Polar Bair

I love street art, be it graffiti (well-done pieces of course), tree stump carvings, pavement chalk drawings, large scale sculptures, etc. I just love it. I love watching people make it, or just seeing it when it's finished and wondering how it got there. There's one in particular I stumbled upon quite a while ago and was brought to mind yesterday when I was thinking of blog topics.

Joshua Allen Harris is a street artist who brings new life to the streets of New York through his innovative art. By using elements of the street, mainly plastic garbage bags that you might find littering the sidewalks and marrying it with a monotonous ingredient of city life, the subway grate, he manages to breathe life into his creations. I think there are so many ways to interpret the possible social and environmental commentaries that he could possibly make with such a simple yet brilliant use of materials, but I find that at its best it's just enjoyable to see it come to life and to watch the reactions of the viewers around. I only wish that the first time I had seen it was not through a video but in person to have experienced it myself.

On a deeper level, it's quite obvious that the possible environmental message that it could articulate was also evident to globalwarming.com as the artist's footage was used for one of their awareness commercials. The main message was to encourage city dwellers to ride public transportation as opposed to driving which, is an effective way to use the piece. I think it could also demonstrate how our city lives are so busy that we often forget about what is around us, whether it's beautiful or not. We see the subway grate as a subway grate and litter as litter, just apart of our background, but Harris' installments force us to pause and see it in a new way, to find beauty and opportunity in anything.



To see more of his work, visit his YouTube site here.

Project 1

Project one for Litho was done and handed in last week. I was planning on waiting until I received my printed edition back from my prof to share it on my blog but since I haven't gotten it back just yet I thought I would go ahead and show you the result of my sweat and tears this past month.

Proofs from first attempt at going to press

The whole process will involve two stages whereby, I hope to produce 2-3 editions of a series. My first edition has been accomplished along with the first stage. In case you're wondering 'what is an edition?'; I'm referring to the series of prints resulting from going to press with the litho stone. Usually you aim to print a specified number of identical prints. They are later numbered and the first should be the print that is the most like what you had intended your image to look like. As for what to expect for the following stages of my litho series, it will remain untold for now (although some friends have been divulged) and I will fill you in as I proceed.

I will however share that this series is dedicated to my loving and nurturing mother and this piece in particular is a representation of her. She was the one who always encouraged me to follow my heart and let me pursue my passions. She is a great source of inspiration and so I thought it would only be fitting that she take on a new life in my stone. I chose to personify her as a matryoshka (Russian nested doll) because matryoshkas were originally created in the likeness of a healthy and nurturing Russian peasant mother and her family. Although my mom is not Russian I found that it was a unique and interesting symbol for this subject. This symbol also lends itself to another aspect of my series which, will become more apparent when it is complete.

Inked up stone

Within the image of the doll itself, I also incorporated personal qualities of my mother. Her almond shaped eyes and signature bangs were qualities I simply couldn't ignore. My mother was also the middle child of 6 kids represented by the six smaller circles on her headdress, herself included, and the bigger middle circle signifies hers and my grandmother's rested souls. The swirly designs on her dress depict her free-flowing beautiful spirit and the background wash illustrates her absence from the world.



love you, miss you.

3 Things from this week

So I've decided that my goal will be to blog at least once a week. If I've got a full time gig then I will need to make time over the weekend, if not then I should blog daily. Now that I've said it, I'll have to keep myself accountable... or else someone else might call me out :D (you know who you are!)

Anyways, here are three awesome things I found this week.

UN: Elephants never forget

So that's not actually the title but I don't understand Spanish, so I don't know what the title of this illustration is. I do, however, love elephants and the thing I associate the most with elephants is their rock hard memory, something I quite envy. In any case here lies the work of a cute creator, an illustrator who can't seem to make anything not cute. I really like the flat yet dimensional work of Argentinian illustrator, Emiliano Quintana, and the sense of personality found in each character.


DEUX: mmm eggplant

Aubergine Penguins by Dmitry Utkin are penguins made from eggplants, they're awesome. What more do I need to say?

TROIS: G's are hot

If you know me at all, you'd know I'm a type nerd, not quite as big as others but I do love type. Having said that, lowercase g's are one of my favourite characters :) so having come accross this beautifully developped letter g from a beautifully designed display font called Ogaki by Áron Jancsó was like spotting a celebrity.


Sorry about before, but the images aside from the elephant illustration are now embedded

Litho

Every week as my prof demos the process of lithography printmaking, I only realize more and more that it's as hard as a rock! (both figuratively and literally) Every step is incredibly involved and laborious, but it is without a doubt, a labour of love :)

My stone being grained :)

I think what I like so much about it is how challenging it is. Being a graphic designer today heavily involves a computer, shortcuts and all, which is convenient considering the tight deadlines that the industry thrives on. Everything needs to be pumped out according to multiple schedules; the client, the printer, the season, the event, the installers, or the designers, they all have a schedule that the process of design must adhere to. This means that more often than not, the art of design can easily get lost in translation. 

