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.

Related posts:

1. Back to School / Senior Thesis
2. Another Julia Gorton Project
3. 2008 Wrap Up
4. What Im Working on Now: Escapist Magazine
5. Interview with Martin Hooper & Gavin Braman of Drifting Creatives