Design Blog

Turtle Island to Abya Yala --Book Review

2011-10-10T07:45:00.000-07:00

This is a book review that my sister just wrote for a wonderful new poetry and art book that is coming out soon. You can find out more about how to get a copy of the book or to get in contact with the editor (Mica Valdez) here: http://machafemme.tumblr.com

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This is her review:

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A Vibrant Voice: A Poetry Review of Turtle Island to Abya Yala

by Mollye Miller

What is a vibrant voice? How does a vibrant voice sound in a poem? Is it light and pure? Bold and enigmatic? In music it is evident when a singer captures our attention, if not our souls, by the sheer voluminous power of her song. In a poem, a vibrant voice is often harder to locate, but is equally as resplendent. For me, a vibrant voice in a poem startles me with clarity, force, and accurate words. Appearing toward the end of Turtle Island to Abya Yala, a poetry and art anthology edited by Mica Valdez, stands a poem by LeAndra Bitsie. One part of Bitsie’s poem, “Indigenous Woman: Portrait of a Lady,” reads:

To be

To be of truth

Indigenous Woman

It’s your way

Like the shine from the stars

The beauty in bead work

The beauty of grandma

It’s my way

To keep negativity as a stranger

To never be jealous, envious, vindictive

To never ever snag a fella

But instead I choose to snag my dreams, ambitions,

consciousness.

To be

To be a light

Bitsie has a vibrant voice, and a poem that indeed shines a light on this collection of poetry by Latina and Native American women. The women writers in the collection are powerful thinkers and communicators with poignant, emotional prowess. Combatting and ultimately learning how to overcome discrimination, hardship, heartache, horrific ancestral histories, and the whole list of tragedies, comedies and joys included in any human life, of course, these artists choose to make something original out of their human stories.

Instead of sharing the saga of her hardship with us, the poet speaks to us in processed tones: each poet has already done the work of processing her pain and sadness (though it still lives within her and her poems). That is, each poet in this collection—whether or not you like all of their styles, voices, and subject matter—is on her way toward, or has already arrived at, a self-sustaining and self-actualized presence. How many artists do you know today that come across as being completely self-accepting? These writers speak to us in sharp, quill-like feelings we can understand, and join in on lamenting or celebrating.

In a poem by Cassandra P. Rendon called “(my body in Anishinaabe: niiyaw),” she celebrates the beauty of the body and the strength of the will. In a vibrant voice, she writes about her desire, “to get away/from centuries of being pushed/into a tree/onto the ground/and torn apart.” In the poem “Within Me” by Alethea Chamberlain, however, the speaker wishes people would truly see her, but admits that instead people choose to “only see a tree in the field/they don’t see her strength and will.” Toward the end of the poem the speaker states, “She fights for her existence./They will not win; this she knows.”

Many of the poems in the collection are a troubling mixture of anger, bitterness, sex, solitude, survivance, peace, aggression, self-assertion, self-love, love-love, and rage.

For instance, in Ire’ne Lara Silva’s provocative poem “Love of People,” she describes the healthy reasons for rage; that is, she articulates to us why and how she has accepted the rage she feels for the atrocities committed against her, or her speaker’s, family. To accept ones’ emotions is a powerful feat in itself, a life-changing one. As Silva suggests, though, one must be careful with love, though it is “like a river” and with our behaviors, too. In one part of the poem, she describes, “rage like the grief that can’t be/forgotten only made into machetes/ rusty with llanto not to kill but to cut/rage like love of people like pain in/the sleep of night time.”

In another section of the poem—which is all in block form with spacing between shifts in purpose or mood—Silva articulates how she was, in fact, taught rage and how it has, in turn, taught her: “the rage I was taught first the/rage between languages between people/if I had been born into a world with softer/ edges been a child outside of the pot’s boiling water love would not/transformformingform to rage but love/ in this language is not enough rage a/ rage a co-rage a courage a coraje.”

With her inventive play with language—both Spanish and English—she invites questions, strong reactions and visceral feelings of pain, coupled with courage. Throughout Turtle Island, and in poetry in general, it is often difficult to decipher which story a poet wants to tell most, which exact portion of her life she wants to reveal on the page. In turn, it is also tricky to know the emotion she most urgently wants to express. At least to these Native American and Latina poets, it seems not choosing one subject to concentrate on—much less one emotion—steered them away from telling only half-truths. In other words, each poet chose a wide selection of subjects and emotions to communicate to readers the whole truth, or at least the truth as it lives and breathes in her.

