Investigation of form. Design a Safety Instructions insert that is more interesting than the single-space type sheet inserted into every home appliance purchased in New York State. The 3D of this is actually a cut-out on lightweight card stock.
Add comment March 15th, 2010
There is an amazing Flickr group out there called Looking Into the Past that contains hundreds of photos like these, in various forms, comparing a present photo of a location with a past photo of the exact same spot. I am a total sucker for these types of pictures, as living in NYC has made me realize that I am a super nostalgic person.
I love seeing the history of places, and love it even more when the integrity of things are kept roughly intact, with modern changes applied, sort of like the tenement buildings in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Walking the streets there you can feel the history of the immigrants of New York, and that is worth more than any new blue-glass crappy condo with $1 million units they can ever build.
1 comment March 3rd, 2010
This weekend I made cheese for the first time ever. I like it. It was the easy goat cheese recipe that I found on Serious Eats, and we ended up with a little ball of goat cheese ricotta. There was only one dire moment, and it was when I realized that maybe I should have cut down the cheese cloth to a more manageable size, rather than leaving it in the 2 yard form it came in, “just in case.” Talk about unwieldy! However, it was pretty delicious, and I’m eager to try again and see if I can make it even better. Actually, I’m eager to try again and make a different cheese–however cool it is to make a quick and dirty ricotta cheese, ricotta is just inherently sort of bland to me. I prefer a snappier flavor to a creamier one. I should probably try this one a couple more times to get the hang of it, and try using a rennet, before I move on to bigger and better things. I’m SO impatient.
2 comments February 23rd, 2010
The assignment: Take a CD that you think is badly designed and design new cover art for it. This art should be able to evoke the feeling that one gets when listening to the record or a song. Bring in the song to class to play along with your design.
Soooo, I had a hard time finding a badly designed album cover that I could actually come up with a design for. I decided to go with The Lonesome Crowded West by Modest Mouse because even though I personally find the original art iconic (since it was one of my favorite albums ever), it’s still pretty basic and there was room for more interpretation. I am going to use Trailer Trash as my song for the redesign. I think it evokes what I need it to.
Here’s the original:
2 comments February 22nd, 2010
The assignment: Come up with ideas for 3 book covers, each focusing on different copy as the priority: the title, the subtitle and the authors (Magic with Cards, 113 Easy to Perform Miracles with an Ordinary Deck, Garcia and Schindler).
The biggest problem I am having is not necessarily coming up with the ideas (rudimentary as they are), but is graphically representing them the way I see them in my mind. Since this class is primarily about ideas and not about layout, I guess basic layout works, but I really wish I could make what I imagine. I need to spend some serious hours with the Abobe Creative Suite this week…
Add comment February 15th, 2010
Tonight is my second class of the Basic Graphic Design Class that I am taking at SVA (School of Visual Arts). This class is pretty awesome because it specifically deals with issues I’ve had forever–mainly, how to come up with new, interesting and good ideas to solve graphic design problems. OK, so I haven’t always had specific graphic design problems to solve, but I feel like I easily fall into visual idea ruts, and this class is designed to help you break through those.
I’ve decided that I will post my completed homework assignment up here before class every Monday to help keep me accountable, and to keep me from doing it half-way. No judgments, please–I am no pro with the Abobe Creative Suite–YET!
The assignment: design 3 bank brochure front covers using some of the basic ideas introduced in the first class
I primarily used symbols, unity and primary colors to represent the basic building blocks these loans are.
The second thing that is keeping me so busy is the start of an online course that I registered for:
This course is made for business owners and entrepreneurs to help to get them organized and grow their businesses online. I am super excited about it, and the class group already seems like an amazing, inspiring bunch. The course is run by Jaime Derringer, of Design Milk fame, and Erin Loechner of Design for Mankind, who also together run Bakery. These ladies are impressive, and I hope to learn tons over the next 6 weeks!
2 comments February 1st, 2010
Fine, I’ll admit it. I am reading The 4-Hour Workweek. I like the idea of automating income and taking mini-retirements throughout my life, what can I say? Doesn’t sound too sucky at all.
One of main things the book teaches you (well, so far–just started reading it yesterday) is to think big–outlandishly, even–in terms of your goals and the things you want to experience in life. Like how there is less competition for the big stuff, because people assume they can’t do it/have it, and lower their expectations to the same level as everyone else–leaving fewer to battle it out at the high end. Anyhow, it suggests you make a 6 month timeline and include as many far reaching experiential goals you can, then narrow it down to about 4, then actually price out those 4, and then write down the 1st steps to accomplishing each one of those 4, and do it TODAY.
I got to brain-storming and I realized that I have been talking about going to Greece for the past, oh, 10 years and still haven’t managed to do it. I have been LOTS of other places in the world, but have avoided this one for some particular reason. I can’t tell if my expectations are too high for it, or I have some weird anxiety surrounding my heritage background, and my complete lack of speaking the language at all, or SOMETHING. Who knows? All I know is that I want this to happen, and I want it to happen soon. Now I just need to figure out how.
