FAUX-BEAU

How Do You Get a Nerd To Run?

Kathryn Proulx — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 05:06:05 +0000

Why, you tempt them with technology and the promise to see their progress visualized, of course! Having a little motivation (ie: roller derby) doesn’t hurt either. You see, I haven’t even thought about running since a season-long track and field career in high school. And even then I was more of a sprinter than long distance.

The Key Tools

iPhone 3GS

Every iPhone 3GS (and iPod touch!) ships with the Nike+ app already built in—it will record your workouts including distance, time, and pace. When you plug your iPhone into your computer, it will automatically send your workout history to your nike.com account.

Nike+ Sensor

The Nike+ sensor is a small accelerometer that you’re supposed to put into a Nike+ shoe. As you walk, jog, or run, it broadcasts a signal to your Nike+ app on the iphone or ipod. Apparently some girlfriends are nervous that their significant others might start using it as a surveillance device. I dont know about you, but I never wear running shoes so I’m not going to start to worry about that. So as I said before, you’re supposed to buy fancy $100 Nike shoes to put this little guy into well… I’m not keen on dropping $100 on shoes unless they’re cute, and that brings us to our next tool:

A Box Cutter

I used this to cut a slit in the tongue of one of my sneakers and planted the sensor deep down in there. No $100 shoes for me, hell, I didn’t even have to buy a $3 sensor pouch. Just some purely Macgyver type stuff.

The Couch to 5k App

When I used to actually have a gym membership (purely for the classes and treadmills) I gave the Couch to 5k running plan a shot. However, it was super annoying to keep an eye on the time and remember how long to walk and jog. I always thought about making a playlist in GarageBand where I could put in verbal cues of when to walk and jog. This was before the days that I actually owned an iPhone, and after minimal research I found the Couch to 5K iphone app. For $2.99 I could have all the verbal cues to tell me to run and walk and cooldown I ever wanted.

What’s great about the Nike+ app is that it will play your selected playlist and continuously run in the background until you stop or pause your workout. This allows you to run the Couch to 5K app which will play the verbal cues loud enough to hear over your music, and you can always unlock the screen to see the countdown to the next cue (and to the end of the workout if you’re lazy!)

But what surprised me most about my first time running outdoors in about 4 years is that I ran 2.4 miles! In about 30 minutes! I know that’s not amazing by most peoples standards, but I don’t think I ever even came close to a 13-minute mile in high school. I hated gym class. I especially hated the presidential fitness test. I attribute my pace to endurance practices at roller derby. Not only did I crush my expectations in my first workout, but I got home and immediately posted the results to my nike.com account for everyone to see… and that’s what’s going to keep me running in the future.

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Daily Guilty Pleasure: Roller Derby

Kathryn Proulx — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 02:18:58 +0000

So, if you don’t follow me on twitter, or you’re not my friend in real life, you might not know that I recently started getting into roller derby! It all started when Chino’s old roommate (who is a referee) invited us to our first bout this past summer. It was a double header so we saw the Yankee Brutals and The CT Death Quads jam it out against the opposing teams. I was in love the whole time. Then I saw Whip It! and I was reminded how much I wanted to give derby a shot. About four weeks ago I was in the car with Chino and I finally admitted it out loud—”I think I really want to try out for roller derby.” I found out that try outs were in a week so I borrowed skates from my friend Jay, practiced in the local high school parking lot after work a couple of times, and 3 weeks ago I tried out. And guess what?! I made the cut to stick around for rookie practices! Today I got my first pair of skates and I can’t wait until practice tomorrow to start breaking them in. Ahh! So exciting.

PS: My favorite roller derby name is Em Dash, a jammer from Gotham Girls Roller Derby. Hopefully I’ll make the team and get to pick a name of my own!

Where has the time gone?

Kathryn Proulx — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 19:14:25 +0000

You didn’t think I’d let October go by without posting, did you? I never imagined a semester full of liberal arts requirements would be so time-consuming. Written assignments instead of designed assignments has been a weird change that is proving hard for me to adjust to.