Some of the weaker lines in the poems as a whole do not interfere much with the powerful, poignant ones. What makes some lines weaker is when the poet simply writes a phrase that borders on a traditional idion or cliché. Lines like “our indigenous tongue” or “Mi sangre recuerda (my blood remembers) are only powerful when paired with lines never before written, as far as I know, in poetry. A few lines in Reva Mariah Gover’s poem, “Desert Moon,” are great examples. Her poem begins, “Dust, brown-red-black./

Fragile./ Strong in the birthing.” That last single line is so original, it makes up for any lines that might border on the ordinary.

Looking at a poem by Karina Gonzalez Amaya called “Cultural Theory 101,” a reader immediately feels compelled to read the poem from start to finish, given the structure of the world she creates. In one line, she writes, “From the depths of my jungle, I breathe truth to palabras (words) long forgotten en rios de lagrimas (rivers of tears).” Amaya then ends her poem with an exuberant, if not fearlessly virulent, “!Presente!,” her declaration of self as truth.

Speaking of truth telling in poetry, as a poet who also knows the difficulty, but ultimate beauty and function, of opening up I will be honest: the poems in Turtle Island are not types of poems I usually read or am drawn toward. I am not Latina or Native American, as you can probably tell by my name. I am an Anglo-American woman, with German, Scottish, English and Norwegian ancestry. But this is where the great equalizer comes in: poetry is one of the greatest art forms for revealing the authentic voice. It doesn’t matter who, what or where you are. If you read or hear a true poem, in translation or even sometimes without, you will hear an authentic voice.

A wonderful example of a poet and poem with authentic voice is Griselda Liz Munoz in “The Earth Says.” This is one of those poems you start reading with one idea or mood in mind, and end up somewhere totally different. Note the beginning lines:

The sun, it shines outside

and as we walk I feel the pull of Earth,

of the ground,

of the ghosts,

living and dead

that still haunt our home.

I lay still at dawn.”

And in the end, Munoz writes:

Your Mexicana: Loca with a wild streak

Crazy bitch in arracadas and heels in tight jeans,

makes love to you like a howling wolf in heat

and when you’re done she blesses your sleep

Your Mexican woman, that’s me.

Your Mexican woman, that’s me.”

I am as surprised by the major mood-shift in the poem as much as I am by the speaker who accomplished it. She pulls of all her masks, all her worries and insecurities of not being good enough, all her fears of rejection, inadequacy, and self-acceptance. When all that filth comes off of her body and her life, she can declare, not once but twice, who she is. It seems to me this is the first time she has answered the question “Who am I?,” with, “I am a Mexican woman.” When she asks again, “Who am I?,” she answers more specifically, “I am myself.”

Essentially, the speaker in Munoz’s poem rejects all the things she will not be. She becomes a form of truth telling of and for herself, and for the man she loves. While the poem has its lesser lines, I admire how boldly Munoz shifts the poem to focus surprisingly not on herself or her partner, but on earthiness and ancestry. She states, mid-poem, “Take heed;/This archetype has teeth!” And, toward the end of the piece:

Mexicanas hold the Earth’s power

We give birth to ancient flowers

We understand the honor that children mean

Your Mexican woman can sense your needs

Your Mexican woman makes rice and beans.”

It’s striking how well the poet glides from the spiritual to the earthy, what we might think of as basic stuff, like cooking dinner. In Munoz’s poem, healthy pride, sex, ancestry, jealousy, food, and the clothes we wear are all synonymous with who we are, which is a spiritual thing: we are who we are because of where we’ve come from, the choices we make, and from love, or the quest to find love. Munoz’s humorous and intensely serious self-love of is admirable. Personally, I’ve never read a poem which such a flux of energy, and range of emotions. Some might say it needs editing, needs focusing, but I say it’s great how it is, much like the poem teaches me to believe.

