well as the fingers wrapped around it made me want to vomit. So instead I dove straight into applying the effects to the photograph I was illustrating from. I knew right away that it wasn't gonna work because the style would look completely different, but wishful thinking won me over and I gave it my best shot. I showed my copywriter the result, and he confirmed my fears with six dreaded words- "You're gonna need to vectorize it."
This whole thing has just taught me that when it comes to advertising, there really are no shortcuts. There's no such thing as the easy way out, and even though there's seventeen things I'd rather do right now then vectorize a popcorn kernel and a statue of liberty torch, that's exactly what I'm about to do the second I press 'publish' on this blog post.

10 days, 7 tentacles

I just realized how often I find myself tweeting about the creative sequence, especially lately because things haven't ever been as crazy as they are right now. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't trade this for anything, but sometimes its nice to take a 10 second break and tweet about stress, meltdowns, and attempt number seven to create tentacles coming out of a bucket of popcorn. It's ironic that I'm currently undertaking task of making something that would never actually happen in real life look realistic and believable on paper. (Find me a real photograph of an octopus, kraken, or any other tentacled marine creature attacking a bucket of popcorn, and I'll retract my previous statement with an embarrassed apology.) As noted earlier, if you follow me on twitter you'll know I'm currently on my seventh attempt of creating these tentacles that I'm slowly starting to resent. (If you don't follow me on twitter, now you know.) I've gotten to the point where I've been at this for so long that it's necessary to take a short but productive break, hence the purpose of this blog post. Though I'm currently making something that right now seems impossible, I'm a lot further than I expected to be. Everything I've created for this today on illustrator and photoshop is something new I just learned. I know that I'm learning a lot as I go along and this will make it easier for me when I come around to the other three in this campaign.

Mind-blown (glass)

"The Sun" by Dale Chihuly

Over thanksgiving break, I stayed in Dallas with some family. My aunt took me to the Arboretum to see a blown glass exhibit by Dale Chihuly. (If you've never heard of him, he's responsible for the masterpiece on the roof of the Bellagio hotel in Las Vegas.) The sculptures exhibited at the arboretum were so incredible that I couldn't not blog about it. There were fifteen different pieces to the exhibit, but the one that stood out to me the most is called "The Sun" (see photo above) and it was truly mind blowing, though the entire collection of pieces was gorgeous. Chihuly's Sun piece had all these different glass pieces spiraling out from the center in varying shades of yellow and red, and was arranged above a bed of yellow flowers, which complemented the sculpture perfectly. We went to the exhibit during the day, so the piece looked bright and fun, but I'm told it's a whole other experience to pay a visit at night, where the works are illuminated dramatically. I really wish I had gotten a chance to go see it at night just to see how differently it all looked, but I'm really glad that I got to go at all. I definitely would recommend anyone in Dallas right now to go visit the Arboretum before November 5, when the exhibit ends.

Being inspiring

I've been thinking a lot about inspiration lately. How can I not? It's in everything I do. It worries me sometimes that a lot of what I create might be seen as nothing more than a refined version of something that's already been done before. I often wonder if this makes me unoriginal as both an artist and a designer. I try not to let this thought get to me, and I suspect it's something that all artists struggle with from time to time. I've come to the conclusion that it's perfectly acceptable (and inevitable) to draw ideas from other artists as long as you make your creation entirely your own. I challenged myself to do just that over the summer after feeling inspired by the mixed media creations of Nikki Farquharson, a talented graphic artist who's work I stumbled upon while browsing through the design category on pinterest (a frequent pastime of mine). I recommend you look at her portfolio, because it's truly incredible (Click here to see it).  I found a picture of myself to attempt to recreate in her style. I particularly enjoyed this project because it required my drawing skills, something I hadn't had a chance put to use in a while. My version of a Farquharson portrait is a mix of photography, drawings, and work on Photoshop and Illustrator to edit both the aforementioned mediums respectively. The result is pictured below:

I still have moments where I doubt my own creativity from time to time, but I think it's important to keep reminding myself that not only is it acceptable to draw inspiration from others, but it's encouraged. I really wish I could contact Nikki Farquharson somehow and let her know how talented I think she is and how I admire her work so much that I made my own version of it. I can't imagine that she wouldn't enjoy knowing how appreciated I think her contributions to design are. If there was ever someone out there who felt that way about my work, I would want to know about it. I hope I can create something amazing enough to inspire someone else one of these days, and I'll never stop trying.

