Nov 8, 2010

self portrait







I wanted to create a self portrait with an emphasis on the textures I have collected over time. The background is a composition of 4 layers which I created. A photo of the ocean, an architectural photo of a modern building, a golden rectangle drawing of mine, and an image of a highway in Pittsburgh create the background. The image of me was outlined in illustrator from a photograph of me. I chose textures based on my aesthetic attraction to them as well as their appropriateness in the illustration. Overall, I wanted this image create 2 impacts on the viewer, one on passing by as an illustration, and then upon second inspection a more layered an intricate composition.

Nov 1, 2010

Yours, Mine, or OURS?

In questioning copy right and fair use, I began with an image of a CBS billboard. Billboards almost exclusively use copy right protected commercial material to sell or advertise something. Instead of using this for an advertisement, I manipulated it to be a canvas. Within this canvas, I choose to use a combination of other peoples work. For example, two photographs I took of street art in New York and Pittsburgh create the background texture. Over this I used recognizable logos and advertisements which are directly protected under copyright. When collaged together all of these things form a new image that is mine.

Oct 18, 2010

Photoshop: not the source of our immorality

photo creds

I believe that rather than discussing the morality or appropriateness of photo manipulation through the use of photo shop and image editing software in the journalism as well as the fashion world, we should be questioning how significant honesty is to our society. Photoshop would be unnecessary if, as a society, we were more accepting of the truth. In the editorial world of magazines, we have become accustomed to seeing perfection. We do not want to know that our favorite celebrity has a zit on her face or that the candidate running for mayor was wearing red instead of their party color – blue. However, some of these situations are more significant than others.

While working as a photojournalist for a college newspaper, the inability to manipulate our photographs created an exciting challenge that forced us to become better photographers. While shooting an assignment, we knew that the only changes made would be to prepare a digital photograph for print and, occasionally the photo would be cropped to fit into the layout… occasionally. If we missed the moment the baseball player caught the ball, then we missed it. We couldn’t go back and Photoshop a ball into their glove.

I say we “couldn’t” with the understanding of honesty. Sure, I could have manipulated to photograph before turning it into my editor but that would have been unethical. Sadly, there are many people who do not share my ethics. This is where the question of honesty comes in.

Every time I, as a woman, picks up a fashion magazine, I am presented with pages and pages of lies. I know that the models hired are already completely unrealistic in appearance, yet I also know that the pictures taken of them will be manipulated until the creative director views them as satisfactory in representing the unrealistic image they are working towards.

This has gotten out of control. So what is my opinion on photo manipulation? In a perfect world, it would not happen. But this is far from a perfect world. Do I blame the individuals doing the manipulation? Only if they are the ones perpetuating the lies forced on our society. It’s a tough question.

Just like the recycling craze has helped make our streets a little cleaner, maybe this new found craze amongst celebrities who request their photos not be “touched up” will help shine a light on this issue of immorality.

Maybe one day.

Composite image using my photography
final doc size has to be at least 11 x 14 @ 200 pix so can be printed
Has to be some sort of believable scene
has to have background and at least 4 other elements.
has to include something that someone else created
challenge the idea of copyright

Chilean Miners: The Newest Celebrities

I made the miner a little bit bigger in the top image.
The news has made heroes out of these 30 men who spent months held up in a cave. The background image is of photographers at the end of a fashion show runway.

Oct 6, 2010

Doug Bucci: An Inspirational Man



Lecture 10/5
You should feel uncomfortable...
If you do feel comfortable then something is wrong.

