Archive for September, 2007

The House on the Corner

For an english class in which I am taking at school, we have written an essay on a photograph. It is an essay with a flow, in a sense it is a mixture of a poem and a personal essay. This is my photograph. This is my essay.

Artists House

The House on the Corner
There is a sense of mystery with this house, simply because I do not know who lives here, for I have never met anybody from this house, not a man or a woman, a boy or a girl, not even a cat or a dog. I do not know why I have not encountered anyone who resides within these walls, I merely live down the street and up the hill from this home where the sculptor and his wife live. I think it might be better to consider this a home instead of a house, after all people do live in it, I am sure of this. If no one lived here, who would put the two neon tubes of light, one colored red and the other green, out each Christmas, or plant the towering sunflowers on the side of the road, or mow the small patch of grass in the front. It must be the sculptor and his wife.

Why do I assume a sculptor lives here, I often wonder, and the only reason I can recollect is that one of my parents once told me that he was, in fact, a sculptor. There is only one other sign of this, the pieces of metal that have been welded and molded together with other pieces of metal to form the ever changing figures that often sit outside the residence.

I have never seen a vehicle pull out of the garage or parked on the side of the road next to the house, I think perhaps they might walk around or ride a bike around town, and when I see them it is not apparent that they reside within this home.

Perhaps one day I might meet them, learn who they are, find out what they did with their lives, and hear some lengthy stories over a cup of tea in the garden they have atop their home, on the roof of this red brick home, with green plants clinging to its side, a garage door with something behind it, and the metal sculptures standing proudly in front of the house on the corner.

School Dance Poster

New Poster

Printed and hung this poster on Monday for a school dance that is coming up. I am very lucky to have a large format printer at school along with a great Mac lab (already have two new iMacs, new iLife and new keyboards), DSLR Cameras, and video cameras that I get to use. Been getting some great comments on it from friends and teachers. Will have a better picture soon. View more of my work here.

Videos for Creatives

Little less than a week ago I started a new website called Videos for Creatives. It is a blog that features daily videos from the online creative community. Everything from design and architecture to comedy and culture, can be found on this blog. The site has already been featured by The Serif, It’s Nice That, and Joshua Blankenship. Thanks to everyone for the support. If you can think of any creative videos, feel free to share them with me. Hope you enjoy the site.

My Ideas for SXSW.

Yesterday, I got an email from SXSW saying that the time for voting on panels is coming to a close. I did not realize that this was coming up so fast, and thought I would make an attempt to get some last minute votes. At the bottom of the post you can read more about my three panel submissions. But for now, these are the titles of my proposed panels.

These three panel ideas I am very excited about and would love to be able to get together a group of people and share our thoughts and have a conversation with the SXSW community. I have never attended SXSW before, instead for the past two years I have followed the conference through blog posts of those who went. If my panel submissions were to be accepted, I would get a complimentary pass to the conference, thus decreasing the high cost for someone without a steady income to attend. (by the way, I am 17 year old designer, blogger, and entrepreneur)

So if you think I have some good ideas, pleas go and vote. Thanks.

There has been much talk lately of the issues and problems with this conference, and I thought now might be a good time to share my thoughts and ideas on this with you.

From what I have heard, the major problem is the quality of the panels. I think that people need to talk about there panels ahead of time, its not the hard with a few emails. I also think that when voting for a panel online, your vote should count more if you are planning on attending or have attended in the past. If my panel was chosen I would make sure that we had a simple presentation that was designed well, a handout for people to leave with, a way for everyone to continue the conversation after the conference online, and I would make sure that the audience got a good amount of questions and comments in. Now I have never been to SXSW before, so I don’t know if people have already done these things.

Moving on, here are the descriptions of the panels that I would like to share with you. Simply click on the link to go vote and leave comments.

A New Kind of Social Media Consulting
A group/network of thinkers, designers, business people, and developers coming together and offering consulting services, thus drawing on everybody’s expertise and offering consulting to brands and companies to get them taking advantage of the new internet, online communities, etc. Could be compared to an artists residency program.

