Week 10

Ah the tension was in the air as we were so close to finals. And on Monday we given the task to state 2 facts and 1 lie to the class. The audience was to deduct which one was the lie. We were to read the body language of the person to see if any clues were given as what was true and what was a lie. A lot of people were uneasy speaking in front of class yet some were really able to fool every one with the lie. Myself I completely gave it away with spoiling the lie for everyone. Haha. Well it was good to hear what I had to improve on in terms of body language. I still fall back on old nervous habits it's just that I make it a bit more animated. Heh. I try to be a bit more entertaining in my presentations as I see that I can sell even a bad idea to others. Presentation is very important for us graphic designers as it can make or break your career. If one is bad at presenting then no client will buy their design. They will too bored/put off/ or not interested in what one has made. I did love to lie to the class though I must say. Fun.

Wednesday: We evaluated the class. We discussed what we accomplished through Art 220, what we learned and what learning objectives didn't get done. I must say this class was quite the trip. In a good way. Though we did not hit ALL leaning outcomes I say we still the chance to grow as designers and as artist trough the time of the course. Overall I throughly enjoyed the class.

Adjectives:

delightful

frightful

reluctant

abundant

gifted

colossal

Week 9

On Monday we presented our 3 posters and creative briefs. Then we got word on the FINAL PROJECT. Ohhhhh the hype for it was in the air. It was to visually express our own personal creative process. Not as easy as it sounds. Later on we had Jimmy tell us a story with us trying to imagine the scenery of the story. We then drew what the last scene of the story was. As I found out later everyone's vision was different and mine was a bit out there. Though what I saw was inspired from old ruins that had hieroglyphics on the walls and that was what I saw. I actually enjoyed displaying this vision of bizarreness from my mind.

Adjective:

bizarre

calm

confounding

expressive

forgetful

mean

Week 8

On monday we all sat in a different order to get out of our comfort zone. Good idea. We also discussed what we had taken away from the Kim Baer lecture. It was great to see that everyone had gotten something different from her. The rest of the time we looked at each others sketches for posters that were to encourage people to come study graphic design at CSULA. There were great sketches out there, though I though some were good layouts that had no concept. I felt that the sketches didn't really set the world ablaze so Jimmy had us do some more for homework....

Wed: So we went in with 3 "really good" concepts for the poster. I put a bit more thought into this one but I admit that my ideas were not all that well received. One was a good layout but lacked concept. Oh well something to work on for the future. Next we discussed an essential part of being a successful designer: the creative brief. With this physical statement the client and creator have an understanding of what is to be expected from the project. We saw numerous examples of creative brief, each one different from the other. yet they all get the main points of what is expected and what the client wants and what the problem is.

Adjectives:

cooing

raspy

thundering

commanding

short

stubborn

Kim Baer

Thursday night was the night many were waiting for as as graphic design legend Kim Baer spoke to us on campus. Overall I found her to be a great interesting woman. The way she spoke was really engaging and she was funny to boot. One thing that stuck with me was that in her office she has a diverse array of people working. As she said it different people can bring different perspective and experience to the table. She told of a intern that was there in the office who had no experience in graphic design yet her background in film and TV studies gave her the edge in some projects. It's great to have a group of people around you that bring different personalities and experiences to work. That's what I found to be so great about joining GAUGE. The community aspect injects a sense of fun and makes working much more relaxed. This sense of community was missing in my eyes before I joined and I found the classes to be much more of a drag than it had to be. Now I'm actually enjoying what I'm doing. I won't forget that.

This is a what, this a who

THIS IS A WHAT? Monday was all about focus. And I found out I have areal focus problem. Jimmy gave us the task of passing around two objects around the room while in a circle without breaking the cycle we established. I must admit that I find it hard to concentrate for long periods f time and tend to joke around. ADD I suppose, Monday was no different. I tried to play along yet fell back on my tendency of joking around and acting like a clown. It's really something I have to work on.

Then we moved to presenting our visual autobiographies. I must admit I had reservations on this assignment. I always found the autobiography to be a bit narcissistic and I have personal reluctance about speaking of the past. Though thankfully I did not have to formally present the piece. Heh.

adjectives:

sensitive

saucy

solid

neglected

timid

angry

Week of 11-2/4 Sketches and videos

Monday: While still on the mindset of games, we were to present sketches for games that we created. I must admit it was much more harder than I thought it would be. Of course in the beginning I thought"Oh man all the good ideas were taken!" On Monday I saw that that was not necessarily true. Some people came up with some good ideas. Others not so much. Though some people really didn't really sell their ideas well. Which tied in to Jimmy's lecture of presentations. The reason a lot of presentations don't go well was that some get to reserved with their creations. There is too much emotional involvement to the work. So if one were to criticize it the creator takes offense to it and then tension rises. Good presentation skills are absolutely necessary to continue in graphic design. One must sell their idea to the client. It won't always be easy but with practice that moment won't be as hard as we make it to be. That is what is lacking with students these days. Practicing speaking in front of class. What is there to lose? What is the worst that can happen? our fly is down and you show a little too much to everyone? It happens.

