The multidisciplinary studio called Neuarmy has some great work to show for. Been spending some time looking through their portfolio online and so should you.
Archive for the 'Art' Category
When looking for inspiration I was going through some sites that I have saved and I loaded Jonathan Harris’s website. And up came a brand new project that this visual artist, interaction designer, and storyteller from New York City! It is called I Want You to Want Me. It is an installation piece in the form of a large touch screen at the Museum of Modern Art as part of the Design and Elastic Mind Exhibit. This piece and exhibit opened about eight hours after I left the museum and headed back home on the train, so needless to say I was disappointed to miss it. (I had dragged my friends all the way up to the top floor that day, only to find that something was being installed)
This project takes a look and explores the world of online dating. For more we turn to an excerpt from the projects website.
I Want You To Want Me chronicles the world’s long-term relationship with romance, across all ages, genders, and sexualities, gathering new data from a variety of online dating sites every few hours. The system searches these sites for certain phrases, which it then collects and stores in a database. These phrases, taken out of context, provide partial glimpses into people’s private lives. Simultaneously, the system forms an evolving zeitgeist of dating, tracking the most popular first dates, turn-ons, desires, self-descriptions and interests.
Harris always seems to find interesting topics to cover. And in doing so, he just doesn’t create art, but creates masterful visual experiences which tell stories. That is what I enjoy so much about his work.
Learn more about I Want You to Want Me.
Learn more about Design and the Elastic Mind at MOMA.
See other projects from Jonathan Harris.
(Images and quoted text from Jonathan Harris)
Everybody is born an artist, I am pleased that I have decided to stay one. As I child I remember my mom would always have crafts for me to do. Not just play-doh and paint but some things out of the ordinary. I remember the smell of a new box of crayons, it was so good. It is weird cause I have not used crayons in the longest time, the computer and the fancy drawing pencils have taken over. There was a time when I wanted to make websites, I didn’t really care that much how they looked. But I remembering coming up with a business plan and logo and presenting it to my parents, they said no, and for good reason. The next phase was the internet and the new direction it started going in, with blogs, online communities, and social media. Through that I found design.
At first, I enjoyed looking at it the most, but then I started finding out the principles behind design, who designers were, how they lived, what the proccess of design is and much more. And all of a sudden I was viewing a large ammount of design, art, photography, illustration, video and more online. After learning more about the graphic design industry I decided this was what I wanted to do. That was about one and half years ago. From that point on I wrote about design, read books about design, emailed designers, made books, and most importantly I started designing. Design has really introduced me to art as a whole and has shown me what creative thinking can do.
Design and creativity is what my life is going to be about, and I couldn’t be happier.
On Saturday, my mom and I headed down to New York City for the day. We first stopped at the Cooper Hewitt National Museum of Design. There we saw several exhibits, but our favorite by far was Ingo Maurer’s exhibit that includes mostly sculptural and installation pieces with light. We then went out for some lunch and headed downtown to the Jen Bekman Gallery. (Photo below of Kate and Mike signing books. The other two people are Natalie and Ben, two great people that I met!)
When we walked in we were imediately recognized by Kate Bingaman-Burt who has been great to me as we have been in contact online for some time now. It was great to finally meet her in person, seeing that she lives in Mississippi! I had arrived early to film some interview footage and we set to work on that. After that Mike Perry showed up and it was great to finally meet him as well! I have greatly enjoyed both of their work and they both are contributing artists to Grab Bag Book (the collaborative visual book that I am making). We talked for a little bit and then shot some footage with Mike. People started arriving around now and we got ready for a talk by Kate and Mike. (Photo below of Mike and Kate’s shoes during the talk)
After the talk we hung out for a bit and talked to Kate and Mike more about there work, college, and more. I got Hand Job, Mike’s book that recently came out and that Kate is in, signed by the both of them. At this point we hugged, shook hands, and said our goodbyes. Thanks to Mike and Kate for being so great to me!