I've always looked at printmaking as a way to go back in time and learn where all the photoshop effects and illustrator tools originated from. Old school processes can help to learn about how to manipulate these tools, but better than that, it allows you to return to the fundamental Art of graphic design. And plus I miss creating things just because I want to. This is among the many reasons why I decided to take a post graduate minor program at OCAD for printmaking. 

Drying ze stone with medieval fan

Although Litho wasn't originally on the top of my list, it was the only class available to me at the time I registered, but I am so excited to be able to learn this art form. In my first class Lauren, my prof, was explaining to us that, the huge slabs of limestone that we will be labouring over for the next few months, are easily decades older than us. They are the same stones that the printing presses used to use to publish newspapers and is also the same material that slaves has spent years stacking together forming pyramids in Egypt that still stand proudly today after so many centuries. It's amazing, even just to imagine the life my stone may have had and all the prints it had created before I claimed it for the semester. 

I even like how mysterious it all is. once you've grained away layers of the stone to erase the previous image, you draw on it with greasy materials then etch your image into the pores of the stone by applying chemical processes to it. This will tell the stone where to take ink and where to repel it. It's like breathing art into a stone and bringing it to life, allowing it to repeat that image, which sometimes makes me feel like a mad scientist. Throughout the whole process, there are many moments where you make the image disappear just to see it come back which tells you whether or not you did it right. At the same time, not everything you do will come out as you expected. There's always a chance things will disappear or even appear out of nowhere, when you go to print.

It's like magic, just so exciting. I will post my first print when it is done :)

Litho love

Lately trying to find time to blog has been like trying to catch a snowflake on my tongue. I've decided to stop making time an excuse and just keep them short.
While checking the weather this morning my homepage, fffound pointed me to an interesting site Gig Posters. It particularly sparked my interest because I'm currently taking a lithography class and although I've only had 2 classes and didn't even fully understand what the process was when I started, I've fallen in love with it. I'll post some process pics, prints and blog soon ;)

found on fffound :)

Smile :)

Do you ever walk past an inanimate object and realize how much it resembles a face or a body part? Often you'll find that a lot of objects, having been designed by humans, will aesthetically relate to our physical attributes whether conscious or not. It must be something we can't help but doing. Our egos dominate a generous part of our minds which kicks into play during this (or any) process, creating resemblance to what we know best, ourselves.

I find discovering these resemblances are usually amusing yet short-lived moments. It's like if you visualized the joy of a great idea as an incandescent light bulb (a common analogy) and compared it to a small LED light. I find human features, often faces, in almost anything like wall plugs, cameras, shoes, lamps, you name it and I do this with more ease than any word search, or Where's Waldo.

One of the most common things that will often glare back at me with an undeniable character-filled face is the front of a car. They roll around town with a twinkle in their bright headlight eyes, and some of them will even beam a smile at you or expose their teeth through their grille, which only brings to mind a flashy hip-hop trend of bedazzling (sorry, I meant blinging out) your teeth from 2005 and the song that started it all, Grillz, by Nelly. But I digress.

The other day, when I went to see Despicable Me, I found the biggest and happiest grin I've ever seen on a car that it would even have the Cheshire cat hissing in envy. The new North American Mazda2 has to be the happiest car I've ever seen. So much so, that in my excitement, I inadvertently turned to Danny and said "The car is smiling!" This brimming car was born for this and has clearly been designed to capture the hearts of cute-seekers all over North America and it even has a cute little green robot sidekick. Smiley over here (the Mazda), will mostly likely captivate the unsuspecting souls of their target market of trendy young adults (18-25) mostly females, it certainly did the trick on me.

I do however, find it interesting that the cute-seeker approach was only applied on the North American model. When looking at the Mazda 2's launch site which directs you to specific countries, it seems Canada and the US are the only ones with the smiley car. It just goes to show that culture must indeed have a substantial effect on design. Psychological features like the smile might work on us, or maybe even in parts of Asia but apparently not in Europe.

Like I said, I like it :) Maybe it doesn't help that I'm a young Canadian-Korean female who really likes cute things but I also appreciate the design.

I miss the freedom

As much as I love the routine of full-time work and having a reason to wake up early in the morning, I definitely miss the freedom of unemployment, but mainly just being able to keep up with my blog. It's been quite a little while since my last post and the guilt has started to set in. Considering I've slept in a little longer than I should've and that I'm sacrificing "get-ready" time for this posting I'll keep it short and sweet.

Here is one of the best ad spots I've seen online in a while, fwd'd to me by someone at the office. How brilliant to use the loss of Bosh as a creative opportunity to poke fun at Toronto while promoting flights.

Yeah, you do deserve it, Toronto!

Post No Bills

After being sent home due to the rolling black-outs, I left work at King and Bathurst to meet Teri at Queen and Spadina, only to realize there was nowhere to do anything since nobody had power. Regardless, I'm still glad that I trenched through the heat for what felt like an endless distance due to the smoldering heat. Other than having met my friend (however brief our meeting was), the trek was made worthwhile because of my surroundings. The area is so full of art, culture and life even in the simplest way.

