Art Collective
Today in Drawing club, we did the collaborative drawing exercise. On the left, are the drawings that we took turns drawing one line at a time until a vague picture formed then each of us reinterpreted the drawing. This is a great exercise when you don’t know what to draw. As Nathan put it, it’s “surrealism on your lap.” You don’t have to come up with symbolism or force anything. It just becomes something from some collective unconscious perhaps.
Today is the first day of the quarter and Tom is teaching Logo Design, Corporate Identity, and Pinterest. This is the first time that a class I’ve attended has used Pinterest for anything. Social media is starting to play a big role in education, classrooms using it to share relevant discoveries. Social media is especially important for designers. Tom said today ” You’re not geniuses You are not reinventing graphic design…. you are doing a job for a client. You are not creating the rules.” Social media helps us keep in touch with what the masses are liking, getting used to, industry conventions that blossom and become the norm, the new rules, in what seems like overnight.
Pinterest is an interesting app. Its customizable folders, its public nature. Looking at the way someone names their files is like looking into their mind, seeing their organization, chaos, associations, interests. Pinterest is more like people looking into my living room and seeing my taxidermied dog and I am feeling embarrassed because I am thinking that they don’t understand why I like it. And it’s even weirder when a teacher rents out a part of your living room for homework. Here’s my new board dedicated: Logos and Inspiration for Logos. (I am to pin 5 logos a week, found in the wild– no repinning– with taxonomic descriptions and implications.) It’s making me want to have a professional Pinterest where I can sound informed and relevant all of the time instead of pinning Arrested Development references.
In class, we briefly discussed the genres of logos and often, they are combination marks, hybrids of the following categories: letterform, pictorial, emblem and abstract. Logos are often simplified (if you want to sound extra-in-the-know: say “reductive design”). Logos have a different opportunity than most creations: identity. These creations are meant to last as long as the business and all businesses (enterprises, institutions, whathaveyou) hope to last a very long time. There’s a lot of pressure to communicate clearly and cleverly enough that the joke doesn’t fade with a couple of uses.
Links:
25 Sources For Logo Design Inspiration. (a collection of links of logo dumps– some aren’t very good and seem like weird submission schemes)
Chrome Web Store – Pinterest Keyboard Shortcut | Ctrl+Alt+P. (browser tool to pin easier and faster)
A Smile in the Mind: Beryl McAlhone: 9780714838120: Amazon.com: Books. (recommended by Tom Lenon)
2010 Winners | Brands of the World™ | Download vector logos and logotypes. (recommended by Tom Lenon)
I really liked how this waterfall painting I did before turned out and I wanted to give it to my mom for Christmas, but I liked it too much so I decided to make another one from a photograph of the waterfall from a slightly (ever so slightly) different angle. (I took the photographs on my road trip in the Midwest. I think this waterfall is somewhere near Michigan.)
I loved painting this. I felt each step had its own beauty. Brushstrokes on a canvas, vague sense of depth. There is a great sense of flow making something from nothing, slowly watching it develop like a polaroid. I like the in-between stages where it seems like it has so much possibility.
Some time during the painting, I grabbed a brush I haven’t used in a while and forgot how thick of a stroke it produces. Instead of making a duplicate of a previous painting, I felt like I added a stylistic element that transformed it into a pattern-world where things jut in and out of a realistic dimension (if that makes any sense). And, I think I like this one better than the one I wanted to save. Unlike children, it’s easy and an often thing I do, to pick favorites among my work. Some paintings that have lost their charm, paintings that I’ve grown tired of, get painted over. Sometimes, I imagine the paintings quivering in fear as I evaluate their worth. But, I also imagine that they preen in excitement as if they have been chosen for a special privilege.
This is the front of a birthday card I drew today.
Today is the first day of winter break. I spent a good chunk of the morning setting up a to do list and sending out emails and paying bills. I want to take advantage of the next two weeks to get some stuff done that I’ve been putting off. I also wanted to start an illustrated journal (inspired by Maira Kalman).
Kismet Arts Tangent 