Today, I attended the opening of art show at my school. The three artists involved where my three art teachers, each one displaying a collection of work different from the other artists. It was interesting to see all of it together for the first time since I have seen all of the work being developed and have witnessed the creation, process, and thought behind them. When I was looking at it all tonight, I realized that I do not really have a “style”. My work does not have a consistent visual appearance. My work is either still life drawings, posters involving a good amount of type, or other design work. While I am fine with this and enjoy doing them, I am looking to create a body of work that has the relatively same visual appearance. When I find time I will share with you my plans and my progress. Until then, I am happy to be designing and drawing, and thus creating a strong portfolio for the college admissions process.
More thoughts and reflections on what it is like to be planning on studying graphic design and entering the proffesional field after college - coming soon.
I subscribe to plenty design and creative blogs, some of the best I would say. And everyday, I truly enjoy going through all of them and finding some great work and articles. I have even been featured on some of them. The problem however is that all I do is look at the post and the work and then if it’s good enough I will save it for later. The internet allows us to do so much more than look at design and creative work, we might as well take advantage of it.
I would like to see a new type of design and creative blog. One that engages it’s audience more. For the most part, the audience of these blogs work in the creative field themselves, thus making them easily engage-able. So for starters, most of these blogs will have the title of the post, an image or two, and then a link back to the portfolio of the creative individual who made it.
Continue to do that, but now add some more value to it. In the post, put in some of your own commentary. Why do you like what you are posting and even why you do not like it. Feel free to critique it a little. Then ask your audience what they think. If you ask them specific questions then it can make it even easier for them because they will be responding to something. This is not a new concept, rather it just takes advantage of the comments by having the readers comment more and answer specific questions.
Some bloggers might not have the time to do this. Or might feel that their role in the community is to share. And I won’t stop reading those blogs. But I think that if some of the design and creative blogs out their implement this concept and method, they will be able to provide so much more to their readers.
(There have to be even more ways to engage your readers, what do you think some other methods might be?)
Just re-organized my workspace, here it is.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
There is a magazine that has launched recently and has a wonderful website that goes along with it. This magazine is Monocle. They continue with the black on the as it is the color the cover is. I have never been quite alright with dark colored websites that try to present a good amount of information, but they have seemed to pull it off here. Along with that, the website provides us with a sort of upscale feeling due to the simple layout of the site. They stay away from many traditional features that you would find on other sites including advertisements, social bookmarking, or other things that obstruct the simplicity of the site. On the site you won’t find any written articles for people that don’t subscribe but there is plenty of other content.
My favorite part of Monocle’s website are their videos. They cover a wide range of areas and interests from business interviews, to design and culture. Even better is that the videos are shot and edited nicely, I only wish we could view them at a larger size as high quality video.
I picked up an issue of Monocle in NYC’s Grand Central Terminal for ten dollars, and it costs a lot to subscribe but it might just be worth it for this kind of magazine. And if you are ever in Grand Central Terminal, make sure you go to the magazine shop, the bigger of the two, it is the best one I have ever seen and they carry so many magazines.
Keep an eye on Monocle.
At my recent visit to the bookstore I browsed through the magazine section and picked up Print Magazine in order to find Kate Bingaman-Burt’s contribution to the magazine. It was pretty exciting to see her in the magazine after meeting her online and following her blog. Oh, and she also has a show in NYC that is opening next month which you should go check out. And she is also going to be in the next issue of Dwell.
We stopped at Barnes & Noble today and I finally picked up Thinking with Type by Ellen Lupton. I have made it through the first section which covered the history and the basics of typography. The emphasis of the book is Thinking WITH Type not just about it. Lupton writes, “This is not a book about fonts. It is a book about how to use them.” Full review coming as soon as I finish it!
Back in the day when I first got word that the great folks behind Purevolume were coming out with a social network I got excited. Well, Virb finally came out and I never really got involved that much in it. I use it to discover some great musicians and band, but other than that, I don’t use it that much. Facebook is where all of my friends are at, even the bloggers who appear in my feed reader every day are on Facebook now. But, I recently went back and logged into my account at Virb and started fooling around. This is what I found and what I would like to see in the future.
The way I see it Virb is a different kind of social network. It is one for people who like to make things look good and use things that look good. For the artists who like a good looking social network. I saw somewhere someone call it the “designers version of Myspace. Just because all of my friends aren’t on Virb doesn’t mean that there is no value for me. I can use it to connect with artists, musicians, bloggers, and more.
