The National is coming to the Variety Playhouse in Sept. It’s on a Sat night and I’ll totally take off work on Sunday if I can round up the troops to go with me. I heart their sound. I want to go. I want to go. I want to go.
Word. It’s now at the end of the 3rd week (woah!) and while I have direction in all my classes, I don’t have any direction in any of my classes. It’s a roller coaster of great concepts followed by backlashes of not having deeper meanings to the metaphors you came up with the week prior.
Example A: Creating a beverage line for Angelina Jolie. Through my research I found out that she has a tattoo with a quote from Tennessee Williams. He wrote “Cat On A Hot Tin Roof” where the main character drinks whiskey until he hears the “click.” Applying this to the intriguing allure of Angelina, I figured it would be great to create a whiskey line called Clik and work a little dangerous beauty into the label with a picture of a loaded revolver pointing at the viewer. Last week, everyone loved the idea. With this info I worked all of my designs around this revolver. Different flourishes, borders, smoke swirls, etc. Some were really cool, but oh, oh, this week in class it appears that I did not take this metaphor one step further into a more abstract concept. Hmph. Back to the drawing board.
Exhibit B: Logos class. Oi, sweet baby Jesus. What on earth is going on here? We have to concept a logo for something we hate, something we love, and a family of logos. My hate logo: hearing, not listening- which has formulated into war, esp. Vietnam war because the similarities between that war and the mess we’re in now in Iraq is freakin’ nutz. I have a slight direction with a cartoon blindfolded gorilla to symbolize how our troops were not trained to fight defense and were totally trampled by the guerrilla opposition, but it’s not enough. I need to delve deeper into this whole shebang. But how? Then there’s my love logo which is Lazy Sundays. I did a lot of camping and resting textures, and somehow the class settled on the idea that I should create a new logo for Laz-Y-Boy or Arondak chairs. Woo… I guess it’ll be fine, but I have no clue what my next step should be. Then there’s the family of logos which we decided will be depicting Freud’s developmental stages. God help me with that one.
So this is when the quarter starts to become tough. It’s easy to initially concept, and it’s easy to put all the stuff together for the final deliverables, but the week by week process of figuring out how good design is actually done is so hard. I really felt like I was getting somewhere at the end of last quarter, but I’m quickly realizing that as much as I thought I knew what to look for to make a good design, I honestly still have no clue. I’ll just have to keep on truckin’. Man, it’s been a long time since I’ve used that phrase. Oh, what late hours and little sleep can do to a brain 
Yeesh, when watching that movie while doing homework (ie: barely payin’ attn) and the volume’s down pretty low, it’s freakin’ scary. I hear there’s really a good story in that movie- giving viewers many opportunities to ask why- but holy mother of pearl, why must Frank be so creepy? And why does he have to appear in mirrors? It’s been years since I’ve seen “What Lies Beneath” with Harrison Ford and I still think some message or a ghost is going to appear when I open and close my mirrored medicine cabinet. It’s only a slight twinge of fear, but now every mirror is taunting me. The only remedy I can see is to sit down (with a big group of people, of course) and watch movie. Afterward we can discuss what it all could mean and how Frank is actually a decent guy in need of a chance. If that fails, I’ll just have to spend the next 5 to 7 years waiting for my imagination to calm down whenever I am in front of a mirror by myself.
Wow, 2 days without a full internet connection was TERRIBLE! How does life come to this? Without internet is like losing a limb. I had no connection to friends and family, and I esp. had no connection to YouTube and Google Images for research. This quarter I’m trying to figure out beverage packaging for Angelina Jolie, and concepting without a way to get to know Angelina was tough until Grace kindly asked our neighbor for his internet password. Ever since we got it, it’s been non stop comments about how much we love the internet and being able to cozy up on the couch with our laptops. Angelina and I are finding an understanding so now it’s on to drawing (more like sketching and realizing drawing isn’t my strongest ability).
Another project I am doing is coming up with logos for “Lazy Sundays” and “hearing, not listening.” It’s quite abstract and I’ve been spray painting, using charcoal, ink, glitter pens, and any other random stuff to come up with great textures for a kick ass logo. I haven’t chosen specific companies to do the logos for, but that will come in good time.
