Today is the official start of the year, last week was still a bit off since it was a three day week and the holiday had us all very tired. I for one am happy that I was able to literally sleep all weekend and recharge, now I’m ready to take the year by a storm. While last week I talked about my one and only resolution: “To make this year a good one”, I still do have a set of goals that I intend to achieve this year. Here’s to hoping there will be a post on december telling you all about I actually managed.

 

1. Write more posts per week on the blog.

2. Sort out my college/job life. Juggling both at the same time has been very difficult, since I finish the year on march I have a lot of decisions to make.

3. Stay healthy and work out. I know this is the cliché one, but I am really intend on recovering my bikini bod from 3 years ago.

4. Design and publish my portfolio website.

5. Organize more Folioshop workshops.

6. Read and draw more. I used to get lost in time doing either of these and it really relaxed me and at the same time kept my mind exercised.

 

That should be all, I don’t want to overwhelm myself promising too much. All I vow to myself is to make this year a productive one and to be consistent in everything I do.

For some time now I had been juggling with the idea of teaching, in some way I felt that there were things that I have had to learn on my own because I couldn’t find the resources here in Ecuador. It is a bit unfortunate that technology in general is taught in a very basic way and people just assume they don’t know how to do stuff, thinking that only computer geeks can do it. Don’t get me wrong, we are not living in trees eating bananas, but most people’s knowledge on computers extends only to Microsoft office. I thought about tutoring high school kids on how to use adobe software (photoshop, illustrator, indesign, etc), but I was too occupied with work and school. One day I pitched the idea to a friend and she also liked it, we decided it had to be some sort of workshop during the weekends since we both have full-time jobs.

We thought about a concrete theme that could be taught during the whole workshop, and I remembered when I first started applying to college that some applications asked me to submit a portfolio. I had no idea how to make one, neither did I know how to present the little amount of projects I actually had at the time. We decided then to make a crash course on self-promotion, all the tools anyone would need to build a portfolio in three different mediums: paper, website and blog.

From that idea, we decided to call the class: Folioshop (portfolio workshop). Our initial target was high school seniors who wanted to apply to art or design schools, we talked to some one from the school we graduated from and sent a bunch of posters to other schools. We also campaigned for a month via Facebook and twitter, and got up to 650 followers in that very little time. The problem we initially hit was that high school students were apparently not that interested in having to wake up early on Saturdays, and we realized a bit too late that we should have focused on an older crowd. All in all we still got 7 girls to come, with very different reasons to learn but very eager (we did get at least one who was applying to college). The experience of teaching has been every bit as rewarding as I thought it would be, and in a way it was probably better to start with a very small class so that I could gain confidence.

To make the class a little more fun and memorable, we decided to have a little contest: they all have to finish at least the home page of their site designed in Adobe Muse and published unto a demo site by this Wednesday, who ever gets the most votes on Facebook and in class will win a bamboo connect. We also had a bit of merchandising, we made sketchbooks and mousepads with our branding and gave them to everyone on the first day. I really hope everyone is learning a lot of new things and that they are enjoying the class as much as I do. We are still half way through, and next class I’m going to introduce them to blogging! I will have them do some guest posts talking about their projects so that they can learn how a real blog works and hopefully they will get excited and start a blog of their own.

To find the motivation to keep on working, you sometimes have to be able to picture how you want your life to turn out in 5, 7 or 10 years. It is hard to make a road plan if you do not know where do you want to arrive, and how would we be able to take life one step at a time if we didn’t know what was at the end of the staircase. In an attempt to further find my future self, I am starting to plan ahead. I have decided that I want to eventually work as a freelance designer, so I need my own office. Browsing around I realized I am drawn to white walls, big windows and bright colors. I have always wanted to have a big book shelf, almost like my own private library, I have been collecting books since I was 6 when I fell in love with reading. My books represent stages of my life, when I look at each of the titles I remember the moment I wanted to buy them and why, I’m a little melancholic in that way. Even though I like the vintage details in the decoration, I am a tech girl, I want big screens, tablets, and any new design gadget that I can get my hands in. All in all I think an office space should be comfortable, with lots of space to work, and cheerful because after all I will be working there long hours. I already see the future I want for myself, now I need to plan out the steps to get there, because for some reason I now feel the need to hurry up and get there already.

Photo Credit: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

Bukvarius is a russian distribution company that offers books and teaching aids for schools all the country. This amazing branding and packaging design was made by Olga Mosina. I love how the owl in the logo was formed by sharp geometric figures and how the branding is adapted to every object keeping he same fun vibe.  Even though it is fun and filled with color, it still has clean lines and there is a lot of white space that allows the other objects to breathe.

My professor told me the other day that I didn’t have the soul of a designer. Having had a 2 or 4 year existential crisis trying to figure out who I was, you can imagine this threw me off. Two years ago when my architecture professor told me that if I didn’t like what I was doing, I should stop and find something else because I was too young to be doing things that I didn’t like. I have followed his advise since then. I ventured into fashion for a while, but as much as I liked clothes that wasn’t for me. I went into business because “¿what the hell, everyone does that and I could get a job anywhere with that?”, I hated economics, and even though I was somewhat good with accounting I guess I was just kidding myself with this one. Then I went into marketing, because it was the only type of business career that at least involved some creativity. I always came back to my childhood creative soul. Back then I wanted to study fine arts, maybe write comic books or just draw portraits of tourists in Montmartre. I ended up finally choosing Graphic Design because I guess I felt a calling in some way, it was what I always liked to do just for fun. I am in love with computers and how technology enhances design. For me design is art with a specific purpose, and that is what kept me interested.

