Grunt Work

“Majesty Blue” by Jefferey Terreson

So I’ve recently, in fact just today, began working as a studio assistant for local painter and family friend Jefferey Terreson.  I just graduated with my Bachelors of Fine Arts degree this past Saturday, so this is certainly a welcomed opportunity.  It’s great to watch someone work and be able to help with the studio.  Currently I’m washing brushes, but, in the future, I’m hoping to possibly be included in the delivery of Jefferey’s artwork and maybe be able to watch him set up a show?  I’m not sure if those opportunities are really going to present themselves, but for now I’d like to think they will.

I think it is important to work as a studio assistant at one time or another.  It’s great to get an idea of how other artists are living and working to support themselves.  Some artists may have more rigorous stories of how they came to be successful than others, but no matter what an artist has been through, it is an amazing opportunity to listen to their path.  There is so much to learn from and take away from working artists, commercial and fine art alike.  It’s the same as with keeping up with your professors from college.  They are full of advice and past experience that if you ask, you’re likely to get an answer to something.

So for you art majors out there, don’t lose track of your field.  Keep in touch with professors, try to get to know artists working in this market, and keep your eyes open.  Watch how they handle things, ask questions, listen carefully.  This way you are sure to pick up tid-bits that you might otherwise find out “the hard way”.

Color Schemes…

Valentines Card by Adam Rosenlund

Lately I’ve been contemplating my skills as a colorist.  I used to be able to handle color schemes and color theory rather well on instinct.  But for the past few semesters I’ve come to realize that my grasp on color is rather shallow.  I feel as though I no longer know how to use it at all!
I enjoy limited palettes such as this poster by Adam Rosenlund.  I think that the dramatic use of a limited color palette can have much more impact than the bold use of crazy palette.  I would like to get a better handle this and use it for my postal service branding and packaging.  We’ll see!  I’ll need to do a lot of research and studying-up on color theory.

Everything is Designed…

Door Tag by Alexandra FitzGerald

…from your socks to your hair-ties.  I forgot this lesson recently and re-learned it when my father asked me to create a door tag for his new office.  For some reason I was stumped by something so simple.  I thought I had to do some sort of illustration or something with ships and battles; but Google images yielded nothing usable.  After an hour or so of frustrated image searching I remembered something I learned this past summer at ArtsWestchester as their Graphic Design intern.

I was in the office one day, helping out with the usual design tasks, when my internship adviser asked me to create a simple sign telling people that the gallery continued upstairs.  I thought, “Alright, no big deal.  Give me the type and I’ll slap it on a word document for ya”  Well, that isn’t exactly what they wanted.  Vanessa, my adviser, took one look at the document and shot me an email (she works remotely) asking me to try something else.  The next email I got asked me to go back through and look at my alignments and placement of text.  Then it clicked…what the heck was I doing?!  I’m a design intern, right?!  I need to be designing!  Just because this was a rinky-dink sign telling people to go upstairs, didn’t mean that I could just abandon my design principles!!  So I actually started to pay attention to what I was doing.  I designed that little sign like it was nobody’s business!

After that embarrassing lapse of designer judgement I came to two conclusions:
1) Everything is designed
2) Sometimes the most ridiculously simple tasks can be the hardest.
When you’re used to pushing yourself, to designing logos and developing brand identities, solving complex hierarchical issues and spatial relationships, the basics can become a challenge.  You think, “What the heck can I do with this?  It’s just a sign telling people they can go upstairs” But in reality that sign is still designed.  It’s got to look nice, lead peoples’ eyes to the right information, be professional and clean.
Nowadays people type out signs like it’s just the words that count.  But viewers are going to walk right past your “poster” without batting an eye.  Why?  Because it looks unprofessional and immature.  Nobody wants to deal with that or even bother reading it.  It’s got to scream, “Hey!  I want you to read this!  Look at me and give me a chance!”  By simply designing it well, putting some sort of effort into it, you already have a decent poster or sign.

