The Perfect Problem

February 18th, 2012

The majority of designers I know (including myself) are self-proclaimed perfectionists. We walk around the world boasting about having OCD as if it’s a good thing. But often times, we let that mentality escalate to the point of becoming a problem. I think everyone comes to the point where we want too much perfect; perfect to the point of not even starting in the first place because something will never be as good as it is in our minds. We have a habit of setting our expectations for ourselves exceptionally high; so high that no human being would ever be physically, mentally, or emotionally able to achieve them.

This is a problem I’ve been suffering from for some time now. For a while, I’ve been writing it off as normal laziness that every person feels from time to time. But it has come to my attention (seeing that it has been dragging on for way too long) that this isn’t just the run-of-the-mill laziness. It’s the culmination of anxiety, depression, & stress associated with finally graduating from college. I’ve been working on my BFA for nearly eight years, and internally I want nothing more than validation and reassurance that all that time was not wasted…especially since I wasted a little bit of time trying to figure out what it is that I really wanted. The problem wasn’t “not knowing what I wanted to do.” The problem was chasing after things “I thought I wanted.”

As my undergraduate career starts to come to a close, I want nothing more than to just be myself and do the work that I want to do. I’ve grown tired of all the branding and advertising projects we work on as part of CSULB’s Graphic Design program. I’ve completely lost interest in all class projects. I just want to stay home and work on all the projects I have queued up simply because I never have time to work on them due to school. I’m currently working on a series of 100 book covers as an independent study project with Andrew Byrom. The project started with just 30 covers, but it has recently grown to 100. This project, by far, will be the biggest project I’ve ever attempted. It’s also one of the projects I’m actually really excited about in a very long time. And one of the lessons I’m learning is: I need to work faster. And I know that to do so, I need to overcome my need for perfection and my fear of failure. The clock is ticking and I need to start working on 10 – 20 covers per week as opposed to the current two.

Here’s something from the reject pile…

I’m not quite sure how I’m going to complete the 100, but I’m quite confident that I will somehow pull this off.

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Hand-Painted Signs by Dusty

February 11th, 2012

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Just Another Sunday

February 5th, 2012

Today was spent in the Studio working on an advertising campaign for Stride gum. Every year, The One Club puts on a student competition and one of the briefs is for Stride (the other two being for PETA, on horseracing and fish). The brief calls for putting together a campaign that focuses on fueling “nonstop nonsense” and targeting mostly teens (ages 13 – 21). Our group got a little stuck on writing nonsensical material so we took scraps of paper and wrote down random words that fit into the following categories: noun, verb, place. We then put them into cups and pulled one of each at random to see what kind of whacky combinations we would get.

Here are a few of our favorites:

  • Hamsters fly a small village in Eastern Europe
  • Dinosaurs trample gym lockers
  • Jumbo shrimp jump fancy dinner party
  • Garden gnome slide marathon
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No Stranger to Failure

December 26th, 2011

My final project in Andrew Byrom’s Advanced Typography class this last semester was to design and construct house numbers. Originally, we were supposed to design the numbers, produce/manufacture the numbers and design the packaging it would come in. But due to time constraints we just had to have a proof of concept mock-up. I had this idea, which at the time, I thought was completely brilliant. My house numbers were based off a kid’s xylophone. The concept was that the numbers together would produce a sound that is unique to your address. It would also come in handy should your door bell ever be broken.

 

I constructed a mock-up version out of strips of brass, but something I did not foresee happened. When the numbers are held upright, they do not produce the right sound. The force of gravity prevents them from vibrating properly and producing a tune. Not to mention, this was probably the ghetto-est mock-up I’ve ever constructed in my life! If I were to remake this, I’d probably just get the numbers laser cut.

0 comments Posted by nel in Graphic Design

The Second-born Child

December 25th, 2011

It’s been one hell of a semester and I am officially one semester away from graduation. I’m extremely excited to finally be able to say goodbye to my undergraduate career. I have been in school way too long and the desire to be done has been knocking at my door. I’m constantly thinking about what I want to do after I graduate. And these days, there is no plan. The reason I don’t make plans isn’t because I don’t have one. I choose not to make plans because they never end up working out anyways. I think it’s realistic to say that I don’t think I’ll be doing graphic design my entire life. There’s always been something very satisfying & rewarding about making products that people love. And there’s something very satisfying about the smiles those products bring to people. I don’t consider myself a business person by any means, but I’ve been dabbling in entrepreneurship since before my college career even began. And that’s just where I imagine I’ll end up.

