Okay first of all don't let people experiment with illustrator if they have never used it before. Just in the nick of time we thought of couple of awesome pieces to go into a Suite furniture store. The first, the hammock, i know it doesn't look like a hammock. That hangs from the ceiling and is made out of comfy fabrics like fuzzy stuff and scarf materials the next is a stand up desk that is glass and has an e reader and tablet built into the bottom of it for easy access. This one might be nice for designers. and finally the last thing we thought of was a clear dry erase board that could hang from the ceiling or be set up anywhere in a room. Just a few specialty items sold at Suite Furnishings.

Facial Expression

So for a different view, what could be more different than the way a child views the world. So I was at my cousin's house and was sitting next to the trampoline. I kept hearing my little cousin saying my name over and over. I looked over to see her smiling face and snapped the second photo.

Her expression reminded me of how carefree I was at that age. I don't think I enjoy a trampoline as much as I did when I was a kid.

Graffiti Halo

Well I was just thinking about doing another one of my graffiti-type art pieces, but before then I was doing some review for art history and was just looking at a bunch of old art and observed that a lot of them obviously most religious the main subjects have halos. Also even though there are many cultures quite a few have this symbolism or design in their art. That got me thinking that even though our cultures are very different from those of the past there are still many similarities. Then that got me wondering what would halos look like in our day, haha... well this is what I think they could look like in our art. I also talked my brother into posing for this pic so it was kinda fun.

... school is getting close to being done this semester, keep up the good work everyone!

The Experience of "flamenca"

Today I walked into Big Lots and almost got sick. The whole place smelled like "made in china, like everything came off of dirty crates and was then sprayed with bathroom deodorizer purchased in 1984. The consumers' relationship with scent can mean everything to their buying experience. I literally wanted to flee the store it was so ghastly overwhelming, much less touch or buy anything. "flamenca" has no connection or connotation of "made in china."

a little somethin-somethin

so- for today's collaboration i asked someone who knows me extremely well what project they would think suits my personality best. in essence, instead of my quote book, what project would they pick for me?

i was told that a collection of photos of things that i love and inspire me seems fitting. when we discussed how to present the photos, he suggested that i needed to use them in a form that would sell my work (which is exactly what this project is for initially, right? to establish and sell our personal brands?)

i remembered a conversation i had with Jay about the possibility of making some product that i could hand to friends, family, and future clients that is 'cool' in such a way that they could/would display it on their desks, shelves or bookcases. in doing so, they would have a constant reminder of my personal brand and easy access to a way to contact me for projects, instead of a small business card they could lose.

it all fits, right?

i'm all about functionality. how about a day by day calendar, photographs and design exclusively by moi?

page out of calendar for today:



i know you all are dying to get yours.

Rivals

Today was the big "Rival Game" for the state of Utah. If you're not from Utah, i'm sure you've heard about it and am constantly being asked which 'side you are on' and there is always only one 'right' side. Today I observed many different attitudes and behaviors that occur from this day. Facebook status's are out of control smack talk befor the game, after the game the smack talk is full of excuses and more smack talk from the winner side, people around my neighborhood go crazy in decorating their houses, but the best was what I saw today. I went to Viewmont High School and we have a big "V" on our mountain, well I didn't get a good picture of it before it was ruined, but someone exteded the V to make it into a "Y" for BYU! By the time I went to get a picture of it it was already ruined but you can see the white stuff off to the side how it used to be. Conclusion: People will do a lot of crazy things over sports, it brings people together, and it tears people apart, but overall it's a good day :)

Day 16

Today I was thinking about traditions in the family while putting up our Christmas tree. Every year, even now that my sister and I don't live at home anymore and it's just my parents, they still feel like we should put up the tree. This year in particular was different because neither one of us will be home for Christmas, too. It just made me think about how iconic some things (in this case, the tree) can be. You would think that since the kids are out of the house you wouldn't bother putting a tree up since you don't have anyone to spend Christmas with. But it's the memory of putting the effort into a project together and waking up in the morning or coming home from work seeing it and that memory immediately returning. Sometimes even the most simple things can leave a lasting impression.

reflection...

There in a reflection one finds a rejection that tears fragile souls all apart. It's not in a face that you'll ever find pace, the stride of your will is the start. A man without mirror is a man without fear for his wits are then found in his heart.

FullGive (Day 15)

Almost done, can you make it out? These are just a couple pairs of the mitts that have been a part of the week's project. Fullgive is all about getting involved with what you love on a physical level; you have got to jump right in and get your hands dirty if you are going to do it right.

Music connects us

I spent the day with my cat Mimi and away

from most of my family.My cat was going to collaborate with me today,

but she decided not to cooperate and play the piano duet I had scheduled, so it's onto plan B.

Today I got thinking of crowds since it was Black Friday yesterday, and there was supposedly a big Football game going on downtown. I value my sleep and my sanity so I did not go out at all yesterday, but I have been stuck in crowds before — either on the street or jammed like a sardine onto the Trax trains after a big event that I didn't know about.

One thing I have observed about people is that they are often stuck in their own little bubbles, either as individuals or with the people they are with. We tend to like our space and carry with us our I-pods, cell phones to text on, hand-held games or books to entertain us and make us look busy so we don't have to interact with strangers. (At least this is my theory).