What I appreciate about this poem is not so much the dreaminess and the escape from the surreal (the world) into the real (the mind and its imagination of time), as much as it is the boldness with which she bangs out these images, feelings and revelations onto the page. I can see coffee mug circle stains on her page of poetry, I can see her crushing the pen into the page to get out lines like, “This archetype has teeth!” When I read, I imagine what stormy or ebullient mood led her to a blank paper. Usually I am wrong in what I imagine to be true, but the imaginative exercise itself helps me get involved in a poem, and maybe it will help you, too.

I’ll turn now to a very different kind of poem titled “Now This Night” written by Sara Marie Ortiz. Here are a few lines from the piece: “O, loss. O, light,” “vast fast-blossoming,” “O, little prism of this,” “to see such light through God,” “histories unwritten, save for the emblazoned/narratives in our skin.” Lines like these make more sense in the poem when you know the subtitle, “Now This Night: November 4^th, 2008.” That’s Obama’s election night, or what might have been McCain’s election night, had votes swung the other way.

Ortiz plays amusingly with the “O” in Obama’s name. She does it splendidly when she writes: “Now, the people, now the light, now the night, now-this-O, this, now, this night. Come forth into it.” And stunningly here with, “O, inheritance. O, loss. O, light. O, far away/ radiant. O, this night, O, let this.” Oddly enough, Ortiz (the starting vowel in her name now cannot be ignored) flips her poem at the end, similar to Liz Munoz’s technique—she changes our idea of her motivation for writing.

It seems that while Ortiz’s speaker certainly pinned all her hopes on the “vast fast-blossoming possibility” of Obama’s election, she also hoped with all the poem’s intensity that the loved one she was with in a hospital would survive. What we thought was a cheer for Obama, for the nation, was actually a powerfully gentle prayer for a person she loves: “You are an estuary of fluid light/in this cold, vast, dark desert of night.” She also introduces survivance, a belief held by many indigenous Natives, of having an active sense of presence over historical absence, racism, and oblivion (Gerald Robert Vizenor, Survivance: narratives of Native presence). Then we enter the narrow “raw nerve in a dark hospital room.” The speaker admits, in a sharp and sturdy line, “Not enough money/the world to keep her alive for the world: no insurance, no.” Ortiz plants us in a desert wishing for a democratic election. Then she drops us into a hospital where people genuinely hope and pray more than in any other place. When it comes to life or death we have no biases—it is light over shadow; it is life we want.

In my second-to-last poem review, I’ll look at a more traditional love poem, which I briefly mentioned earlier. “Desert Moon” by Reva Mariah Gover starts with a beautiful construction. The physical look of the poem and the words drew me in, and I’m confident they will draw others in, too:

My story begins—razor, desert mountains,

Moon,

high, pale and translucent

like smoke

firm in the morning blue.

These opening lines could be the whole poem. Like a landscape photographer, Gover has given us so much to look at and admire all in one glimpse. While the rest of the poem could be sharper in some places—to match the powerful opening—“pearls” exist in the poem that make it worth reading twice, three times and more to appreciate its fullness.

I find this to be a poem I am familiar with—and I imagine other readers will think so too—because of the strange and simple, and at times frightening, language. This playing with language and meaning, which I call “pearls,” define for me the spontaneous ghost-nature of writing a poem. Like creating a riff on a piano or guitar, the musician closes her eyes and instinctually finds the notes she wants—and each one sings. Painters often choose and mix colors based on an emotion, an idea, or drive. When the painter finishes her work and puts down her brushes, she sees that she has created something sensational, though she can’t quite tell what it is. The same thing happens in poetry with words. If I write a phrase I truly want and need to say, even if it has no meaning outside of the poem itself, it is a pearl. Reva Mariah Gover’s pearls include “sight-images of your hands,” “dust...strong in the birthing” and “your desert moon is carved into.”

I appreciate how Gover lets herself shimmer in the landscape she set up in the beginning; she does not leave us alone to wander the desert, and then the unknown landscape of her mind. I’m not sure who or what it is the speaker “loves” in the poem—is it history? Herself? A man or woman? The mother she speaks to in the end? She writes:

here

is where you live.

The great breath of Baboquivari

bares your voice.

The granite of this valley

is where you held me.

To note: Baboquivari was a U.S. forest reserve in 1906 in Arizona. In 1908, the government changed it into a composite national forest. It is interesting how Gover chooses to make the landscape specific, how she makes the “granite of this valley” into a home.

