Blog Entry 2

Today I wanted to talk about the Critique we had last Friday, and about some webdesign that we're working on in our design class. 

Jim was really helpful during the critique while we went over each persons work. We decided to let the artist kind of explain their work before allowing other people to jump in with questions. We talked about what we wanted to be doing, but more specifically what we were interested in right at this moment. We started with Amy's dark photographs and then Elizabeth's arial paintings before we really started getting talking about whats important to think about while doing your work for your thesis. Jim discussed the idea about mediocraty vs working hard. Whats the difference between creating average work as fast as possible rather than working hard at everything and investing the time you have wisely to get the best outcome. We also talked about the idea of being directionless, being held in a kind of purgatory because your being asked to do something different. And how this can sometimes be detrimental to an artist.

Another important aspect we discussed during the critique was the skill of using specific dialogue when describing your work. Jim explained that your work will be questioned often and being confident and making sure you sound like your well researched and open for critique. This is important now more than ever when we're leaving college. I thought this was particularly important for designers because a discussion with clients is an open dialogue of your work, what you will or have already done, and what can be changed to what the client needs. 

I'm worried about what clients will actually expect me to be able to do for them, however, when I do leave college. So often we are called upon to program websites and code programs and such, but I was always under the impression that was up to the computer science majors! It seems as if a lot of us students here at MGSA are struggling with learning how to code and to make websites, and here we are again about to start on more web design projects :)  I figured I better brush up on my tutorials and research into some innovative websites for inspiration!

 Yaron Schoen

Is an interactive webdesigner that works for twitter. His portfolio is so clean looking, simple, and easy to navigate. I love the color choices here and for the mouse-overs. His sense of humor is clearly displayed and integrated into the design of the website. Love this.

Social Marketers Summit

The main website for the Social Marketers Summit, a European social networking site for this group. You don't really need to speak a different language to understand good design. This whole site is one page, the main information on the bottom and the articles in the form of pictures in a scrolling menu, with drop downs for the articles in a plain white box. 

Here is some coding help for my fellow designers!

source: webdesignledger.com

Here are some helpful sites!

Basic Java

Handy Compliation of Links

Blog Entry 1

There's this toolbar I use often called StumbleUpon. What's really neat about it is that I set up parameters to fetch me different random websites of the things that will interest me, and surprisingly its been an invaluable source of information and exploration. Most of the websites and artists I've discovered that I will share with you on this blog I've found by using this program, so I thought it would be worth saying something about. You can download the toolbar here. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do! 

Some of Mehmet's Advertisment Work

One of the things I've 'Stumbled' recently would be the work from an artist called Mehmet Gozetlik. Aside from being a sucessful designer, he founded a group called Antrepo that focus' on Minimalistic qualities in advertising. According to their website: 

"Antrepo is a multi-disciplinary design consultancy. It derives its power from exciting and passionate design members who are actively contributing to the core of design. The Antrepo team formed to create unique design ideas for forward-looking peoples."

 Also on their website they specifically state that their ideas are not just Mehmet's or the groups, but anyone can be a part of the movement with 'self energy'. Their newest product designs feature a new look that simplifies, stating they believe "almost every product needs some review for minimal feeling. 

I kind of tend to agree. A lot of products and labels are cluttered with too much information. Some of it is mandatory, but I think their take is quite refreshing. I remember watching a documentary about the creation of the font Helvetica and how it kind of took over, a kind of 'refreshment' of typeography in the design world. This group seems to have taken this idea to the marketing world, but still seemed to have maintained the brands character. The idea makes me think though, what others purposes could this be applied? The clutter has permeated our society in many fashions, but I think a lot of people are starting to consider this de-clutter movement. For awhile on television you had all those shows about clearing out hoarder homes, businesses have sprung up seemingly overnight to help homeowners reorganize and get rid of unwanted things (1800-got-junk for example). It doesnt really surprise me other people have been catching on:

These are some examples of some minimalist movie poster designs from this website I found during my research on the matter. Its a blog post about a contest done on Worth 1000's website but I couldnt manage to actually find it on there. But anyway I thought this was a perfect example of minimalism in design. Thinking in different medias, I wonder what would happen if this concept was applied to print medias such as books and magazines?

