I 've in M.I.A. because . . .

• I interviewed for a great intership opportunity at a printing/design company. I think it went ok - the work they do is much more corporate than the stuff in my book. I don't know how many people they interviewed, I thought that I was one of a few people who knew about this, but I think they may have posted it on Craigs List from the stack of resumes on the person's desk. Oh well, I'll just have to wait and see!!

• I have been steadily working, not thrilled what I have been coming up with, but I keep going.

I am going to post the book I have been working on, its the first draft, I am in the process of refining it, I don't really like this version.

I don't love the illustration, I spent a LOT of time perfecting it but as I said before I am a decent illustrator at best. I know my friend will love it so from a sentimental viewpoint it is successful, but I am not satisfied with it from a design perspective. I am going to put it to rest for a couple of days, focus on my other pieces, and look at it with fresh eyes.

I tried to use Lulu for the first time to print out the book, but encountered a lot of problems. I am going to bind the book using the handy book binding instructions Genevieve gave us, and once class is over try to do the Lulu thing again. As a handmade gift, a hand bound book is a good gift and it gives me some practice, but I think I would like to use Lulu for other portfolio pieces in the future.

For those who don't know what Lulu is, its once of those self publishing sites. Another one is Blurb, but I haven't really explored this one as much.

Thanks guys!!

You guys are so cute!! Love the suggestions, they are very helpful.

I am going to upload the files to Lulu on Sunday at the latest. That way I will receive it on the 8th giving me enough time to mail it to Beth by the 14th, her anniversary and the last day that I am able to give her a wedding present without causinng bad luck ;) As of now, the book is illustrated, and I am in the process of painting the illustrations with watercolor.

I decided that I am going to send her a fairly straightforward version and keep working on the book as a design piece. I love the ideas for mediums that you guys suggested and I am going to check out the sites.

Hope to have something uploaded by Thursday or Friday.

I am not making excuses.

This is just where I am.

I won't be coming to class today. Since Friday morning when I woke up to now (Wednesday at 6:22 a.m.), I have spent every free minute I had working on a pet project. It is a pet project because it a wedding/anniversary gift for a friend, and it is in children's book form. I love children's books, and obviously I love this particular friend to put some much love into a gift for her.

I am illustrating this piece by hand. I am a decent illustrator at best and it takes me sooo long to create artwork I am satisfied with. I thought I would be done with this by Monday. It is Wednesday morning, and I am halfway done. I have not been fooling around, I have been working non stop because I have to finish this in the next few days. My goal is to make a design piece out of a children's book. Children's books are usually straightforward and simple. What techniques can I use to make it a more sophisticated design piece?

I have declined invitations to social events. I had to visit the family upstate on Sunday (this was unavoidable, I couldn't get out of it) and I had an appointment today that I made months ago. I attended dutifully but left early so I could work. I have to be at the doctors in 3 hours, to get results from blood tests. I was there for an hour and a half on Friday so that a nurse could spend 2 seconds while on the phone to check the results of another test. Argh.

I feel class is important, definitely, but I am tired of bringing in half finished work because I don't feel you guys can give me proper feedback if the pieces are not finished. So I am going to finish the pieces I am working on and bring them in next class. That way you guys can give me feedback, and I will still have 2 weeks to improve the work. Other than work work and this doctor appointment (hopefully the last one for a while!!) I will not be leaving the apartment. No disruptive family events. No engagements that I made months ago. Just work work work.

Part of me hates being a slave to the work, but at the the same time it feels like a drug. Its all I can think about, doing this work. But thats great, because in the past, I used to treat it as a chore.

Speaking of, I am going back to it. Hopefully will have this project posted tomorrow.

Two possible uses for Op Art posters

I know that for tomorrow we are supposed to have posters for tomorrow's class, but I would like to try to turn these OP Art pieces into either men's apparel or use them for a bookcover series, since I need both of these forms for my portfolio.

Men's Apparel
A lot of skateboard t-shirts are very trippy, repetitive and geometric. I think Op Art designs would fit right in with that design sensibility. Please note, I know these aren't the best designs, and it is not my goal for my shirts to come out like the ones shown below. I am merely trying to illustrate how Op art fits this aesthetic.










Bookcover Series
I have chosen to re-design the 4 Augusten Burroughs memoirs for my bookcover series. The current ones are ok, I am not in love with them. Chip Kidd designed 3 of them, I am not blown away.

Chip Kidd did this one. Clever concept, but eh.

Some guy named Steve Snider did this one. I don't like it.

Chip Kidd. Pretty clever I have to admit.

Chip Kidd, clever, but not brilliant.

Augusten himself did this one. I think its awful.

