It's a mouse, not a magic wand.

Taking a break from construction, planning, and inventing for my degree show, I am inspired. Too often my mind is spinning quite quickly with ideas, thoughts rather - that I forget to stop and breathe. Stressed at all? Take a break, go for a walk. Draw something that has nothing to do with what is stress related. Wander in the library, find a book that is not in the design and/or exhibition section.

When looking over research I've gathered thus far, I am inspired by the underground poster designs by Theyre Lee-Elliott. I noticed a few of such posters at the London Transport Museum, they are implanted in my mind.

His aesthetic is inspiring:

How often we're faced with marketing posters featuring little to no free/white space. Especially in America. It's relieving to view simplistic posters featuring little logos, mass text, etc. This reminds me again that design is art - I don't have to just be a skilled person who knows how to use a mouse and a drawing program. "It's a mouse, not a magic wand."

Furthermore, I came across a TED Talk by Jaime Lerner:
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/jaime_lerner_sings_of_the_city.html

After the first minute, I immediately liked him. This is a man who was able to transcend his thoughts and imagination into a complete and reliable reality. I knew nothing of this man before this video. I simply typed in the search bar "public transport" and came across this beautiful mind. A bit of history: Jaime is a renowned architect and urban planner, this talk specifically focuses on his work towards the city Curtiba in Brazil. (Where he was once the mayor).

Of course with most, if not all TED talks, he was quite inspiring. He spoke of how he influenced the city through changing the means of bus transport. Here, I have been working on finding joy and happiness within a bus or train - and this man focused on the influence of the architecture and appearance of certain bus stops. It was a view I never considered to focus on before. At all. He examined the trends of transport, the influence of a city map, and of course the mind of the commuter. In a friendly and humorist stance, he related transport to a woman saying. "The car is like your mother-in-law, you have to have a good relationship with her. But she cannot command your life. If the only woman you have in your life is your mother-in-law, you have a problem."

It make sense.

Yet another brilliant quote when it came to focusing on his project(s): "Creativity starts when you cut a zero from your budget."

I'm surrounded by brilliant artists, designers and illustrators alike, who are using the best of their minds and hands to get such work done. Whether it be finding old frames in second hand shops - sanding down such, repainting such. Or it's coming across inspiring rare books outside the university library, other examples also include that of building, hammering, painting, and even welding certain new materials.

This creates nothing but a smile in an artist's eye.

"Failed" Projects

I'm not always a fan of using the word 'fail,' I hope that fail could be replaced by 'pending' projects. The truth is, I do think it is vital to document your successes along with projects that don't quite work out. Here are two examples of such.

The first being how I wanted to explore outside the printed world. I wanted to send a happy random message to commuters outside of posters, billboards, etc. With this project I imagined a walking commuter, whether he or she was about to cross a street or maybe simply walking down the sidewalk to look up and find this wired word that said "SMILE." Why wire? Well because wire might tie into the urban scene more effectively, whether this be hanging from a the cross walk walking signal, or on a random Edinburgh iron fence, or a bus stop.

I'm almost embarrassed to mention just how long it took me to create this horrid looking 'S.' Let me just say much longer than it should have. *cough cough* (more than a days work). I assumed that taking that jewelry making class when I was 13 would have helped a bit when it came to bending and working with wire, but the truth is...I was far more talented with wire in my early teens than I am now. Though this is something I would like to explore more in the future, I had to make a decision: I don't have the time to perfect this at this time, especially when it's not something I'm really all that passionate about. Perhaps on free time, over break, when a deadline is not hanging in the back of my mind I could conquer this task - but not when there are other projects/subjects pending in my mind.

The second 'failed' project came from our Investigation Task with our tutor Jeanette. Well the idea came, but the fail came from my follow through. Our task was to look into [in a sense] symbols of our subject. We had to find or create images that match our subject to: Presentative, Metonymy, Synecdoche, and Metaphor/simile. The inspiration came when Sofia and I were trying to come up with a simile to bus transport and I joked about it being that of a kangaroo - sit back, relax, enjoy the ride...you'll get to your destination. Like that of kangaroo's joeys sitting in their mother's pouches, just relaxing on the journey. A bus is like a kangaroo. We found too much joy in this, probably more than the average person should - but that could be from our lack of sleep and over working...you tend to get loopy.

We then thought how much fun it would be to create a bus campaign in form of a kangaroo, emphasizing comfort and relaxing. How often do you see that message in bus campaigns? Never...exactly! So I went to drawing...

Okay, it was getting there...but it hit me hard - there is no drawing a kangaroo and joey without seeing a phallic symbol. I understand sex sells, but this was just ridiculous. From here on out, I could not draw or trace a kangaroo/joey image without seeing a phallic symbol, no matter what position the kangaroo was in. Hopping, standing, laying down...nope! It was not going to work! Again faced with the issue of time, I do think this could work if I spent much time trying stylize the kangaroo/joey and make them not so realistic. But of course with this idea coming to me at the end of the semester, time is not my friend. So yet another project that could be pending.