In Turtle Island to Abya Yala, Jennifer Elise Foerster’s poem, “Magdalene in the Desert, Part I” is strikingly complete. It is also harrowing and sad. Section four, a pearl-filled section, reads:

If there were horses now, electric

blue on the ridge of these

canyons we dip through,

we would not see them, pressed up

against the moonlight as we are,

our bodies just shadows of doors

where I cannot distinguish

my fingers from yours. Interwoven

in corners, we sleep.

Nets around our feet.

This section could be a poem in and of itself, in how Foerster achieved such a compact and thorough emotional range. However, this is just part of a section of the poem. The entire poem captivates, and is exceptionally warm. This is the kind of poem I celebrate rapturously. First, Foerster’s speaker not only encompasses but wrestles with the human spirit, its countless woes. Secondly, the poem is beautiful. “Shadows of doors,” for example, will stay with me a long time.

The whole Turtle Island to Abya Yala anthology will also stay with me. The raw, unpolished work in this anthology, along with poems ready for a steady stream of critics, is what makes the collection rare and important. If all the poems were as complete as Jennifer Elise Foerster’s, for instance, the collection would not be as true to its roots, which is, I believe, diversity, multiplicity, range. And so my blanket statement for the book is: Buy it. Read it. Learn from it. These poets aren’t experimenting with and composing verse just because someone once said they were good at writing. These writers remember, know, sense, and seek. Collections like these, as far as I know, are very rare. In each poem I hear a vibrant voice that has something to say.

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Mollye Miller holds an MFA in poetry from The New School University where, in 2010, she won the university’s Annual Chapbook Poetry Award for her manuscript, “Shade Particles.” In 2011, she was a semi-finalist in the Indiana Review’s 1/2 K Poetry Prize Contest for her prose poem, “Hallmark.” She currently lives in Baltimore, Maryland.

Tags of poets mentioned in the review: LeAndra Bitsie; Cassandra P. Rendon; Alethea Chamberlain; Ire’ne Lara Silva; Reva Mariah Gover; Karina Gonzalez Amaya; Griselda Liz Munoz; Sara Marie Ortiz; Jennifer Elise Foerster

Word & Image composition/ inspiration

2011-10-10T07:26:00.000-07:00

Looking for some visual and mental inspiration? Check out 365Q from Canadian photographer and designer Julian Bialowas, who paired an inspirational quote with one of her images every day for a year.

Totally putting this on my Christmas list. Typography and pictures = <3 ! :)

2011-08-25T06:06:00.000-07:00

http://www.capital-studios.com/home

New Baltimore independent work studio facility! Very cool.

2011-07-15T08:31:00.000-07:00

http://www.typography.com/ask/recentTopic.php?rtID=92

-really great (quick) article!

2011-07-15T08:09:00.000-07:00

25 Best Advertising Movies Ever Made
http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/25-best-advertising-movies-ever-made-132318

The Photoshop Etiquette for Web Designers

2011-01-14T08:32:00.000-08:00

http://photoshopetiquette.com/

Behance: How To Avoid The Idea Generation Trap

2011-01-11T08:33:00.001-08:00

http://the99percent.com/videos/6701/Scott-Belsky-How-To-Avoid-The-Idea-Generation-Trap

Venetian Blinds...how they work in Film Noir

2010-10-26T11:05:00.000-07:00

http://cinepad.com/filmnoir/blinds.htm

Films referenced in link:

The Woman in the Window (1944)

The Big Heat (1953)

Suspicion (1941)

The Killing (1956)

Point Blank (1967)

Kiss of Death (1947)

--The Dark Room (current film?)

How Do Women Reach the Top of the Creative Ladder?

2010-09-17T12:49:00.000-07:00

BY Felix Unger

Anatomy of an Email (email marketing)

2010-09-08T06:40:00.000-07:00

Blue Sky Factory shows us the anatomy of an email. I found this quite helpful in how to think of and construct an email the right way. Nice job BF!
http://blog.blueskyfactory.com/creativeanddesign/understanding-the-anatomy-of-an-email/

5 Small Biz Web Design Trends to Watch

2010-08-05T07:25:00.000-07:00

http://tinyurl.com/3a6ng6a

More with CS5...masking

2010-06-23T11:36:00.000-07:00

http://tv.adobe.com/watch/learn-photoshop-cs5/using-improved-selecting-and-masking/?trackingid=GYFHV

Flash 5/Flash Catalyst --Interactive content, no code needed!

