WEEK 13

The Quiet Storm.

Last week was the quiet before the storm and this week was the quiet storm. Monday came around and since Com Design 4 was canceled I slacked off on getting work done for class. We were supposed to email Sean with pdf's of our work but I didn't end up sending him anything till Thursday. That really didn't matter anyways since he was AWOL and wasn't responding to any of his two classes. That didn't bother me since if I didn't have my shit together by week 13 I wasn't going to be able to pull it off now. Unfortunately from what I hear the first termers in his other class didn't have the same thoughts.

Tuesday's Printmaking class was killer. I did 25 image transfers that were some where in the range of 14x22. I also burned my screens in preparation of finishing my final series of prints for printmaking. I really loved this class but it was a shit load of work. Sufficed to say that when I woke up the next morning my feet were killing me.





When I got home from Printmaking I got to work on my final for Art of Research. But before I got to start on my final I first had to finish up a poster and transcripts for an assignment that was due a couple weeks back. My interview for the class didn't go so smooth and I had to wait super long for my questions that I sent via email to be answered. So I had to get that done asap. That didn't take too long as I did a simple type poster solution. Then I was able to get to the meat and potatoes of my homework. It didn't take too long to get it done. However my printer decided to get an attitude and take forever to print.

Class on Wednesday was pretty low key. I decided I was just gonna chill and didn't present till almost the end of class. Our teacher while he goes to Art Center for his Master's in Media Design I don't think understands what's expected out of students here and that showed in the projects. Most people in the class I would say performed at what I believe to be sub ACCD levels. It was not surprise that class ran over on the last day. I didn't bother to stick around.

After class I headed home and relaxed for a lil while. After my long break it was time to get some work done. I started silk screening my final print for printmaking. The first layer was a magenta type and after that it was a orange dot.







On Thursday I worked on Com Design so that I could email it off. I got a response from the TA but not the teacher. I didn't really care but if I get any shit for it I am gonna be pissed. Around 7 I headed over to Printmaking so that I could clean my screen and burn my final layer for my Virgen print. Unfortunately someone got water on my screen while the emulsion was drying. I was super pissed so I just cleaned my screen off and took off.

Friday morning was rough getting up. I somehow made it through my last day of Modernism. I have time and the information and now I just need to pull a rabbit out for my final. Wish me luck. After class I headed over to the laser lab to make my mock up for packaging. Once I was finished I headed over to the cafeteria to work on the design. I had an idea of what I wanted to do but needed to hash it out. By the time class came around I had something that was the start of an idea. After some more work I had a pretty good idea of what I was doing and Dan ok'd it with some more hashing out of my idea. I was able to leave school a lil early around 5:45. I went home and ended up passing out til about 8. I promptly headed over to printmaking to coat my screen and burn it so that I could finish up my La Virgen print. Printmaking was crazy busy with people working trying to get their stuff done. I am so glad we have enough space and supplies that I am able to print at home. Makes for great late night printing. I didn't end up leaving around 10.

After getting home I was super hungry so Jesse and I headed over to La Estrella for some much needed Mexican food. Victoria joined us and we ended up staying there for a lil under 2 hours. It was then time to go home and work. I had done enough and ended up passing out.

Saturday morning I woke up around 11 and started working right away. I started my final tweaks for Com Design and was able to finish for the most part. Then I started to set up for screen printing. Some how my image that I burned ended up being like twice the size of what it should have been. That was ok because it kinda looked interesting. So I finished setting up. Then I was given another hurdle. The squeegees we have didn't work. The big one was too big and the small one too small. So I headed over to Printmaking to see about borrowing one that was just right. I wasn't able to because there were a lot of people working. Jesse was in Archetype working on his packaging, Frank, Kelsey, and Eric were all working in the print lab. Since I wasn't able to print at home I ended up hanging out at the lab. At one point we got some beer and chilled out side for a while. Anyways we ended up staying late to work on our prints. Since I was already set up at home I just chilled and helped out a lil. At one point Jesse needed to go home to get his prints to work so I went with him to get my laptop so that I could work on packaging. I got a lot done for packaging but still needed to do a lot more. we ended up leaving around 9 or 10.

