My work on Typography Served!

Today I got quite the surprise in my inbox from the folks at Behance. My work for Jonathan Adler is being featured on Typography Served, a site with curated work from leading creatives on Behance. What an honor! Thanks Behance!

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The Art of Field Notes

This weekend I’m working on an exciting freelance project for a educational non-profit based in Connecticut. I’ve been doing a lot of research into the Field Notes series and thought these journals are too well-designed and special not to share. It’s amazing how this brand took something so simple and so frankly, unnecessary, and created something of great value. How many of the journals already exist? Hundreds. But Field Notes did something different, and creates beautiful designed objects. I love the simple black and white typography that appears throughout all the pieces. If anyone would like to get me a set of this stuff for my bday coming up, I’d be ever so thankful

And here’s a great little teaser video on some of the behind the scenes magic:

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Final Projects Fall 2010

St. Vincent’s Hospital “Place Project” — Full View

Here are screen shots of my finals projects after my first semester in Pratt’s MFA program. This year I was in three studios, Graduate Seminar, and Thesis (17 hours — before this point, I had never taken more than 9). While some classes I really enjoyed (Visual Language and Transformation Design), one in particular I felt absolutely no connection with (Technology Studio). Despite my lack of enthusiasm for Technology Studio, I’m really happy with my final project, “Romantically Uninvolved: 2010 Annual Report” — an annual report on my “dating life” (of lack there of) during 2010. Once everything is posted and presented, I will spend more time talking about each project. So enjoy the pictures, they’re probably better than whatever BS MFA artist statements I’ll come up with later

Close-up of St. Vincent’s Poster, 26×42 Poster, Visual Language Studio

A peak into my “Creative Process”(a mess). 30×30 Poster, Transformation Design Studio

Close-up of “Process” Poster, “Let your haters be your motivators”

Cover of “Romantically Uninvolved: 2010 Annual Report” 20-page Report, Technology Studio

Interior Spread

Close-up of NYC Map in Annual Report.

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St. Vincent’s Project Update

This quote that goes perfectly for what I assume was the mission of St. Vincent’s Hospital in New York City. The hospital was NYC’s last remaining Catholic hospital and found itself in the center of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s, eventually creating the first care center for AIDS patients on the East Coast. It’s an interesting juxtaposition, a religiously-back hospital, helping the very people the Catholic Church preaches against. How did the attitudes change? St. Vincent’s was flooded with funding for their work providing HIV/AIDS care in the 1980s, which helped keep the hospital alive. Some argue the advancement of HIV medication, and the reduction of AIDS patients, is one of the factors leading to St. Vincent’s closing in Spring 2010. Interesting indeed.

(Almost) Final Version

Close-up of poster.

 

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Pratt Bag(gage)

For my Transformation Design class at Pratt, we decided to take over some of the un(der)used space in the new W18th street building, and created a pop-up space called “Big + Little: a pop-up space.” This new “shop” is a transformable space for Pratt students to sell, exchange, showcase, and exhibit projects and ideas … big and little (get the name?) I wanted to screen print for a while, and felt branding was/is missing from our new space. Having an identity to gather around could help build community within our new space. I combined this need with my interest in screen printing and came up with Pratt Totes.  Originally I planned to sell these bags, but decided this event wasn’t the right place for that. I simply wanted people to float in, grab and personalize a bag, have fun, and take a break from their work. The expressive designs resulting from the participants are so fun to look at. I never intended these canvas tote bags to literally serve as canvas for personal expression. I’m so happy it happened though, and it makes me think of other projects where I could start something, then pass them to others. Definitely something to investigate in the future.

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New (older) work!

 

Click here to read book.

First up is my Sophronia book. What is Sophronia you might ask? Sophronia is one of the cities discussed in Italo Calvino’s book Invisible Cities. For this assignment, we were to read the book and pick a city we found interesting. This city would then serve as the basis of our projects that semester. Here is a little blurb about the book so you might understand what I’m talking about:

“Invisible Cities explores the imaginable through the descriptions of cities by an explorer, Marco Polo. The book is framed as a conversation between the aging and busy emperor Kublai Khan, who constantly has merchants coming to describe the state of his expanding and vast empire, and Polo. The majority of the book consists of brief prose poems describing 55 cities, apparently narrated by Polo.”

From reading the book, I chose the city of Sophronia. The city is half circus, half normal city (normal in that it contains all the industry and infrastructure one might find in a typical city). After creating the book, we then created a “welcome packet” for new residents. This kit included a double-sided poster/mailer, currency, a voter registration card, and lastly a “digital postcard.”

Below are pictures of that package as a whole! This is my probably my favorite project I’ve done at Pratt so far .. Hope you like.

Poster (front)

Poster (Back/fold-out poster side)

Calender of Events detail, looks this way when folded/unfolded

Currency (front then back)

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Friends of Type

I feel like my thesis ideas are finally coming together, and I’m really excited to think of ideas to create a body of work for my MFA exhibition in Spring 2010. When I was on the subway last Thursday, I kept thinking about my quote, “Where does your joy meet the world’s greatest need?” … and I kept thinking, what could I make or design, that would help this cause (Maternal Health). Everyone knows I love type, so what if I spent the creating a type prints, all different kinds, and any proceeds I made, I would donate all that money to the charity of my choice. Why type prints? Well they something I’ve been in love with since college, and if I could spend a year doing something I enjoy, and helping people a world away, I can’t think of anything better.

I came across this blog (Friends Of Type) last week, and I love all their prints and compositions. They’re really fun, and I hope to do some work in this style when I start making my prints this fall! Here are some others.

Also speaking of type, a friend suggest I check out these Artist Walks he helps put on in NYC. There is one about found type, and I can’t wait to go! They have lots of different walks around the city and Brooklyn, about more than just type, so check out The Elastic City Walks.

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Look Both Ways

I read Debbie Millman’s “Look Both Ways: Illustrated Essays on the Intersection of Life and Design” earlier this semester, and totally LOVED it. The book is about “the intersection of Life and Design,” and traces the influence that life experiences had on her work, and vice-versa. So much time is spent in design school talking about HOW to design, use this typeface, use these colors, use this grid, but what about how LIFE influences design? Or how to design your life? You can have the most expensive typefaces, make beautiful compositions, but without developing as a designer, or artist, or person, your work will lack purpose and meaning. You could become an accomplished designer/professional but lack substance as an artist or person. What I loved so much about this book was how personal it is, and how open Debbie is expressing her fears, failures, and triumphs. Ultimately these personal things possess much more meaning, and are much more genuine than some logo we design for a client. The basics of design school are very important, one has to know the skills to be successful, but I’m equally interested in developing as a designer, an artist, and a person. I want to try and use this statement while developing my framework for thesis. I want to explore and map how I’ve come to where I am today, my influences, and ultimately, where I want to go …

Below are some spreads from “Look Both Ways,” I love how each essay was illustrated typographically. I just love the concept of the book, the message, everything, it’s great.

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Spring 2010 Work

Digital spreads from my Sophronia Type II Book, for this project, I took text from Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities and created type compositions of words and phrases inspired by the book.

Flip through the digital version here.

Below of pictures of the printed piece. I really need to get better photos, but you get the idea. Hope you like!

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The Art of DVF

I remember seeing these ads in magazines years ago, 2008 I think it was. While interning at DVF, I’ve seen more of the art in the office, and these pictures are stunning. I love how the artist mixes photography, painting, and typography. I got to see almost all of them yesterday since I had to mount all the campaigns on cardstock. Oh the joys of interning. At least I have pretty things to look at

check out www.dvf.com

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