Catalina Bay.

Catalina Harbor 2
Originally uploaded by dani_wolf.

Yesterday marked a landmark moment in my life. For the first time in my life I got sea-sick, which happened on the boat ride to Catalina Island. The family once attempted the trip to this lovely getaway in the 90s but dad ended up in the hospital the night before we went. Moral of the story, Catalina makes people sick, but if you can get beyond that intial journey, it's lovely.

view from the top

view from the top
Originally uploaded by dani_wolf.

I'm in California, and this was the view from the plane about 20 minutes before we landed. Cool.

hurray

FINAL PACKAGE
box
labels

an 80. much better than expected and undeserved.

Channel v. Barbie v. Gucci

Yesterday I went to the eyedoctor. Always fun having my eyes poked, prodded, air blown in, and blinded by a green glowing machine which we'll call the "optomap".

I walk out of the doctors office and into the eyeglasses selection area and I'm overwhelmed. I hate finding new glasses. It's like trying to pick out a new face for an entire year. After an hour and a half of trying to find Lenscrafters finest I found three different pairs of glasses.

1. A bright pink snazzy pair of glasses with a large pink flower on the side. Channel.
2. A regular set of metal frames that are either pink or blue depending on the light. Also featuring a large BARBIE logo on the side.
3. A fairly normal looking pair of frames, burgandy.

Option 1 was taken away because it was an overwhelming amount of pink and the flower would have obstructed my vision. Option 2 was a little snug so I opt for option three. When I sat down and looked at the label,... gucci. good gracious. That's some seriously expensive taste.

Behold the first gucci item I've ever owned in my life.

Jack Greens Style Manual.

I just printed and put the final spin on my corporate id style manual. I've spent 11 weeks writing over 35 pages on this thing. Here, you can watch me talk for 6 minutes on what it is rather than make me write more.



Still picture

Knowing that I'm done with the work for Corporate Id and 3d packaging fills me with an unending bliss.

That weight on my shoulders... gone.

In much need of a break.

It's been a bad couple days.

I royally screwed up my 3d packaging final and nearly got into a fight with the directer of the print lab at school. Long story short I paid 40 bucks for prints that had blood on them when I picked them up. Fantastic. My final has blood on it. Unbelievable.

Brandon's mom just called and yelled at me. She demanded I stay on the phone with her until she talked to him. After about 30 seconds of awkward silence I hung up.

Somedays art school is like being in kindergarden.

Most schools have some classes that are important, and others that are purely bogus. I happen to be taking a class this quarter in which the teacher is full of it.

For the past 10 weeks I've been studying shapes and what each shape means. This wouldn't be so bad except the teacher will project a large image of a triangle on screen and then ask us, "What does it mean?" That little voice in my head cries out, it's a triangle, it doesn't mean anything! I've spent hours learning about how circles, squares and triangles are not shapes, but rather "primitives" and what each form represents. Let me just say that listening to those lectures on a friday night are just flat out painful.

Anyway, I had a project where we had to use "primitive forms" to tell a story. He referred to the project as a rebus, telling a story with pictures. I opted to go with Wicked, and here's what I came up with. A wicked rebus.

2 am insomnia.

My sleep schedule is screwed up. Stupid daylight savings.

Parking Space Dilemma

When I first started attending this fine establisment known as a school, students and faculty were required to park around the back side of the building. Things worked out well with this setup. The security guards could see everyone out the front doors, and there plenty of spaces for everyone.

The owners of this building wouldn't allow this ideal parking situation to occur. No, let's build a parking garage and tear down the old spread out lot. Within a year the garage was set up and my school was allowed to park anywhere on floors 4 through 7. Ok, it got a little full at times but we managed.

Our school faculty got extremely tired of this. "Why should we park with the students? We need special reserve parking." And thus the fourth floor was deemed faculty only.

This is where the problems begin. Students can only park on 5-7 and each floor holds 100 spots, max and during the prime hours of school there are at least 500 students on campus. 300 spots for 500 students doesn't work. Showing up to school and parking across the street at the Bed Bath and Beyond was an alternative, as well as parking in a dirt field construction area. The dean got increasingly frustrated with the students. Apparently we are not supposed to park in either place, we just have to continually circle the lot until a spot opens up.

The 3,000 students here didn't take to well to that answer. Why would we? The students rebel and start parking anywhere on floors 1-7 that happen to be open. The Owners of the building throw a very large hissy fit and now we have police patrolling floors 1-3, threatening to tow any student who parks on the inappropriate level.

