What Do you Wanna Do?

People who know what I'm studying always seem to ask me:

"What do you want to do when you're done school?" 

Now, I've always been a go with the flow kind of person, but isn't it better that way? I don't want to make plans for the future when anything could happen. However, I always thought it would be ideal to combine my favourite things together to guarantee my lifelong happiness. One thing I'm passionate about is video games. I'm that girl that loses it when game releases are pushed back, and as someone who also likes to illustrate, I naturally fall in love with concept art and the story and atmosphere behind everything. In a perfect world, I would work for a gaming magazine. That way I could always be in the know about new games, and be designing at the same time. In a euphoric world, I would own a gaming magazine, as well as illustrate concept art for video games of the future. I'm getting way too excited about this, I should really stop.

New Photoshop Function

As a photoshop user/junkie, I was ecstatic to find out that there was a new photoshop trick in town. You can now share your screen with other people while you're working. This makes it possible to have live tutorials around the world, and you can invite anyone to join you who has an acrobat.com account. I'm beyond excited about this, seeing as I am a photoshop enthusiast, and when other people struggle with it or hate on it, I always want to help them out, considering I know it's potential and all that it can do when you use it properly.

This can also be an invaluble teaching tool. I assume one would be able to set up a photoshop class and only invite the "students" into the seminar. This allows anyone with an internet connection to learn, or collaborate over distances that would otherwise make it difficult.

In short, this is amazing. I'll let you know when I'm raking it in.

To do this, go to Choose File>Share my screen>log in

Enjoy :)

The Genius of Riccardo Tisci

For a packaging project we're currently working on, I decided to base my design off of a perfume box. The point of the project is to package something intangible, and be able to sell the package, without there being anything inside of it. While looking at some perfume boxes, one link led to another and I stumbled across the work of Riccardo Tisci. He's a fashion designer, but between his life and his career I found him to be extremely inspirational.

Riccardo was born in Taranto, Italy, and attended London's Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, and worked for companies like Puma, Coccapani, Ruffo Research before working for Givenchy's men section. He gets inspiration from his home, which is mythologically associated with marines and mermaids.

I find a lot of his life more inspirational than the work itself, however. Living in a smaller town in Ontario, it's somewhat difficult to find inspiration, as terrible as that sounds. Living in the same place my whole life makes it a little difficult to find anything that will get the creative gears going. Riccardo inspired me to look into the history of my city, which proved very interesting!

The other aspect of his life that stuck with me was that when he was offered the position as head of men's wear at Haute Couture (Givenchy), he almost declined. However, his mother called him to tell him that she was selling the house and moving into a retirement home in order to support her daughters, who were having financial difficulties. Heartbroken, he took the job and helped her stay at home, sacrificing his dream of starting his own fashion line, and helping his loved ones in need.

Though not on the same scale as his situation, I find inspiration in his ability to put others before him despite his desires, and did what he had to do. Though I enjoy graphic design, it is my ultimate goal to help my parents for all of the good they have done for me over the years. Riccardo learned a lesson in selflessness (very loose term considering how much the guy makes, but money does not make people happy, right?) and did something he didn't want to do in order to help someone he loves, and I hope I can do the same if necessary.

I realize in hindsight this blog was barely design related. Whoops.

App Coolness

Now, if you're anything like me, you love technology. I love all the new gadgets that come with new phones, glasses that record video, etc. I always thought "what else can they do?" and I get surprised every time. Over the weekend, I discovered a really cool (and free) app called Internet Map (by peer 1 hosting). This app is all about the internet itself, and on initial startup it shows a globe, and for every internet connection on the planet, there is a coloured dot.

This is absolutely amazing, seeing as I can click on any one of those dots and see where they connect to in the world. We can see what countries are the most active on the internet, and the colourful little clusters show this visually. You can also search individual connections, such as "Conestoga College", and i'll get a little dot showing all the connections.

There is also an alternate view, called "Network view", where it breaks up the connections from most prominent to the individual people on their computers. On top of all this, you can see the density of the internet connections change under the History section. Milestones in history like the launches of Wikipedia, YouTube, Facebook, etc. show the multitude of little dots grow exponentially.

In short, this app is very cool, and I recommend you get it.

Images from google

Homer Watson-Street or Feat?

Dear Internet,

As I live in Kitchener, Ontario, I thought it may be nice to reflect on the local historical buildings. One such building is the Homer Watson Art Gallery on Old Mill Road, right down the street from my school (Homer Watson is also the street that my school is off of). When reading up on the history of this  place, I found out a few interesting things about Homer Watson and his art career.

• Homer Watson was a founding member of the Canadian Art Club
• While touring Canada, Oscar Wilde met with Watson and sent him letters, his name for him being "the Canadian Constable" comparing his style to the famous painter
• In 1880 he sold The Pioneer Mill to Queen Victoria, and it is still in the royal archives

Culturally this house is a piece of local history, and in the memory of the late Homer Watson, all manners of art classes are taught here, and the house can be rented for photographers seeking a more vintage background. I find it amazing that they continue his tradition in his old home as he would have wanted, to carry on the spirit of Canadian arts in a cozy environment rich with history.

Photos from http://www.homerwatson.on.ca/

Toasty

Dear Internet,


I love little things that make my day a little cuter/funnier. I love how a car's lights and grills look like faces, or how electrical outlets look like a surprised face. When these things can double as something useful, you got me. One such example is the Toasty USB hub and 4 GB sticks.

Each of these toasty little buggers is 4GB, and the hub has 4 ports as well as a micro SD card reader. Perfect. The hub being $29.99 and each of the toasties being $24.99, it was a little pricey. However, when I headed over to thinkgeek.com I found them on sale! I am now the proud owner of a toaster hub and butta toast, which will make my long days at school that much toastier.

Buy them while they're still on sale! http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/ee91/

Favourite TYPE of Music?

For an illustration book I am currently working on, I am taking a series of my favourite Metallica songs and creating a storyline from the lyrics, and illustrating the story. But as such, I needed to come up with a typeface that would adequately represent the sinister tone that most Metallica songs seem to be imbued with. This is what I came up with:

This font is called ladanse-but I particularly think it reflects the song captioned for a few reasons:

1. It is handwritten-I find handwritten fonts are ones that have a more human feel to them, and can convey the emotions of the "writer"
2. The scrawled quill and ink appearance of this typeface gives it the appearance of an old-time sailor or scientist, which directly relates to the lyrics:

"Hybrid children watch the sea, pray for father roaming free"

3. The higher ascenders and irregularity in the weight of the font shows a sense of urgency-as if the person writing it is afraid or in impending danger.