2010-06-23T08:11:00.001-07:00

Tutorial/how-to video link below:
http://tv.adobe.com/watch/flash-catalyst-cs5-feature-tour/top-5-flash-catalyst-cs5-features/?trackingid=GYFHF

More Info Graphics

2010-06-08T09:11:00.000-07:00

http://woorkup.com/2010/02/13/apple-sales-by-operating-segment-and-products-chart/

CS5 "content aware" feature

2010-06-01T10:59:00.000-07:00

http://psd.tutsplus.com/tutorials/photo-effects-tutorials/quick-tip-remove-a-person-from-a-photo-with-photoshop-cs5%E2%80%99s-content-aware-feature/

Information Is Beautiful!

2010-05-12T06:25:00.000-07:00

http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/

Font Blog

2010-04-27T14:36:00.000-07:00

Great typography blog!
http://www.fontshop.com/blog/?cat=92

cool new flash/code product

2010-04-22T08:40:00.000-07:00

http://www.modularweb.net/piecemaker/

YouTube has just launched "Show & Tell...

2010-04-21T06:55:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/ytshowandtell

A new gallery-style brandchannel showcasing the best marketing and advertising campaigns on YouTube.
The Google blog has a write up at http://is.gd/bBWpI.

Cool Business card design

2010-04-19T12:26:00.001-07:00

http://creativebits.org/cool_business_card_designs

Great Copy

2010-04-07T09:29:00.000-07:00

Photoshop cooking stop motion vid

2010-02-18T07:58:00.000-08:00

Photoshop cooking, fun stop motion vid. :)

Best Ads of the Superbowl

2010-02-08T17:20:00.000-08:00

Dodge, Man's Last Stand
http://tinyurl.com/yk33hvu

Google, Search On, Parisian Love Story
http://tinyurl.com/yeu9clz
and,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EEPU65nF1U
cause I love The National...

Magnolia

2010-02-08T17:13:00.000-08:00

Just re-watched Magnolia, the film, last Friday night. Again, I still love it and am trying to figure out why it is such a success to me but to others regarded as deeply depressing and chaotic. I was happy to find this post/write-up which went into some depth on the film.

Want to revisit this synopsis.
http://vox-nova.com/2010/01/10/vox-nova-at-the-movies-magnolia/

Mac Book...book?

2010-01-22T12:09:00.000-08:00

http://twelvesouth.com/products/bookbook/

2010-01-04T10:11:00.000-08:00

http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/

Photoshop Brushes anyone?

2009-12-23T06:25:00.000-08:00

http://www.brushking.eu/363/grung-brushes.html

cool type design/designer

2009-12-23T06:22:00.000-08:00

http://www.designspongeonline.com/2009/12/kate-forrester-adelaide-rose.html

and...

http://piband.com/kateforrester/illustration.html

My first porfolio WEBSITE...

2009-12-18T09:25:00.000-08:00

I designed and programed it (wrote the html/css). It's definitely in it's beginning phase --need a little java script love etc. but here it is!

http://scooby.ubalt.edu/~miller/final_project/index.html

Art & Copy -NEW FILM

2009-08-14T07:47:00.000-07:00

http://artandcopyfilm.com/

Seven Lies About Lying (Part 1)

2009-08-07T13:19:00.000-07:00

Seven Lies About Lying (Part 1)

By Errol Morris

(a favorite director of mine)

http://morris.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/05/seven-lies-about-lying-part-1/?emc=eta1

On compressing files...

2009-04-28T08:00:00.000-07:00

http://www.svenska-artiklar.se/Article/How-does-compression-work-/523

If you've ever wondered...

In a pinch and need to edit a photo? -Do it online!

2009-04-13T07:30:00.000-07:00

http://www.pixlr.com/editor/

My newest inspiration-in motion graphics and the message...

2009-03-06T10:42:00.001-08:00

http://www.motionographer.com/media/jonas_odell/the_hours.mov

This site is tight. The work is too.