This greatly frustrates me for the following reason. The entire parking garage is not monitored by security, yet it's ok to have police babysitting students on where to park. That's rediculous and a perfect waste of tax payers money.

The Dean finally gets his butt in gear and calls a lawyer and prepares to sue our landlord. Meetings are held, lots of debates, memos, letters, and so on. Bottom line, a new parking lot will be built and finished by 2009. What we do in the mean time, is a mystery. I'm glad we solved that problem.

my forty dollar C

Well I just printed, glued, folded, created and gave birth to a my first package design. I’ve spent the entire quarter arguing with my teacher over a design that we both like and doesn’t look like I want to boil children.

My product is “Toil and Bubble” a bath products set that will change the color of your water, create large amounts of bubbles, or create mist. Of course these can be added together to create a magical enticing bath. I found test tubes in target and fell in love with them. They’re just adorable.

Anyway, I wrote the marketing brief, designed logos, packages, and now this week I had my first set of color printed packages due. Say hello to my $40 C.

bag side 1
bag side 2
box while closed
box while opened
box back
the test tubes that started it all

I get to make changes and print everything off and make it all again next week. Joy. Conversation between my teacher and I;

Mr. Abraham – “I love this. You have a strong package.”
Me – “You always seem to say you love my work, then give me a ton of work to do.”
Mr. Abraham – “Yes, but then you go work like crazy and come back with something even stronger.”

*sigh*

You're in my personal bubble.

I was sitting in a computer lab, diligently working on Advertising Slogans. Out of nowhere a video production student walks up to the empty seat next to me, sits down and turns the chair to face me. This is a fairly empty room, mind you, and there's no shortage of seats. I brush it off and keep working, all the while he continues to stare at me. This proceeds for 10 minutes until he starts uncontrollably laughing while staring at me.

I'm just as confused by this as you are. Art students are crazy.

Why school is stressing me out.

There's no good way to describe what I've been working without pictures.
Corporate ID

This would be my massive pain in the ass Corporate ID style manual. Let me start off by explaining what a Corporate ID is. Imagine any blockbuster you've ever walked into, and notice how everything looks the same. The signs, the carpet, the displays, the way the logo is used, that's a corporate identity. Every major corporation at least 3 binders that are several inches thick that explain down to the last fraction of an inch how the company should be represented. I've been given the task of creating a company, writing a ten page history, explaining how the company works, making the logo, and now creating the corporate identity. Thankfully I don't have to do a 300 page binder, and my minimum page requirement is 21. All the same, a rather large pain in my ass.

Now let's move on to 3D packaging.
The class is much more exciting than Corporate ID, but much more intense. At the start of the class we picked products are random, created a 6 page company history, created a new product, created a logo, designed a package, shopping bag and inserts. We use a large format printer, print off giant posters, then cut fold and glue it all together. In the end you get a great box. HOWEVER, the smallest fraction of an inch off and the whole box won't fold together. Having 26 people in a class room manuevering over posterboard and trying not to screw up a project that costs thirty bucks just to print, well let's just say tension runs high. My first color print versions are to be cut and pasted together on Wednesday, but for now, here's a look at the box, product, and bag (without handles) that I've designed. Box and bag Product in the box

Time to get back to work.

I caved.

This marks the fourth blog I've created. Goodness. The first one was shut down when the hosting company went bankrupt. The next had to be locked down because of random stalkers kept finding me and posting weird picture of decapitated teddy bears. Plus, Leisel (my former roommate) has a crazy/creepy boyfriend that likes to read everything I write. The third journal is entirely fictional, just for fun Harry Potter stuff. The Potter Journal.

Well now that it's settled, I figured I should post a blog for family only. Hopefully this will work out well. =)

I went to 11 am mass today, which is rare as I prefer a good Sunday night mass. Anyway, the presiding priest has a running theme in both homily's he has delivered. "Harry Potter is Evil." The priest called the kids up to the altar to engage them. I try to sit there and pay attention, and I'm watching a flock of 40 children listening eagerly when the priest announced, "Harry Potter is trash, and shouldn't be read." One child started crying and ran from the altar back to his mother. I always enjoy making children cry and shattering dreams while sharing the proclamation of God. Really... *eyeroll*

In other news, my next door neighbor moved out. I'm extremely excited about this as I was growing tired of his random outbursts and shouting matches with his friends.

Finals are upon me and that means I'll be posting a massive amount of art at the end of the quarter. I'm extremely excited about completing my first ever package and shopping bag for bath supplies. It's a hell of a lot of work, but very fulfilling and rewarding.

I suppose that's enough for my first ever post. On here. Now to go and customize this thing. =)