Random musings in HKIA

So sometimes when I watch Aaron Sorkin shows or movies I think to myself "Man, I wish people actually talked to each other that way. I wish we could all just talk quickly and intelligently with wit and timing that would put the best comedians to shame."

I also occasionally think, especially when watching The Newsroom, "Man, I wish we could all be that emotional at work without getting into trouble with our bosses about what is appropriate in the workplace and what should be kept to one's self to store away for a long night with a big bottle of scotch."

Then I rewatch the movie / series and think "Man. Now I know what my husband means when he says that I have to have the last word in all of our arguments, and possibly more importantly, what he means when he says I need to learn to let things go."

As a result I'm thinking that Aaron Sorkin would make for a very interesting friend, but a really annoying husband. 

I also want to watch The Newsroom again. You win this round, Sorkin.

Catchup

I've been busy.

Excuses, excuses but that is the truth. I have been travelling each month to China this year, which means a full week of messed up jet-lagged hours when I get back. Which means about 3 weeks out of each month I am out of commission. No blogspot in China, my friends.

In China I've been taking Mandarin lessons, in addition to my press check duties. It's been really fun; I am learning new phrases but more importantly I am learning the "notes" of the language. Chinese is a musical language - there are four (five, really) tones that convey meaning when applied to certain syllables and this makes a word. So in English you can say "how" and you can say "how?" and they kind of mean the same thing other than one is a question and one is a statement. In Mandarin if I say "bu?" it means a completely different word than if I say "BU!" So, that's been fun.

My favorite phrase is "Bu? Yao!" which translates to "DO NOT WANT". 

I head back in 7 days.

I am particularly motivated right now to be happy and do Fun Things because last week I took a proper vacation. No electricity, no phone, no internet. It was magic. And full of bears. I had a great time.

And now I am back at work and nothing is bugging me like it used to. Which is good. I hope this lasts. I am one of the few people at work that gets along with a program manager from our primary client, K, and so it's kind of my job to find a way to not let him get to me. He gets to me a lot. I am trying to not take the bait but it's hard...frat boy meets 7-year old brat in an obese adult 30-year old body. And he thinks fast. I do not. I think well...but not necessarily fast. And I hate the banter game when I'm just trying to get work done. 

The dog needs shaving again. I'll have to work this out this weekend, probably.

I have to miss my neice's first birthday. This makes me pretty sad...she's really fun and everyone will be there, and I'd really like to celebrate it with her. However, I am softened by the fact that she will not remember it at all, and thus will not be mad at me for being a no-show. All I have to do is show up at some point with some crinkly shiny paper and she'll love me forever. Or at least 20 seconds.

I am being stared at. More at 11. 

Today

I am waiting for a meeting to start that should've started 5 minutes ago and will probably start in 10 minutes.

My parents have reached a new level of crazy. My dad lives in the land of denial regarding the reality of his financial situation and insists that if he just gets a job everything will work out. He's past retirement. My mother claims he tried to choke her the other day. However, she also claims that she got him to stop by calmly saying to him to take his hands off of her. I'm interested in how this physically happened, as I wasn't aware that when being choked one could make audible sounds above "ak". 

I'm going to fire my personal trainer. Some day. First I'm going to try to reason with him into not torturing me when I say enough is enough. I need to learn to tell him no before I can expect him to respond appropriately to that statement.

My sister made these incredible chocolate peanut butter fudgy brownie things for my husband and I have attempted to eat all of them because they're irresistible. I failed - my husband beat me to the punch.

One of my dogs got clipped the other day. I did it myself (well, my sister held down the dog), and she looks younger than she has in years. No more $80 groomer for us.

I have a headache.

Swimming tonight will be interesting. I'm trying to combine a 45 minute cardio workout with a HIIT workout. While swimming. We'll see how this goes. In any case I'll be tired.

Sorry Graphic Design. It's not you, it's me.

I think I am going to be taking a hiatus from graphic design. Not a complete one; I still have my wine client(s), who are really great and love my work. But I will not be taking on new graphic design / packaging clients, and I will not be doing any freelance package design work for a while.

Why. Because I'm tired. I am tired of either not getting what people are asking me to do, or them not getting the solutions I'm presenting to their problems. I'm tired of hearing that "it's just not right" when it looks right to me. I'm tired of hearing that it's beautiful but not impactful, when it's both. I'm tired of presenting concepts that I know are pedestrian and uninventive and have them revered as "perfect" or "amazing". I'm tired of trying to convince people that effective design takes time, and can't be churned out in a day.

I'm tired of explaining over and over again to creative directors the importance of down time and the need of workshops / classes / conferences for creative recharge and skill enhancement. I'm tired of having to fight to attend these sorts of events, and then having to justify my attendance with a powerpoint presentation that no one really seems to care about other than me.

I'm tired of having to explain to design firms that no, I won't work for $50 an hour, because this is my career and I need to put food on my table. I'm tired of the word "senior" having very little to do with being able to create beautiful, impactful work. I'm tired of the dance, the dog-and-pony show, the misunderstandings, the lack of appreciation, the obsessions with everything Apple, and the insistence that designer really means "mindreader" instead of "problem solver".

I think this is why I chose my current position, which has almost no design duties but requires extensive design and very detailed typography knowledge. It is an unusual role where I have to implement other's designs and make them perfect, in 12 languages no less. What is also nice is that it doesn't suck the creative life out of me; by the end of the week I am itching to be artistic. My past design jobs would sap me of every ounce of my creative energy, leaving nothing for taking workshops, classes, etc.

