Pull party!

Hey guys. Sorry about not posting as frequently. This is a very busy time of the semester, and I can't foresee it letting up until the end. But I am doing a lot, or trying to anyways.

Our graphic design club, ThinkTank, held a "pull" party last night in the art building. Anyone that wanted to came and pulled prints. We had styrofoam prints, linoleum cuts, and letterpress. The party pretty much lasted all night (I stayed until 6 a.m.). We ordered pizza, played good music, and just made a bunch of stuff to sell.

I made the Elvis prints. It took forever to cut in linoleum, but it was worth it.




Success.

The Shining

I recently watched Stanley Kubrick's The Shining again for Halloween. It's a brilliant movie, layered with rich imagery and symbolism. It's disturbing in different ways, some of which I feel reach a deep psychological level that's hard to explain. I feel like there are so many factors of why this movie creeps me out, but these details are so thought out that I don't even know WHY they creep me out.

Here's a great poster designed by Tes One as a tribute to The Shining. Grain Edit (GREAT BLOG!) interviews the designer on her thoughts about this poster:

"The “Danny” poster was a lot of fun to work on. The Shining is one of my absolute favorite movies of all time and for years I’ve been wanting to do some work for it, waiting for it to feel right. While the movie is filled with an abundance of haunting and unique visuals that I could have easily used as a reference for this print, I preferred the more subtle undertones to guide my direction.

The pages from the typewriter reveal where Jack’s mind really is - trapped in an endless maze. Each turn (or sentence) looking exactly like the last one. Jack has succumb to the Hotel’s request for he and his family to stay in the hotel forever, and ever, and ever.

This same offer is also extended to Jack’s son, Danny as he plays in the hotel’s hallways. As a tennis ball is rolled toward him over the hexagon patterned carpet (maze), The ghosts of the Grady Twins are inviting Danny to play with them for the same period of time.

For a movie that is nearly 30 years old, it is still one of the scariest movies that I have ever seen. The “Danny” print serves as my appreciation to Stanley Kubrick for creating it!"

I saw this commercial for htc cell phones with their new You campaign and immediately loved it. It reaches a wide variety of people because it acknowledges universal day-to-day feelings and actions.

Halloween costume

I want to be this! Kat just showed me this awesome Lichtenstein girl costume. It looks like she just stepped out of one of his paintings! Check out the process here. It doesn't actually mention Lichtenstein; it just says the inspiration is a comic book character, but I think that it has clear ties with Lichtenstein's Head with Blue Shadow (1965).

Design Quote of the Day

"Good ideas turn into good designs fairly quickly. If you catch yourself fiddling too much with colors, borders, and treatments to bring a design together, chances are the problem lies somewhere deeper."

-Ryan Singer

For more design quotes, visit Quotes on Design.

I'm going to see Art & Copy tonight. I'm so excited!

ART & COPY Trailer from ART & COPY on Vimeo.

This is a short animation by 34 year old Donato Sansone. He uses an entire room filled with flipbooks to animate in a crossword-like movement. Pretty crazy. It's like a cross between the stop-motion videos and traditional animation flip books.

VIDEOGIOCO by Donato Sansone from Enrico Ascoli - Sound Design on Vimeo.