It lives in walls, behind windows and doors, on the streets, on store signs, and even as graffiti. There were quaint, and quite obviously tight shops where I could just hear the stories of all the unique items. The tales of the antique's previous lives whispered past my ears like a piece of shared gossip walking past me. Bike shops, whose bike residents looked like a much more heroic feat of ingenuity than that of any that you might find at a larger wholesaler. Bright murals along alley walls, handcrafted jewels adorning storefront windows, fabrics majestically draping down shelves in textile stores, it was all so refreshing in a familiar and almost redundant way and yet I was so happy it was all around me. Maybe it was the heat.

Amongst it all, what stood out the most was definitely the image you see posted below. It orders "POST NO BILLS" and in one swift, witty yet defying manner four infamous Bills have been posted: Clinton, Murray, Gates and Cosby. It's undeniably reminiscent of the work of my favourite graffiti artist, Banksy and only makes me wonder if it was in fact his work. This might just be a little wishful thinking but it is simple and witty enough to bear its identity as a Banksy piece yet since there's no definite indications yet, for now it will remain anon.

Inspiration: Mountains of Sushi

Like the charm of finding change on the floor here are two very different things that have been like finding lucky pennies along my path.

My First Penny

The first is the work of Joseph Blalock whose logo / identity designs are so articulate they take you for miles of communication all in a moment. Its subtle eloquence makes I appreciate it that much more. The logo that stopped me in my tracks was Iron Mountain for a document management firm. It's so brilliantly straight-forward and simple.

What a great solution for the logo, it makes me wonder what his process must've been like to have discovered the resemblance and to have visually transformed the subject so powerfully into the name. Now, I'll always relate the two.

It brings to mind the FedEx logo, my all time favourite logo. It has the ability to speak about an entire company's identity and encapsulate it into an icon. The FexEx logo is stripped down to the bare principles of typography and graphic design: letters and space. It's like being rationed your food for survival, and yet it triumphs as such a prosperous logo. Through the use of the negative space between the capital 'e' and the 'x' they've fully taken advantage of the space by allowing the space in between the two forms to create a new form, an arrow. The arrow adds a new dimension to the logo and speaks about direction, movement, speed, and intelligence in a way like no other. -- This is why I love it. 

Ad found on an AdRants blog

Second found penny

This second item made me metaphorically $0.02 richer. I love sushi! I would eat it breakfast, lunch and dinner if I could. I even claimed that if I had to pick one type of food to eat for the rest of my life, I might gladly pick sushi. There's something about not only the light taste that leaves you satisfied but the art that's involved in its creation.  

Having said that, imagine my excitement when I see art imitating life, and life taking form in art as sushi soap! Etsy shop, Bunny Bubbles has some great creative soap creations that are beautiful works of practical and useable art. The delicious bars of soap are even matched in creativity for their scent, each baring a unique combination of distinct asian flavors which adds an extra layer of continuity.

This is the kind of thing I want to have in my home instead of buying factory made, masses-to-the-billions brands of soap like dove, and ivory. Soaps whose ingredient lists that might baffle a chemistry major,  the same ones that the super-store shelves are teeming with are ones I wish weren't as available, convenient and affordable. I'd much rather support great artists. Their products are most likely safer to use especially since they are handmade with natural ingredients in a more organic way and I use that word cautiously as I don't mean the way most big corporations have simply turned organic into a brand or marketing tool. I'm talking about the way in which it was created, a much simpler process by the hands of a professional whose passion and gifts compel them to craft even the most practical items. This is how it should be, don't you think?

Arrestingly triptonic inspiration!

I never intended to blog today to be honest, but as I was perusing for inspiration I came across an insanely interesting music video by Anthony Francisco Schepperd, that needed to be shared: The Music Scene (song by Blockhead). Had I heard the song on it's own, I think its intentions would've been lost on me for it is the video that imprints such a deep incision of significance and inspiration in my mind. Right from the start the images Schepperd paints stops you in your tracks arresting you to watch on, doing exactly what the video is speaking about. I interpreted the message that TV and other forms of media suck us in with they're visually arresting images and hypnotize us into ignorance among other things. The irony lies in the fact that the video itself sucks us in leaving us to want more.

We become so consumed with the media and everything it feeds us that not only does it become eyes into our lives and thoughts but in turn creates who we become. It roots itself so far into our existence that we depend on its energy and fail to see the beautiful natural energy that surrounds us, slowly depleting our life supply. We have given life to technology, and in turn technology has given us new life, destroying our old organic lives along the way. The dim, insincere light of the screen illuminates our artificial lives until there is nothing left to live for, until we burn out.

I watched this video several times and only want to keep watching it as I learn and discover something new each time. It reminded me of why I decided to cut TV and background music out of my life as I first posted about several weeks ago. It has renewed my will to only watch what will positively inspire me, not simply allow commercials sit in the background pouring unwanted messages into my mind.