When I got home I finished up Com Design so that I could head over to Kinko's so that I could have my book printed and bound. I also had my packaging book for my first project. After getting down with Kinko's I picked up some late night dinner and headed home. When I got home I started to screen print my last layer on my virgen print. I didn't like how it was coming out so I just did a couple prints. That way I could so something later with the unfinished prints. I ended up doing a lil more work before going to bed around 3.



Sunday morning I woke up around 11 again and got to work. I started on packaging. I got a lot more done and am in the home stretch now. Just a couple more hours and I will be ready to go to production. I plan on screen printing my design on SBS board and then laser cutting it. I need to find some SBS that big enough. Hopefully I can find some big enough on Monday. Anyways I ended up taking a nice mid day nap. When I woke up I watched some tv and relaxed. Peppered in with some work. Gurkan ended up coming over to print some stuff.

It's now 5am and I think it's time to go to sleep but I wanted to get this blog post done so that I didn't hanging over my during week 14. All in all this week while busy was not too crazy and hopefully this last week of school won't be too crazy. I hope it will actually be the easiest one of my ACCD career. But lets not get ahead of ourselves here.

Random Photo of the Week


Pic that I was MMS'd that I thought looks cool because it got corrupted.

WEEK 12

The calm before the storm and how this week was a total turn around from last week.

On Monday Com Design was the usual go to class and get out super early. I was thinking about that, the fact that we get out super early and that it doesn't seem right. I think that given the circumstances, small class and the fact that we are all doing the same project. That it's not so unusual that class would end early. However because we are all doing the same company is that while I am seeing different ways of approaching the task. I feel that I am not gaining much because I don't appreciate what others are doing. I think my project will turn out good its just that I will not take away much from seeing other people's work like I did in Type 4. Anyways with class ending early, I was home before 5 and didn't do much once I was home.

Tuesday my La Virgen print was due in printmaking. The gloss white transparent layer didn't show up too well once dry. Tony wants me to fix that. I plan on adding cyan to the paint I have left and getting a ghostly blue color. After Tony looked at our work we watched a printmaking video that was pretty cool. Then it was lab time. Since I had yet to figure out how I was going to design my final project I was again home early. And to not break the streak I didn't do any homework. Actually now that I think about it. I had a little homework for Art of Research but not enough to actually call it work.

Wednesday and AOR was normal. I presented my work and class went long. I hate when teachers can't control the clock and class goes long. So this time I left and didn't stay late. I had shit to get done. OK not really but I had stayed late for enough classes that I didn't need to stay late this time. Once I got home I kept the streak alive and did no homework.

During the day I saw that Gabe had some cryptic messages about LA in his tweets. I called him up to see if he was in the area. He was at USC taking care of some business. We planed to meet up later. Then Lizee text'd me and wanted to go out to dinner. So once she was off work we headed over to Canter's. I had been wanted to try this LA landmark for a while and was finally able to make it happen. Gabe didn't show up until we were eating. The food was an ok and after dinner we headed over to the news stand across the street to see what they had. I ended up picking up some design magazines. Since Gabe wasn't able to take care all of his LA business he was going to stay the night.






What doesn't look right in this pic?


Close up. Ah yeah.

Thursday I think I worked a little on printmaking but not enough to constitute as work. It was also my day to register for classes. As of now I have all my classes and my schedule is set for next term. But who knows, hopefully no changes get made between now and next term.

Thursday night/Friday morning I had a terrible night's sleep. I went to bed around 4 since I didn't feel like going to bed. I don't think I actually fell asleep. For the first time this semester however I was pretty wide awake in Modernism. Which is astounding because that class sitting in the dark watching slides can put me to sleep easily. After class I stayed at school and busted out some homework for Packaging. I think I should have taken packaging last term. I saw that because I feel it's kind of a wasted class. Don't get me wrong. I have learned a lot about production but other than that, not much. Oh well. This class is pretty easy and I was able to get my work done in the break I had between classes. For this next project I am doing boxed water. I am packaging it similar to boxed wine. In 2 weeks you can see what I came up with.


