November 29th

We watched a movie called Beautiful Losers on the 29th.

 For the most part, I enjoyed the movie. At the intro, I was rather amused by the animations and graphics. It amazes me so! I really want to know how they do that, and I suppose I'll learn sooner or later. Sometimes it depresses me that I don't know how people do certain stuff, but I try to think it'll be possible to learn later on in my life. * U* Right now I'm interested in learning text graphics, but I'll.. have to get macromedia flash... somehow.

The Creative Suite, too. e 3e Expensive stuff, these things~

Beautiful Losers was about a group of people that came together to party in a place full of art. They became friends. And for some reason, I think it went something like. Hey, that's bad. Or something. They did this, mostly for rebellion, mostly for themselves.. until, it seems, before they realized they they were doing galleries and selling pieces and doing it for a profession. I think they liked that they were getting attention-- that their pieces were getting appreciated in some way.

How it started, or just by sheer coincidence, they were spotted and publicly recognized as talented individuals. Suddenly, they could get paid for what they loved and did. I think that's kind of the idea.

November 24

Somehow, I thought I did this. Yet, no, guess not.
I had an idea of what I wanted to do, but I realize it may just be slightly impossible with it being within a week + apples. XD

My creative process............ but hm. My creative process. 8C
Should I just record what I do best and add whatever additions needed?

Wednesday was spent discussing our 'advertising design project ideas'. I thought everyone's was pretty good~ though Jimmy said some were impossible. Shot down. Kinda harsh, since some of my ideas were like that too. The Orientation one, to be specific. As a transfer student, that was one of the things that struck me most was that the orientation didn't really talk about our majors. In my old college, when we did orientations, we did it in groups of 12-13 or more, and the counselor would sit down with each of us and talk about it. I think that's one of the downfalls of CSLA. But, I'm here now, so no time to complain~

* U* Afterwards, we graded Jimmy anonymously and just left~

November 22

We discussed high and low culture today, and as usual-- we were left to try and figure it out on our own, and then see if we were right or wrong ourselves outside of class. The class, almost as a whole (or, besides Andrea, you guys didn't speak up), kind of didn't get it. High and low culture are both popular, but in different senses, obviously.

 

High Culture!

Low Culture!

Something like that. Haha.

Afterwards, we split into teams of twos and threes and dropped in two-three items. We made stories out of them, and Jimmy thought they were all pretty horrible. XD I thought all the stories were kinda meh, too. Even mine, although I thought it was sufficient when it came to the items. If I knew what was expected, I would have gone with an intro, body, climax and not anti-climatic end. 8C

Toothbrush, crayon, wallet, sunglasses...

Apple - Part IDK

Mr. Apple~

Medium: Paint Tool SAI

Reading #9 - Production

The last stage of the Design Process. We've come a long way from the start in so little time!

Production.

You can't change your mind at the last minute now because things are already in the process of rolling. You have to stand firm to your decision and know the ins and outs of it so you can answer any questions you must about it when your client questions you. Or your teacher. Jimmy always asks us why we do certain things, or why we answer it this way. I suppose it's all part of the process to get a design out. Concept design.

Production takes everything from the beginning-- all the way back to inspiration to budgets and constraints to make a final product. It's also important for you to keep track of your project, so you have something to fall back on if you must start back a few paces back. Like saving on photoshop. XD

November 17th

We had a film day on the 17th. We watched a documentary called "What are dreams?"
Honestly, I didn't really want to watch it. XD In fact, I wanted to watch the Maya or Origami more. I've had psychology classes and already had an idea of what the documentary was going to be about already. At the same time, I suppose I have a fascination over ancient cultures, too. The Origami wouldn't have been really bad, since I've actually heard of it.


I thought it was really funny that Chomsiri screamed at the bug part. I'm sorry, Chomsiri! XD


Jimmy wants us to dream for 5 nights. But honestly, I don't think I even REMEMBER what I dreamed, so I hope there's something for me to dream about tonight. I already have an idea of what I'm going to do, but HOW I'm going to get it done within a few weeks with other classes bogging me down is beyond me. XD;

November 15th

On Monday, we played a game that was pretty fun. We laughed a lot, mostly because we kept messing up and it was so silly. Basically, there's two items called 'what' and 'who', and only one person really knows what they are. That person gives the items to the people on either side of him or her, and tells them which one they are.

It's a game that makes people keep asking and asking and asking and answering. It's REALLY easy to mess up. XD I messed it up several times, and we ended up not really winning except for one side due to my mess up.

Next, Jimmy told us a story. And we were supposed to draw what was behind a door with our name on it. It was pretty fun to just doodle, really, though I have no idea what really would be behind my door.

#8 Communication

Communication is the key to success.

Undoubtedly, it's the one that's told to you repeatedly in school and by professionals. You can't do anything really if you don't communicate. You won't get your ideas across, even if you're a genius. If no one understands, no one's going to want to be 'for' it. Or, at worse, they'll just think up their own understanding of your work.

This chapter brings back a lot of what we discussed in class, along with various other events. Ishmael Obregon, for instance, spoke about language. The language of visual communication. In class, we also spoke about visual communication. We even had to tell lies!

In communication, we also have to understand the "audience" of who we're presenting it to. If you communicate an idea only adults would understand, then you leave out the children. That's great if it's ended for adults, but if you're supposed to go with children... it's horrible! This goes with many other questions... who is it for? Why is it needed? What are the benefits? Why is this interesting?