So I remembered, when designing the door tags for my father, that it can’t just be a name on a piece of paper.  It’s got to actually say something.  This man is a retired merchant marine captain, he’s a bit of a rough professor, but he knows what he’s talking about.  Respect the ship’s captain, those four gold bands actually mean something.  I think the door tag looks relatively nice.  I liked the one I had before (it was just the stripes and ship’s wheel instead of an anchor), but the strips I was using were the European merchant mariner stripes.  So changes were made…and Popeye appeared…

It’s all in the Metaphor!

buyit sellit Logo

I’ve been working on my postal service logo these past few days but I’ve been a bit stumped by it.  So I decided to do a web search for some successful logos and one of my search queries led me to a Disgnrfix.com page.  The page was all about how the metaphor is something that can really make a logo successful.  This image I’ve posted is my favorite example they gave.  It is so clever, so simple, and so effective.  At first glance you see the iconic shopping cart, but then you notice the arrows suggesting the buy and sell part of the game.  So simple!  But can you imagine how many thumbnails this designer must have gone through?!  The prep for something as “simple” as this is huge and you could never tell.  It feels so effortless, so “right”!
This article definitely gave me a clearer idea of what I should be working towards.  I feel a bit less stressed and started looking at my designs from another angle.  Like how I can’t believe I never noticed how the successful logos are completely integrated with their type.  I always seem to think of the type as an obstacle, something that “I guess I need in there”.  I did the same thing in drawing when I was younger (even just two years ago!) where the background was always an afterthought.  I never thought about composing it or working it in, it was always a last minute element that I would grudgingly consider.  But the background is just as important as the foreground.  In fact, if the background’s unsuccessful then there goes the whole drawing!  The same goes for type.  Font, placement, everything is so essential.  How could I have ever ignored it?! Well, good thing my eyes have been truly awakened.

Let’s Design!! (now for pugs…)

It's Pug Time!

Lathered up

Lather Me Soap by Emily Soo

I was just complaining to Shawna about how I wasn’t exactly feeling my book cover idea as a complete body of work for the BFA show.  I think this can be pushed aside as an additional project later, but it’s not something that should get my full attention right now.  Instead, as we were messaging one another, I mentioned how I was still stuck on the idea of creating a company.  I’m intersting in building it from scratch with the branding identity, graphics, ads, posters, etc.  We threw out a few ideas such as the coffee house, a pet bakery and then a postal service.
I really love the idea of the postal service!  I think that creating the name, logo, stationary, boxing, stamps, etc. would all be diverse enough to keep it interesting and challenging enough to push me.  So I’ve been trying to find designers on the internet who have done something like this, or even just made beautiful stationery.  I stumbled upon this lovely soap design, as a result, and just had to post it!  It is such a sweet and simple design and reflects the direction I’d like my postal service to go.  Really natural and elegant, but accessible.  I’d really love to be able to pull this off in as effortless a design as Emily Woo.  I have yet to hash this idea out, it may fall through like the book covers, but give me until tomorrow and then we’ll see what’s up.

Side note, the Swedish original of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is really freaking awesome!  Thanks free 90-day trial of Amazon Prime; free video streaming was a sweet idea.

The Design Life

Coralie Bickford-Smith

I’ve recently become obsessed with these beautiful, classically re-designed book covers.  Penquin books did a series of them for classics such as Jane Eyre and Alice in Wonderland.  I look at these beautiful pieces of design and suddenly recall all of the wonderful books I’ve read over time and how half of them had covers that made me want to hide the book!  Specifically the Kushiel Legacy and its subsequent series by Jacqueline Carey.  These books are so masterful in their world building, character development,  plot complexity…but you would never know by looking at the covers.  For most of the covers I wanted to hide the book, fearing it would be too sexual an image for my 10-13 year-old campers to see!
As a result of all this hemming and hawing I’ve done about covers I think that I may do a cover re-design series for my Graphic Design area in the BFA show.  I will focus on the Kushiel Legacy books, maybe choosing just the first trilogy to work with.  My eye is immediately attracted to these sleek and classy book covers like Coralie Bickford-Smith’s designs for F. Scott Fitzgerald.  But at the same time Shawna is sort of pushing me to go sexual like these beautiful book covers by Robert McGinnis which I totally love.  I’m torn between my illustrative abilities and my desire to create something “classic” and completely non-sexual!  Any suggestions?!