Who needs to talk to the person sitting on the other end of the table when you have technology?

Once I got home I just vegged out and then passed out. I woke up around 9 in the morning and got right to work. After working on my final print for printmaking I made my self breakfast. After breakfast Jesse was up and about. He was going to head over to Amoeba Records in Hollywood to find some vinyl for a project he was working on. So I decide to go because afterwards we were going to check out the Shepard Fairey mural on Melrose and Fairfax.

Amoeba is a great place to drop some coin. I wasn't planning on making any purchases. However as you know plans always change. I ended up buying $140 worth of records. Records you say. Yeah records. When I was down in San Diego I picked up a records player for free. Since I was at Amoeba I figured I should buy some vinyl. OK when I saw some out of print and hard to find DJ Shadow albums I couldn't resist.







While at Ameoba we met up with Dom. After taking off with our score we headed over to one of Dom's Mexican food spots. Was ok. It seems like every place up here puts beans and rice in their burritos. Something that I am still not use to. Anyways after eating we headed over to Melrose to check out this new mural of Shepard Fairey's. It was pretty massive and made of huge panels of printed paper. I had just read about the mural last week and when we saw it, it had already been damaged. The mural was on the outside of De La Barracuda. I had wanted to check out an art show here a while back and didn't realize that it was where the mural was. Jesse and I went inside to check it out. As we walked in there was a guy carding people. I asked him is there was a private party going on or what the deal was. He told me it was just a bbq and to come on in.





Turns out it was some kind of pre Coachella party with an open bar. We decided to stay for a while and take in the scenery. Dom showed up a lil while after we had gotten there. After a couple drinks it was time to head back to Pas and do some homework. Somehow that didn't happen for me. And that rolled into Sunday as well. At least until around 2 am when I decided to get my files ready for Printmaking. It was definitely a good week to relax and get ready for the last two weeks of term.

It's weird the more I get to go out ad get to experience LA the more it's growing on me.

WEEK 11

What a week. I am glad its over. Only 3 weeks left of school!

The way Monday started kinda sums up my week. I woke up around 9 so I could finish up Com Design before class. Since there wasn't a Big Picture Lecture I had an extra hour to work. I got ready and left for school. Since I had to send an email out before I left I was kind of in a hurry. I left a couple minutes after I should have and as I got closer to school I realized I was going to be late. Parking towards the end of the term gets bad and while the sculpture garden wasn't open the parking lot was almost full. As I was walking towards school I checked my phone to see how late I would be. I figured that I would be like 5 minutes late. I was hoping that Sean would be late or start class late as he had the past couple of week. As I checked my phone I couldn't believe it. Instead of being 2:05 like I thought it would be. It was 1:30. WTF I was actually 30 minutes early and not 5 minutes late. It was that kind of morning. Class was pretty much the same as the past week was. Individual crits and then leave way earlier than we should.

When I got home I started working on my print for Printmaking. I am really liking where this project is going and have high hopes for it. Tues is class Tony convinced me to do some color in my print. It ended up looking really good. I did a layer of roses in a pattern. Once I was finished up I went home and did nothing.

I attempted to take a nap. My plan was to sleep from about 8-9:30. When I woke up it was about 1. I didn't want to get up and then be awake until early in the am before going back to sleep and then wake up a couple hours later for school. So I laid in bed tossing and turning. When I finally checked the time it was 2. I knew I had to get up as I wasn't going to be able to go back to sleep. I figured if I was going to be awake I better at least work on packaging as I still had to start on my process book since the final project was due Friday. I ended up getting about 90% of it done. I finally stopped around 6:30 to lay down for a bit before I got ready for Art of Research.

Since I wasn't able to get an in person interview I didn't have anything to turn in on Wednesday. After class I went to talk to Nik about the Berlin Brand Lab. I was planning to apply and wanted to get more info. After talking to Nik I was really excited about the study abroad class. Its a pop up studio for an old sunscreen brand in Germany. The project is to cross brand this product with urban beach's popular in Berlin. We will see if I get selected to go.


Somehow the weather this week sucked!