Illustrate Your Illustrations

I was an art major my first year of college at St. Edward's University, and I learned two important things about myself. 1) I was in the wrong major, and 2) I was at the wrong school. I can admit to myself when I make a mistake, even one as big as choosing the wrong college, but I've never been the kind of person to just suck it up and deal with the consequences. So I did something about it. I switched schools, and I switched majors. In the midst of this stressful process, I learned the hard way that things don't always go as planned the first time around. I picked the wrong university at first, I wasn't admitted to the college of communication til my second time applying, and I also wasn't accepted to the Texas Creative sequence til my second attempt at nailing the application. In the midst of all this stress, I knew I had to learn quickly how to adapt my art skills to the type of creativity valued in the advertising industry. I immediately became familiar with photoshop in preparation, and I luckily caught on quickly to the way it works. Illustrator took a little more time getting used to, but I gave myself a project over the summer to familiarize myself with the program.

As I said in my previous post, Dalek inspired me to create a geometric piece of my own, which I am staring at as I write this post ( I keep it hung above my desk to motivate me and remind myself how far I've come). I decided that since this one piece marked my versatility in my art, it was only appropriate that I attempt to recreate it on illustrator as a sort of symbol of my ability to evolve my skill to mediums other than paper and canvases. Here is the final result:

Practice, practice, practice is the only way to familiarize yourself with a program as complex as Illustrator, and nothing is as rewarding as not only learning the ropes of it, but doing so by digitally rendering something you created yourself.

My Art Evolution + Dalek

I only very recently became familiar with Adobe photoshop and illustrator, but I've been creating art my whole life. It's weird to look back and see how far I've come, from my crayon Shamu drawings (which were impressive considering I  was only five at the time) to my portrait drawings from those middle school glory days, to the time I dropped the pencil and picked up the paintbrush in high school. And now most of the art I create is all done on the computer. I noticed a pattern because as my art mediums changed, so did my subjects. The things I created became more and more modern as time went on, a trend most prevalent in comparing my portrait drawings to what I do now. I draw inspiration from all sorts of sources, and one that I feel had a huge impact in my art is the work of James Marshall, better know as Dalek.

The first Dalek piece that ever caught my eye.

I discovered Dalek's art completely by accident years ago, but I'm so glad I did. His work is colorful, geometric, and extremely precise. At the time of my discovery, none of my works could ever be described as any of those things, but I was so intrigued by his creations that I stepped outside my comfort zone and attempted to make something in a similar style. Dalek definitely helped me evolve as an artist/ designer and I would be lying if I said his work doesn't continue to influence me in everything I make to this day.

I was lost til LostType

Have you ever experienced something that just completely changed your life? Whether it was a certain song you heard, a piece of art you saw, a certain food you tried....you get the idea. I recently had a discovery that was almost as enlightening as the first time I heard The Shins way back in the day, and I just can't wait to gush about it.
For someone who lives for art and anything visual, I am really terrible with fonts. It's ironic because I'm hoping to be an art director, yet I always feel like my writing is always infinitely better than the font I put it in. I usually just stick with Century Gothic because it's all but identical to my own handwriting, which people tell me is perfection. My days of sticking with the same font over and over came to an end very recently when I discovered a little website known by the name of losttype.com. For starters, they have this snazzy logo that just reels you in. But wait, it gets better! The browse button takes you to a small collection of some of the most amazing fonts I've ever laid eyes on. I've been experimenting a lot lately with typography to try and improve my font expertise, and I would be lying if I said 100% of the fonts I've been working with didn't come from this website. It definitely makes my life slightly easier as an art director because even though I'm still not-so-great with choosing fonts, I know anything I pick from this website is going to have a lot of potential.