Since starting my winter break, I have mostly been concentrating on the official launch of my second brand: Quiet Tiger (most likely scheduled for Summer 2012). I’ve been working on it slowing and (for the most part) keeping it under the radar. Finally, (after nearly half a decade) there is a defined division between the graphic design and handmade side of things. In 2012, it’s to be expected that becausemaybe will stay out of the spotlight so it can run quietly in the background. But Quiet Tiger isn’t just about handmade goods. To me, I see it as a chance to rekindle the spirit of something I lost long ago. My overall approach to Quiet Tiger is (essentially): If I could bottle myself (in my purest form) and inject it in a lifestyle brand, what would it look like?

Over the last five years, I’ve allowed myself to be drained by the responsibilities that come with growing up. I’ve allowed myself to waste my energy on being angry & frustrated with people who are clearly not worth my time. And I’ve allowed myself to constantly feel sorry myself. My energy has been elsewhere, which prevents me from focusing correctly. No one who has met me after 2006 really knows what I’m like when I’m at full capacity. And that’s something that definitely needs to change.

I’m looking forward to 2012 as my last chance to get this whole “growing up” thing right. And to finally get back to myself and back to being myself.

0 comments Posted by nel in Future Talk

Dipping Toes in Type Design

November 7th, 2011

I hesitate to say that I’ve designed a typeface only because I know it’s much more complicated than what I have done.

This semester, I’m taking an advanced typography class with Andrew Byrom and I’m enjoying every minute of it. Over the past month, we’ve been working on designing a sans serif typeface. We only worked on the lowercase, but I might work on the uppercase in the near future.

This is Forma. And it likes white space.

 

0 comments Posted by nel in Graphic Design, Random

Signage Sunday!

November 6th, 2011

I spent most of my day today in the Arts District of Downtown LA. The day started off with a meeting at Urth Caffe with a few of the leaders from the various student groups within AIGA/LA. We spent a couple of hours brainstorming and discussing concepts for the upcoming rebranding of the AIGA/LA Education Committee. Afterwards, we migrated to Wurstküche for some delicious sausage!

Being Sunday, Downtown was quite busy…I had to park a little bit further than what I’m used to. But I parked next to a building with this lovely address sign:

0 comments Posted by nel in Graphic Design, Weekend

American Apparel: Day 1

September 25th, 2011

So on Friday, I started my first day of interning at American Apparel HQ in Downtown LA. And I actually really like it. My day starts at noon and it ends at 8pm. When I told my friends this, some would prefer to start the day earlier and end earlier. But this schedule works out perfectly fine for me. I’m working in the graphics department as kinda an all-purpose intern. They assign me to whatever tasks need to get done for the day. Our department handles mostly the online store. The first two hours of my day were spent setting up my email account  (Yes, I have an official American Apparel corporate email address), setting up my workspace (from what I understand, that’s going to be my permanent workspace but others may use it on my days off), and then my bff Nisa trained me a little on how she does her job as Senior Photo Editor. For the day, I was assigned to help with the photo editing team and spent all day editing about 30 photos (As a team, we probably edited well over a hundred). It’s kinda weird to see photos I just edited on Friday already live on the online store. I think it’s just a general weird feeling to see anything you’ve done go live for a big corporation.

Next week, I’ll probably be assigned to a different task. So far, it’s a really laidback environment although the work is fast-paced. As long as you get the work done, everything’s fine. Everyone’s pretty nice and cool to talk to too. We’ll just have to wait to see how things go this upcoming Friday. I think I’m going to really enjoy my time there and learn a lot from it, regardless of how much design work they give me.

0 comments Posted by nel in Random

What I Do On Saturdays

September 25th, 2011

Today was just supposed to be like any other Saturday…just lounge around, spend time on the internet, work on school projects…But today I had to meet with my group for our building signage project…We took a group trip to Home Depot…one thing lead to another. And we ended up cutting our entire project using the saws in the moulding aisle. And surprisingly, no one complained or stopped and stared.

0 comments Posted by nel in Graphic Design, Handmade, Weekend

Would You Like a V-neck with Your Internship?

September 17th, 2011

I am officially one of American Apparel’s new interns. I will be mostly working on all things related to the online store ranging from photo-editing to product management. I’m pretty excited to be working for them. I think it’ll be a good experience working with an in-house team.

Upon telling my friends this news, I had a friend ask me: “Do you have to pledge allegiance to Helvetica Bold?”

0 comments Posted by nel in Future Talk, Graphic Design
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