Tranquil Sinclare Pavillion


Berlin info meeting

Since I had to submit an application and a small portfolio of work for the Berlin class. I got to work on that right away. I also started to finish up my packaging that was due Friday. So Wednesday and Thursday was spent working on that. The application was due Friday. I needed to get it printed at Kinkos since it was a double sides booklet. Anyways after a trip there and back, my file decided it only wanted to print half of what it should. I was done. However when I got home I noticed that they gave me two prints instead of one and thus charged me double. So after another trip back to Kinkos I was finally done, but lost a hour and a half. I wonder how much of my life has been spent at a Kinkos. Too much!



Friday morning was Modernism and I can't wait for this class to be over. I just hope I can pull something out of my ass for the final. It would really suck to have to take this class again. After Modernism I needed to go back home to finish off my packaging and get back to set up for the presentation. I was the first one to set up and the second one there. I got a prime spot right as you entered the door. I was also the first one to present and was very pleased with how my project turned out. I need to finish up 2 small booklets for the the final presentation that will be done week 14. For the next and final project I plan on doing bottled water. Hopefully it turns out well as I have a bit of a challenge as I plan to make my own container.



Friday night I decided I wanted to install this cool sounding app. It turns your iPhone or iPad into a secondary display. Sounds cool right. WRONG! It totally fucked up my computer and made it pretty much impossible to use. The display settings got all fucked up. I ended up going to sleep around 12.

I woke up bright and early around 8:30am. I tried to fix my laptop but wasn't successful. So I braved through the fucked up display and created my last layer for my La Virgen print. After figuring it out I headed over to Kinkos. After getting my print I went to South Campus to coat and then burn my screen. I had forgotten to bring the gloss overprint ink that I was going to use for the last and final layer of my print. I needed to add some white to it. Once I got to the house I ate lunch, got the ink and then headed back to South Campus. Once I got there my screen was ready to burn.

Since I wasn't going to be sitting behind a computer all day I decided it would be a good time to finish my La Virgen print for Printmaking.


Setting up



After I finished my print I headed over to South Campus to clean my screen.Once I was done I headed back home. Since I still wasn't able to fix my computer I headed over to the Apple store to buy Snow Leopard. I figured that hopefully that would fix my problem. I wasn't able to find my copy of OSX and needed my computer back badly. After installing Snow Leopard my issue still wasn't resolved. So after some digging I was able to find my restore discs. After about 6 hours and a long nap I was finally back up and running.

Sunday I headed over to Charlene's house out in Simi Valley to do some design work for her. Other than that my Sunday was pretty mellow. Eric Hu came over to screen print. Him, Jesse and I chatted a but before he took off. That capped this hectic week off.




Random Pics of The Week




Grown Men's ish!

WEEK 10

What a week it's been. With the term nearing completion now is when the going gets tough.

Monday was nothing out of the ordinary. Woke up and finished up my work for Com design 4 and then was off to school. The Big Picture Lecture was boring as ever. I am glad it was the last one of the term and should be the last one I ever am forced to go to! After the lecture it was off to Com Design. Class was short again and I don't think much progress was made. Hopefully that will change today as I get started on the work due for tomorrow.

Since class ended early that gave me some extra time to hit up the laser labe and cut more cardboard for packaging. After that I ended up going home and doing nothing. I was supposed to get stuff ready for printmaking but decided that veggin out was more important and much needed.



Sidenote: The past weekend at a party a Art Center teacher and Alumnus was shot and then later died. It was pretty said seeing the flag at half staff on Monday. There was a impromptu memorial held on Monday and there were a couple news trucks there covering. Even though I didn't know the teacher I had seen his drawings in some of my classes. Condolences to his family and students that he played an important role in shaping.



Since I had decided to veg out, Tuesday did not start for me until 9:30 which was half an hour after my class had started. No worries though Tony doesn't mind like other teachers do as long as you are getting your work done. After showing Tony what I was planning on doing it was off to Kinko's to get some over-sized prints done. After going home and relaxing for a bit it was back to school so I could start my prints. For my fourth project of the term I will be doing image transfer and possibly silkscreen. I kind of don't want to do silkscreen but I will talk to Tony and see what he says. I have done image transfer before and what was in my head on how my image would look once transferred turned out nothing like what I had envisioned. It came out very ethereal which made it even better but totally threw me for a loop since what I had planned to do needed to be revised. This morning I came up with some new ideas which should be even better than what I wanted to originally do.