Logo Lamentation

The Yeti

I have been working on a logo for a sports club at Plattsburgh all this break.  I can’t seem to get it done!  The client and I have been bouncing back and forth on ideas and revisions but there is constant revision, I feel like I can’t get it right.
In the beginning I had trouble getting started and thinking the idea through properly.  It’s so hard to get myself into full-on design mode outside of the proper environment (i.e. my house is not the place for great ideas…what am I going to do upon graduation?!).  But I think it’s getting a bit better, plus I’ve been using my friend Shawna as a sounding board.  She’s a great designer and has an awesome critical eye so her help is pretty invaluable.

I just hope I can get this logo done and be proud of the results!  Woohoo experience!

Resolution Revolution

I’ve neglected this blog for one month too many.  To revamp myself I’ve updated the layout and started to figure out some of the wordpress.com features.  I’ve also officially resolved to actually write and update, seeing as this is my last semester of college!  Scary, right?

But armed with this knowledge and an acute awareness of today’s job market, I’ve decided to spend this break on the hunt.  No, not the hunt for cute little animals or anything like that, but for jobs.  And for inspiration to beef up my portfolio.  Hours have been poured into creating job profiles on LinkedIn, onewire, monster, etc. and even more into updating my portfolio on several platforms, making it look sleeker and cutting unnecessary work.  Last, but most certainly not least, hours have been eaten up by perfecting my artist’s resume.  Anyone who has attempted to write an artists resume (or any résumé) will know what horrible mental pain goes into this process.  The stress, the insecurity, the completely overwhelming amount of information….and then you look at the thing and go, “Damn…I need to cut this to one page…”
So yeah, that’s been my winter break so far.

Too Big

Everything lately is either Big or Too Big.  No, this is not sexual innuendo.  I feel as though every task I try to complete just gets out of control, unattainable.  From getting to know all of my residents to planning programs.  I can’t seem to wrap my mind around anything and I’m constantly confused.  Which way is up?!

This state of mind I seem to have gotten myself into is also effecting my ability to assess myself and my art.  I don’t know where to start or what to do.  Do I want to go to graduate school?  Do I look for a job?  What do I put in the BFA show?  Do I have anything GOOD enough for the BFA show?  How will I be able to make enough decent pieces to even stand out at the show?  or to simply BE in it?  I have lost my confidence for everything, it seems.  Part of me wants to go home and have the lazy summer I never had…but then again, this is me we’re talking about.  I don’t do lazy, right?  Who are we kidding, I barely do down time! I think I just need time to slow down for a little while.  Give me like an extra 10 hours a day for the next week and I might feel better.

I wish I could do lazy for a few days.

Bulldozing

I have worked my backside off lately.

Since last semester (but even more so since January), I have non-stop created and worked and taken charge.  I feel as though I am bulldozing, blazing my way into the history of Plattsburgh, and I’m likin’ it!!  The only downside would be the impending exhaustion that takes over my body by Wednesday afternoon.  I’m getting so much work done that I do not want to stop but my body is not a fan of this mind-set.  Now I’m feeling overwhelmed because my Photography I professor assigned us 2 projects due for Monday (3 prints, a 36 exposure roll processed and have contact sheets made) on top of ceramics work, finishing my drawing for Wednesday as well as my ArtsWestchester brochure for the same day, a mediation to lead Thursday and a show to hang tomorrow!  Photo wants our first Hockney roll taken by Wednesday so she can check our narrative but I have no idea how I’m going to get it done by then with all these other time-intensive things going on @_@ Whooooooa, boy…I need to slow this ship down or else I’m gonna crash!

On the brighter side?  All this work is paying off!  I’m in 2 exhibitions, I sold one of my drawings to an important area painter, I got an internship for the summer at ArtsWestchester on the graphic design team, and my organizational skills are very much improved!  It’s for these reasons and more that I feel this exhausting schedule is paying off   Hopefully I can recuperate from this mess of a week on Saturday…if I can make it till then!