Mad Men Cake

This week's Artistic Fling is inspired by the Mad Men season 5 premiere that is happening in about an hour and a half! I'm so excited. In honor the the premiere, my friend and I are having a party! I love baking and love decorating cakes so I decided this party is a great excuse to make a cake and an Artist Fling. 

Naturally, I choose to feature the draping Don Draper featured in the opening title sequence of the series. While making the cake I realized I didn't have any black food coloring, a necessity in creating the draping Don. Fortunately I had black crystal sprinkles. I iced the cake with white buttercream frosting then printed out a picture of draping Don. I placed the printout on the cake and traced the silhouette. I then dumped the black crystals inside the outline and moved them to fill the shape with a toothpick. To make the MadMen logo, I tried using a printed cut out of the logo as a stencil and sprinkle the sprinkles inside. Wrong- Do not do this. It does not work. So I just free handed it.

I love decorating cakes so I will continue to practice this artistic medium. Enjoy the pictures!

Sticker Bombing

The stickers I received at the event.

 This past weekend I attended a networking event of graphic designers. I'm an art direction major so I rub elbows with graphic designers all the time. I even take upon the role of graphic designer often. At this event I got introduced to this subculture that I had heard of but knew little about. Sticker bombing. There was about 50 people at this small event and they were all handing out stickers. Some were fairly simple that had personal branding and promotion. Others were uniquely shaped and well designed. I took a few of the ones I liked and stuck them in my bag. After the event everyone moved the socializing to a bar. On our way people started taking the stickers and sticking them on everything. Light posts, fences, stop lights, the "El" supports, atms, stop signs, and many other places.

I've only heard about this once before by a fellow student. He was in class with a huge stack of USPS stickers. On each one he would draw the same mark. The teacher asked what he was doing and he explained that he was part of a sticker subculture. He would send his stickers to different people all over the world and in return they would send him one back. He showed us pictures of his apartment walls covered in stickers.

So in preparing for this blog post I did a little bit of research. Sticker bombing is another form of street art. It allows the artist to take his or her time with the art and then quickly slap the art on a wall. This allows for a lower risk of being apprehended and the stickers cause less damage.

I've always been interesting in street art. I wanted to come up with a design and try "street arting" it sometime. It was cool to discover this sticker culture and I want to explore it a little bit more.

Create Yourself.

This weeks Artistic Fling was somewhat last minute. My school's AIGA chapter is doing a poster contest. I haven't really made a poster that I'm extremely proud of so I wasn't planning on entering the contest. Today while I was working on homework I remembered that tomorrow is the deadline for this contest. So in the spirit of procrastination, I took a break from my homework to make a poster for the contest.

 I knew that I wanted to work with a quote. I really didn't know which one. I started by looking at my Facebook info page under the Favorite Quotes section. Now, there are some good quotes listed on my Facebook page but they we're all Marilyn Monroe quotes about being a woman or quotes that are paragraphs long. So what's the next step I take? I googled "famous quotes." Yes, google can be my muse at times. So I came to a website (http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/life) that listed a fair amount of pretty good quotes. The one that stuck out to me was “Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” by George Bernard Shaw. I picked it for a few reasons. 1- I'm making this poster for a design contest. Designers will completely resonate with the whole "create yourself" thing. 2-This just spoke to me and my current state of mind.


So right now I am just weeks away from graduating. I have no plans, no jobs lined up. Despite the fact that I've had several jobs while going to school I had to quit my part-time job at The Gap in order to work at my unpaid internship. Now I don't even have a part-time job that can help pay the rent after graduation. When people ask me what I plan on doing after graduation I just shrug and say something like "I'm trying to find a paid summer internship right now."