When I started thinking about what I wanted to be doing, the answer was not packaging. I'm done with packaging. The answer was what I used to love about packaging - the opportunity to illustrate and hand-letter. I missed spending hours a day practicing straight lines in blackletter, and I missed drawing and redrawing the same character over and over until it looked just perfect. I missed having the freedom to do this.

Ironically, one of the most negative places I have worked was also the one place that seemed to recognize this ability and love in me, and encouraged me to spend hours, days illustrating and practicing calligraphy to perfect this skill. On bad days I would remind myself that I was getting paid to do exactly what I wanted to be doing. If it hadn't been such a toxic environment I would go back in a heartbeat. This was where I learned to design wine labels.

So I will keep my wine clients. They love the work I create for them, they love my out-there thinking, my conservative thinking, my illustration, my calligraphy. They pay me fairly and on time and keep sending me more work. They stay.

But no other design work, I think, other than illustration / calligraphy related. I am choosing to focus on just these so that I can get back to what I loved about design. In truth, this is what I loved about art from a very early age. I never enjoyed painting or sculpture classes, but found myself drawing constantly and illustrating tattoos for pocket money in high school. 

So to properly commit to this, I am giving myself a goal: for the next year I am going to post something every week on a blog / tumblr. Just one sheet of calligraphy practice, even if it's just lines over and over again. The idea is to get myself in the habit of a weekly practice, to make time for this and to hone this skill so that I can use it more effectively.

It feels a bit sad to let this go. But it also feels relieving. I have been watching designer buddies post beautiful work and thought, I want to be able to do that, but have not felt like posting anything I've created. I have felt jealous that they are growing so beautifully and I remain stuck in this rut. So instead of depression, I am choosing to divert my path for a while and see where this new one takes me. Perhaps it will take me back to design, perhaps not. But at least I'll be happy while on it.

Rebranding Begging

This morning I got off the BART as usual and on a corner was a homeless man begging for money. This is not unusual in SF. What was unusual was his sign; instead of "Help" or "Anything, even a smile" or the annoying "I won't kid you - I need a beer", this guy wrote "What if you were poor and hungry?".

The sign got to me; I dropped in what change I had in my pocket. And I never give money to these guys. There are tons of shelters & resources out there to help people so I give to those instead.

Anyway, I'm not trying to create a rant about giving more money to the homeless. It sparked a thought in me though - what if begging got rebranded?

In a sense these guys are branding themselves. They create signs made from cardboard and markers, they write their slogans on them hoping that this one will get them more money than last time. Some choose pity based slogans, some humorous-based, and some go for a simple "nice" angle. But they are all, in a sense, advertisements for their cause. 

So what if designers / copywriters / art directors got together and helped these guys out? What if they used their talents and expertise to find a more effective way to convince people who step off the train to give money to these guys? 

It seems to me to be an interesting pro-bono project to see how one could connect those who beg with those who give in a more engaging way. Not sure how I could get this started but feel free to comment and let me know if you can help or if you have any constructive ideas.

Do leave the jokes behind though; I get enough of that on the streets. :)

New art project

Recently we went on vacation, during which I had enough downtime to read, and subsequently, think. And so I came up with a great new art project.

I'm going to recreate / design / illustrate / typeset the entire original scroll of "On The Road". I found the characters to be more real, complicated and interesting in this original version, and thought it would make one fun art project. Here's what I'm planning (if this comes out before I'm done with it I will be pissed. Find your own inspiration.):

The covers will be illustrated front and back. Front will be a Jack of Hearts, representative of Keroac and his continuous quest for friendship and love in the book. Back will be Jack of Spades, representative of Neal Cassady, a.k.a. Dean Moriarty, Keroac's friend, fellow traveller, and in many respects "other half". Two sides of the same coin, in some respects. This I'm planning on hand-illustrating in pen and ink; much research is being done on not only images of the two men, but also the playing cards themselves, symmetry, symbolism and style.

The pages will be one continuous scroll, folded into pages (like an accordion fold). The book will be bound at the top, reporter-style, so that the reader can flip through the pages over and over in that scrolling vertical format, yet the pages will be sewn / bound so that they will be accessible without falling out all over the place.

I'm going to find an old typewriter, hopefully from the 1940's or 50's on which I hope to type this entire book. Chapter pages will be handwritten with cross-outs, pages will be typed with cross-outs or white-out or whatever, maybe even with some penciled circles emphasizing some points. Page numbers will be handwritten in edition format (for example, page 3 would be 3/100).

The primary challenges are finding paper and finding a typewriter that works. I'll have to do some hunting, but hopefully I will find what I need. I suppose I could just print it and typeset it on the computer, but I think it would lose the character I'm looking for. I'm planning on connecting reams of paper with scotch tape - that old yellowed kind, if I can find it.

I think this will make one cool art peice. I'd love to see it properly published - letterpressed instead of typed - but I really do not have that kind of money and I certainly don't want to hand the idea over to someone else who won't keep my vision in mind. So, a one-off it will be.

I also came up with a great calligraphic poster idea after reading "The Baseball Codes", but that's going to take a lot more time.

Update: As usual, it's already been done. Perhaps I"ll just stick with the illustrations. http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2006/07/27/kerouacs_road_will_be_unrolled/

Where are all the adults?

I'm going to start listing "Babysitter" and "Nagger" on my skills section on my resume.