Posted July 23, 2010 6:01 pm.
Filed under: daily happenings, process, school
Tags: legacy, Modern Dog, past, present, Robynne Raye, Seattle
A modest collection of phrases and images for this Friday’s roundup post. I was in the office just four days this week after returning to foggy and cold San Francisco from a week-long trip to the hot and sunny Pacific Northwest.
01. While in Seattle last week, I stopped by and visited with friend of the studio Robynne Raye of Modern Dog in their studio. She was very kind for taking a few minutes out of a busy day to show me around. It was also awesome that only half of our conversation was about design—the other half was about, get this, dogs! (I like dogs, so this was win-win.)
02. “This is going to be my legacy to you.” While working in InDesign with Christopher next to me directing me on a particular edit for a client, I began to replace an element on the page with another, forgetting a shortcut technique that he had shown me several weeks before. This was his friendly comment to me before reminding me of the shortcut.
03. We were silently working the other day when Christopher suddenly told us of a thought he had that morning while getting ready for the day. It was about the saying, “the past helps us understand the present.” He offered up the reasoning that it might be, in fact, the opposite that is true; that the present helps us to understand and make sense of the past. I eventually concluded that there is no such thing as the present; that instead we exist in a rapid sequence of “pasts.”
Such are the conversations that randomly occur every now and then here at MINE™.
Posted July 1, 2010 5:45 pm.
Filed under: process, school
Tags: creative pause, inspiration, mine™, shower
One of the things we’ve discussed in my Transitioning to Professional Practice class and that I am experiencing in my internship here at MINE™ is the idea that when you’re working for someone else, in their studio, your time is no longer your own. When you start a project, you can no longer approach it in the same way that you might approach a project for school—time-management wise. In school, you might get a new project brief toward the end of a class session, and then have at least a whole day or two before you have to show anything new. In a studio setting, you get the project brief (or direction from a creative director) and in most instances need to start working right away. As students I think many of us are used to working late at night and into the wee hours of the morning, or at particular times we feel most creative or productive. The adjustment moving forward, of course, is how to be creative and productive at any point during the day—especially if working for someone else—and how to overcome any creative blocks along the way. I think showers might play an integral role here.
Posted June 24, 2010 6:55 pm.
Filed under: inspiration, lessons learned, school
Tags: cca, christopher simmons, digging, records, typography, video, vinyl
Sometimes you just don’t know when your work on a particular project will come full circle and be the very reason that several months—or even years—later someone approaches you about new work.
In the Spring of 2009 I created a video while a student in Christopher’s level 2 Graphic Design class at CCA. Part of the assignment was aimed at getting us to work outside of the more typical design projects—posters, logos and books—and getting us working with tools that maybe we weren’t as familiar with. The assignment was to create a one-minute video narrative on the subject of secret(s). I created this piece that follows a DJ through a record store digging for gems buried beneath the dust (video after the jump): [more]
Posted June 22, 2010 5:35 pm.
Filed under: inspiration, process, school
Tags: cca, format, portfolio, sample books
One of the things that has been on my mind recently is the upcoming creation of a portfolio of my (mostly student) work over the past few years while at CCA. I will receive my degree at the end of this year (knock on wood), and am currently enrolled in a class called Transitioning to Professional Practice, in which the actual creation of said portfolio takes place. In addition to an online portfolio, we are creating a printed piece, despite the fact that these may be becoming more and more irrelevant in searching for work. There is definitely less emphasis placed on them, at least. Still, a succinct printed presentation of ones work can make a big different when coupled with an effective online one.
If there is a moment or two to spare here at the studio, it is always nice to be able to dig into the archives and browse through the design and paper samples. One of the things I’ve been paying extra attention to lately are page dimensions and different formats. It has been a good process figuring out the best way to show my existing body of work. Today, while doing a little shuffling of the printer sample drawer, I came across two page dimensions that felt really good in my hand, and that I think would work well in displaying my work.
When I sat back down at my desk, I glanced up on the window sill and was reminded of another interesting format—a set of books that arrived in the mail a few weeks ago. Definitely not the best size to display work, but perfect for what they are… cigarette-sized books inside a tin!
Posted June 18, 2010 5:25 pm.
Filed under: daily happenings, inspiration, school
Tags: art, books, inspiration, learning is FUNdamental, moma, museums, school
Last week Christopher’s oldest son finished his school year, but that doesn’t mean the learning has to end.
I send you on your weekend way with
Bounty from the Bottom of Baker’s Book Bag.
Posted June 8, 2010 5:42 pm.
Filed under: clients, process, school
Tags: color, design business, ethics, graduate studies program, Jon Sueda, posters, Singularity University, typeface, typography
In addition to reading this post, be sure to also make time for Part II—the conclusion—of Christopher’s Design Business + Ethics entry.