2009-02-27T08:21:00.000-08:00

www.alexprager.com

Flash sight defies linear, table format-- expands and collapses to let the work shine.

Stop Motion Animation Video (great example)

2009-02-02T06:53:00.000-08:00

Process Article--wish I would have done this one!!

2008-12-16T10:09:00.000-08:00

http://tinyurl.com/6bwdqw

Suggested blogs to follow

2008-12-14T14:02:00.000-08:00

Blogs to follow (classmate suggestions):

http://stephengates.com/
http://www.adpunch.org/
http://www.oracleofny.com/
http://subtraction.com/
http://wk.typepad.com/
http://alexwilsonmedia.wordpress.com/
http://laughingliondesign.net/
http://design-muse.blogspot.com/
http://nicolecrowder.blogspot.com/
http://ilovetypography.com/
http://trenthead.com
http://www.copyblogger.com/
http://www.beingmarcecko.com/
http://cameronmoll.com/
http://www.authenticjobs.com/
http://enricocasarosa.com/
http://101cookbooks.com/

Others:
* http://www.freelancewritinggigs.com/
* http://mrmagazine.wordpress.com/
* http://freelanceswitch.com/
* http://blog-omotives.blogspot.com/
* http://veerle.duoh.com/index.php/blog/index/
* http://www.copyblogger.com/

How does this Ad/story make you feel?

2008-12-09T13:40:00.000-08:00

Also visit:
http://tinyurl.com/bn89na

To see:
• Soup Du Jour (Jawbone)
• Poolside (Jawbone)
• Rugby Team (Jawbone)

It looks like Crispin Porter is handling Jawbone's advertising as far as print ("People Will Talk" campaign), but I can't find a connection to the broadcast media. Anybody?

The Red Rose -live on youtube

2008-12-09T13:21:00.000-08:00

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=6ieRBeZ5asY
The quality of the video is low but that's youtube for you. A more profession imovie exists with crisp, vector images more like you see above.

New York Times Mag --Article

2008-12-02T18:09:00.000-08:00

http://tinyurl.com/5v5ov7

Talks about the "narrative" and how branding is story-telling....and a lot more.

# 1 Packaging site

2008-12-02T17:12:00.000-08:00

www.thedieline.com

Bond bleeds in ‘Quantum’ Review: Impact of every shot felt

2008-11-13T09:28:00.000-08:00

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27667220/

"What’s most exciting about the staging of several action sequences — particularly in the car chase that opens the film — is how quick and jarring Forster keeps the pace. With shots seeming to begin a second or so before (or end a second after) you’d expect, and with the camera the tiniest bit closer to the action than normal, the audience is forced to fill in the missing spatial and temporal blanks on its own."

--Relevant to our assignment in sequence of images that involve and engage the viewer--even make them fill in the missing parts.

Using Still Images to Make iMovie?? Use this link!!

2008-11-12T16:20:00.000-08:00

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/723297/make_a_video_with_still_pictures_using_imovie_hd/

It is a pretty geeky video but it helped a bunch!!

Another tight example of typography

2008-11-12T09:15:00.001-08:00

I love the G in this typeface, it totally defies the norm but works. I love the flow of this typeface, each letter flowing into the next. I like the illustrative version of the logo as image 1 displays. And I have noticed how versatile the effects can be using a distinct typeface like we see here without loosing the brand recognition because the letters are so recognizable.
Notice the EE's in "Street" and "Dealer" and the L in "Dealer." It works.

AIGA event

2008-11-07T10:04:00.001-08:00

Anybody? ...

Common Errors in English Usage

2008-11-06T13:07:00.000-08:00

GO HERE:
http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~brians/errors/errors.html#errors

Could be a helpful reference!
Find out, common errors, pronunciation, usage etc.

If the Shoe Fits

2008-10-23T10:21:00.000-07:00

http://www.istockphoto.com/design_spotlight_details.php?ID=21953

Cool use of IMAGE to really grab the viewer! I love this. If you go to the link above, it shows why this was "IStock's" design of the week. The designer purchased these two images and combined them to create this. Sweet. I wish we could do less writing and more designing in this class! (Shorter stories that is-- with powerful imagery.)