What would you do if you felt you had no restrictions on your life? Where would you go?
4 comments January 28th, 2010
We have done the un-doable–made homemade Seattle-style chicken teriyaki that is JUST AS GOOD as our beloved Tokyo Garden in the U District, from 3,000 miles away. We got insanely lucky that the recipe the NY Times just happened to include in it’s article about the beloved Teriyaki joints of Seattle is from our go-to, absolute favorite spot. Which is pretty crazy, considering there are approximately 3,000 teriyaki joints in the Metro Seattle area. So happy.
This was a 2 day process, but every hour of waiting was well worth it. Chicken thighs from Fairway, ginger and garlic from the veg stand around the corner, and the ever-present Kikkoman soy sauce from the fridge = pure teriyaki bliss.
With this fail-safe recipe in our hands, we can now put our money where our teriyaki is and move to Mexico and open a teriyaki joint to cater to all those gringos from the PacNW who get tired of tacos down in Sayulita.
2 comments January 12th, 2010
original photo by benjamin l haas
I am pretty excited for our 2nd annual Breakfast Pizza brunch tomorrow. We are prepping today, and feasting tomorrow.
Who wants in?
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January 8th, 2010
I’m not quite sure why I am so excited about Scholastic reissuing the Baby Sitter’s Club book franchise (I’m not actually going to go buy any of them), but I SO AM! This was for sure my favorite series when I was in the 2nd-6th grades, and I eagerly awaited each new one in the series–which, thinking back, came out like one every 2 months or something.
I always fancied myself a Kristy, kinda tomboy-ish with an entrepreneurial and bossy streak. In good ways, of course.
I wonder where all 80 BSC books I owned ended up…? I’m sadly voting on Annie’s Book Stop, in exchange for some fuel for my mother’s True Crime novel obsession of the late 90’s.
1 comment January 8th, 2010
Mailed out the last holiday push of Storyboard Books, scrubbed down the apartment in anticipation of our guests for the week, did a teensy bit of shopping, passed off the car keys, actually got my nails done, and ate a delicious dinner at one of my favorite spots in the city, Otto. Now, we call the car service for 5:45am pick up and pack up the goods for 10 days in Seattle. The weather looks like it’s going to be killer–45 and sunny pretty much every day.
See you then!
2 comments December 23rd, 2009
I always enjoy reading HDYGTFAJ from ReadyMade, and even more so now that I’ve been redefining my career this past year. It’s always so cool to be reminded that there are tons of different jobs and careers out there that you don’t even know exist, and that a lot of them are pretty fricking amazing.
One of my dreams is to someday open up a small hotel–we’ve even been toying with the idea of something along the lines of a British-style Inn, with a pub on the ground floor and guest rooms above. That would be incredible–beer, food, a fireplace and sleeping. Does anyone need more than that?
Read about how Greg Henderson got his FAJ opening up the Roxbury Motel in the Catskills here on the ReadyMade Blog. I’ll be day-dreaming up my Inn in the meantime…
2 comments December 15th, 2009
1. Stumptown Hair Bender Coffee Beans
2. Sixpoint Bark Red Ale, Growler
December 2nd, 2009
Tonight was the 3rd installation of Tightwad Tuesday, an informal, off-the-cuff happenstance that came about after getting together to eat Mac and Cheese with friends, and realizing that spending $10-15 per person at a restaurant can be just as fun as getting together for those ridiculously priced meals from my employed days. Almost. But then again, better, since they happen more often!
So far we have eaten at MacBar, where we ordered 6 different small mac and cheeses and rotated them among the 5 of us, commenting on each. My favorite was the chipotle chicken mac and cheese–that was the only one I could have eaten the whole thing of! The rest were delicious but RICH. It’s definitely a place fit for sharing, so grab friends, order up and be fuuullll.
MacBar, 54 Prince Street, NoLita www.macbar.net
Week 2 was dinner at Bark Hot Dogs, not too far from my neck of the woods. We shared disco fries, killer onion rings and a growler of their special-made Sixpoint brew, the Bark Red Ale. That beer is de-lic-ious! So was my dog, which I got with 3 different types of pickles on top. I’d definitely go back and have another hot dog if I’m in the hood.
Bark Hot Dogs, 474 Bergen Street, Prospect Heights-ish, Brooklyn www.barkhotdogs.com
Tonight we hit up Baoguette/PhoSure in the West Village. I’d been particularly craving Asian food, so it totally hit the spot. We shared the Hue’s Summer rolls and an order of fried Spring rolls, then moved on to the Pho/Banh Mi. I had the Sloppy Bao sandwich, their take on the Sloppy Joe which was pretty darn tasty. I definitely want to head back to try the Pho, though it will never beat the Than Bros in Seattle. No one can–that place has truly ruined me for all other Pho, for the rest of my life.
Baoguette/PhoSure, 120 Christopher Street, West Village www.baoguettecafe.com
What’s next on the list??!
1 comment December 1st, 2009
Wouldn't You Like to Know ≥
Corin Lianides
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