When the mail came around mid-day, there was a small poster tube in the pile. Those are always exciting. In it was this small poster by Julian Hansen, loosely based on FontShop’s 100 Best Typefaces. If you’re ever feeling stuck as to which typeface to use on a project, look no further! It’s full of helpful decision-making questions to lead you to that perfect typeface for the job. For example, You cried when watching the Terminator? Yes or No.
This morning began with some revisions to the Singularity University banners. Before we left the studio last night we got additional feedback on a few changes to make, so getting those done was the first order of the day. These banners are going to be printed large and displayed at the NASA Ames campus as a way to highlight and identify several areas of study during their Graduate Studies Program this summer—from renewable energy production, to the frontiers of space flight, to food production for large cities. It was/is a great opportunity to use bold, eye-catching color schemes for the banners. They’re turning out to be quite vibrant. The client really liked them. Each component of the Program curriculum is identified by a particular color and represented with a specific icon. These icons will also appear as a group on t-shirts of the same colors. At one point in the day Christopher made the comment that it was kind of nice using colors that the studio maybe doesn’t normally use—or hasn’t used a lot of in the past. I haven’t used some of the colors in any of my work, either. It got me thinking about a question Jon Sueda brought up in my Typography class last semester. He asked us if we had any particular methods for working with or selecting color. Some people (myself included) seemed tended to gravitate toward certain colors or palettes, but nobody had a particularly strong criteria for selecting them, other than just gut feeling and whether it seems appropriate.
So, to anyone out there reading, do you have any particular methods for selecting or working with color?
Posted June 1, 2010 5:50 pm.
Filed under: daily happenings, first times, school
Tags: breakdance fighting, cca, cinthia wen, class, noon, Photoshop, professionals, school, sleepwalking, spam, tim belonax
After the long weekend, MINE™ was back in business today, sans Tim. Well, kind of. The morning consisted of some standard studio maintenance tasks—breakdance fighting, file organization, spam email deletion. Then, about mid-day, the doorbell rang. It was Tim and he was sleepwalking, his muscle-memory kicking in and leading him to the office! When he woke from his deep sleep he decided to stick around for a few minutes and take care of some last minute odds and ends.
There are a few upcoming design competition entry dates, so I took some time today compiling all the pertinent entry information in preparation for our potential submission. I finished off the day doing a little Photoshop work on a file for Christopher, and am now finding myself having to cut this post short to head out to the first day of my summer Transitioning To Professional Practice class at CCA, taught by Cinthia Wen of Noon (and CCA’s newly appointed chair of the Graphic Design program). The class meets twice a week in the evening, so I will have to start my blog posts earlier on these days! Until tomorrow…
Posted May 28, 2010 5:04 pm.
Filed under: first times, inspiration, school
Tags: CalArts, last day, mfa, mine™, tim belonax
Today, Friday, May 28, 2010 is Tim Belonax’s last day at MINE™. He is leaving the studio to go live next to an amusement park (as Christopher puts it). I have had the pleasure of working beside Tim for two weeks now, and while a little bummed I won’t be able to continue learning from him, I am ultimately excited for him.
(Never fear, MINE™ fans, as we have a great designer stepping in to get busy.)
I will post more about that later, but for now will let Tim take it home.
Posted May 26, 2010 5:42 pm.
Filed under: clients, process, school
Tags: alabama, cca, eric heiman, new clients, Project M
In the words of our good buddy Ice Cube, Today was a good day.
Mid-morning we got a call from that potential client I mentioned on Monday. Christopher got on the line with him and went upstairs to talk about the proposal he had spent a good chunk of time crafting after the meeting. After a long while he came back down and revealed the good news. We got the job! Sweet. I am really excited to see how this thing unfolds over the next several months. Once the ball gets rolling further, I will fill in some more details. Stay tuned.
As many of you know, Christopher is an adviser to Project M and Tim was a participant down in Hale County, Alabama a few years ago. I don’t have quite as strong of a link to John Bielenberg or Project M, although I did participate in a mini “M Blitz” at the end of 2009 while in Eric Heiman’s level three class at CCA. Well, today we had the pleasure of chatting via Skype with a few current Project M’ers in Alabama. One of them is a classmate of mine on hiatus from school for a bit while doing his thing down in AL. (Hi Matt, aka matt_in_black.) They are part of a team involved in a variety of community projects, but one of the problems they are running into is distinguishing themselves and their scope of work from other, affiliated groups. So who better to contact for advice than the masterminds of identity, MINE? Some really good and smart ideas were generated during the brief conference call. Matt, keep me updated on what happens with it!
Posted May 17, 2010 6:08 pm.
Filed under: field trips, inspiration, school
Tags: cca, Christopher, justin, mfa, Tim
On Friday, after taking care of business in the studio, we headed over to CCA to check out some of the graduate thesis exhibitions. Here’s a taste. (Photos by Christopher and me.)
Posted May 10, 2010 5:53 pm.