The Master


Sneak peak at the first of three layers.


Printmaking after dark

For pretty much the entire semester after Printmaking was time to get shit done for Art of Research hard time. Thankfully that was not the case. Homework was simply getting questions arranged for interviews that needed to be conducted for next week. Since I had been thinking about this for a while now and had already had some written, finishing this up only took a couple minutes.

With the Y Conference coming up this weekend. And since I didn't have a class on Thursday my plan was to leave sometime on Wednesday depending on when Jesse was going to get out of class. Since AOR was going to be covering interviewing and I feel pretty confident about this subject. I decided it was the perfect time to ditch class. I did send in my homework just so I was covered.

I woke up on Wednesday with a full tank of energy and got started. I cleaned my room, cleaned up the kitchen a bit. I packed and tried to get things situated for the trip down for the weekend. Jesse didn't end up getting out of class til 7 and we didn't leave til 8:30.

The drive down was pretty easy and time flew by. Once we were down in SD our first stop was Adalberto's in Point Loma. A California Burrito is a must in San Diego! Then it was off to my mom's house. After unpacking and hanging out for a bit we headed out to Torrey Pines beach to soak up some midnight ocean air.





A little background on me and AIGA. I have been a member since 2007. In 2008 I was a student volunteer for Y 13. When Y 14 came around I wanted to do more and joined the planning committee. Between the time I joined the planning committee and the actual Y Conference a lot happened. I decided to go to Art Center and was accepted. So in the middle of planning process I moved to Pasadena. That didn't stop me from participating in the committee. I planned my school schedule so that I was able to drive down for the meetings. Let me tell you that was rough but rewarding.

Anyways they managed to get me to help out this time around even though I wasn't on the committee. AIGA is like a gang once they have you it's por vida homie(for life friend). So my Thursday started early. Not only did I have to pick up some things up and deliver. I had to swap out my wheels for new ones.

I needed new tires bad. When I drove out to Texas I got an oil change. The service manager came out to talk to me since I had CA plates. He then told me that I needed tires, which I knew, and then said, "I don't want to say you can't make it back but you need tires bad!" This term I had been looking for tires and found them a couple weeks back. Seeing as I can't work on my car here at my apartment I had to wait until I was home in SD to change them out. And Thursday was my time to get it done.

After getting the blood flowing it was time to get ready and run some Y errands. Jesse needed to get a haircut so we headed over to Mission Valley Mall. I needed a new iphone case since I wasn't feelin mine anymore. Since The haircut place in the mall was going to take to long. Jesse went with me over to the Apple Store at Fashion Valley Mall. To those of you not familiar with SD. These are two huge malls located about 5 minutes from each other. Imagine if The Paseo was bigger and there was another equally big mall near South Campus and you have Fashion and Mission Valley mall's.







After getting my iphone case it was off to Ocean Beach to pick up water for the conference. Again for those people not familiar with OB as Frank put it, "This place reminds me of Venice." The place I went to pick up water was run by some cute grungy hippie chicks. Once we had a couple of 5 gallon jugs of water, a dispenser for the silent auction and a huge Gatorade jug it was time to head over to USD.

Once we were there we dropped off some of the the stuff. The rest needed to go over to Candice's loft for the speaker party. One of the perks of being involved with the Y Conference is the private speaker party. It's hosted by a long time friend and teacher of mine Candice Lopez at her beautiful loft in downtown San Diego.

So we dropped off the water and talked to Candice for a brief moment before we were off. We headed over to Santana's for you guessed it. A California Burrito. Then it was over to Sunset Cliff's to catch some sun and surf.







Then it was time for Jesse to get his haircut and we headed back to SD's Valley. Once Jesse was done we went back to my mom's house to hang out for a bit. That night we were meeting up with my boy Jimmy and going to Stone Brewery. After going downtown to pick up Frank and Brett we were off to Escondido.

