anybody with a specific trade has their own personal workspace. it could be anything from the comfort of your toilet to a downtown studio, but we all have a special “spot”, kind of like that mythical g-spot. for me, i hit that place and BLAM, ideas just keep squirting out. before i go off topic with that metaphor, i have to mention these spaces take time to construct itself. you might spend years of collecting little toy figures that march in front of your monitor, or expensive equipment that all adds up. i just stole a monitor from another co-worker and now i got two! it would be nice to have a large studio with top end computers, comfortable temperature, and full-time half naked maids but i don’t need all that to be creative. people that need the best of the best and can’t function without it aren’t as good as they seem and need to revisit the fundamentals. specifically in the creative industry, ideas don’t come from a $1200 wacom tablet, but from your lifestyle. the beautiful work you do doesn’t come from the $75 pen, but from skill. you already have everything you need, just do something about it.
you know your friends drink a lot when they stay over and wake up next to beer bottles, don’t even ask about the toilet paper… they were from out of town and got me off my lazy ass for the weekend. i’ve even come up with new theories such as “jägerbomb’s cure sore throats!” it doesn’t always have to be other artwork that inspires me; conversations with friends, ideas, jokes, and my theory of the jägerbomb cough syrup are all ideas for pieces or posters in my head… that never get created, but that’s beside the point.
the lucky lantern gifts in chinatown, chicago has some awesome ceramics and sculptures. i ended up getting 2 geisha sculptures… and they sit under my desk because i can’t figure out where to put them. i suppose i liked the “expressive lines” and had a rush of ideas so i wanted to take them home, but it always goes away when i’m ready to execute them. another great gallery and art store to visit in chinatown is hoypoloi – an uncommon gallery. the website doesn’t do the actual store much justice but its a great place with various types of art and awesome goodies and gifts.
here’s something i bought at hoypoloi, his name is chompz~ he guards my car when i’m gone…
one of my managers at work has a japanese box, which is ridiculously confusing to open at first. its sort of like a puzzle with parts of the box that come apart and slide out, but it gave me ideas for some trippy designs. if anyone knows where to get one of these i would love to know, i will hide my entire life savings in here. sadly, it probably could at this point… so don’t bother trying to rob me.
so here’s what the other people at my work do…
so i’ve realized that when i go out with my asian friends, myself included, we all tend to take alot of napkins. i’m talking excessive amounts where you end up taking them in your car and you just have a stockpile of them. places such as portillos have invented asian-proof dispensers so we are forced to take one at a time, the back end is even difficult to crack open. i’m sure many people do this, but i just enjoy stupid stereotypes.
power to the people! and keep it real! all i have to say is when he grows up, hes learning how to break dance. now if only he would bust out a b-boy pose…
so while working on a newsletter at work, i’ve decided to post up some pointers about layouts and grid design. alot of the things are common sense but people tend to look right over them because there’s so much to worry about, and after staring at it for awhile you tend to lose interested and not notice much.
this is obviously divided into a grid as you can see the guidelines. the grid that you make should include gutters, which are the spaces in between paragraphs etc. the pink boxes in each page are the page margins, and i’ve thrown in some of my own guidelines that extend through the page as you can see above. the middle guideline that runs across the layout is the fold line because i know the page will be folded vertically, than once again horizontally through that line. the text is obviously important to proofread first, and that will make it easier to design later on. i’ve created the grid to include 3 column text boxes and have the articles going across both pages. two pages equal what’s called a spread when laid out. don’t worry if it looks too simple because the graphics will help balance out the text, and you can spice up the article with some typography. the reason why it’s important to break up the text is so it is not as intimidating to the reader. the same amount of text in one huge box will make it look ten times longer to a reader, and will turn them off. it’s like myspace pictures, it’s all about perspective!
i’ve kept the graphics simple for now because i do not want to clutter the background and make the text too hard to read. it is always easier to have too much text and edit things out, and personally, i think it is easier to figure that all out and fill in the space later as long as you have a good idea in your mind of what’s going on. certain things i try to keep in mind are: don’t exceed the margins because the paper will be cut down and don’t go too close to the middle fold, which is called the spine. for this piece, it isn’t as important because its only one folded piece of paper, but in a magazine, multiple pages will take up space when folded and will make anything near the spine hard to read. it already seems pretty hectic as it is and i haven’t gotten into any of the design aspects about the text, typography, color theory, etc =) just remember spacing, easy on the amount of text at once, and try to follow a basic grid and it will look good. simplicity isn’t a bad thing, balance it out with a few graphics or “fun” titles. here you can see i used something other than times new roman and played with it a little bit with size and placement. i could have taken it a step further and have flowers growing out of the letters, or make the “0″ in the ten into a flower, etc.
here is the newsletter still in progress. i’ve played with the 10 reasons and made sort of an arch with the text, so i placed grass and a rainbow in the background. the light boxes are behind the text so the reader will have an easier time reading them, and it separates the article even more into 10 reasons rather than an article thrown on a page. a little bit about type in the layout, i’ve circled what’s called a “widow” because it is just hanging at the end of a paragraph. there’s a lot about type to learn when designing but try not to have any widows, its simply sad to see =(
i always liked watching this clip. i went searching for it again when my friend was designing the logo for the 10th anniversary of artimation. she wanted a critique on what she had so far and any motivational logo designs. i ended up critiquing her design which was a pretty solid design, and sent her this video. a lot of people ask me what inspires my artwork, and most of the time they assume its another painter, or some form of similar artwork. my ideas come from a variety of places, mostly through everyday things like i mentioned above. they may be cross mediums such as video clips, music, or even performances.
it seems emo to say that the geisha sculptures inspired me because of the expressive and exaggerated lines… but it did. it opened up ideas to further abstract lines, colors, more figures, etc. im sure everyone has had one of those willy wonka moments where the sky turns sunburst and rainbows appear and ideas pop out of the background while pandas start talking to you and geisha’s are playing the samisen…. no? me neither, but i figured i’d throw it out there for those who have.
anyways, i just wanted to mention that not everything that inspires me is from the same medium. artwork, film, or even events help inspire musicians. look at emo punk rockers, always bitchin’ about their girlfriends who cheated on them. stereotypes again, but anyways, anyone can be inspired by anything. many of the dark paintings i’ve done i created thinking about happy thoughts, or vice versa, the fruity paintings i do thinking about depressing things. i’ve painted abstract fruits thinking about naked chicks and drawn a nude model with my mind thinking about curvy bananas because i was hungry. and for the record, i have nothing against myspace pictures, or emo people, i even have a bunch of taking back sunday, coldplay, whatever cds. =)
