Category Archives for visual diary

Fahrrad.

Well, the time has come to move on from my first apartment in the heart of Brunswick. I’ve enjoyed living there immensely – it’s an inspiring part of town. The street art, great coffee, multitude of ethnicities and the sheer volume of bikes to perve on. As much as I’ve enjoyed staying in Brunswick, I don’t quite feel I fit in there – perhaps not even on this side of the river entirely. I grew up mainly in the south/south-east part of Melbourne, on the other side of the river. The street art still quite prevalent, there’s still a metric fuck-tonne of coffee shops but the vibe is somehow different. The main thing I’ve missed is the greenery. I dig the urban feel, but there’s something about smelling cut grass and flowers every day that just makes life a little sweeter. And I miss that. Maybe I’m a bit of a hippy at heart.

So my partner, myself and our two little cats have put in our notice to vacate our Saxon St apartment. The packing is nearly done. We have secured a new pad. Perfect location in St Kilda – in the little triangle of love snuggled between Barkly St, Carlisle St and Acland St. St Kilda still has a grungy feel that Brunswick has. The difference is that I could (and will) just jump on my bike and within minutes be able to sink my feet into the sand or zone out in the Botanical Gardens. It’s just a very familiar part of Melbourne for me.

In other news, I snagged a little old bike from Gumtree for $50. It’s a gem. Nothing amazing, but it’s perfect for me. To ride it feels like a weird mix of BMX and vintage commuter. Plus, it has ape hangers. I fucking love ape hangers.

This is Frauke – German for ‘little lady’.

Where have I been (all your life)?

Not too many posts on here of late – I’ve been busy. Let me give you a brief rundown of 2011 so far which may shed some light on my patchy posting.

Late last year, when I returned from Italy I decided that I would defer my final year of Uni (Bachelor of Visual Communication – Design) to move out of home in the South-Eastern suburbs. I adjusted easily having lived overseas a few times for brief periods. I moved to Brunswick. At the start of the year I worked in a call center for Open Universities Australia. Good money and great atmosphere – but certainly not my ideal job. After about 4 months I changed jobs to be a designer for Park Avenue Foods – this was a great opportunity and I did learn alot but it wasn’t enough to pay the bills and I couldn’t hack traveling to and from Brighton every week day. After about a month, the incredible Jen Clark let me know that Salsa Internet (soon to be Salsa Digital – I’m helping with the rebrand >.<”) was looking for a designer and I was lucky enough to be bought on board. I’ve since made some great mates at Salsa, including super-incredible Berlin-born designer Silvia Susen and IT guru Tim Augst. In that time I have also been harassed by a Chinese art-book publishing business trying to get some of my work in my book, been deliciously head-hunted by the next viral video portal (insert wiggly eyebrows) and buddied up with the incredible people (read: Tania Broom) at Rum Rebellion. Since joining Salsa I’ve been lucky enough to have the time and funds to be able to go back to Uni part-time and absolutely kick it’s ass. I also spent some time following the  up-and-coming biz Tea & Sympathy (I’m a tea addict) when they recently at the World Tea Expo in …Las Vegas (WTF? Really?).

Also, I was part of Australian Infront’s Visual Response 5 competition and exhibition. Most recently, I gallivanted around State of Design. Coming up on August 25th I’ll be attending a conference (set up by Positive Posters) called “Sex, Drugs & Helvetica.” I’m pretty sure it’s going to be epic and the ticks are only $40 so it’s well worth being there (follow the link and check out the speakerrrs).

I should be pooped but I’m ready and primed to continue tearing it up.

LET’S-A GO!

 

Fifty reasons NOT to date a Graphic Designer

Courtesy of A bourbon for Silvia. Highlighted are the ones that are most relevant to me (they ALL are, but the ones that most hit the nail on the head).

Fifty reasons NOT to date a Graphic Designer.