See, I'm not the kind of person who just sits around waiting for fate to set me up with a great gig. Yes, I do believe in fate but I also believe in working hard. There should be a balancing act between the two. I've always had to work for the things I have. I'm very independent and being so makes this part of my life difficult. Every time I fill out an application or send a resume and portfolio link I feel like I'm playing the lottery. I hate the fact that I can't do this by myself. I want have control but I don't. I just have to be patient and hope that my resume and portfolio speak to the creative recruiter on the other end of the email.


So back to the poster... 


When I read this quote it was like a wake up call. I keep saying I'm trying to "find" something. I'm trying to "find" a job, internship, or whatever. I keep saying I feel like I have no control in the whole process. What am I talking about!? Of course I have control. This is my life and if I want to be an art director, a designer, a creative, I am the only one who makes that decision. I don't need to find an opportunity I need to create one. 


In my past few months of searching for a career I've noticed that in order to find a job in the creative field you have to be, well, creative. Since January I've been attending more networking events, creating more, talking more, collaborating more. Design isn't about sitting in your room staring at the computer for hours, it's about discovering new ways to communicate with people through design. These are the baby steps in creating myself.


Here's the poster.

I wanted to show the confusion of finding verses the natural way of creating. I wanted the poster to have a maze like feel. The maze curves around the portion of the quote that talks about finding. People are always trying to "find" something. Sadly, we're in a society that believes we can never be happy until we have that car or that job or that boyfriend. When we find these things we are left disappointed because they didn't leave us happy so we try to find bigger, better things that we believe will make us happy. It's hard to find something if we don't know what we're searching for. This quote says that trying to find yourself can be like a maze.

The part of the maze after the "create yourself" is highlighted in orange. This path is brighter in order to show the ease and friendliness that this way of thinking can provide. When one stops trying to please others and following their own path that they created, life can be a lot easier, or at least more enjoyable.

Happy Pi Day!

Today, March 14th, is Pi Day. I hope you have heard of Pi Day. If you have not, please feel embarrassed by your junior high education. Pi Day celebrates the number 3.14 because March is 3 and the day is 14. 3/14 or 3.14. Pi is actually a number that deals mostly with circles. Pi, 3.14, is the number you get if you divide a circle's circumference by it's diameter. I'm not exactly a mathematician but the previous statement is what the internet told me. Most importantly, Pi is an irrational number which means it never ever ends. While we use 3.14 as a rounded number, Pi actually continues for infinite digits. Here is what 50 digits worth of Pi looks like:


3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993751
05820974944592307816406286208998628034825342117067
98214808651328230664709384460955058223172535940812
84811174502841027019385211055596446229489549303819
64428810975665933446128475648233786783165271201909
14564856692346034861045432664821339360726024914127
37245870066063155881748815209209628292540917153643
67892590360011330530548820466521384146951941511609
43305727036575959195309218611738193261179310511854
80744623799627495673518857527248912279381830119491



Yeah, I think I'll stick with 3.14. So in honor of Pi Day, here is some Pi Trivia:



-Albert Einstein was born on Pi Day in 1879.


-In 2008 a mysterious crop circle encoded the first 10 digits of Pi.


-The Great Pyramid at Giza seems to approximate Pi. The vertical height of the pyramid has the same relationship to the perimeter of its base as the radius of a circle has to its circumference.


-In 1995, Hiroyoki Gotu memorized 42,195 places of pi and is considered the current Pi champion. 


-The first six digits of Pi (314159) appear in order at least six times among the first 10 million decimal places of Pi.


-Many mathematicians claim that it is more correct to say that a circle has an infinite number of corners than to view a circle as being cornerless.


-A Web site titled “The Pi-Search Page” finds a person’s birthday and other well known numbers in the digits of pi.




So there you have it. Happy Pi Day!

Girls Like Pretty Things

A few weeks ago I came across a student package design for Tampons. I have completely been obsessing over these for about 2 weeks now. I wish they really existed so I could rush to the store and stock up for "that time of the month." When it comes to feminine hygiene products, girls tend to be brand loyal. Well, at least I am. If I saw these babies sitting on a shelf next to my brand I would purchase this other brand without any hesitation, even if it meant shelling out a few more dollars. 