The titles:
• Running with Scissors (novel)
• Dry (Novel)
• Possible Side Effects (collection of short stories)
• Magical Thinking (collection of short stories)

I don't know how familiar you guys are with good ol' Augusten, but his writing is incredibly intelligent, funny, shocking. His sense of humor and his views on life are twisted and warped, but at times he can be incredibly poignant and touching.

I like when design evokes an abstract feeling or emotion. The Op Art I have looked at elicited feelings of dizziness, made me slightly queasy. I think the above titles lend themselves well to having a little fun with the viewer, evoking strange sensations within them, just as the book themselves do. Plus I think it wo uld be easy to unite them as a series. I am not delusional to think that this is going to be easy, but I do think it would be really fun.

Blog in progress (This is my online sketchbook after all!!)

So I have been doing a lot of online research on Op Art. Its just occurred to me to go to the library and look for books on Op Art and the artists famous for it. I probably won't be able to get to that till Thursday.

Anyways, I am kinda getting the idea of what is necessary to create a successful illusion. It requires repetitionl, variation of line. The line must be clean and very considered, otherwise the mind processes the minute difference and the illusion doesn't work.
I found this online. I am guessing it was done by a child.

It is almost a successful piece, but there are tiny irregularities that prevent it from being completely successful.

This one was definitely done by a child. I think it is quite good considering.

I am working on my own, don't know if I will post tonight but will have them tomorrow.

Op Art

I LOVE THIS IDEA!! I looked up some examples of Op Art online and man, that stuff is TRIPPY!! Its gonna be hard but if I can pull it out its going to be soooo cool! I only searched for a about 20 minutes and came across a lot of cool stuff. These are the ones I really liked; I think most are Bridget Riley but there might be a couple other artists mixed in.




This bottom one is my favorite.

Hyperactive monkey sketches.

For my cd packaging, I wanted to meet some specific requirements that I decided upon after doing a bunch of research.
• The packaging had to be uncoventional, made of a biodegradable material. No simple straightforward jewel case. The reasons for this are Pearl Jam only used the jewel case format for their first 2 releases. The rest are cardboard foldout type things. I mentioned this in a previous post but they do this because they are very eco-friendly, and also because they like to be different and experimental.
• The packaging also had to be uncoventional because the band likes to push the limits with their cd design. Previous releases have very interesting concepts. 'Vitalogy' is supposed to look like a book from the 1800s, "No Code" features collectible polaroids with liner notes; the cd flaps unfold to reveal a bigger picture. Whatever design I came up with had to have some kind of interactive quality to it, some kind of puzzle for the viewer to solve and appreciate.
• A Hand done quality. In the band's posters there is all sorts of interesting hand done type and imagery. Almost all of the cds feature some kind of hand done element, in the forms of sketches and handwritten lyrics. I wanted to bring that handmade element to my piece.

My orginal concept was that this is a compilation of outtakes, B sides, and rarities. It is made up of tracks that were cut from other albums and songs that are hard to find. My goal was to figure out how to derive the style directly from the substance. Since the compilation is made up out what was cut out, I thought it would be really cool to have 4 flaps with interesting cutout shapes, that when folded together read "Lost Dogs". Essentially, the negative space, that which is not there, comes together to form the words "Lost Dogs", just as the random cut tracks come together to form the compilation.
Here are some of my rough drafts that I mocked up to help me figure out the kinks.

First I sketched out a design and then traced it in illustrator.

A mock up to figure out what the hell I am doing.

Mockup; detail.

Ideas for liner notes.
Please note the colors featured are arbitrarily chosen, I haven't worked out a color palette yet.

After mesing around with this idea for a while, I have decided that it isn't going to work. There are just too many kinks to work out. It was hard, but I decided to let it go and try something else.

I came across a new idea I like much better. It is a slight modification of the old idea, but it is cleaner, more streamlined, easier to execute. The concept behind this is "Random elements coming together to form a whole." This is what I am attempting to do with the text: create it out of elements that make no sense on their own, but come together to create a larger idea. This is one of my first drafts of this idea, this is just a sketch that has a ways to go, but I think its got a LOT of potential, and I definitely excited about exploring all the possibilities.

Fold flap A over flap B and get . . .

THIS!! (Again, this is one of the first drafts, the type is going to be much more considered and interesting. Also, I still haven't picked a color palette and am just using these colors in the meantime.)

I would like for the pattern on flap B to form either an image or some other type, but I would be happy to just create in interesting abstract image if thats my only option. I have figured out other details for the cd which are too hard to explain in blog form so I will show them in class. My goal by Wednesday is to have a more finalized version of this.