Videos:On Wednesday we watched more films by creators. People such as John Meada, Milton Glaser, Scott McCloud, and Paula Scher gave insight in their creative process. John Maeda's presentation was very entertaining and other all funny. It was great to see all these creations he had made that were so out of the box as one can get. As I saw it he was a computer expert and that can be a dull and bland profession. Yet he was able to create these wonderful works with computers just because he was a curious man. His curiosity had lead him everywhere. Scott McCloud was a comic artist that thought outside of the box as well. He carefully examined this medium of comics and found a way to bring it to a new form, that being on computers. He was trying to expand on an art form and making it bigger than it was. I was throughly engaged in his speech though I admit some bias as I am a huge comic fan. The other speakers were not as engaging as the first 2 mentioned and found the speeches a bit bland to be honest.

Adjectives:

fearless

fierce

faithful

witty

skinny

small

Week of 10-26/28. game day, game maps.

Game day:

This day was one of those rare days. No lecture but playing games all class. WOOOOO! Was it fun! We were to bring a board game and everyone could have a chance to play a different game. games like Sorry!, Life, Scrabble, and other classics were brought in. I played Sorry!, Mexican Lottery, and Dominos. It was quite the experience with all of them. What Jimmy wanted was for everyone as were playing to think about the thought process that went behind the games. The 5 eternal questions(who, when, what, where, why) were to be thought about. It prepares us with the way were were to tackle any design problem. Which lead to the next class session....

Game Maps:

Were to in our own way express our experience that we had on game day using "maps". Some of the maps were done okay as few really were eye catching. I must admit mine was not all that successful. Though one that really caught the attention of others was the collage of images from the Mexican lottery.

We watched a few speakers some of whom were not designers but had words of others to inspire to create. Elizabeth Gilbert who was a writer had a speech about the creative process. I found her to be more down to earth and identifiable than the other speakers we had at that point. It worked to get her words to have much more weight to them. Tony Robbins on the other hand was much more energetic and his body language communicated a lot of his intent to the audience. While I did not care for much of how he talked it still stuck in my mind how he did it. He even up coming off as a bit of a douche in my opinion. He was able to keep one's attention even if he was a bit too in your face about it.

Adjectives:

obnoxious

subdued

reserved

energetic

pompous

opinionated

The Power of 10 / Why Man Creates (10-21-09)

On this day the class was treated to 2 separate films. Both of which had me thinking of creating by the end of the day. The first film was titled "The Power of 10". In this film we could truly see the scale we live in this world. With this film one can see truly how complex and majestic the universe is, even we ourselves are composed of millions of smaller things that must work together to make us work. The sense of scale in that movie was amazing to see and left me wonder "how did they do that?". If a movie has left one with big questions then it succeeded in getting the viewer engaged in the work. In the film "Why Man Creates?" I found it to be a quirky and sometimes silly series of short skits. Though they most the most part were funny and some were really creative.

Adjectives:

quirky

majestic

complex

Storytelling, Oct 19.

Ha, yes telling stories. I love to tell stories. Too bad most if not all are too vulgar to tell. Eh thats just how I roll. Regardless its just a great skill to have. So it was in this class that skill was put to the test. Jimmy had given us the objective: tell a story using the items inside your pocket, deadline 15 minutes. I thought to myself "Awesome time to cut loose!" Then I froze. My ideas were just not getting anywhere. Luckily my teammates were much more on point that I was and came up with a great story. I contributed a bit but it was really the other two that shined on this one. In the end that story was what chosen as the best out of the rest. Cool, works for me.

Milton Graser/Stimulatté

So on thursday I headed out to see the Milton Graser film in Hollywood. Good thing I embarked on this adventure with Pauleen, Freddy, Eisen, and Issac. Traffic in LA, what can be said that hasn't been before? Either way we get to the event only to hear from Jessica that somehow and someway the people in charge misplaced the DVD. What? Anyway after that we all decided to head to the stimulatte meeting in Silverlake. It was nice to sit around and chat for a while with a good mocha. I good way to end the night.

Sir Ken Robinson

SIR Ken Robinson's speech that was shown on Wednesday was very thought provoking for me. There were times that did seem like he dragged a joke too long(not that I know the feeling........>_>) . SIR Ken went on to say that most people are not doing what they love. Most are just getting by through life. The reason for this can be seen in the way we get educated. Now this subject resonated with me quite a bit seeing as I am a product of the LAUSD school system(possibly the worse school system in the country). My high school had a 50% drop out rate at the time I graduated. Most of my pals did not walk the stage. Yet as I was in high school I saw that the both sides were at fault. the kids did not want to learn and the schools did not want to teach. This is what is at fault for people not reaching their potential. I was one of those. I went through ALL of HS not knowing what I was going to do. No one motivated me, no one pushed me, and no one cared. It was only until I was in community college that I was finally able to discover what I wanted and not what I had to do to survive. It is all about finding your passion and following through it. Yet as I look back I can see that I had a fault in it as well. I graduated with the most minimal effort as possible. Now years have past and I have tried to change for the better. It's unfortunate that there are kids that will go through what I experienced but with informing ourselves now can we change the future.