That, my friends, is called design. That it was it's all about. Taking design and applying it to the audience that will be viewing it. Why would you want to make boxes of tampons covered with frilly flowers and pinks and purples? Every other box on the shelf is doing that same thing. In a world where women are constantly changing why would an exclusively women's product keep with the same attitude and  identity that they have had for the past 40 years. Women have a say now. They want to be recognized as powerful, strong, and fashionable. Why not translate those attributes into design for the packaging on a product women will inevitably buy?

Now let me tell you why I love these designs. They look nothing like tampons. The last thing any woman wants to do is buy tampons. It's not fun. When purchasing tampons, the guy behind the register knows exactly what you're going to do with them. It's no secret. So every month women buy these embarrassing products. Not only do we have to carry them around the store but we have to carry them around in our purses, pockets, and gym bags it for a whole week. If I have to look at these puppies for a whole week and try and hide them from male coworkers, it would be much more pleasing to do so with a great pattern on the wrapper. Even if you have a mishap and your tampons come into view at least the packaging can distract viewers from your clumsiness. 

To sum it all up, girls like pretty things. Just look at our fashion choices. We change the colors we wear with every season. It seems ridiculous that tampon packaging has relatively stayed the same for the last few decades. I can bet that if tampon packaging changed colors every season women would love them and maybe even buy them.

Oh! By the way, this package design was made by a student designer named Heda Hokschirr. Take a look at her website cargocollective.com/hedahokschirr.

Online Attention Grabber

I'm not sure what I would call this weekend's artistic fling. I guess it's something like an online cover letter. I got the inspiration from a student in Prague. In order to secure a summer job, he posted this website: iwouldlovetoworkwithyou.com. I wanted to make a website similar to this. I'm not sure I'm going to use it yet. I don't think it's ready but maybe after a few revisions.

Here is my first artistic fling: brittany-campbell.com/coverletter.html.

blk. The Dark Side of Water

So today at my internship my mentor Jason was drinking this black drink. I asked what it was and he simply answered "water." Excuse me? That sir, is not water. It's black. I do not know what you're drinking but I can guarantee it is not water. I asked where he got it from. He replied "Amazon." We live in America. We do not need to purchase water from the internet. Since we do live in America we can buy dirty water off the internet and we drink it.

All joking aside, blk. water is actually really interesting. I got to have a taste of it. If you can get past the fact that you are drinking black water it actually tastes like water. The only difference is a slight after taste that tastes like minerals. The bottles says it is "enriched with Fulvic Acid." Fulvic Acid is an acid that has a high pH level of 9.0+. According to optimallyorganic.com Fulvic acid "Enables the body to detox radiation and radioactive fallout naturally, without any negative side effects!" I just drank some black water so let's hope these facts are true. If you want to learn anymore visit http://blkbeverages.com/

Let's Get This Party Started

In order to liven my portfolio and my boring life, I came up with this idea to explore different mediums of art. I've always wanted to learn new things but never really had the motivation. In the past few weeks I've come to some realizations. 

1- I am surrounded my creative people who know so many different things. These people are interesting. I want to be interesting.

 2- In order to be interesting I must learn cool things. 

3- Learning new things doesn't only make me interesting it gives me more creative outlets to express myself. Learning new mediums also gives me more inspiration and strategies to solve problems. As an aspiring Art Director my job is to solve problems with design. Learning different mediums just gives me more tools and skills to solve the problems I am given.

So in order to document this task I made a blog. I can't do a different art project every day but I still wanted to post everyday. I've decided to have different post categories. They include the following:

Gadgets and Gizmos 

Which Ad Polled Best?

Trivia

Designer of the Week

Package Design of the Week

Ad of the Week

Art Fling of the Week

That's 7. Everyday I will post something in these categories. I learn. You learn. 

Let's get this party started.