Your eyes aren't bigger than your fro-yo

I've been a loyal self-serve frozen yogurt customer ever since the day they started popping up all over Austin, which is why I'm not sure how the revelation I had at Red Mango today only just occurred to me. Am I the only one who is barely noticing how freakishly large these serving bowls are? Incidentally, I want to point out that I realize this might be my first non-advertising or art-related blog, but I'm just so dumbfounded that I can't not write about this right now.
You should probably know that when it comes to things that are blatantly obvious to most people, they usually aren't to me. Anyone who knows me pretty well understands that I tend to be a little slow on the uptake, but even this is crossing a line. I don't think you realize how often I consume frozen yogurt, but just to be clear, it's often. This should give you an idea: yesterday my sister and I were arguing about where to eat dinner, and she shot down my Mandola's suggestion because "we just had Italian last night." I responded by reminding her that we just got fro-yo a couple hours ago, but that doesn't mean I'm gonna wait two weeks before I have it again. In fact, I probably wouldn't wait two days (I didn't, by the way).
If you think about it, it's actually really smart of them to only offer serving size options of huge and huger. It makes people feel like they need to fill up and they end up spending more money. It's a good strategy, and now that I've been exposed to it, I can attest that not only does it work, but it works well. I could consider my fro-yo servings to be closer to the size of a meal than a snack, albeit an unhealthy one once I pile on the chocolate sprinkles and brownie bites. I suppose this is one way that bigger is better.

The Glorious Jack and Brad Combo

I realize how ironic it is for me to keep a blog about advertising and dedicate the first post to an experience that was anything short of spectacular. So here’s a story of one of my favorite advertising experiences for one very obvious reason. I’ll never forget the glorious day that Jack in the Box commercials received my full undivided attention. It was June 20 of this year, and I know this because that day I tweeted, “@BradPaisley’s jack in the box commercial makes me want jack in the box.” For the record, I've never craved Jack in the Box in my life. Ever. However, my cravings for Brad go way back. (If you’ve never heard of him, go listen to the song ‘Water’ WITH the music video. Do it now. You’re welcome). I know celebrity endorsements are nothing new to the world of advertising, but more than the fact that my favorite country artist was actually in it, the commercial was genuinely clever. I've seen Jack-in-the-Box commercials before, and never thought they were bad, but they weren't good enough to have me marching out the door headed straight to eat there (not til June 20 at least). I've always thought the Jack in the Box character had a decent sense of humor, and my obsession with Brad Paisley/ everything he sings, writes, says, or does has taught me that his wit is very similar to mine, so the interaction between the two is brilliant. Their banter reminded me of conversations I have with my own friends. I actually felt like the commercial was made just with me in mind, hoping I’d eat there. If that’s the case, well played, Jack-In-The-Box. Well played indeed.

Bing vs. Dictionary vs. Me

The biggest challenge any advertiser faces is determining how to get a specific group to interact with them.  The catch is that said group often has a mental list of about seventeen things they would rather do than look at an ad. Their reluctance is not lost on the advertisers, who then strategize sneaky ways to make ignoring them impossible. For example, I just tried looking up the word “urethra” on dictionary.com (I’m in a Human Sexuality class, don’t judge me), and instead of a definition, I got a pop-up for Bing. Excuse me while I retract my list of seventeen things that are more preferable to an ad that so rudely interrupted my studying (actually learning what a urethra is tops off my list, followed by sixteen other priorities that are equally pressing). I exited the ad and re-clicked the ‘define’ button, but there it was again, shamelessly splayed across my screen, waiting for me to make my move. This is how I learned Bing is the most persistent search engine I’ve ever had the displeasure of accidentally encountering. I realize now that they were hoping to force me into shifting my search to them by making it impossible to access what I was using before. Clever move, Bing, but even if I wasn’t mad at you for making dictionary.com utterly useless, I still wouldn’t use you. I don’t know what kinds of things pop up when you look up 'urethra' in a search engine, but I do know I had to stop reading my textbook because of the images I uncomfortably stumbled across, and I can infer the Internet is much less modest than the textbook I'm currently afraid to reopen. However, something tells me the typical dictionary.com user is a little more mature than I am and is most likely looking up terms that have little or nothing to do with male and female sex organs. From the perspective of this wiser but less exciting version of me, I can easily see how Bing’s ad placement has the potential to increase awareness about the search engine. On an unrelated note, I still don’t know what a urethra is.