1. They are very weird people.
2. There are billions of them in the world, like colors on the screen of your computer.
3. They will analyse conversations in layers.
4. You will spend the day assembling furniture from IKEA.
5. They drink and eat all kinds of weird shit just because they like the packaging.
6. They hate each other.
7. You’ll come out the last out of the movies because you have to see the full list of credits.
8. They can’t change a light bulb or without making a sketch.
9. They fuck up all the tables with their cutters.
10. They rather study the paisley pattern on your outfit than listen to what you have to say.
11. They will fill your house with magazines and whatever is out there that has drawings.
12. You never know if it is really an original or a copy.
13. They make collages with your photos.
14. They do not know how to add and subtract, they just understand letters.
15. They idolize people who nobody knows and speak of them as if they were his colleagues.
16. They take pictures almost daily and all are cut in weird shapes.
17. They ask your opinion about everything but  they do whatever they want.
18. Everything is left justified, right or center unless they arrive late.
19. They hate Comic Sans with the same passion they love Helvetica.
20. They use iPhone for everything, because everyone has one.
21. You can not decorate the house without consulting them.
22. They steal street signs.
23. Always carry bags painted with something.
24. They buy dolls unfinished for them to paint.
25. Everything becomes something other than what it really is: cards as tickets, cards as …
26. When arguing, you will be nicknamed like the OSX spinning wheel (not affectionately)
27. Do not know how to dress without consulting the Pantone book.
28. They hate Excel.
29. They read comics.
30. They want to save the world only with a poster.
31. You will spend the day brainstorming.
32. On vacation they will take you to countries that you do not know exist and have no beach.
33. Museums are their second home.
34. They know more positions than the Kamasutra.
35. They can’t go to a restaurant without secretly critiquing the menu design.
36. They listen to music you have never heard of.
37. They can’t cook a normal dish, they always have to experiment with new ingredients.
38. They read rare books: stories of children, Semiotics …
39. When they are going to tell you something, everyone has read it in their facebook and twitter.
40. They have own iPods before you knew they existed.
41. The orgasm they remember is when they heard that Adobe was acquiring Macromedia.
42. They have their own shops just for them and there are the most expensive in the city.
43. They want to spend all the money in the Apple Store.
44. You will never understand their gifts.
45. They see ordinary objects and laugh.
46. You wake up in the middle of the night hearing them screaming “When is the deadline?”
47. They see CMYK and RGB like Neo sees the Matrix.
48. They dream of the day nobody will make a single change to their designs.
49. They rather pay for a font than for a special birthday gift.
50. They are always sleepy because they work 24/7.

Do you have more to add?

Positive Posters.

Now I know I’ve harped on about this organisation before but I can’t help it. People need to know about this. It really gets the cogs turning in my head and makes my cheeks start burning with adrenaline and pure giddiness. If you’ve ever been to agIdeas (Melbourne), or Semi-Permanent (Oceania), SXSW or any other creative conference or gathering, no doubt you know that absolute buzzing feeling that you leave with. You’re excited, your eyes burn, you feel like you’re going to explode because you are so inspired and proud of the potential awesomeness of the profession you’re in. Right? Right. Positive Posters makes me feel like that. Especially when head honcho Nick Hallam drops these little nuggets off on random mornings:

EPISODE 25: Designers CAN change the world from Nick Hallam on Vimeo.

Buhhh…

These mofos are switched on. I’m a believer, like Nick up there, that design is …the best thing in the bloody world. It has potential – it’s a weapon, it’s a tool that can be used to instigate anything. Let’s face it, the world has some serious issues right now. Serious. Issues. A buttload of money isn’t going to fix it – people are. Why aren’t we using design to gather, empower and instigate change?! WHY?! Well, the people at Positive Posters are.

If you don’t know what they do, then go to their website and PARTICIPATE. NOW. DO IT. WWW.POSITIVE-POSTERS.COM

Donate, spread the word, buy some merch. Support Positive Posters because it’s going to change the face and guts of design nationally and globally.

speaking of education…

Speaking of design education – specifically in Australia, has gotten me thinking. I’ll speak mainly about Melbourne since that’s what I know – and who are the big guns in design education here? There’s the wonderful Monash University (Caulfield Campus), there’s also Swinburne University and RMIT. There’s other institutions but those three are the main ones that come to mind when looking to Design/Communication education.

I briefly worked at Monash University in the Faculty of Art & Design as the Assistant Marketing and Profiles Co-ordinator. Apart from having a convoluted name, the role itself was vague at best. Working under the freakishly fantastic designer and all-round superhuman Jen Clark we were able to comission some incredible collateral to advertise the faculty for Open Day 2010. The work was pushed out by brilliant guys at Alter. It looked great, it made sense, it was exciting, people liked it. People took home, kept and wore tshirts and badges with the designs on them. Follow the links and have a look at what they did for us at Monash – and tell me you don’t love it. Tell me it’s not some of the best Uni advertising you’ve ever seen! Also look at Alters other work because they kick butt and make me giddy. Lovely bunch.