I had heard about Stone's brewery but I had never been there before. It's a pretty dope spot. They have a huge restaurant and outdoor gardens. After some drinks it was time to grub. The food was pretty good. I had some fried chicken in a lemon cream sauce and garlic mash-potatoes that was delicious. After dinner it was late and it was time to go home.





Friday was the first day of the Y Conference. Rick Grefe was the moderator this year and the speakers for Friday were Eileen Gittin from Blurb, Michael Lejune from Metro, and then Art Center's own Doyald Young. After Lunch was Jen Bilik from Knock Knock, Art Center Alum Arvi Raquel- Santos, Phil Hamlett from Academy of Art in San Francisco and then finally Guillermo Troconis of Adobe.






All of the speakers were good in their own way and the morning session of the conference was off to a great start. For lunch we headed over to J.V.'s which was close by USD for some more Mexican Food. Frank was about to have his first encounter with a California Burrito. He said it was pretty good. Now J.V.'s food is good but its not the best so I knew Frank was going to love a Cali from Santana's. The afternoon session was just as good as the morning and day 1 was done and a solid start to the Y.

That evening the plans were to go to Pokez and then walk over to the speaker party. My sister and Jimmy were supposed to meet up with us but as you know plans don't always work out. My sister and Jimmy weren't able to meet up with us. And instead of going to Pokez we went straight to the party.

One thing about the Y that I love is the socializing. And the speaker party is a great place to start. The party was great as always and after a couple hours it was time to leave. After we left we were in much need to more California burritos. It was time for Santana's. Now Santana's is always good but today it was like the hand of God came down and blessed these burrittos. Frank finally saw what all the hype was about. Once we were finished it was time to go home.

Day 2 speakers were Babak Elsahjou, an architect from Toronto, Luis Fitch from UNO Branding, Patrick Coyne from CA and then Jakob Trollback. Lets not forgot one of the most important parts of the Y was also on Saturday, the Thinkshops. These are workshops put on by speakers and other industry professionals.

Here is a list of the Thinkshops this year.

PATRICK COYNE: 
Designer as Entrepreneur:
Becoming Your Own Client

DAVID LECOURS:
Shift into a Creative Superhero

EILEEN GITTINS: 
Hands-on Print-on-Demand for Self-promotion

CINDY WESTEN:
Your Production Department Action Plan:
Real World Tricks for Getting Work Done Right

ARVI RAQUEL-SANTOS & PHIL HAMLETT 
The Best of Compostmodern:
How Do We Design a Better World?

RIC GREFE: 
The Future of the Design Professional
and AIGA's Role in it

JEN BILIK: 
Graphic Design for Retail Products

LUIS FITCH: 
Inside the Creative Brief:
The Most Important Document in Marketing Communication

MARK MURPHY: 
The Power of You

ANGELA HILL: 
Social Media for Graphic Designers

I chose to do the creative brief with Luis Fitch. I have been following his work for a while now and wanted to see his process. It was a really good Thinkshop but they are always good.


Luis Fitch letting it all out.

After lunch I had to cut out early and missed Jakob Trollback's lecture which I heard was really good. I had to head over to Subtext to deliver the water for the party. Jesse came with me and we headed over to Candice's to pick up the beer and wine that left over from the night before.

Getting to Subtext was a little difficult. Subtext is gallery space near the airport that sits on the corner of one of the major intersections leading to the airport. A sink hole had developed causing as you can imagine tons of traffic. Luckily I was able to get through traffic and find a nice spot right in front.

With traffic and the conference running over it was a little while before people started showing up. But like the night before it was prime socializing time. More great conversations were had and new friends made. If you aren't a member of AIGA I strongly encourage you to join and experience conferences like the Y. Jesse after 2 years of me telling him to join finally saw the light and had a great time and came away enlightened.

After good food, and conversation it was time to head over to my mom's to pack up and get back to Pas. Lots of work awaited us and we couldn't spare another night in SD. We made it back to Pasadena around 12:30 and it was good to be back. Sunday was catch up day.

Y Conference Goodies




Silent Auction Pick up






Both are signed copies


Grab bag freebie