Peer Interview MGSA Thesis 2012 with Frank Trumbetti

For my first entree for my Thesis blog, just before my first weekly blog, I will be interviewing a fellow classmate of mine: Frank Trumbetti. After reviewing some of each others work and exchanging a few questions, I've learned quite a bit about video and how different it is from other academic concentrations available here at Mason Gross School of the Arts. Frank has just returned from abroad, studying in Japan and taking footage for use hopefully for his thesis in the upcoming year. He's looking forward to being able to branch out a little in this thesis class, straying from his usual work driven by the assignments from the university.

Katie Kelly: "Most of your videos left me on the edge of my seat, I could feel a layer of suspense that was consistent throughout your works: like you didn't know what to expect next. Is this a theme you work to put into everything you do or is it more random?"

Frank Trumbetti: "Suspense is definitely a theme in all of my works. I like to make people feel weird, but not uncomfortable like some others like to do. We're so used to seeing the big Hollywood type of films where they show you the most grotesque thing you can possibly imagine and scare you into achieving the same effect I'm going for too: very weird. But in a good way I guess. You don't want to make people uncomfortable enough to not want to watch your film."
 Katie: "So shock value has no appeal for you?" Frank: "No not at all."

Katie Kelly: "You said that editing was your passion in this field, does this have any role on this theme of 'wierdness' you're going for?"

Frank Trumbetti: "Yes absolutely, since my work is all over the place, random thoughts play out with each other in each video editing is used to transition between them. I like to play around with editing, but I have to be careful of things like being able to convey a sense of time passing. That is something I've been working on recently.

Katie Kelly: "I've noticed in the works you've shown me that most of them are mostly fairly short in terms of length, is this something you incorporate into your works? How does length help play a part in your videos themes?"

Frank Trumbetti: "I don't really intend on most of my works being short, they just happen to turn out that way. I always thought that to make successful videos you have to be accomplished at making good videos with not a lot of time available to you first, and then you'll have a better idea of what time means to an audience and how to keep their attention without losing any value or meaning. Right now I think my longest piece is 15 minutes, that was really challenging."

Katie Kelly: "I don't really know a lot about video production, what challenges do you face as a video major that some other media groups would not?"

Frank Trumbetti: "Collaborating with others is the hardest thing to do. Especially at such an early stage of my career, funds are limited and nearly all of my actors are just friends volunteering to help out. It's difficult to get your vision of what you want across when you are working with a lot of different people. Trying to schedule times and places for everyone to meet for even just one day can be really frustrating. You don't always get the reactions you want either, compromise is important in this field.

Katie Kelly: "So you would say 'who you know' is better than 'what you know', I mean, funding is really that important? How do you work around this in school?"

Frank Trumbetti: "Unfortunately, since bigger budgets give you more options people with money do have an advantage. MGSA has prepared me though for whats ahead, and how to think outside of the box and work with what you have. They help show you a way to avoid the typical Hollywood cliche's, there are so many movies out now a lot of stuff is repeated over and over because it's popular, but we're taught value can come at any budget. MGSA has exposed me to a lot of things I wouldn't have seen in the mainstream media, its helped to broaden my mind to new ideas that will help this year.

Katie Kelly: "Speaking of new ideas, what or who is your inspiration? Do you look to anyone's work in particular?"

Frank Trumbetti: "Akira Kurosawa is probably my biggest inspiration he makes a lot of really famous Japanese movies such as Ikiru (1952), Seven Samurai (1954) and Yojimbo. Although he is a big director that is profoundly successful in portraying historical narratives, it's his style that I want to aspire to, he's well known for using editing creatively and his movies are also well known for their oddities, mainly new techniques he was experimenting with Hollywood wasn't used to seeing back then. I guess my erratic sense of theme really comes from him. Being in Japan this last year gave me a lot of time to take footage in their culture and really get a better understanding of his works.

Katie Kelly: "Is this something you're looking to persue with your thesis this upcoming year?"

Frank Trumbetti: "Yes, I want to incorporate my experience abroad- not just a narrative of what happened day by day, but more like what has this experience done to me as a person? How have I grown from this experience? I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to do yet, but this would be the direction I'd like to take."


Thanks Frank for taking the time out to interview with me! I want to see some of the stuff you took in Japan. He was over there during the recent Tsunami disaster and I'm excited to see the kinds of things he found there.

Coming soon: Weekly Blogging!