Spring Object Design

Landscape With The Fall Of Icarus

According to Brueghel
when Icarus fell
it was spring

a farmer was ploughing
his field
the whole pageantry

of the year was
awake tingling
near

the edge of the sea
concerned
with itself

sweating in the sun
that melted
the wings' wax

unsignificantly
off the coast
there was

a splash quite unnoticed
this was
Icarus drowning

-William Carlos Williams

Jenni

Typography Design

Good/Poor Design: The NYC subway map is an example of good design because it is neatly organized and easy to understand. The only problem with its design is that in the actual subway cars, the print is very small and hard to read, I always notice people having to lean in over someone's head in order to read it.

Good Design:

Nice use of unusual font.

I love these ads for Dunkin Donuts 99 cent lattes because the chunky, chocolate-colored font reminds me of a nice warm latte. It is a good use of design in order to generate a certain emotion, which is something we talked about during class.

Poor designs:

This garbage can is confusing and I don't understand the labeling.

This is an example of poor design because from afar the font is difficult to read, my sister mentioned that it took her a while to realize it said, "colorize."

This is also hard to read from afar, the light color of the font makes it almost invisible.
The font on this vending cart is also hard to read against the image.

Jenni

29 Things: Blog about Technology

We live in a society driven by media, our consumption is insatiable for the constant feed of up-to-date news and entertainment. I've become so dependent on the immediacy and accessibility of media, that it's difficult to imagine what life would be like without the many forms that I view on a daily basis.

For news and current events, I watch CNN, HLN or browse huffingtonpost.com, I like to visit these mediums daily as a means of staying informed and connected to the outside world. From time to time, the Huffington Post will include interesting articles written by actors, musicians and other celebrities. It's important to have a variety of informative sources, especially on controversial topics. The web site is user-friendly and contains tons of categorized articles at your fingertips.

Browsing YouTube and various digital design blogs is a great way of exploring work that inspires and connects me with other artists from around the globe. I tend to shy away from popular social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Myspace, but Internet discussion forums provide a place to share my ideas and build a sense of community that without this technology could not have been possible.

Jenni

29 Things: More Flickr Fun

For this exercise, I chose to upload one of my own hand-drawn images into Flickr's puzzle generator. I thought the whole concept of it was neat, especially because it reminded me of one of my favorite past times. The title for this image is Shades Puzzle.

Jenni

29 Things: Discover Flickr

For this blog, I chose this photo of traditional Japanese Art of two women dressed in Kimonos. I chose this image mostly because I am part Japanese and these kind of images are all over my apartment and it reminded me of my late grandma, Himeko Jermyn. My grandmother had many decorative kimonos from her childhood and she passed them onto me, beautiful colors and intricate designs fill these lush fabrics and represent Japanese culture and lifestyle. Flickr has many images like this that I can browse through, I am enjoying this popular photo sharing website.

Jenni

Playing with Compositions

Same 5 basic shapes, different compositions based on emotions:

Serenity:

Anger:

Busyness:

Growth:

Intimacy:

Loneliness:

Jenni

Speaking with Animation

For this blog, I chose a short animation (45 sec.) done by one of my favorite artists, Lois van Baarle. She is an illustrator and computer animator from Holland. Her work is amazing, and I would highly recommend checking out her website, loish.net. The animation I chose was done for her Paperbag Parachute Studio website. The project is entitled, "Paperbag Parachute." It features four main characters, three monkeys on a branch mocking a fourth lone monkey on another branch. The style of the work is 2D animation which happens to be the traditional animation style, used in classic cartoons. She created the animation using a tablet stylus and produced in Flash.

The animation begins with an overall view of the environment, a desert perhaps with some trees spread out across the plain (she gives off the illusion of 3D by placing some trees further on the z-axis creating 3D depth in a 2D environment), then three monkeys appear on a branch when suddenly a fourth monkey appears from above on a separate branch. The fourth monkey, who is styled somewhat differently (different color, bigger hair, lop-sided eyes) from the first three monkeys, gives a friendly wave at the three monkeys on the opposite branch. His endearing gesture is met with lively laughter from the three monkeys, then the taunting begins, and the fourth monkey does not understand what is so funny. Then one of the three monkeys takes out a pen and paperbag, draws a happy face on it and throws it over the fourth monkey's head. The clouds roll in from above and the skies become dark and lightening strikes the tree of monkeys. The tree collapses along with the three monkeys, but the lone fourth monkey remains afloat due to the paperbag parachute.

This whole piece was meant to show that in life, there will always be people who put you down for being different, but what goes around comes around and the one who was taunted will one day rise to the top. It was also the inspiration behind her animation website, paperbagparachute.com. My only criticism is that the animation contains no sound, which is somewhat disappointing. I felt that by adding sound, it would have greatly elevated the user's experience and engaged the viewer more.

With that said, I hope you enjoy this piece as much as I did, check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TF1tWCdesMw

Jenni