If this isn't the definition of the last 2 years of my life then I don't know what is... maybe when it rains it pours. Sometimes you need someone to come in to speak to a group of over-worked, underfed, stressed out art students to keep them from exploding. I think - and perhaps this was a particularly bad tuesday - but I think that these words were very important to hear. We've chosen to pursue something that takes an enormous amount of self-motivation to succeed in.
I have undoubtedly learned the most during times when I am super uncomfortable. When I am so far out of my comfort zone that I am forced to teach myself how to do what I need to do or deal with the situation I am in. I think this might be the tactic that my parents used in raising me and I, at age almost 21 am beginning to understand this was an extremely effective way to get the job done. If it weren't for this mentality then I wouldn't know how to change a tire on the side of a highway in the rain, live with a sociopath, change a watch battery, create a social marketing and brand identity campaign by myself, be a photojournalist... ect (not trying to toot the 'ol horn). The point is, I've seem to have found myself in extremely uncomfortable situations that have taught me some serious life lessons in my day to day life, yet more importantly in my career.
Doug Bucci, thank you for reiterating and allowing me to hear that I'm in this extremely uncomfortable phase in my life and that it will end, however, realistically, it also won't be any harder on the other side. Although this doesn't sound inspirational, it's reassuring that my hard work right now will pay off. So thank you.

Sep 22, 2010

Candy Depew you are the rock star of the art world


Lecture 9 /21/2010
While I have a massive amount more respect for Candy Depew than I do for party going, jet setting, unproductive and talented rock stars, I would still argue that Candy lives the life. During this lecture she ooozed cool and the slides of her work more than backed up her general attitude. The nonchalance of sentences describing her travels, who she's worked with, and all-in-all her life would probably put her in Andy Warhol's factory had he still been alive. But, now that I think of it, they probably wouldn't roll in the same crew. She's a little more BA than Andy.

This lecture was by far one of the coolest and more inspiring. I want to go over seas and work with a bunch of really cool people and then come back and help other people do the same. I have complete respect for and wish more people practiced the apprenticeship program that Candy very strongly believes in. As artists, we sometimes need a support system, a tribe of people with elders and leaders who guide you to where you need to be and, in return, you guide others. The art / creative world can be a cold and lonely place. I wish there were more people like Candy.

i heart Helvetica



I'm a huge font nerd and like any other type of nerd - from comics books to rock bands - there's one that made you the nerd you are. And, like many other font lovers, mine is Helvetica. It is my hero, helvetica is my hero... wow. This documentary was the best thing to happen to my defense when asked why helvetica is so great. I especially enjoy the arguments posed by the non-helvetica loving interviewees because it allows you to question if helvetica is so popular because it's, well, popular, or if it changed the way people thought about the visual culture of text around them for the first time. More importantly, it confirmed that my childhood aspiration of becoming a typographer wasn't so strange. Some of the people interviewed in this documentary are my heros and I am not afraid to admit it. Hey, if it wasn't for them, then I probably wouldn't have discovered my love for design.

Sep 20, 2010

David Carson

David Carson is my new favorite man. Perhaps an idol.

Hide your kids, hide your wife











Photo creds

The internet is a very scary place.

It was not created for good and we, as a society, have been unable to contain its powers of evil. As it grows, it becomes better and better at masking its evil ways under the disguise of social networking, therefore taping into human vanity to distract us from what is truly happening.

And if it wasn’t bad enough that the internet is evil, corporate America has jumped on the bandwagon of social networking because they want to be your friend too!

When I found out about the Australian company that stole an innocent young lady’s snapshot off of the internet and used it for their ad campaign, I was simultaneously ashamed to be a graphic designer and ashamed to have been among the generation that made Facebook cool, therefore making it a target for advertising. We have created a monster, and unlike the BFG (that’s the Big Friendly Giant) the internet and the companies that target consumers through their human instinct to want to use the internet, have absolutely no moral compass!

This is not to say that the young lady who posted the picture on the internet in the first place is completely innocent. Nope. She probably did not read the fine print before pressing ok. If she had read the fine print she would have realized that by placing this picture on the internet, she has signed away her identity to any and everyone who wants it. I don’t mean identity in terms of social security and phone numbers, but, rather, identity in terms of what the internet has shaped the word to mean: the face value of a snapshot in which the user has carefully selected and constructed how they look and who they think this image makes them.