One thing that comes to mind right now is..

Dexter's Morning Routine

It tells you a story with no words, seriously, (if you don't pay attention to the credits).

November 10th

Haha, I need to do my apples. O AO

Anyway, on the 10th.. we did Binary! Odd, isn't it, in a design class. But we do figure things out! Jimmy noticed the date was 11/10/10, 1s and 0s! He then wrote out some numbers and told us to figure it out.

0 - 0
1 - 1
2 - 10
3 - 11
4 - 100
5 - 101
6 - 110
7 - 111
8 - ???

I noticed that the ends of the numbers was always 0, 1, 0, 1.... And it continued. The difficulty was figuring out 8! There are several patterns it could go, and the thing is-- we didn't have enough information to say that ONE of those patterns was the correct one. When Jimmy came back into the room to ask what we thought was the correct answer, the class was split between "certain" and "not quite" and one "it's totally wrong".

I went with certain, because it was logical to me. I could use my logic-- "following the pattern of 0 to 3, we add a 1 to the beginning of the each set (4-7, 8-11, etc) following the one before". I could draw a table for it, but eh. XD

Afterwards, without telling us the answer, we went through with the rest of the 10 images, 1 headline. They did majorly better than ours. I was especially interested in the apple one, because it was very... story-like.

November 8th - Creative Briefs and 10 images

On the 8th, we turned in our creative briefs.

I wasn't really prepared to actually think it would be considered a professional brief since it seemed assigned more as homework and kind of casually. I looked up what a creative brief had to be about on wikipedia and struggled with coming up with material for it. My brief was all in one single chunky paragraph. Even I would have been a little turned off in reading it, haha. I wrote it all in that format because writing it without breaking it into categories is easier for me to come up with ideas.

Next time I do something like that, I'll definitely do better! <:

After showing us our briefs, Jimmy showed us real creative briefs from real firms. It was interesting to see the differences and the slight humor people put up when doing it. I admire the professional design of each one.

Since we didn't present our 10 images, we went around in a circle to present. I was feeling a mixture of dread and anticipation for mine. Because I thought mine was kinda unique, but as Jimmy commented on each one, I started rethinking it. And when it was my turn, it was pretty bad, haha. XD I'd have redone it if I could~

Ishmael Obregon -- Gauge Speaker

Ishmael Obregon wasn't what anyone expected, I think. He spoke about his company, Oiishi Creative, and showed us a brief video of the work his company did. He also showed us the video "WORDS". At the beginning, he asked us if any of us were bilingual. I can speak English fluently and pretty basic Cantonese (enough to get by). My mandarin is like.. dead, and any other classes I took are pretty much the same. If you don't use it, you're definitely going to lose it.

But, that's not the reason why his presentation was unexpected. At some parts, it was intriguing-- his work and the video. It just seemed entirely ... lacking. It was short and he focused on motivating us, but like classmates have said-- it seemed like luck. Jimmy said that it was interesting, and he filled it with ideas that he put off rather casually.

But what I found about his presentation... was yes, I was expecting something else. Not a really a lecture, but something that captivated me and urged me to write this. The presentation kind of left me at .... "What, it's over?" because there was no highlight. The thing is, the only thing I felt he left me to think over was the video "WORDS", which I don't believe is his to begin with.

He talks a lot about how his company came to be-- that it's easy to name it after yourself, but he named it Oiishi for Delicious in Japanese. Interesting! The thing I don't hear much about was himself, which was something I wanted to ask but... maybe it's that he wants us to focus on his company. That's great, except we're all students here. As much as we'd like to hear about his company, I think, to connect ourselves in a human standpoint, we'd like to hear how his success as an individual came to be.

After all, it was Ishmael Obregon, the founder of Oiishi Creative, speaking to us, not the Origin of Oishii Creative and how it came to be.

November 3rd

We went over people's sins project today.

I particularly enjoyed/found myself amused by the one who did Sloth. It was so true and honestly I wanted to see more. I myself had chosen lust, but I was disappointed with myself compared to others. I had taken "don't make it obvious" as "go abstract". Lips, heat, fire, intertwining vines, leather, fishnet.. I'm not sure those would have gone over well.

Jimmy then went over what was going to be our Senior Project. That'll be .. interesting and spurs me to try and think of a portfolio.


Next, we watched the Powers of Ten. Compared to everything else of the day, it's kinda like.. huh? There was no climax, and you're just waiting for someone to brief you in. And so.. Jimmy wants us to do a creative brief for it for HW.

November 1st -- Class

We went over methodology in class.

Although we can roughly guess what it means in our heads, Jimmy had us break it down. Many of us had trouble putting it into words the explained what it was well. Method is a way of doing something, was my guess-- kind of. It's -ology is generally the study of something. Metholody is the study, or knowledge of routine, procedures and the like.

Afterwards, we watched a video by Saul Bass, Why Man Creates. It was intriguing!

It may be old, but each take was creative. It entertained me and honestly made me want to see more. Although Jimmy wanted it to sit in our minds, questions and answers bubbled up. We create because we need a better way of doing something, an easier way. We create because we want to triumph over another creation.. We create simply to create.... so many reasons.

Jimmy wants us to find 10 images that portray one of the 7 sins.