Friday, March 11, 2011

rhyme on the end


First of all, I'm going to plug my lulu link for anyone who feels generous enough to send 15-odd dollars my way: purchase Portraits of People I Wish I Could Be! Or you can download a digital file for 99 cents. Oooor...you can just look at the photos for free on my flickr account. But hey! I don't judge. Do what you gotta do.

I'm quite relieved for this project to be over; frankly, I feel exhausted by my own ego at this point, and I've become somewhat paranoid that you poor people in my class (who have been forced to listen to me talk incessantly about myself for the past 10 weeks) have all become stockholm-syndromed into appreciating my project.

I really enjoyed both the process and the final output of this course, however--I love dithering around in Photoshop endlessly, and now I am also able to dither around in InDesign for as long as it please me--also a useful program to know how to use, considering I want to go into the design field. But I think it is time to mess around with other projects instead. Or maybe I will start taking commissions to photoshop other people's faces onto things?? Maybe this is how I will become internet-famous. And, of course, I enjoyed myself immensely in regards to my concept. I picked something I would like doing from beginning to end, and though I'm tired, I think it's mostly because I can definitely feel that my project has reached its natural end.

Thanks for all of your input, dudes & ladies! Best of luck with the end of term.

Friday, March 4, 2011

rhyme on sawada, lee & boehm


So I have already talked extensively (numerous times! sorry dudes) about Tomoko Sawada & Nikki S. Lee. Though I don't think I will continue to follow their work--not Lee's at least, I'm still trying to decide how I feel about Sawada--they were wonderful women to look at for inspiration and connections for my final project. I was surprised how easily it was to relate my (admittedly) self-centered project to other people's work! Instead of boring you further, I'll talk a little about Kristin Boehm since I really found her to be quite interesting and helpful.

I thought Kristin was a great, both as a speaker and as a person to get some post-college perspective from. I thought her lecture was really engaging and interesting, and she connected well with us—it was almost hard to believe that she still doesn’t go to Lawrence. I thought it was especially interesting how she kept stressing that she missed the academic discussion available here, and being able to converse with people on a high level about a variety of topics. It's difficult to remember that the majority of the population outside of the Lawrence bubble isn’t interested in debating the semantics of beauty, or whether postmodernism is applicable to modern artists. Not that I necessarily want to spend my life discussing these things, but when you’re surrounded by academia constantly it’s quite strange (and frightening!) when it disappears. I thought Kristin was encouraging and realistic without being disheartening. For me her talk(s) were especially helpful because I'm looking to go into a similar field of graphic design, and as someone who doesn't have a formal degree in design, it was quite relieving to hear that it is possible to overcome that obstacle!