FRCH, Design Worldwide

http://www.frch.com/flash.htm

At first look I was impressed and The graphics were pretty intense, and had small rectangles pop up and create this site layout. The graphics are amazing, whenever I roll over some text or links the letters and numbers move. I really feel like I could interact with any part of this site. I looked around some and came across a video...yeah right. Seriously I came across a video and it was awesome, I watched it and then I realized right there, they just won me over. I saw there culture and style of work the friendly enviroments they work in. It was all amazing. The video included a step by step contour sketch that slowly evolved into real life. I was just jaw dropped by the creativity displayed in this site. Everything really is just wonderfully done and I can look through the site easily and in short phrases the company tells you what there all about without you having to sit around and ponder the meaning of it. Simple, complex, interactive, and creative. I love the site, I love the company.

Shading with Application

I did a couple sketches using different shading techniques. The two techniques that I used were Crosshatching, and smudging. I did however incorporate a little of both in my sketches. I ended up having a good time with these drawings because I felt like they were actually coming out to look like something. My favorite is the keys, and I actually did them on a page that was stained with markers from the previous page and it added a neat abstract effect to the whole composition. At the bottom I added on to a drawing that I was working on in the past and used a couple different shading techniques to make it have a little more substance rather than just being a plain contour. Its a very interesting drawing....

Gesture Drawings

Here I've posted a couple Gestural drawings that I did the other day. I tried to practice the quick strokes and worry more about getting the gesture of the person. I did the same person with two different mediums to see if it made a difference, and I ended up liking the way my charcoal gestures started to look in contrast to the ink drawing below. I've done many other drawings and will eventually post them up as soon as I get the time to scan them through the school. I think with more practice I can start to refine my quickness and precision with these gesture drawings.

Pumpkin Portrait

I never thought that I would see the day when I start nailing metal plates to a n organic figure. At first I thought about carving individual pictures into the pumpkin, but then I realized the night of, that I didn't have enough time, or even the right tools to accomplish a task such as that. Instead I salvaged a few metal parts and tried to figure out with I could do with them. I turned the pumpkin over so that the top became one of the sides and it started to look like a face. Then I came up with the strange idea that nailing metal on the pumpkin would be a very interesting response to this project. So i figured I would stir up some confusion and go on and do it. The metal plates themselves signify a kind of solid foundation around this soft organic core. Its like bicentennial man with him being a robot on the outside but becoming human on the inside. I then sketched out different parts of my face and pinned them to the pumpkin which added to the fun. I thought maybe it would be cool that you could interact with the project like that of Mr. Potato head. At the end of it all I look back at it and think "what exactly was going on in my head when I did this, what was I thinking? I don't know but in comparison to all the other monoliths that were created I think this one suits me. Somehow stinking out like a sore thumb feels better than standing tall with the rest. I suppose that helps with its recognition.

Little

As I was walking through Durhams new park downtown, I looked into the window of one of the buildings and saw a big sign that said Little on it and it was glowing red. I looked them up online and came across the Design firm, and they work in many different fields and collaborate across various projects which I thought was pretty cool. The design site is really easy to navigate and I have no trouble getting around. If I wanted to see what kind of projects they've been working on I just click on either community, retail, or workplace to view the different projects or spaces they've been working on. The site is very pleasing to look at and is not an eye sore. When you enter the site theres a small introduction which forms the site in front of your eyes, pretty neat graphics. On the home page there is usually 4 links that change the photo in the background of the home page. This photos are shots of new projects they've been workingon and it helps to see that the company is very active and growing in size. Overall there really isn't too much to say about the site besides its simplicty and its user friendly. I really liked it alot and I'm excited to see that there is a local firm that does alot of really awesome things.

http://www.littleonline.com/

Labyrinth/Vanishing point/Illusions

I was sitting around in my friends house over fall break and drew this while I was there. Its really not an intentional drawing, only something that slipped out of my pen once I put it to the page. After drawing this for a while I found out how to draw illusions, and you can kind of see them in the top part of the drawing, where the circles are hard to look at closely and follow because they have no defined shape. These illusions really actually remind me of a labyrinth or a maze. I also tried to work on a 3 dimensional vanishing point that went straight through the body, and it looked really neat. I also put some text on the left side to see if I could draw the text as it would be seen in the distance, or going towards the vanishing point.

Metamorphosis

Middle Mix:

Ashley's Mix:

Ben's Mix:

I wasn't too sure on how to approach this project once it was given to us. It actually took about a day for it to start to fall through, and after a couple sketches I started to see a point to come across. My two projects that I choose was Ben Collins egg project, and Ashley Blackburn's memory project. I really did like the shape that Ben took on the egg project and the use of tabs layed into that was really interesting. I tried to Incorporate a couple things from his project that included: the shape, color, directed light from the top, and the centralization. Upon coming to Ashley's memory I was stumped, but once I sketched out a few designs and played with some new materials, such as foam board and wood, I started to see a good middle mix come through.

