hello design blog

I feel like I have been betraying this blog with the introduction of my design blog. (oh yeah, by the way, I now have a design blog) I feel like the design blog is somehow my flesh and blood since I have written the code and manipulated the PHP (a language that before 6 months ago, I knew little about). I still plan on keeping up with this one, if not only for, as it has also presented itself in the past, as a journal of my life, or something like it. My design blog will deal simply with what I am exploring and writing about during my time in grad school. So, Check it out HERE! Let me know what you think!

final review

I finished my first semester of graduate school here at VCU a couple of weeks ago. I can't believe I already have a semester under my belt. Here is a peak at a couple of my final projects.

Documentation of the ideas I have been exploring this semester, given to my instructors.
This was an installation piece created for a class with Mr. Rob Carter, where we were asked to have 50 adventures, one each day for the first 50 days of the semester. We had to have an adventure with an insect, with a cloud, with a camera, with sound, with a pencil... and so on. At the end of the semester we were asked to present an archive in multi-modal form. This mobile of sorts suspended in my studio in front of a window, it spun on the bicycle wheel and I had a video camera looking up from the inside and displaying on the opposite wall, while a sound piece was playing constructed from sounds collected from my adventures.
This is an art book describing a narrative that Kyle wrote. That Kyle, so multi-tallented!

Have a wonderful holiday... see you next year!

wait. wait.

and this one is called...

weather

my interpretation

of a feather... maybe

inspiration for today

OMG!!!!

WHY have I never hear of this?

i must, i must, i must, etc.

reverie

–noun
1. a state of dreamy meditation or fanciful musing.
2. a daydream.
3. a fantastic, visionary, or impractical idea: reveries that will never come to fruition.
4. Music. an instrumental composition of a vague and dreamy character.

That is my word for the day, and now I will use it in a sentence:

Yesterday I was lost in reverie while walking, with the thoughts of how different clouds must have appeared 100... 500... 1,000 years ago. They had to be different, with a changing environment and ozone and earth temperatures... 

When I left the building after my workday, I was greeted by these guys. These have to be year 2009 clouds... they seem somehow, digitized.

Thank you iphone for helping me again document the sky.

  

confession/obsession
its that time of year when the fruit & veggies at the grocery store start looking and tasting awesome! My personal favorites so far, white peaches and red grapes.

I have a method for eating most things.  

With the grapes I really like to peel the skin off with my teeth, just half of the skin though, then I obsess over the beautiful paring of the contrasting colors; the red of the skin and the pale green of the fruit. when it has been sufficiently admired, I pop it in my mouth, and enjoy the texture of the peeled grape on my tongue.

Stay tuned, and maybe tomorrow i'll describe how I eat a peach, or better yet... ice cream. btw, written sarcasm is not my forte, I am much better at the tone-of-voice sarcasm which is not as clearly detected thru this medium.

life is a whirlwind... and I am spinning

I have been a bad blogger recently, partially due to the fact that I have SO MANY THINGS TO DO these days. Often when we lay our heads down at night K and I discuss how there just aren't enough hours in the day... I hate this feeling. We are getting ready for the Diamond Center tour which starts next Friday, and the amount of things that have to be in order before leaving for 2 weeks can be a little overwhelming! 

These images are from a shoot I did a couple weeks ago of a family that I have known for years. Their mother was one of the first designers I worked with after finishing my undergrad! These 3 kiddos are adorable... A-dorable! Here are a few of my favorites from the shoot.

bags galore!

In 2 weeks from friday my band The Diamond Center is leaving on a 2 week tour of the East Coast and Midwest... wooo hoooo! 

Trying to think of things that we can sell on the road to generate more cash-flow for the ever-rising gas prices, I came up with the idea to make Diamond Center tote bags! Its been a blast re-connecting with the sewing machine (the last time I used it was when I was in 4-H as a youngster) AND not to mention designing the bags. I decided to use found fabric, so the bags are 99% reclaimed and recycled! (the thread is new)  I debuted the bags at our CD release show here in Lubbock last week and they were a hit! Hopefully the rest of the country will think the same.

K also has something in the works that he is creating to sell... more on that yummy surprise soon!

To see if The Diamond Center will be hitting your neck-of-the-woods, check out our tour schedule at our rockin' new site over HERE.

GO VOTE!

i did...and early to boot!

This morning I was led to tomorrow design thru on of my favorite blogs, grain edit. You can purchase this awesome silkscreened poster there OR you can download it and print and distribute or post as many as you desire, FOR FREE. People with a passion make me happy, it gives me hope. 

o dylan

I recently started really listening to, and appreciating Bob Dylan. A couple of years ago Kyle bought me Blonde on Blonde, and I instantly fell in love, although I recognized a hand full of songs from being obsessed with the "oldies" radio station as a child. This was Dylan's first "electric" album, and a departure from his folk albums which his audience had grown to love him for. Last night I spent some time listening to Bringing It All Back Home which came before Blonde on Blonde (with Highway 61 Revisited between the two) which is a great album and worth a good listen even for a non Dylan lover.

Thinking about Dylan reminded me of 3 things

1- This poster which is probably the most famous image by graphic design legend Milton Glaser. This poster came folded and enclosed in the sleeve of the Bob Dylan Greatest Hits  album released in 1967-ish

side note: Glaser also designed the  "I (heart) New York" logo in 1973 for the new york state department of commerce. It became the most frequently imitated logo design in human history... yea that's right!

2- This awesome (and fun) book created by Frank Chimero, where he compares his sihouette to a couple of other famous ones (including Bob Dylan). Good Fun.

AND

3- Im Not There the 2oo7 film where 6 characters embody a different aspect of Dylan's life and work including Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Richard Gere, and Heath Ledger, just to name a few. I had the pleasure of seeing  the film last Christmas while in Athens, at CINE. It was not widely released in theaters, I think it only showed in Austin for the whole state of Texas! BUT it is worth seeing... and I know net flix has it so check it out!

...and that concludes my randomness about Bob Dylan for the day.

awesomeness overload

Now this is what i'm talkin about. Herman Miller with a wonderful visual map about discovering design with so much history and wonderful info your head might explode.

design identity crisis

I'm a graphic designer, and I love graphic design BUT I just realized that I don't even have one post about anything design related on this here blog, what a loser I am. Well maybe I'm not a looser, just a total spaz that has problems balancing my addictions (photography, music, design) After purchasing my Nikon Digital SLR I was incredibly obsessed with everything photography, and while I still have a healthy obsession my attention has been shifted. I have been immersing myself in design related things recently, ideas, theory, crafts, handmade things, painters, illustrators, creators, thinkers, schools, you know the good stuff. I have been excitably overwhelmed. Here is something that I have stumbled upon, and become inspired by.


These pieces of work come from ATMOSTHEORY the one-man design studio of Christopher David Ryan... a Brooklyn-based graphic artist.

I have had some weird re-occurring themes developing in my mind about the relation of design and music (my other obsession) Recently 3 names keep popping up in random places. David Bryne (talking heads) Brian Eno, and David Bowie. There has to be some connection between them and where I should be focusing my creative thoughts. hmmmm.... any thoughts?