dark

shiny

dull

Chh-chh-chh-changeeeeesssss

Monday was all about giving new meanings to familiar objects and images. Images like a tomato or a tree can have a different meaning or be looked at from another perspective just from one word. Given that, to do the assignment was not that easy. I suppose that with some items the feeling ad perceptions are so universal that it's hard to look at something differently. Such like a apple will give the same feelings and definition but to feel different is not so easy. the assignment really promotes thinking outside the box. It just seems that I will need some practice.

aggravating: causing or making a situation worse

charming: pleasing delightful.

energetic

Dreams by Akira Kurasawa

So on Wednesday in class we viewed the film Dreams. This film was made by acclaimed Japanese director Akira Kurasawa and is said to be based on a series of dreams that he had in his lifetime. All 8 segments are really imagery based more than dialogue. This lets beautiful and stunning art to speak words for themselves. This film had some of the most amazing shots that I have ever seen. Segments such as The Peach Orchid and Sunshine Through the Rain seemed to deal with childhood and the consequences of one's actions. Since these dealt with childhood there was a more magical and innocent take to nature. This differs to the other segments like The Weeping Demon and Mt Fuji on Fire were more of nature in a darker light. These two segments can be seen as ann example of how humanity can perverse nature and the dire consequences we can have on the world around us. Both segments show the result of mankind's flirtation with nuclear power and the disaster it brings. The image of the exploding Mt Fuji harkens back to old Godzilla films in my mind and was one of my favorites in the film. Though possibly my favorite segment of the film would be the one titled Crows. In this a man steps in the paintings of Vincent Van Gogh and actually meets the legendary painter played by famous director Martin Scorsese. The man gets to walk through some of Van Gogh's work and to see these works come to life on the screen is worth the price of admission alone.

awe-inspiring

amazing

innocent

Mapping the mind

So on Monday we put a cretive prosees called mind mapping to work. Mind mapping as turns is really a visual form of brain storming. It is a tool that helps one explore and see ALL possibilities in any idea one has. In class what we saw a slideshow of different peoples mind mapps and the different approches they had with do the activity. What I saw was that there was really no wrong way of designing the map. It's really only limited to how one wants to be. The whole point is to go beyond one's limits. In a personal sense this helps me because I often put too many limits on myself and it is time to break them.

For my mind map my topic was on something that has been on my mid for a while now. It was in the summer that decided to go into shoe design. The reason being is that well it was random. Super random. It really spawned from the mindset that i want to be known as a creator. It doesn't matter in what field it is or what medium it is, I want to create. hence why i do graphic design, sculpture, painting and right now some ceramics. I create. I live. It's that simple. So with shoes it's the same thing. i can get real picky with what shoes I buy so I told myself that I should just stop wasting time and just do it myself. DO IT YOURSELF. Words to live by. Now with the mind map I finally really put in perspective and saw the possibilities for this venture. When I started I just did it. I just dove in with no plan and just started. That's all well and good but realistically you got to have a plan. Even though I could of do the map better, in other words drawn it better, I was still happy with the result.

faithful

thankful

hopeful

PS: Hit me me up for shoes. You know you need to walk.

First day.

As yes the first day of Art 220. I like most did not know what to expect going in. I did formulate some ideas as to what was going to happen but none were too concrete. I thought that the format would a purely group discussion, akin to group caucuses. My other idea was that it maybe just a lot of exercises to be done over the 10 weeks. In the end the class seem that it will encompass all these things and more. All of which is exciting in it self.

We'll see where this journey leads to next.

Adjectives:

odd

strange

unnatural

weird

puzzling

zany

Time Cop sucked.

So on Wednesday the class took a more philosophical feel. To be honest this took me off guard. I would expect this from the modern art, painting, sculpture, or even written expression class. Yet I forgot that art in all its medias touch upon philosophy. I must admit that I did like the topics that came up.

One topic that was discussed was time. Now in the western world time is this construct that flows in a linear fashion. Other cultures see time in an almost cyclical way. Morning, day, night, repeat. Yet it is mostly us in the western world that has such a high value of time. Everything and everyone is in such a hurry. Run, run, running all time to beat the clock. It's like time itself is an enemy one that can never be conquered. So we all run faster. It's very much reminiscent of the film Koyaanisqatsi. This film had a segment in which showed the manic and rapid movement that people and cars do. This is highlighted by the scenes of cars captured and edited to look like rapid lights ala 2001 Space Oddyssey. Now the question remains. What are we racing towards? Are we racing to accomplish things before we die? Are we running from fear of death or are we racing towards it?

By the way, Time Cop did suck.