Let Me Know, Music Video Monday

I love Roisin Murphy’s ‘Let Me Know’. Mostly because of the way she exhibits loneliness while offering her own company to someone else.

Sketchbook #1

So I am kind of afraid of sketchbooks. I like loose pieces of paper better. I’m always jealous of people who have beautiful sketchbooks. I’m afraid to mess up a nice looking book, and tend to collect empty, unused books on my shelves. So last August I decided to start making my own sketchbooks. I would number them. Starting with #1, I told myself that I must put something on at least one page every single day. It didn’t really work. At least not how I planned. I didn’t stick to doing it every day.

But the goal is that I would keep the practice of sketching up and one day, maybe at #75, I might have a really nice sketchbook worth showing people. I mean worth showing every single page.

So 9 months later, I finally finished my first book. I pulled some of my favorite pages to share here:

Now onto #2.

What’s Up, Chicken Butt

I read The Brand Gap this weekend, via a suggestion from my CD. I thought a lot about what it says in terms of myself, mostly because that is the easiest way to relate. In the book it says a company (or a sole designer in my case) should be able to answer three questions.

1) Who are you? I am Alice, I am a young, creative, independent female.
2) What do you do? In terms of a living, I am a designer. Or as Frank Chimero shared with some lucky Portlanders, “a planner with an aesthetic sense”, which is really something Bruno Munari said. But I do a lot of other things, and I probably should figure out what these things really are…
3) Why does it matter? Umm. Well this is pretty hard to answer considering I could hardly answer number 2. I’ll work on that.

I think I have been working on it since becoming a sole contractor in January. I thought I had it figured out. Then I started doing more freelance projects, during which I realized that I didn’t have it figured out. I quickly learned that a freelance designer must employ different amounts of different skills than one in an agency. And I learned that I need to figure out what it really is that I do, and why it matters.

More recently, I was forced to move to a new neighborhood, across town. I really miss the old one, but I’m starting to believe I belong a little more to the new one. I think the change has really helped me to refresh both personally and career wise. This moving thing, along with my work life has made me realize that I need to make a plan and find my personal brand. At least I feel like I am a good position and place to do so.

My new spot has a lot going on. “Young” people that are doing their own thing are everywhere you turn. In fact, tonight I heard fully grown adults making animal noises on the street below. It is kind of like I’m living in a community of Lost Boys. I can eat breakfast on what I call my “Side Porch” and watch people cruise by on their bicycles. I can see a park from my bedroom window and it calls at me to go lay in it’s warm grass and draw pretty pictures of what I want my new portfolio site to look like. The new space has a good way of helping me reevaluate my life as I place my old things in it and find creative ways to make a shared rented space feel like home. It is a little reminiscent of me rearranging my room every other week during my childhood. I haven’t been working a ton as of late, but I’ve been exploring this new nurturing life, and it feels kind of good. Hopefully I will be able to use the process to answer these branding questions.

Is There a Ghost

Band of Horses have a new video. This isn’t it. This is an old one, but I like it better in terms of the song and the visuals.

Also, I have started to just post music videos on here and I realize that is somewhat lame, but I’m not sure what else to do with this blog at the moment. I’d like to bring in some elements of my actual life. I’m working on it. For now, it will be lame with videos that I like.

Print to Digital

I recently had an interview where I made a pretty giant mistake of talking about how everything is going to be digital eventually. I tried to make it clear that I didn’t believe it was happening soon, but EVENTUALLY. Yes, print will remain, but it will remain as a novelty. I call this a mistake was because I was talking to people in the print publishing industry that I am guessing, from their astonished expressions, fear the digital age.

I’ve put a lot of thought into this since. I realize that only a few years ago, I personally was not all that interested in digital design. I’ve wondered, why has my mind changed? Is it really because I’ve realized that digital designers are more valuable? Is that why and does that mean I am being superficial? Well, maybe. But I’ve also realized that I have changed as a consumer. I don’t subscribe to newspapers. This is because when I did, I might read one full paper out of the many I received. I felt very wasteful sending all that information into the recycling without putting it into my head first. And I’ve started to think that subscribing to magazines as well is wasteful. I’d rather look up articles at my convenience online. I have my sources that I regularly surf. And podcasts! I’ve become quite addicted to podcasts.

I know that my responses were a mistake in that interview. But at the same time I believe that we all realized in that moment that no one would be all that happy if I were to accept a job in that position. I would rather work for a publisher with a similiar mindset to mine in terms of the future of publishing. That is to be excited about the future and is looking at ways to expand and grow the consumer base with new media options instead of living in fear that my job may be a dead end.

I am still one of those people who likes to hold a book in my hand and lounge outside or in a chair while reading it, but the next generation is growing up more and more comfortable with using technology to read or do many different things. But this is only my opinion, and I know I may have limited knowledge in terms of the publishing industry, but that doesn’t mean I won’t continue to think positively about how technology will change it.

Here’s an interesting article I found via Plazm. It talks directly about books, the design of them, and the the placement of such in terms of technology. I love this part inparticular as it embraces a sustainable and meaninful school of thought without forgetting the past:

Ask yourself, “Is your work disposable?” For me, in asking myself this, I only see one obvious ruleset:

Formless Content goes digital.
Definite Content gets divided between the iPad and printing.
Of the books we do print — the books we make — they need rigor. They need to be books where the object is embraced as a canvas by designer, publisher and writer. This is the only way these books as physical objects will carry any meaning moving forward.

The article was written by Craig Mod.

Possibility, Lykki Li

I’ve slacked lately on putting up some good music videos for the last two Mondays. Here’s a fantastic fresh Lykki Li video. This song is pretty fitting into my life at the moment as some changes develop and old parts of my life are passed along. Lykki Li is amazing to me on many levels, but one way is that she likes to just do one take when she records her music. A few of her videos have the same kind of aesthetic if not actually being recorded live as well.

Blackout Poetry

Stumbled upon this today:

Agoraphobia by Austin Kleon.

You can see more of his poetry here.

When I’m with You I have Fun

Best Coast’s When I’m with you I have fun set to a piece from Les Demoiselles de Rochefort.

Dead Hearts, Video Music Monday

I just discovered Dead Man’s Bones in December. This video is amazing in a quiet way, it is both creepy and sad. But the song “Lose Your Soul” is what really got me interested in the band. Their debut album was recorded with a children’s choir and the song “Lose Your Soul” has a motivating chanting beat that keeps me going for hours.

Burton’s 2010 Olympic ‘Uniforms’

I’ve been meaning to post this since last week… I am really intrigued by Burton’s US Olympic uniforms for this year. The pants look like jeans. Ripped, dirty jeans. And they are paired with a plaid red, white and blue jacket that has patches reminiscent of both universities and the military. Burton says they chose the jean look for the way they say ‘American’. There is a lot of banter out there about the uniform. I have to say I like it. The funny thing is that I surprise myself by liking it.

When I’m out on the slopes myself I tend to roll my eyes at some of the ugly things people wear. But somehow this time it is different, and ok, even good. I’ve heard some people say that it is disrespectful to the Olympics and they should be dressed nicely, blah, blah, blah. Every sport has a uniform style that matches the sport. Many of them are closer fitting for the aerodynamics. But Snowboarding is very new in comparison to all of the other sports. Especially in terms of the Olympics. This is only the 4th time there has been any snowboarding competition in the games. Making a statement is part of what snowboarding is in it’s young age. So for me, jeans are totally appropriate. And pretty awesome.