The next day we received a new assignment, which was to find the mixes between the middle mix and the two projects. So this meant that I had to build two more iterations for Friday. The first iteration that I worked on was that of Ashley's and one of my classmates brought back some materials from work and suddenly I had an idea. She brought back a flat piece of Styrofoam with holes in it. I ended up cutting these round pieces of wood into foot long pieces much like the length of the first middle mix. I took these pieces of wood and I weaved them through the foam, and it cause a really cool wavey pattern than kept true to Ben's curves in his project yet the straightness as well. I added a lot of color and texture to the project that Ashley used in hers and this led to an interesting finger painting experience.

After completing her portion of the project, or metamorphosis, I began to brainstorm on Ben's project. I looked at his closely and talked to him about it and His project was very simple. So I wanted to incorporate and very simple look to his yet keep true somewhat to the craziness of Ashley's memory. So I talked to Ben about how he used tabs on his egg project. From there I duplicated his technique and then used colorful rubber bands that portrayed the colorfulness of Ashley's Project. Some of the colors she used as I remember were pink, light blue, green, purple, and light yellow. I found the tabs very hard to measure out and even harder to put together as I needed some help. Once the tabs were in place there was really no need of glue or any other adhesive, which was really nice and made my life a lot easier.

Mesopotamia

This project was particularly difficult for me to complete. I pretty much spent the night in the studio the day before to complete this. I do have to say that it was my fault for starting on such a late notice. I never expected it to take me this long to complete it, and even though it is complete I feel like there is alot of work to be done here.


In the process of searching for my pictures I looked through some various magazines, including Architecture Digest, Dwell, and wallpaper as well. A couple of the photos are uploaded from online because I had run into them in another class and really wanted to talk about them. One of those in particular is the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona.






This was a really nice house, and I wanted to show more views of it so I ended up taking up the whole two pages for it. I actually did that for alot of the buildings that I choose because there was so much to see in them that one picture wouldn't be enough. In doing more pictures I ran into another problem, which was the 3 page limit. I thought about it some, and I really wanted to include the extra photos so I felt compelled to break the rules and use 4 sheets of paper instead of 3.


Overall I did learn alot about magazine layouts and I feel in the future If i ever had to do another one, I will be more knowledgeable in the process, which would include better time management, and quality of craft. I also think it would have been helpful if we reviewed some computer tools, such as illustrator that would have greatly helped with this project.

Sasaki Associates, Inc.

http://www.sasaki.com/

Wow, this company is really overwhelming. I looked under there portfolio, and noticed that they have hundereds of pages worth of projects that they have created. I'm really impressed by it, however the site feels a little sloppy. I feel like they need more pictures or somthing, because when I come to there home page I see grey and small white text which bothers me, and I think how hard it might be to read for someone looking to work with them. I think nice big text and more stand out colors and pictures would make me feel like I've jumped into their world and I can get a nice feel for their work. The site is very professional and I guess I'm a little bias because I prefer the more interactive sites that have alot of graphic and really feels interactive, compared to the boring plain layout sites that are completly straight-forward. I can see that the company does alot of good work but I feel like their site could use alot of improvment.

IARC Zine Bunny

This is suppose to exemplify first year studio. In this case I'm showing how hard work can be, but at the same time you can get a lot from it.

Shatter Cube

This was a really exciting project and I had so many different memories and ideas that it felt so cluttered at first. I had gone through a couple memories from the past two years of my life and came upon one that was more recent and inspired by a friend of mine. Last year I encountered many obstacles and changes in my life. It was exciting but scary and confusing at the same time. I had a big course load both semesters and eventually pulled through on the deans list for the year. My parents were really happy for me and it was a great change considering that I struggled through high school somewhat.

On my first iteration I was just playing around with materials and originally was going to just paint a cube. While I was working on the cube I noticed Philips technique in scoring the mat board and using it as a way of contrasting the colors and bringing out forms. A light bulb went up and right then I knew what to do, and so I made the cube and scored on the lines to create a nice 3d color contrast.

This next iteration was a big change from the first one. I guess I was thinking more with texture rather than color. I mean it wouldn't hurt to go somewhere else with this project. So instead of scoring the lines I ended up pealing off the squares and it created this dark rough texture that I really saw going somewhere. The color was black to show how absorbing the feeling was, because I did absorb a lot of knowledge from last year in many different fields of study before I finally decided on this program in interior architecture. The resin mold ended up being extra junk so I decided to through that out, I think Tommy agreed with me on that one...well moreover he was the influential figure in this discussion.

This was my final project the black shatter cube. It really feel defiant in a lot of ways, considering a cube is missing and the black is still the absorbing color it was before. Now that I look back on this project in comparison to the metamorphosis I see how this developed in that way. The 3d scoring technique came from the first iteration and I combined that with the color from the second iteration and I got this. Well with a few added feature such as an increase in size and the missing cube really helped too with the development of this memory.