That's So Gay --Ad Council releases social issue ad campaign

2008-10-22T07:22:00.000-07:00

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=uEpBYKOs3ys

This is a good example of our social issue assignment, campaign assignment AND possibly the new assignment we will be given next week having to do with moving images, a sequence of images, that tell a story.

There are 3 ads view all three to see the full campaign so far: Emma and Julia (this one), Wanda Sykes, and Hillary Duff. Very effective, and pop-culturally poignant.

Social Issues assignment

2008-10-07T12:03:00.001-07:00

See Thursday's blog, my comment...

Social Issue Assignment

2008-10-07T11:47:00.000-07:00

I have two options for my Social Issue project. Idea #1 to the left or #2 redesigning a better "Aggressive Driver" campaign as seen on in Maryland (on city buses). Hope idea #1 isn't too controversial, does it matter? I think idea #1 would have more call-to-action relevancy--which it seems like that is more of what the project is about. Designing around a call to action --getting people to do something after having seen your message. Yes?

Words

2008-10-07T11:01:00.000-07:00

Here we are studying the use of WORDS and images and I just find it interesting to point out during this election, while the debaters are debating, WORDS should be the one thing that these candidates carefully construct to get noticed, to be understood, to argue, to promote, to explain. But then we have a candidate who is using words and phrases like, "Heck no..." and "Gosh darn it..." When you really think about the use of the word "Heck" and of the phrase, "Gosh darn it," those words are really "G" rated cover-ups for, "Hell" and "God damn it." What kind of a world leader would talk like this? When would this be ok? --Intentional or not, self-aware or not... What other words could be used that better explain what this person wants to say, or should be saying? These are just filler words and they mean nothing. As we have been studying the extraction of irrelevant words from our work, I have become more aware of the irrelevant words of others. (And it doesn't take much to notice these inarguable misuses). Surely better words could be used that actually MEAN something. Why would we excuse this?

Project 2

2008-09-16T21:19:00.000-07:00

I am either doing one of these two topics for my "Project 2: Hey What's up" assignment:

Hand Cramp: New Book

2008-09-16T18:34:00.000-07:00

Hand Cramp: New Book
I like! It reminds me of a book I read as a kid. I think I still have it at my parents house ...The Ladybug(...something). Remind me this weekend....

Firey Poem--Poem that describes

2008-09-16T17:36:00.000-07:00

Fire [Le Feu]
by Francis Ponge

Fire sets forth: at first, each flame somehow finds its own way…
(Fire's walk is like that of an animal: it must leave one place to occupy another; itwalks like an amoeba and a giraffe, leaping the length of its neck, crawling along on its feet)…Then, while the contaminated bulk methodically caves in, the escaping gases are transformed into a peculiar slant of butterflies.

Catcher in the Rye Controversy

2008-09-11T18:44:00.000-07:00

Good Magazine E-Article:

This was a purely outrageous to me as I just reading Catcher in the Rye for the first time--and loved it, I might add. Somehow the book skipped my syllabi's over the years...If you go to the link you can view the proposed "revised syllabus" that Anne Trubek has drawn up as an "improved and more relevant" reading list. You will also see that most people strongly disagreed with Ms. Trubek. I wrote a comment as well but when I submitted it, I never saw it post, so I am not sure that I did it right but I very much disagreed with her.

http://www.goodmagazine.com/section/Stimuli/anne_trubek_on_why_we_shouldnt_still_be_learning_catcher_in_the_rye

Designers Accord --Treaty for Enviro-design

2008-09-08T09:44:00.000-07:00

http://designersaccord.org/

--I came across an article in the "Profiles" section of Good Magazine about the founder of this organization. Today, my sister sent me the link to a company she is looking into ( job hunting in NYC) which is somehow connected to this organization. I am not sure yet whether they are just a part of the Designers Accord or whether they had something to do with the design of the logo...looking into it further. Still, this is an interesting movement in the design industry.

Typographic Manifesto

2008-09-08T07:48:00.000-07:00

Baltimore Based Typographic Design firm displays a well written prose that paints a neo-type revolution like an uprising.

Check it out:
http://www.posttypography.com/site/index.php?action=manifesto

Blog-o-lot

2008-09-07T20:15:00.000-07:00

Hi, I am new to this blogging thing.
Bear with me. I will continue to add more as we go.
How are the assignments coming?