On to crafting in this muggy weather. It rained earlier (finally) and now it’s just sticky, but I still refuse to turn on the AC!
Dios mio, let me explain why the internet has not been a big part of my life as of late. My crazy neighbors left and took their unprotected wireless internet service with them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We never knew who was “default” until Tuesday night when unexpectedly my internet wet kaput. Now I have to use my laptop (which I am not used to using so much for the net) and hunker down on the kitchen table to hope for 1-3 bars of service from our school’s wireless. We’re hoping some other dumb people move in next to us so we can mooch again, but if that can’t happen, then we’ll just figure out the new name on the list and ask if we can <gasp> split <tear> the cost <trembling pout> of internet. Le boo hoo. I need a tissue.
Kumquat, Adrian and I made it back to the ATL safe and sound Sunday night. I thought I’d have my Mon. morning shift covered until 11am at the bux, but unfortunately I got called in to work at 7:30am. It went fine, though, being the first day back and all. When I got back from work I got my schedule for this coming quarter. I have four classes. They’re going to be amazing. It’s all about finding the emotional core and coming up with designs off of that connection.
Thursday’s class was such a trip. Instead of meeting at night like usual, we met in the morning. I didn’t mind meeting that early the day after the Fourth because I knew I could sleep more when I got back home. Well, that was a wrong impression. Teach ends class at 10:30am and tells us, okay your first assignment is to make a cd booklet for the cd you told the class earlier (I chose The National’s Alligator)…and it’s due by 2pm TODAY. NOOOOOOOO! With iced coffee flowing through me, and now a slight panic of needing to concept, comp, and finalize in a mere 3.5 hours, my hands were a bit shaky and completely slowed me down since I knew I didn’t need another xacto-sliced fingertip (2 is enough for me). Grace felt the same way. We were running in different directions, but along the same timeline. With an hour left, I had only gotten the 1st page done (and I hated how the type went on the page, but I had to say screw it) and quickly quickly quickly got the other 7 panels done so I could tape it all together, color copy it to get it all on 1 flat page (I collaged birds), cut it out, and turn it in by 2. I was cutting it so close and Audrey called me at 1:50 to see how it all went. I basically shouted over the phone “I’M NOT DONE YET…GOTTA GOOOOO!” Oi, I would’ve loved to have 10 mins to spare…. but it wasn’t in the cards. Grace and I RAN to the teach’s mailbox, dropped off our booklets, and went directly to the pool to calm our nerves. For as much as I was freakin’ out, I secretly loved the experience. It’s like a timed scavenger hunt for your brain, and I love scavenger hunts.
Today I have storytelling and metaphors. It’s the prereq to Hank’s chair class. Wonder if I’ll be doing that during the fall quarter. eeeee!
I don’t think I’ve asked my blogosphere this, so here it goes: WTH is a meme? And what’s “All Your Base” about? I don’t get this comic on xkcd.com and I’d like to. A friend and I were talkin’ meme’s one night and well it was too late to even want to try to understand.
This program is simply amazing. It forges relationships. It brings people together through the common bond of making yourself look as silly as possible. As I round out my Goodbye Tour (le boo hoo), I have sat with my friends and their families to take goofy pictures (check out my flickr page) … and to show off how cool my cute lil’ MacBook is. Oi, there was even one point where I had to use a (cough) dell for a quick sec since I couldn’t get wireless service. I took a picture of myself and how bummed I was. Well, I really can’t complain because I did need to look up how the weather is going to affect my drive back to the ATL. Irregardless…I heart my Mac.
On to a long day’s drive tomorrow! Kumquat…ya ready!?
