You are currently browsing the monthly archive for February, 2009.
My ear is clear! Forget any doubts that I’ve ever had about ear drops. Damn that shit works!
Midterm week wasn’t bad. Have a Modernism midterm this Tuesday. Had a lot of revisions to do for Mikios. Leonard liked my designs for GD1. Basics of Photo was good, but need a subject now to shoot a portraiture. And Soady’s was good, but I messed up on the assignment for tagline and logos so I have to redo.
I’ve gotten a complacent as of late. I really need to push it in the next several weeks. I postponed my trip to Amsterdam until next term when my friends Roland and Marie move to France. Hopefully my parents will sponsor my trip. We’ll see… Either way, I’m looking out for another trip. Preferably outside the country, can’t just take week out in LA. Need to get out. Maybe I’ll take a road trip to Seattle or something.
Mikio said something along the line like if we every need a good “love” tag line or copy, to listen to country love songs. Here’s one I love…
So I’m tired as fuck today because I stayed up all night. Mid-terms already and things have gotten a little sucky.
My right ear is clogged up so I can barely hear anything out of it. I don’t know if this is from compacted earwax, an infection, a cold, or what. All I know is that i’ve been eye dropping some earwax cleaner down the eartube for the past couple days and it since has not cleared up. I do hear this popping noise going on so I assume it’s working. Im using it for inspiration for my Miracle Ear campaign.
Other than than, I’m exhausted all the way through. I need to sleep for like 8 hour or something.
I took a stroll today at school. I didn’t mean to take one. I actually had to return a book to the library that was close to becoming overdue.
After, I wandered the corridors and wound up on the bridge. There I paused, leaving the sound of my flapping Chucks echoless in the empty hallway. Taking in all the soft sunlight reflecting off the trees on the landscape, I saw the road twist and heard the gentle hum of cars arriving and leaving. It was silent, except for the soft chirps of birds and lingering smell of wet grass on the lawn. I leaned against the black metal railing as I stared out into some beautiful infinity, smiling.
The whole experience was humbling and calming. I thought for a moment on the words from my friend Dawn, when she said on her blog, “I always forget how much I love art center.” For me, this was one of those times.
So in that case, IT’S SHITTY BUM TIME!!!
Here’s this classic track straight outta the NL from the very funky C-Mon & Kypski boyeeeeeeeee…
Pop culture people! By now you’ve probably heard all the highlights of the bizarre interview with Joaquin Phoenix on Letterman. Here’s the whole interview so you can see for yourself:
…When the image of a white woman peddling last-minute contraception pills hit the surface. Found this on a website while looking for, ah, doing some research. Okay, maybe it’s not exactly a gang sign, but in the referential context–yes it is. She does throw it up! Just have her put on some lokes and a bandanna, grow out the mustache and this girl’s perfect! (Don’t mind me, I’m just being stereotypical.)
I have some slight quams with the Art Direction however. Didn’t read the “Be…” tag at first; it looked like, “E…” Perhaps they should have connected the hand to the letter, yea? Or quite possibly have rounded the fingers more? I don’t know where to put that block that looks like it’s choking her neck. Other than that, it’s clean, good composition and balance.
Saw this ad in Runner’s World that totally made me say, “What?!” It was so bad that I had to post. I get the central idea about “breaking records legally”, but could they have come up with a better tag? They also could have executed it better; could have even had more fun with it! Probably playing off of everyone else in a race cheating with various contraptions and devices and the only one ahead being the one with Skins on. The problem with this ad is that the product is not the hero. I’m not saying it always needs to be, but there could be an attempt. Plus the copy doesn’t connect with the picture. “Another fine performance from a roided-up jackass.” Awesome. But in this case, show me a guy that I don’t want to be. The person I’m seeing here is fit, athletic, and handsome. Showing this person makes me want to be this person! It’s not selling me. Plus the copy sounds bitter and jealous and on top of all things there’s an ASTERISK! WTF? Get me with a line that works instead of a bitter sentiment. Seems like this is first attempt and wasn’t thought out as much. Shitty ad. They should hire an ad agency or get a better one next time. 