So far, Virb has gotten some things right. They allow you to integrate Flickr, added widescreen video, made easy to track what music you are listening to with VirbTunes, and more. Furthermore, the way the allow you to customize your profile is very well done along with the ability to turn customization off. Some people have done a really nice job customizing their profiles.
But I do have some suggestion for it and from what I have heard the Virb team is busy working on improving Virb as we talk. Here is what I would like to see at Virb in the coming months.
-More integration from other web applications and communities like they did with Flickr.
-It takes too many clicks to view your friends profile.
-Some beautiful custom CSS themes for those non programmers among us.
-That Google advertisement at the bottom is huge. I am guessing they just put that there temporarily until they figured out their advertising strategy, at least I hope so. I think that they have a huge opportunity to develop there own non-intrusive advertising platform. They could allow ads to be targeted based on profile information.
-The Virb Blog is a little lacking. I think they could blog a lot more. But maybe that’s just me.
-They still have yet to add the “Virb is…” section. When they do this it could be huge. Allowing the users to find content and other people through this could be great.
-Since a lot of people on Virb are of the creative type, I think they could add a feature for Projects where people could highlight what they are working on in the profile and in the “Virb is…”section. This way others could offer feedback and people could share their projects.
That is all I have to say. I see an awesome future for Virb!
Check out my Virb profile here. (still being worked on)
Check out the blog by the company who makes Virb called The Big Noob.
Check out what other people are saying at Joshua Blankenship’s blog where he asks for feedback on Virb.
My brother has started a knitted hat business. You can purchase them at his online store.
I did a collection of drawings that illustrate and explain the physics behind everyday objects.
I recently did a reproduction of “Big Self Potrait” by Chuck Close.
On Thursday, I headed down to New York City with a couple art classes. (2 teachers and about 15 students) Here is my account of the day.
Elizabeth Murray Subway Mural
We arrived in Grand Central and took the subway to the 59th street subway station where we checked out Elizabeth Murray’s Mural.
My friend named Brian and I came up with this analysis of two shoes on either side of a door and the show laces being tangled above the door way….
The shoes laces represent how we can all come together through the chaos of being tangled up. The door way sends us out into the world with the ideas and values that we have learned at the mural. Once we pass through the doorway we are on our own. The shoes represent us stepping through the doorway.
Comic Abstraction
I saw this exhibit for the second time and really enjoyed it. My two favorite pieces are Untitled by Arturo Herrera and Lisa de Cohen with Adaptive by Franz West.
Dan Perjovschi
I met Dan at the museum where he was drawing on a huge wall white wall with fat magic markers. His drawings comment on political issues. I waited my turn as some important people from the museum talked to him. When I talked to him he explained the project and told me he would be there for two weeks working on it. He is originally from Rome and this is his first exhibit at a museum in the United States. I invited him to be part of the Grab Bag Book and he gave me his email. I can’t wait to see the wall when he is done.
“Perjovschi has made his drawings spontaneously in museum spaces, allowing global and local affairs to inform the final result. For his first solo museum exhibition in the United States, the artist will draw witty and incisive political images, in response to current events, on one wall…” -From the MoMA Website
MIscellaneous
-Did some drawings on the train.
-Went to Queens
-Checked out some portraits
-Tried some Indian food, an later ate pizza.
I would like to invite you to take part in a new collaborative visual book called Grab Bag.
It is a book about trying something new. It is about exploring your creativity and learning to do new things. It is about opening up to a new idea and gaining respect for it. It’s a book of visual creations by people from around the world that have come together through the exploration of new things to create something beautiful.
This is how it works…
Each participating artist will have a “creative task” from the Grab Bag chosen at random for them. The result of the creative task will be published in the book. The only rule is that your creative task can’t be from your field of work or your area of expertise because the book is about learning to do new things with your creativity and exploring new ways of expressing yourself. Furthermore, each artist will have the option to also contribute a piece of their work that comes from the area of expertise. It could be something already created or something made specifically for the book. You can see the full list on the website.
Guess what? I am going to Sweet Talk NYC. This is a one day design conference being put on by Candy Magazine and Veer. This is their first one in the states. To learn more look at the poster below. Hopefully I will see you there. More Information