Kumquat. On one of the many trips to Austin I took this break, I found that my AUX button on my radio, which connects my iPod directly to the speakers, stopped working. I was pretty darn frustrated because it’s a brand new car and I had so much more driving to do that I didn’t want to be without it. When I got back from Austin, I took it directly to the Toyota dealership to see what they could do about it. The guy said that he’d order me a new one and that it should be in before I headed to Waco, but before I got it, he’d have to take down all my car’s information. Understandable. Well, lo and behold he points out that I didn’t have a registration sticker on my car. I had the state inspection, but if I got pulled over by a cop I’d be fined upwards of $250-$300. Yikes! What do I do? I go home and tell my mom and dad. My mom forces me to stop driving the car fearing I could get pulled over and fined (after having driven it around for a week without any incident) and my dad forces me to call the guy that sold me the car to see what he could do about it (ie: take the blame and get me a new one or at least write something I could post in the window sayin’ “It’s not here, but it’s in ATL with all my car’s paperwork- I PROMISE!”). Hesitantly I called the dealership and the guy basically told me I’d have to pay a fine and register for a new one if I couldn’t find it. I quickly started to devise a plan of asking a friend in the ATL to go to the front office of my apt complex and talking with all of them on speaker phone to see if they’d open my apt them. That way they could go through my paper work to look for the car’s sticker and overnight it to me if it was actually there (on my bill, of course). Well, after a whole day is wasted worrying about this thing, I was about to throw in the towel since I wouldn’t be allowed to drive through half of Texas trying to get back to the ATL without it. Then in a last ditch effort, I decided to look in my glove compartment. After rifling through some papers and booklets, what do I find but a taped up envelope. Never having seen it before I open it up and to my surprise there was the stupid sticker. All that drama for nothing.
So days were going by waiting for my new radio to come in, but every chance I got I kept trying to push the AUX button in hopes that it would miraculously work again. A couple days went by to no avail, so I started to just hope that the radio would come in on time before my goodbye tour. I was cleaning my car up getting ready for the long haul and as I was moving the wire that connects my iPod to the radio, it came unplugged. It’d never fallen out so easily, so I decided to plug it back in and give the AUX button another go. Yeah, you can see where this is going. The darn thing worked. Yet even more drama could have been easily dealt with had I thought about making sure the plug was firmly set. Without it having anything plugged into it, the AUX button didn’t have anything to register as incoming information, so it just didn’t flash anything.
Am I an Aggie or what?!
Well, today was the day I started my journey back to the ATL. My goodbye tour started last night with a free concert at The County Line featuring Cory Morrow. He basically rocks and my friends and I had a blast hanging out on the patio, drinkin a couple brewskies, and listenin’ to some good ol’ fash’ned Texas country tunes.
Then this morning I headed to Waco to visit with a friend, but I stopped in Austin for a bit to have breakfast with a friend I hadn’t seen in 3 years. He’s in a band called Whitman and plays the guitar. He’s going to take his band on tour this year starting in LA and hopefully will end up in the ATL some time so I can actually see them live. We had an awesome time talking about life and music, and he got really stoked when I busted out with a song from his band when we were 18 years old. It’s strange to think that was about 6 years ago or so, but I still listen to it when it comes on my iPod. Ah, the good ol’ days.
After driving through torrents of rain, I finally reached Waco an hour late, but still with plenty of time to hang out with my friend and make some crispy tacos for dinner. It would be awesome if she lived in the ATL so I could hang out with her more. I heart her sense of humor and how much of a worry wart she is. Not that I want to be a worry wart- I just like to listen to how worked up she can get over silly things and how easy it is to reason the worry out of her once she talks it through with me.
Tomorrow I’m headin into D-town to spend the last few days with another friend. I get to finally try on my bridesmaid’s dress, too!! Woo woo! Yet another thing to squish into my trunk! As worried as I was before, I will definitely be able to fit Adrian into my car along with his belongings. Whew! My friend will be working in the morning, so I’m going to try and find a Half Price Books to hit up their design section before leaving them behind for a couple months (le boo hoo).
I love Agent Sparks’ website. It has such an awesome mood and combines so many of our quarter’s likings: texture, a personal connection through a journal look, awesome type and watercolors. Goodness I need to learn to do this kind of work.
I don’t like, however, The Futureheads’ website. It’s good in theory, and cool that you can move the different boxes around, but it gets too hard to figure out which layer you’re on and what happened to the one you were looking at before it got a different box placed on top of it.
