Daily Dishonesty

Daily Dishonesty is a blog I recently discovered that is definitely worth sharing, described as "lovely little lies from a hungry graphic designer." As an art director who is never not in the mood to eat, this is the first reason I fell in love with the blog. Basically, each post is a clever phrase that describes the little white lies we tell ourselves everyday that we know deep down are far from the truth. Each phrase is its an inspiring piece of typography and design. "My diet starts tomorrow" and "I have read and agreed to the terms and conditions" has never been more beautifully written. See the blog for yourself here.

Iain Macarthur's Zentangle Portrait

My discovery of Zentangle art led to another incredible discovery: Zentangle Portraits. I stumbled upon the work of Iain Macarthur, who has several incredible illustrations of these portraits. My favorite one is pictured below

I think it's really amazing how geometric art can take on so many different meanings. Some might thing that geometric art  refers strictly to sharp clean edges, but I've been slowly finding that this is not the case. For example, Zentangle art is incredibly versatile but still comprised of  many different shapes, some that don't even have names. Geometric art has that same versatility.

Zentangle

My love for geometric art has led to a new discovery. I recently found a style of design known as "Zentangle" that I have become obsessed with. Its geometric design on a completely new level. Most patterns show curvy shapes that divide up the design, and each shape consists of some type of geometric pattern. Zentangle is typically black and white but I really think there is something cool about the way all these different patterns come together in one design and all compliment each other. I've attached a picture of one of the Zentangle designs that I discovered today.

P2, Lesson 1

I learned a pretty hard lesson recently during my first campaign for P2. My client was Hawaiian Airlines, and my partner and I had been brainstorming and had four solid ideas we were happy with. As I discussed two blogposts ago, my skill with the bamboo tablet had not improved. However, I decided this campaign was the perfect opportunity to explore it, and I fully executed one of our concepts. Once I did, I was hooked on Wacom. Seriously. I was obsessed, and I executed another one of our ideas for that concept. My partner and I were really happy with how it turned out, but that was before we were told this concept wasn't strong enough. The worrying kicked in sometime after the realization that not only did we devote so much time to developing one idea, but we didn't entertain the possibility that there was a better one out there, AND we had two days to come up with four new concepts. Cue the multiple panic attacks; If I ever had a weakness, it's that when I stress, I stress a lot. Sometimes it's not always a bad thing though, because it motivates me. That's exactly what happened in the end, and my partner and I were able to show up at Friday's P2 class at the ungodly hour of 8am with four new concepts, all of which were stronger than what we had before. Moral of the story- don't get too attached to one idea; if you do, learn from it. Even though my attachment to this was to a fault, some good did come of it- I caught on quickly to the ways of the Wacom Tablet, and this is what it helped me create. (Copy credit goes to by my brilliant campaign partner/ copywriter, Joy Barnett)

Cris Cab's "Foreword"

My fascination with album covers started a few years ago. I'm not exactly the most organized person in the world, but I am all but OCD when it comes to my itunes music library. Everytime I download a song I have to edit the info to make sure not one piece of information is missing, from the album art to the song's release date. I'm also a music junkie and add new songs all the time, so I see quite a bit of album art. Back in the day I used to listen strictly to country music, where album covers typically consist of a photo of the artist and not much else. However, when my music taste began to evolve, I took note that many artists outside the country genre have more of a design aspect to their album art. 

I discovered Cris Cab's music about a year ago (if you have never heard of him, you need to youtube his cover of "Pumped Up Kicks" like, yesterday). He has an album called Foreword with a cover that caught my eye. It's another geometric design piece with a single triangle that appears to have many more broken up shapes within it. The colors appear to be yellow, magenta, and cyan, but all with some level of transparency to create different shades where they overlap. It reminds me of looking inside a kaleidoscope, which I think is why I like it so much.

Art Director Problems and Bamboo Woes

We had our first P2 class last Friday, and things have been incredibly hectic ever since. Not that I'm complaining, I love keeping busy, especially when it's something I enjoy that is taking up my time. I've been brainstorming for my latest campaign client, Hawaiian Airlines, all day, and it occurred to me this campaign would be an excellent chance to get familiar with the Bamboo tablet and use it for the execution. The Wacom website is supposed to have lots of helpful videos for people new to the bamboo, so I took it upon myself to check them out. Honestly though, the only thing I got out of what I watched was a feeling of doom and a new song to find on Spotify ASAP.
Here's the disappointingly unhelpful link if you'd like to see for yourself.
The first video I saw was one by freelance illustrator Nancy Stahl. She does something really cool with the tablet but doesn't quite explain how you actually get it done. The second video was of some chick drawing with the tablet while an excellent song played in the background. Something tells me no amount of videos is gonna help me get used to the Bamboo. It's gonna take a lot of trial and error to master the thing. But you know what? Challenge accepted.

Remember when I had a productive break?

Remember that time I posted the best idea ever, to work on a campaign with my friend David over winter break? Yep, of course you do. Remember when it actually happened? ....yeah, that's because it didn't. However, its for a very very good reason!
Yes, to quote the aforementioned blog post, I described a winter break campaign as "the best idea EVER." It really was an excellent idea, but there was a small project David and I needed to do first- creating our websites. We thought it would be easy...... yeah, it wasn't.
I spent a majority of my winter break learning html coding and revamping my resume in order to get my website set up. You can see the final product by clicking here. Seriously go look because I'm actually really proud of it. By the time our websites were published and out there for the world to see, it was too late into the break to start and finish a campaign before the semester starts. So instead, David and I started brainstorming clients that we want to make campaigns for when we start P2. We came up with a really excellent one for our team campaign (except I won't say what because it's gonna be a surprise).
I seriously cannot wait for the semester to start so I can get to work on campaigns again. I miss it a lot. I can't say I know anyone looking forward to the work-loaded semester they have ahead of them besides me, but again, that's how you know you love your major.