Filed under: clients, field trips, process, school
Tags: d.School, design thinking, process
Friday was a rather eventful day, and I didn’t even have to step foot inside the office (hence the blog entry about Friday today). Before I left for the evening on Thursday, Christopher mentioned that we’d be heading down to Palo Alto in the morning for the Opening Day of the d.school’s new digs (Building 550, the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford). MINE™, if you recall, recently completed a project for the d.school, which I, and many others in attendance today got to see for the first time.
So on Friday I met Christopher outside of Building 550 at 9:30am (I decided to commute by train + bicycle) and we signed-in and got assigned to teams. I had initially thought I was going down there to hear some introductions to the new building and to meet some people, but I soon realized I was wrong. (I should have known better from description of “d.school hootenanny” in the studio’s calendar.) I was now the newest member of “Team 7″ and was being directed to quickly customize my name tag before joining the rest of my team already underway upstairs. For the next 3 hours I got to experience a good dose of design thinking fundamentals in the form of a hands-on design challenge dubbed “Reboot Camp.” My team consisted of a Clorox marketing person, three Stanford professors, and of course little ol’ me, Intern™. Through a flurry of idea generation, rapid note-taking, strategizing, prototyping, testing, revision and reflection, we participated in a project centered around engaging 10,000 kids for 90 minutes a day over the entire summer, as part of a volunteer program. One of the coolest parts of the challenge was having a group of 5th graders come into the room to test out our prototypes and give feedback.
After lunch we attended a small workshop conducted by the editors of Ambidextrous, Stanford’s Journal of Design. There were about 10 of us at this particular workshop, and the goal was to redesign/rethink the magazine specifically for someone else in the room. We paired off and had 5 minutes each to interview the other person. Based off this brief exchange we then had 10 minutes to quickly sketch/construct a prototype of our customized magazine. I have to admit, at first I was a little nervous at being put in this situation with such a small amount of time to work, in a small space, knowing that I’d then have to get up and share it with working professionals. But what nerves did exist quickly dissipated as we got to work and I realized there was absolutely no reason to be nervous. Not only did it turn out to be a fun exercise, but we were given a boxed set of all 12 Ambidextrous magazine issues as a gift. Nice!
To top off an action-packed Friday, we all gathered in the large central hall toward the end of the day and were ceremoniously recognized as co-founders of the new d.school building. Tears were shed by many in the audience (not so much by me, though). Next thing we knew it was 5pm and time to make the trek back home. It was definitely an interesting event to take part in, and probably a bit of an atypical first full day of an internship.
Posted May 6, 2010 5:43 pm.
Filed under: daily happenings, first times, school
Tags: Christopher, first day, Reena
“Hey Young World”, Slick Rick, 1988
This is Justin Holbrook, broadcasting from Putnam Planet 190. As Reena mentioned yesterday, I will be assuming control of the blog-writing duties for the summer. I am very excited and grateful to begin my internship here at MINE™. I applied as a joke after losing a bet with a classmate this past semester. It wasn’t even my fifth choice.
Actually, the truth is that I knew I wanted to be a part of MINE™—even if only for a few months—after I took Christopher’s GD 2 class a few semesters ago at CCA. I learned a lot that semester and figured that it could be an even greater learning opportunity if I had the chance to see how he runs this ship from a closer view. So here I am.
My first official day, I think, was yesterday. Reena, of course, was in and I spent much of the day familiarizing myself with the studio and getting the lowdown from her on various tasks/procedures. We all went out and had a nice little lunch up the hill, and I figured out my bicycle route for the upcoming days. Today Reena was in for just half of the day, so we ate some delicious Indian pizza and saw her ride majestically into the Mission sunset, onto BADder things (BAD = Bigger And Deffer).
To top off my glorious first day of blogging, I got to take some photos with my brand-new, futuristic, top-of-the-line camera of our eventful day. This camera is so futuristic, in fact, that the world isn’t ready for the pictures that were taken with it. You’ll have to wait until tomorrow, but trust me, it’ll be worth it!
Posted June 15, 2009 5:48 pm.
Filed under: daily happenings, school
Tags: dexsy repuyan, history, intern duties, oona lyons
Today I started the task of updating and reformatting the “new intern guide.” Oona Lyons put together a very comprehensive guide to getting used to the intern position and all the duties it requires, and Christopher requested that I reformat it from a staple bound volume into a binder. That way, as things evolve in the office from intern to intern – it can easily be updated to help the next intern down the line.
It was nice to go through Oona’s literary flourishes about her experience here. She kept chocolate in her desk. She described Christopher as a “social butterfly.” Obviously I deleted those comments and added my own in but that is the nature of time and the legacy of the MINE™ internship. The guidebook was originally created for Dexsy Repuyan, a classmate of mine who worked here 2 semesters ago. Oona opens up the guidebook with a letter to Dexsy with hopes that she has a “seperate but equal experience.” I hope the same for whoever sits in this chair in 3 months time.