I haven’t made much progress on my thesis yet, either. We spent the first half of the semester doing semi-unrelated assignments like visualizing a book, designing a personal timeline, and bringing in our favorite piece of work we’ve created. To say the least, it wasn’t inspiring. I kept producing info graphics for any assignment that called for a designed solution, and I got reprimanded for stealing typefaces from an old internship and using them on a personal project for school (that was also one of my favorite pieces that I planned on bringing into class.) Word of advice: even though everyone else does it, that doesn’t mean it’s OK to steal typefaces from your internship… even if you’re a poor student and are using them for school projects only.

At first I thought I wanted to make a mash-up of fffound, flickr, and delicious where you could upload inspirational images and tag them. If you found an image you liked on the site it would automatically download it to your ‘inspiration folder.’ Then I realized how boring and uncreative that idea was, and that even though I’d learn a lot by building it, it is just too big of a project to take on and build in 4-6 months. Then, in an effort to scale down, I thought I could tag all the images I had saved on my computer and create a data visualization of what inspires me. Then I realized that nobody cares as much about me as I do. And so… I moved on.

I read Dear Diary by Lesley Arfin for fun—and it reminded me of my experiences in middle school/high school (I think honestly every girl could relate to it.) Then I found Culture Jam by Kalle Lasn at my local library and started reading it (I think everyone should read this book, I wish I had read it sooner.) This was around the same time we started talking about media and body image in my Psychology of Eating Disorders class, the Situationists in my Urban Branding class, and cultivating identity in my Uniform Fashion class. All of a sudden it was like I finally felt that fire again—like I had discovered something to care about enough to make/design/build something around it. I’m not really sure how this will tie together in the end… but stay tuned.

Links 9/15/09

Kathryn Proulx — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 12:11:30 +0000

Smashing Magazine offers 45 Incredibly Useful Web Design Checklists and Questionnaires.

Computer Arts has 31 Tips for a Better Portfolio.

It has nothing to do with design, art, or anything of the sort—but sometimes you just need to smile and watch a little kid paralell park his toy car.

I’m addicted to Auto-Tune the News, if you’re not familiar CLICK HERE.

Kris Atomic has a new layout. More importantly she has updated for the first time in forever with a handful of new drawings.

So far I’m in love with the following S/S 09 shows (keep in mind I’m writing this on Saturday): Charlotte Ronson,
Rag & Bone, and Costello Tagliapietra.

Inspiration Folder: Model Casting

Kathryn Proulx — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 12:00:47 +0000

How to Survive Foundation Year

Kathryn Proulx — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 02:15:02 +0000

Something I haven’t told you yet is that I’m now guest-blogging 2 times a month for Underground Art School. My first post went up Tuesday morning—and my plan is to repost them here a couple of days after, so here it goes:

Some nights you will find yourself sipping on a Red Bull trying to stay awake to finish a 2-D project due the next morning. Due to the caffeine shakes you won’t be able to fall asleep when you finally finish and wind up having a mere two hour window to nap before class. Don’t sweat, we’ve all been there before-you can and will get through this! Here’s my guide to surviving your foundation year:

Defend Your (Good) Ideas

One of the hardest parts of foundation year is being told “No” to an idea that you think is awesome. Sometimes the way you explain your best ideas make them an easy target to be shot down. Learn how to explain the most important parts of your ideas with confidence, and when you are met with resistance, learn how to defend your ideas with persistence if they are, in fact, a good idea. This leads me to my next point…

Don’t be Afraid to Throw Away an Idea You’re Invested In

Art school is about learning how to come up with a vision, following it through, realizing it’s awful, understanding why it’s awful, and tossing it to the side. You will have a lot more awful ideas than good ones when you start, you will spend a lot of time trying to make these awful ideas into good ideas, and you’ll be hesitant to cast them off due to the amount of time you’ve invested. Chalk it up to experience and move on. It is OK to have a bad idea. The best part about a bad idea is it always leads you to something better. Art School teaches you how to weed out those bad ideas from the first seed.

Critique Without Bullshitting

Nothing is worse in foundation year than staying up all night, putting your blood, sweat, and tears into finishing a project due the next morning and then you get to class and have to listen to a bunch of timid students either say nothing in response or bs about your work.
“I really like that you used green. It’s very organic”—that is not a critique, it’s a comment, and the word ‘organic’ is possibly the most overused word in the average art student’s critique lexicon. Don’t be that student. It’s OK to have an opinion in a critique, we’re not here to rub noses, we’re here to offer our honest opinions on the work presented and offer ideas on how to make it better. I remember being nervous in my foundation year that if I was to say anything too harsh that it would make it harder for me to make friends (as I would be labeled as ‘that bitch in critique this morning’). Don’t take critique comments as being a jab at you, the artist, the student. You are learning skills in foundation year, these skills and how they are applied are being critiqued. In the same vein, learn how to critique your own work in the same way.