This week was not bad. In fact, I think that it has been the first week where I had more of a hold on things time wise. Looks like my new and improved system of time management is working out for me. Shame that I didn’t think of it sooner.
Monday’s Big Picture Lecture was interesting. We had Dr. Alison Reteln from USC come to speak with us on cultural rights; how international law and precedent has guaranteed this and why its important to have. Admittedly, it was a step away from art, Art, ART, ART! or design, Design, DESIGN, DESIGN!!! It was more of a left-brained subject matter with a right brained idea of application. Left brained in that it involved law and legal precedent; right in that the idea of rights to culture itself was abstract and changing.
We didn’t have Intro to Mod on Tuesday so I got to sleep in a bit. AdCon with Mikio was not bad. I presented my information on Arnold which he said wasn’t bad. He liked some of my sentiments on NCL, and Sur La Table was not bad; both ads have to be worked out a bit. He seemed positive about the class as a whole, which is a good. I know I could push it even harder. I was so embarrassed last week by my NCL stuff. So embarrassed in fact that I think I subconsciously left my shitty comps up there for the other classes to see. I was looking for them that morning in da lab and was surprised to find them still stuck on the wall. All the classes in that room had to see them. God that sucked! haha Our next assignment is an ad for Miracle Ear. Our objective is for aging folks to feel good about a hearing aid. Another challenge.
Konopelski liked my Rachmaninoff Tees on Wednesday. He had no crit really. I don’t know if that’s bad or good. It tells me that its good. After we had lecture about seeing the design in everyday influences. Interesting as the inspiration behind our next project will be things that are important to us and diving into its history or meaning. That’s gonna be fun and a bit of a psyche thing as well.
I spent the rest of Wednesday printing out my pictures for basics of photo. I accidentally chopped someone else’s negs by mistake. I thought it was mine. Glad I caught it in time. Am I expecting to be fucked with? Absolutely. My prints came out pretty good. Like I stated earlier, I’m steady falling in love with photography. My prints weren’t bad although I did fuck up on one part of the assignment. We were supposed to use a shutter speed priority switching between fast shutter speed and slow shutter. The result would entail to things: for fast, a freeze in time and for slow, a blur of time. The fast shutter I knocked out the box, no problem; I took a picture of a flowing fountain and I was set. However when it came to the slow shutter the frame I wanted to print, the picture I wanted to print was actually REALLY clear, something that was indicated otherwise from the proof. So I had to pick a last minute blurry one. Long and boring story short, I need to redo the assignment.
Art Direction 2 was cool. We saw some samples of Paul’s work as well as some examples from Baitley ads and the new Archive. He critted our comps from last week. This week we had to present a fantasy project of combining to elemental object. I had a fountain pen and a Harley Davidson. I plan on taking those picts soon.
Anyway, is it happy hour yet? Late.
No, this is not about to become a tabloid blog! But in light of the Chris Brown Rihanna incident, Wigley’s has decided to suspend the Chris Brown commercials until further notice. Here’s the commercial in question:
For more info on the Chris Brown / Rihanna incident go to TMZ or your local tabloid revue.
Been doing some research on NCL for one of my project and needed to get into a teary mood. From the move Chances Are. If you have never seen this then you wouldn’t know any of the back story, but it’s about love had, lost, then found again through reincarnation! Of all things…
Anyway, this is my one of my favorite scenes of all time.
2:30 – Crickets
2:37 – Niagara Falls, literally
I’ve decided that I want to teach one day.
Teaching is important. And no, you don’t have to have a professional degree, or credentials in teaching in order to teach someone. The simplest ways to teach are just as valid whether that is helping a classmate, colleague, or client in order to understand anything.
I had an impromptu brainstorming session with a classmate Jim James recently. The exchange of ideas is a powerful thing and we got things done by simply playing racket ball with our brains. I find that most of the time, the ideas at my school are protected, like a precious porcelain egg. Like Mel and Mikio say, “Ideas are cheap!” There are plenty of them. A lot of the students see other students as competition, which is not bad; it actually raises the awareness and quality of work. But another important hurdle to get over is seeing each other also, as colleagues.