Then I got thinking of how different I feel after attending a concert. We all go in as strangers, often sitting next to people we don't know. But music- whatever it is- has a way of uniting us and often I will find myself turning to someone next to me during intermission, or after the concert and I'm sitting on the Trax and I'll ask strangers beside me how they liked it, and wasn't this part amazing, etc, etc. Music makes us more humane humans. It has a way of uniting us and creating good feelings among perfect strangers that make us want to reach out and connect to people we didn't know before.

elf!

i was watching "Elf" today and i really enjoy the whole thing about an adult acting like a kid. buddy was a man but acted like his kid brother, but he could still teach people things. he taught people how to have fun even when you are grown up, how to have a snowball fight, and believe in christmas again. i liked how he enjoyed the little things out of life like skipping down a sidewalk, seeing a very large christmas tree, running as many circles as fast as you can in a revolving door until you feel sick, and eating as much syrup as possible. i wish that more adults would enjoy the little things in life more often. kind of like the whole thing of neverland and never to grow up. no one really should ever have to act so grown up all the time. the kid inside you should be able to be set free sometimes. so today's observation was adults who still bring out the kid in themselves.

Freudentisch: Would You Like Salt With That?

"Saliency can be defined as how perceptually distinctive the information is in the context in which it is presented (Fishbein, Haygood, & Frieson, 1970; Sanfey & Hastie, 1998). Saliency can be affected by both bottom-up and top-down processing. Itti and Koch (2001) define visual saliency as a bottom up, stimulus-driven signal defined by the distinctness of an object from surrounding objects which can be modulated or overridden by top-down, user-driven factors. Saliency can be affected by bottom-up or preattentive processing based on features such as size, line orientation, form, sound levels, color hue and intensity (e.g. larger sizes and more intense colors can increase saliency). Additionally, saliency can be moderated by higher cognitive processes that are experience-based such as priming, recency, availability and expectancies (e.g. if searching for yellow squares in a bin of multicolored shapes then yellow and square items will be more salient than red triangles.)"

Fishbein, H. D., Haygood, R. C., & Frieson, D. (1970). Relevant and irrelevant saliency in concept learning. American Journal of Psychology, 83(4), 544-553.

Itti, L., & Koch, C. (2001). Computational Modelling of Visual Attention. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 2(3), 194-203.

Sanfey, A., & Hastie, R. (1998). Does evidence presentation format affect judgment? An experimental evaluation of displays of data for judgments. Psychological Science, 9(2), 99-103.

As cited in:

Kramer, H. (2009). The Cost of Saliency: How saliency relates with relevancy to support or impede information search. (Unpublished Author's Copy.)

For today's project I collaborated with my mother. To give you a bit of an introduction, my mother is a computer programmer who decided to become a grad student in Psychology (go figure). The above is taken from a draft of her proposal outline. Since her research regards saliency, I asked her what would make my product more salient. She stated that "the key is to make it more distinct in the context." So, just like when one is "searching for yellow squares in a bin of multicolored shapes then yellow and square items will be more salient than red triangles", then a red octagonal shape will be more salient than square blue ones.

(PS, does anyone see the blue dots in the intersections of the white lines? Yeah, it's a fun optical illusion to play with...)

Cable Table reDesign.016

I was watching Get Smart today and thought it'd be fun to make a ridiculous spy table. After all, the spy is the ultimate lifehacker. I was especially inspired by things like the silence cone and the exploding floss, little daily things that they took and made into awesome undercover tools. I sketched out a table with a few radio buttons and speakers, an invisibility button, a skinny screen where you select your weapon and it is then dispensed "under the table" for you, and a main screen for whatever info you need. This entire table can be disguised by a thin overlay material and buttons flush to the surface - either you have the buttons memorized or you can quickly undisguise the table for extensive use. I also collaborated with my Dad by having him redraw most of my original sketch, since medication was making my hands really shaky (as you can see by some of my handwriting)!

So continuing along a similar line as yesterday, I asked my brother what advance would he like to see in future tables. Since he's an engineering major, he thought that a counter top that could rotate and reveal all your appliances like a microwave, stove top, oven, and a mini fridge would be his favorite advancement in table counter technology. It would save lots of space and look much neater with all your appliances tucked away, plus it would make you feel pretty James Bond-like and who can say no to that?!

Day: Youtube

I was thinking to myself today of where I can find interesting people in Cedar City to observe? That only lasted for a minute or two of thinking about that, and so I decide to watch my daily Vlogs on Youtube. That is when it came to me. I can observe people on Youtube!

On a daily bases I watch two Vlogs in particular, iJustine and Charlestrippy. It amazes me to see what ideas they can come up with every day. iJustine is a very wacky, crazy, spontaneous, and fun girl that just keeps people entertain every day. Charlestrippy on the other hand is silly but also a very cool and chill type of guy that makes Vlogs about his life.

It made me realize that ideas come from anywhere and about anything we do. I think that it is hard for some of us to see that because we don't think about what we see or do being all that entertaining to other people. This week is something special for the class because we get to see what other people are doing that we may never had thought of doing in our own lives.

If you want to check out this cool people go to iJustine and CTFxC on Youtube and don't for get to vote for CharlesTrippy vidoe for the Youtube awards either! :)

Barbie

For this day of collaboration I asked my friend Barbie Sellmeyer in Florida what she thought nature's niche was all about, and how she would express her thoughts of the brand.

Barbie loves the outdoors, especially the beach. When I told her about my brand she said that she felt it was something that would represent our interaction with the beauty of nature, and the impact we make on that beauty. "We all have a choice of what kind of mark we leave. The mark I want to leave is that I lived life along WITH nature, and enjoyed every bit of it."

This is what she came up with to visually describe her feelings.