Learn How to Generate Ideas

Always, always, always idea-generate before starting a project, regardless if it’s an applied arts or fine arts class. Even if you think you’re dead set on your initial idea; sketching, envisioning, and talking over other options might help you to make that first idea stronger or realize that there is an entirely different route you should be taking. The ideas you come up with when you are pushing yourself to brainstorm oftentimes can be the best ones. Make lists, write word associations, flip through books at the library, sketchbook, .

Save your Unused Ideas

I always wrote down lists in my sketchbooks of ideas that I—someday—wanted to pursue. Occasionally I’ll go back and read lists from freshman year and I’ll say “Wow that’s brilliant.” But more often than not I’ll say, “What the hell was I thinking?!!” No matter how small, write down your ideas that you haven’t used just yet, you’ll never know when they’ll come in handy, and if anything, they will show your progression and commitment to your art.

If you have questions you’d like answered about art school please email me! You can always check if I’ve answered it already. If your question becomes a post topic you will always remain anonymous.

Verdana Vs. Modified Futura

Kathryn Proulx — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 15:03:56 +0000

So the internet has been a-buzz with the news that IKEA has switched from their modified version of Futura to Verdana—citing a need for a typeface they can use globe-wide, even in Asian countries, and on the web.

A lot of designers are getting heated over the whole thing, but my opinions on the matter can be summed up by Connecticut-based designer Matt Hunsberger’s post on the subject.

“Verdana actually makes sense. Aside from IKEA’s probably-bullshit reasoning about wanting one font for both web and print, Verdana is an accurate reflection of their brand. Think about it, Verdana is a utilitarian typeface that is kind of crappy but everyone has it on their websites. IKEA is utilitarian furniture that is kind of crappy but everyone has it in their houses. See, it makes perfect sense.”

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Back to School / Senior Thesis

Kathryn Proulx — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 16:48:44 +0000

It’s back to Parsons on Thursday. Kind of unreal to think that this will be my last year! I’m mostly fufilling my liberal arts requirements (French, Urban Branding, Psychology of Eating Disorders?) but my biggest class is Thesis. I’m not sure of the parameters yet but I do know that our first semester hinges upon research, and our second semester is when we build, fabricate, code, and/or design our project. I know that I want to do something involving technology; web design (including interface and back-end), an app/widget, or something of the sort. I really want to use this as an opportunity to teach myself skills that I haven’t had a chance to learn in school; designing databases or programs for example. I have just one idea so far that involves gamers (so far from my interests/personality!) and I’m hoping to brainstorm more ideas. I know ideas are money but if you have an awesome idea for a website, widget, app, light computer program, or anything of the sort—let me know! I’ll probably be posting more about my progress as school starts so watch this space.

Inspiration Folder: Garment Racks

Kathryn Proulx — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 15:04:18 +0000

Sorry for the disappearance! I just moved into a new apartment with my beau so this week’s inspiration folder is dedicated to garment racks (because I want one!)

Daniel Galdamez – Senior Thesis

Kathryn Proulx — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 14:01:55 +0000

Using matte plexiglass, laser etching, custom cut chrome hinges & bolts, and traditional printing techniques Dan Galdamez built a timeline of his life (both past and projected) for his senior thesis project. “The basis for my thesis was to show how I personally connect to meaningful periods of my life, through typography.” he says. “It works as an insight for myself because it allows me to show illustration in addition to providing a narrative.”

“The time line starts with the initial thought of life and ends with the expiration. Personality is represented through and exterior and interior layer to show the relationship between the two and how they make up one person.”

Daniel Galdamez is a freelancer working and living in Brooklyn, NY. He graduated from Parsons School of Design as a Communication Design major in May 2009.

Are you a current or former design student interested in having your work featured on Faux-Beau.com? Send me an email with photos of your work, a brief description, your email address and website, and a short bio about yourself and you may see it on the site!