The Internet Creating Real World Interactions
No longer is it just about interacting with people online. Rather, it is about taking that experience offline and into the real world. Such examples include Meetup, Un-conferences, Co-working, Streetmining, Photowalking, 1000 Journals, and more. Learn how this could work for you and your business and why it is important.

The Future of Learning
Not about why we have to bring blogs, wikis and the internet into the classroom. Rather about how teachers and students can use them to collaborate, connect, and be educated. Take a look at re-structuring the classroom, sustainable education, the design of educational space and more.

I have received several responses on these ideas, one from Twitter, one on this blog, and one on the panel picker website.

“The second one particularly interests me. I’m impressed by your ideas.”
-Carolyn Foote

“Appreciate your 2nd SXSW 08 panel submission. Lots of potential there!”
-Christian Long

“Wow, sounds interesting! If you’re interested in a panel member, let me know!”
-Jake McKee

Thanks for reading and for your support. Feel free to leave comments and get in touch with me. Thanks again.

Re-Organized Workspace

Just re-organized my workspace, here it is.

Workspace

Brand America


Paula Scher talks to Monocle in an exclusive video interview about the brand of america and how she thinks we need to change it. I highly recommend watching this video. Paula Scher is a well know graphic designer at Pentagram.

MECA and Margo Halverson

I have just visited Maine College of Art (MECA) in Portland, ME on Friday. We arrived about an hour early, checked into admissions and then headed out to explore the city. I liked what I saw, in that Portland wasn’t a rural setting with nothing happening and it wasn’t a huge city that is overwhelming like some can be. From what I saw and heard it has a strong community of artists, multiple times when walking on the streets I saw people carrying cameras, sketchbooks, and canvases. Even better is that there are many local galleries in the area along with an art museum. We, being my dad and I, headed to Baxter’s Basement, the place in which we were to meet Margo Halverson, a graphic design professor at the college. I had connected with Margo online and asked if we could meet when I come up for my college visit and tour.

Baxter Building at MECA

She arrived, we introduced ourselves and headed back for her personal studio and office space. This space can tell you a lot about who she is. Many posters on the wall and a large bookshelf with design, art, and senior thesis books. Before we get into what we talked about, a little information on Margo. She has a BFA and MFA from Arizona State University, she was a graphic designer at Alice Design Communications, and is the director of Design Inquiry.

From talking with Margo, it is easy to tell that the her and the rest of the faculty are dedicated. The faculty from other departments take part in critiques of your work so that you may have other perspectives other than those who teach you design. There is a two year foundation in which students explore the basics of art. In the first year you are able to start taking electives in your area of interest, which might or might no become your major. MECA is for sure a “process” school with an emphasis on the importance of content within design, along with form. A good amount of writing in relation to your work and the history of design also takes place in the flexible curriculum. As part of your senior thesis project, each student produces hand bound books that illustrate and describe the process in which they went through to complete their work. Margo showed us some of these book and they were beautiful and well designed. She was able to offer us great insight on the program, and for that I am grateful.

MECA Main Building

After speaking with her we headed out on a tour of the school. MECA doesn’t necessarily have a dedicated campus but from what I saw the city becomes the campus with short walks in-between the several main buildings. The main building used to be an old department store in town in which they have turned into studio space. And let me tell you, this building makes for some great space to create art. With high ceilings, big windows everywhere, an open floor plan, and five stories, this space is ideal and beautiful. Overall, I was impressed with the school and was glad to be able to get an in-depth view of the program I have interest in and a general tour of the whole school.

Thanks to Margo for talking to us and it is Margo’s birthday today, so Happy Birthday!
See more photos on Flickr.

Your Bookshelf, Your Identity

I think that what people have on their bookshelves can tell you a great deal about what kind of person they are. After all those are the books that they decided to buy and the ones they read, meaning they learned something or were influenced by the books. I have found some photos of bookshelves that I truly enjoy. Here is my bookshelf below.