So I found it quite refreshing to come up with ideas together. And later that night I pointed out a simple street sign that had a good example of good design. Sure, its not a prada-esque design you would see in CA or Archive, but it holds weight, even to get its simple, civic message across. I would point out that this NO PARKING sign was designed to inform in the most uniquest of ways, with its primary, secondary, and tertiary significance or art direction; how each element was carefully planned in order for the viewer to completely understand its significance immediately. He seemed quite amazed.
We took a field trip for Paul Soady’s class today to the Clark Library, a private library near Western in Mid-Town. The library is a private collection belonging to UCLA. There, we caught a little bit of lost Los Angeles history of William-Clark, entrepreneur, philanthropist and collector, and his contributions as one of the early Los Angeles society-elite. Our guide, Bruce, made the tour more pleasurable by slecting specific works of first editions. The library is AMAZING, and it’s book collection is superb. We got to see a pre-Gutenberg Bible, an actual page from a Gutenberg bible; some type extraordinary books from Gill (Gill Sans), Baskerville; A lot of first edition Canterbury Tales; even a first-edition Shakespeare worth $6 MILLION. All in all, very interesting place. Best thing about it is that it is FREE to view everyday from 9am-5pm, but be sure to check out http://www.humnet.ucla.edu/humnet/clarklib/ for correct times.
Other than that, I have been pretty busy with work this week and feel quite exhausted.
I developed film in a darkroom for the first time this week. I must admit that I have a new-found respect for photographers and their craft! Everyone in the photolab was quite helpful and nice which was very cool. They’re just as accepting that I was a newbie and very open to questions. The lab instructor Peter was very helpful in bringing out my prints, which came out too dark because the negative was thin. I wasted an entire packet of print paper just experimenting and trying to get the print out. It taught me a great number of things tho–like, how the image is in the negative, patience with film, careful handling, taking my time around chemincals..haha. I joked with my boy Jimmy James that I thought the class will make me into a better lover because I had to be so careful and exacting. At the end, I’m glad I made that many mistakes in the print to finally get it right. After all, my prints came out pretty good!
Miko’s class was ill this week. I felt exhausted after the weekend and my comps came out REALLY SHITTY. Now we have to finish up two campaigns with different three variations of each campaign. That’s SIX COMPS PEOPLE!!!! It takes me a week to do three. I feel I’m pretty comfortable with the pressure tho and being in Mikio’s class has really given me a wake up call. Its kind of hard to explain; you just have to be there to know what I’m talking about. For me, Mikio’s class really begs to answer the question, “Do you REALLY want to be in Advertising?” Then asks again, “Do you REALLY WANT to be in Advertising?” Finally, it commands you, “Okay, then show me.” The funny thing is that its not just the comp work, but it’s also the RESEARCH that’s important. I try not to see it as such a dreaded, laborious task. It’s research into a field that’s got 40+ years on us. And as Mikio puts it (and I paraphrase), “If you can’t fall in love with the research, then what’s the point?” Then he goes on to quote Roland Young, “Do you GET IT?” Yes sir, I do! He seems to genuinely care about each and every one of us.
Other than that, the rest of the week has been oddly routine, just work work work. I started scheduling how much time I can allocate to each project, and started calculating my work hours every week. I don’t know why I didn’t do that sooner despite what Elaina and the other staff and instructors have told us. It really helps project how many hours I need to work on something. The funny thing is that I usually do this with design projects. I just don’t know why I’ve never gotten that into it with schoolwork. But live and learn my friends! I’ve cut down significantly on freelance as well allocating more time for school. I had to recently drop a project because I realized that I would not have enough time for school.
Superbowl commercials were not that great. Honestly the only one that stood out for me was the Career Builder commercial, and I usually think those are dumb! Well, just goes to show you that despite this failing lack of talent in the industry, I will always have a job!