I blame the ad team. Since I can’t blame the internet (it’s just too big and powerful, there would be no point) and I can’t blame the young lady (power in numbers… if everyone’s doing it why should I assume that anything is going to happen to me?) Then the only one left to blame is the individual or groups of individuals who thought it was totally justifiable to exploit a) this young lady and b) the lawlessness of the internet to create an image of their brand that makes them young, hip and cool (because they’re internet savy). WHO LET THIS ONE FLY?

It’s unreasonable to assume that regulation of the internet and what takes place on it will every be able to tackle the small individual instances that occur daily. However, I believe that large corporations should be held to a different standard. A standard that prohibits internet identity theft.

Unfortunately, this day will not come until someone does something about the tangled web of laws that supposedly rule the internet.

Photoshop does not the designer make











Is anyone who has access and a reasonable understanding of Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator and ect, able to call themselves an artist or a designer? If these applications make digital production so universal and accessible, are we actively altering the role of a designer? I taught myself how to use Photoshop at a very young age. Through trial and error and free time (I don’t even know what that is anymore!) I provided myself with the tools to develop myself as a designer. However, being proficient in Photoshop does not make me a designer.

I believe this was the message this weeks lecture speaker was trying to express to a population of students like myself who have grown up playing around with and learning through experience the technologies that have and will continue to change our roles as artists and designers in the future. However, I believe it is a very important distinction that needs to be made and reinforced not only to ourselves but to the people who view our work with little understanding of the work that is put into developing our mental abilities to think like artists.

If you were to take my computer – and therefore my Adobe design sweet – away from me, could I still do the job I was hired to do?

The answer is and always will be YES!

This is because I think like a designer. I always have and I always will. My understanding of form, color, font, visual balance, and composition distinguish me from, say, an accountant. You can give that same accountant lessons on how to use Photoshop, but it would be equivalent to giving him a paintbrush and easel and asking him to paint a masterpiece. He cannot because that is not the way he developed his brain.

So while I believe that is truly amazing that I am able to pack up the entirety of my studio into my backpack and work from anywhere that I can find the internet, I still value the fact that it is my brain producing the ideas and my hand translating them digitally.

Photo creds:
The Laptop Pillow,
Brand: Pepsi Kick
Agency: BBDO Mexico
Executive Creative Director: Hector Fernandez
Creative Director: Antonio Alvarez/Ariel Soto
Art Director: EDGAR RIOS
Copywriter: Irene Preciado


Sep 13, 2010

island sanctuary: project preserve





How do you capture the beauty of nature in a single snap shot? Is it even possible? How do you market a 500-acre piece of paradise when its value cannot be measured in dollars? When one person sees the perfect location for a plot of houses and one person see one of the few remaining examples of the native environment, how do you make sure the land ends up in the proper hands?

With the help of a conservation easement, luckily the last question has been answered: no one can, nor will they ever, be able to ruin this plot of land with the carless construction seen throughout this country. Armed with a camera, boots, bug net, and patience I, along with my good friend and film major Lionel, set out for a weekend of attempting the impossible.

We were attempting to capture the beauty and demonstrate it to prospective buyers via a small and uncomplicated website. What we began to realize was that, not only is 500 acres an unbelievably huge amount of space to cover, capturing the beauty of nature is impossible. It is impossible because the most important message we were trying to convey was the emotion that being on such a beautiful piece of land creates in you. It’s not so much the color of the sunset (although they were unbelievable), or the wildlife you encounter, or the satisfaction of seeing that wildlife after sitting silently in a squatted position for what feels like forever… It’s the feeling of space. The feeling of being so far away from anyone else that you really feel like your in your own world.

As a city girl raised by a father whose job it is to protect such pieces of land, I often find myself feeling claustrophobic and almost unable to breathe. I was reaching one of these points around the time when we packed up to head off to this assignment. After stepping outside of the car, I quickly realized that sometimes all you need is to find a large, open field as far away from any sign of human life, and 15 minutes worth of silence to quickly counteract months of city living.