My Books

So, I went ahead and created a Flickr Group so that everybody may add there photos and we can see each other bookshelves. Now, I do know that there are other groups out there, but this is different. This is all about taking a nice photo and being able to read the title of the books. In other groups there are angled shots of huge bookshelves and shots of individual book covers. Instead it would be great if you followed this guidelines

Please take the photo directly in front of the bookshelf. No angle shots.
Please also make sure that you are zoomed in far enough to see the titles.
If you have a huge bookshelf zoom in on your favorite section.
You may also just zoom in on the spines so that we don’t see your shelves/shelf at all.

I look forward to seeing what people contribute to the group.
Thanks and enjoy.

Montserrat College of Art

Admissions Building at Montserrat

Yellow Doors

I recently visited Montserrat College of Art in Beverly, MA. So far we have arrived at ever single college visit early and this one was no exception. However, this was great and we got to talk to some nice people in admissions and ask questions about the school. We then headed out on our tour of the school. The school was relatively small with only 300 students and several main buildings. I have yet to decide whether this is the size I want, but think that the size of the school causes for a wonderful community of artists. The town of Beverly was nice as well, and there was the beach just two blocks away. Overall, the school was great and I look forward to applying.

There are more photos on Flickr.

The Start of School

The first day of school was last Tuesday. It went pretty well and in the classes the teachers just introduced what we would be learning and went over procedures. Then for the next three days the senior class headed out to camp and go to the beach. This is how we begin the every year as sort of a bonding experience where we plan the year and do team building. (In the past we have gone camping, canoeing, and sailing) So that trip was pretty awesome in that we had tons of freedom and just went to the beach, played frisbee and more. I brought a Canon Rebel DSLR Camera and ended up taking 500 photos. (160 made it on to Facebook where everybody tagged them all) Here are some from the trip, a couple more are on Flickr, and if you were on the trip tons are on Facebook.

Skim Board

Seniors 08

So we came back mid day on Friday and went to a local fair that night, where we walked for a minute and bumped into people, walked for a minute and bumped into people, and so on. Finally, today we had the first day of real classes and we started to learn some things and review the basics from previous years. I learned about the ten principles of economics, the narrative structure, literary non-fiction, interval notation of inequalities and more.

In one of my english classes I will be writing tons of college essays and in AP Economics I will be writing weekly reports on an articles from the newspaper. It has to be from the actual newspaper, so I am considering subscribing to the New York Times which I am actually really excited about. So expect to see those showing up hear. Thats all for now.

Ringtones and Wi-Fi Music Store

Apple recently released some new products including the iPod Touch and a new iPod Nano, but the two new software products that I am most interested in and excited about are the customizable ringtones and the wi-fi music store. I think this is a good step for Apple and puts their products in a great position to offer the best music and entertainment experience. You can already download music on other cell phones but it is a hassle and doesn’t do it with elegances like Apple will do it.

School is Almost Here

That is right, school starts on this coming Tuesday.
Here are some signs that school is just around the corner.

1. Summer reading books are in the process of being read.
2. Textbooks were recently ordered.
3. Had training meeting for the group of students that give tours of the school.
4. Got some new shirts and clothes for school.
5. Lost my brown belt, bought a new one.
6. Had freshmen orientation night, seniors went to meet them and answer questions. Freshman friend requests on Facebook.
7. Went to see movies with a bunch of people, people asked each other…how “was” your summer? (in the past tense)
8. Had a last night in town party for someone going to college.
9. Getting stuff ready for 3 day trip to the beach after first day of school, it is when we bond and plan our last year. Frisbee too.
10. Still deciding whether to wear plaid shorts on the first day of school or not to cause half of the school might be wearing plaid.

Here is what to expect this coming year on the blog.

1. A continuation of the kind of content that is already here.
2. Some more essays due to two English classes and having to write essays for colleges.
3. More work from my art and design portfolio as I will be creating a big amount of work this fall.
4. Maybe some more posts that link to other website and projects, like this one.
5. A little bit of documentation of the college process.
6. And a couple big announcements in the coming month.

Thanks for reading and be sure to stick around this year.
Feel free to email me with suggestions or just to say hello.
And you can subscribe here.
Have a nice day.