The fact that apparently I don’t have a designer soul, while it made me feel weird and dizzy, made me just want to prove him wrong. For the first time in my life I feel like I’m doing what I’m supposed to do, and I am not going to let anybody convince me that I am not. I may be a very insecure person and I always second guess myself, but when I’m sure I like to stay that way.

 

Images belong to the movie “A Little Princess” 1995, cover design by The little Hibou

 

As I recently told you, I was reading “A Little Princess” by Frances Hogson Burnet, because after watching the 1995 movie I was so enchanted by this story I had to know more. The movie is not completely faithful to the book (as usual), it changes the ending to make it more magical and happy. I’m not going to spoil it for you, so I won’t say how the book ends, but it may be a more realistic conclusion.

For a class project I had to design 3 different versions of book covers for the same book. Since I was currently reading “A Little Princess”, and I also noticed that all of the book covers that actually exist for it are very outdated and not very pretty, I chose to give this book a new face. The first version has images from the movie, and I included a fake bar code and a web page (I don’t know to which publisher this book belongs, so I just put harper to make it look more realistic). For the second version I used a picture of my niece (made by yours truly) and I made it with a happier vive, to give the magical feeling that Sara always talked about when she “pretended” and “supposed”. The third version is very girly and pink, with hand writing and little details and with the image in black and white so that it was very coordinated.

I hope you like my versions of the book covers, maybe I should make it a regular thing to show you how I think a book cover should have been for some of my favorite books. We’ll see.

 

 

Images belong to the movie “A Little Princess” 1995, cover design by The little Hibou

 

Since I switched to Mac my life has been so much easier, I’m in love with my iMac desktop and couldn’t be happier with my iPad (which I’m still waiting to get the new one with the warranty). The whole concept of combining technology with good design is plane genius, and frankly I can’t seem to find a better group of gadgets that work so well together as the i family does. The only thing I was missing is an iPhone, and finally after so many years since it was released I got myself the new iPhone 4s. It combines everything I need right now: a very good point and shoot camera, a personal assistant, instant messaging, and all of my apps on the go. I’m so excited I can’t wait until it gets here, so as I’m looking for the perfect cover, I decided to show you guys some of my finds. There are some very well designed covers out there, a bit pricey, but if you are getting such a good phone you better not slack off with the cover.

1. Tory Burch

Get it here

 

2. Kate Spade

Get it here

 

3. Marc Jacobs

Get it here

 

4. Tech Candy “Barcelona” Case

 

 

Get it here

Well, there you go. I hope you liked the list!! If you have any other cover recommendation hit me up.

This campaign basically describes the reason why I love reading so much. It is not the fact that you identify yourself with the main character, because that doesn’t always happen, it is the way you get out of your own mind and start living through someone else’s eyes. While you read, you discover new worlds, new ways of living and new ways to see the world. You may not agree with the characters, but you get to understand the root of their behavior and the reason to why they do what they do or think what they think. The concept for this campaign is simple and genius, and the execution is done perfectly. It was made by a Lithuanian Agency called Love for Mint Vinetu, a bookstore for used books. This are the campaigns that made me decide to design for advertising, mixing the creative side with the business side effectively.

Mint Vinetu is actually a very special place. It is a little bookstore with a cafeteria, that sells used books and they can also find you books that you are looking for. It seems like the perfect place to curl up with a book and hot chocolate, or to hang out with your book club.

In an attempt to stay organized, I designed this calendar to visualize the things I have to get done on time. I have got admit, I have always given the excuse of: “I’m not messy, I’m creative”, but being disorganized is a very bad disadvantage if I want to eventually work as freelancer, or for anything really. I’m freaking out a bit because my iPad is kind of in a hiatus, I’m hoping it will fix itself when I update to the iOS tomorrow, or they can fix it in some apple store. All of my “to dos” are in there, as well as my class notes (seriously wishing that the iCloud would have been released just two days earlier). Let’s hope I can get it fixed and all of my info is still there. In the mean time I’m taking notes the old school way on a notebook, and I hope that having this calendar pined on my bulletin board will help. Oh and also I’m uploading it so you can grab it if you like it as a little gift from me, just click on it to get the full size. 

by Cate Parr

There is something amazing and probably inexplicable about watercolors. The way the colors blend by the movement of water, and the way you always get completely new and surprising brush strokes, is simply magical. I have always wanted to learn the technique, and in some way I know how to do it, but I haven’t gotten to the point where I can feel how the colors connect and therefore my attempts lack the real feeling. I want to show you this specific pieces, because I felt a very deep inspiration with the way this artists concentrated on the mixture of colors to convey a very rich image, without being literal or queen on details. I found these watercolors at Saachi Online, which is a marketplace for artists to sell their works as originals or as prints.

by Cate Parr

by Cate Parr

by Rebekka Ivácson

by Rebekka Ivácson