If you have a look at Monash’s general advertising approah over the entire Uni it’s much different. It doesn’t really make sense. It’s not exciting, eye-catching, interesting. It doesn’t make me want to go there, it doesn’t make me want to find out more. Unfortunately I can’t find any images of the particular approach I’m thinking of, but I’m sure you’ve seen it. Usually some wonderfully healthy looking, multi-cultural bunch of people, grinning inanely. Then what? Then whack down a block of ol’ Monash blue over the image and set appearance to ‘multiply’. Is it just me, or is that boring? There’s one particular image that has a close up of womans face – she’s obviously lying down on the grass or something and they’ve used the same blue wash treatment. It just looks like she’s drowning. What a lovely message to put across – come to Monash, we’ll sink you and your education! Bloop bloop bloop gurgle gurgle choke cough splutter. Then there’s this sort of stuff:

Uh, ok?

Helvetica your Helvetica at Helvetica University. Blue shape cutout. Wee! Monash will stay the Helvetica University if it’s not more careful – nothing new, nothing exciting, get’s the job done, default choice. One thing I noticed at my time at Monash as a student was that on the main B building in the Caulfield campus - on the giant 3D Monash logotype stuck to the side of the wall… the M was back-to-front. It had been for years and years.  Also, let’s face it – the coat of arms thing is getting kind of old.

Zzzz.

What about Swinburne? I don’t even see anything from them. Ever. I can’t even remember what their logo looks like unless I google it. Which I just did. Ohh, no.

Swin. Bur. Ne.

This disjointed wording stuff really gets up my nose. Swin. Bur. Ne. What? No, seriously, what is that? Trying to make the name into a neat little square monogram by breaking the word up into nonsensicle, disjointed little bullets of confusion? To be honest, if there’s one thing in typography that I will never do, it is that. But Swinburne isn’t the worst offender here. I know another University that kicks this strange approach out of the park. Presenting…

RMIT University. To be honest when I finished school and figured out I wanted to be part of the design world I thought RMIT was the bees knees. After a particularly horrible interview my mind was changed (Monash was the go – incredible staff that were genuine and approachable). I mean, at least they had interviews, unlike Swinburne (something puts me off about that). After a couple of years I saw some of the RMIT advertising popping up. They’re using the very popular Museo (Which I don’t really like in all-caps to be honest – it feels clunky). Like Monash, they set their corporate colour, some variation of red, to multiply. Okay, firstly, I don’t think the RMIT logotype font and Museo go together very well. At all. It makes me uneasy.

Eeeh, awkward…

Maybe you like it, or think it’s okay – but I don’t. Rounded gently curving serifs on Museo vs the sharp traditional serifs on the RMIT type? Museo has a continuous weight whereas the RMIT uses starkly contrasting line weight. I don’t get it. But that’s no big deal, I guess. Don’t get me wrong – I like thier logo (what is it?), and sometimes I like this black/white/red thing they have going on – sometimes it’s kind of clever. Particularly with this X-ray:

It’s funny ’cause it’s true?

But RMIT have pulled a Swinburne – breaking up copy into nonsensicle little chunks. The worst one I saw was actually on an advertisment for the Visual Communication degree. Cringe. Ouch guys, ouch. Here’s another one that makes me want to rip out my eyes. I think they’re trying to play with the “ience” in “Science” but there’s no link to that and uh… it’s not clever anyway. My exper-ience says NO.

Durhhh…

I’m not critisizing these educational institutions. They produce some of the most incredible designers. The staff are top notch. The facilities are excellent. What I’m saying is this:

These institutions are the ones we go to in order to learn about design, about our craft. If the way they present themselves isn’t well designed – why? Lead by example. Teach by example.

graphic designing in lists.

Any designers out there need a pick-me-up? Yeah, me too.
There’s some good articles out there on how to be successful, how to stay motivated and inspired, how to this and that in the world of design. A great deal of them harp on about the same stuff. Recently, however, I’ve come across two of these such articles that are relevant, helpful and entertaining.

Numero Uno is Austin Kleon’s “How to Steal like an Artist (And 9 Other Things Nobody Told Me)“
Gem:

And B is Jamie Wieck’s “50 Things Every Graphic Design Student Should Know“
Gem: