speaking of which,

project # 3: on strings.
our professor had us invent a specialty shop - we could choose anything we wanted... I chose mobiles. I named my store "on strings." we had to create an logo/identity system.

“A mobile is a very modest thing.” –Alexander Calder

Graphic design weds the logical to the artistic. Designers must use reason to achieve their desired goal, but not without exercising creativity and aesthetic consideration. Mobiles echo this fragile balancing act. Hanging structures must subscribe to mathematical laws, specifically rules of weight, balance, and suspension. Despite these considerations, however, mobiles are not machines - beauty and form are of utmost importance. To create something floating yet grounded, stable yet dynamic, functional yet beautiful - is no easy feat.

I have chosen the mobile as my specialty item because I believe these hanging structures are of signal importance, both figurative and literal. Mobiles offer a sliver of stability & beauty in a chaotic, often ugly world. If this is too hopeful, too elusive, mobiles at the very least offer the idea of stability & beauty, reminding us of basic priorities (balance, beauty, stability). These whimsical, suspended forms allow us control in an uncontrollable world, the chance at reciprocity and balance among the chaos and the noise.

This project’s path reflects a mobile’s very construction. Creating “On Strings” has been a complex, convoluted process, yet surprisingly simple- even “modest”- in its result.

30 Days of Daily Design: Round Up

personalized cards.

in my imaginary "on strings" store i will hand write thank you cards to each customer!

thank you for entering my imaginary world just right of weird and down the street from crazy. my hypothetical thank you so very, very much.

:::

images from: Sarah Lee on Flickr.

graphic design.

as much as I like to uphold the idea that graphic designers are artists, delicate & sensitive & creative - who wouldn't want that special brand of celebrity?! - I am as of yet undecided.

graphic design weds itself to public opinion. this is an inherent process, the organic result of commerce - clients, work, publication, and the like. often the designer caters to his or her own aesthetic taste, and not the needs of the client, transforming graphic design from a service to a vehicle for artistic expression...

I realize this is a vast, controversial subject, but regardless I pose a question: is graphic design art or is graphic design a commercial skill? are both mutually exclusive? or interdependent?

can you have one (art) with out the other (science)?

is graphic design an art or a client dependent service?

image: logic + emotion blog.

sunday aftermath.

christopher david ryan.

i will never stop loving that man.

in las vegas for the weekend.

stress.

image by: olly moss.

tgi-fing-f!

i can't believe i am saying that.

who feels the same?

hopeful.

another photo of mum & pops.

The Discovery of Sex

We try to be discreet standing in the dark
hallway by the front door. He gets his hands
up inside the front of my shirt and I put mine
down inside the back of his jeans. We are crazy
for skin, each other's skin, warm silky skin.
Our tongues are in each other's mouths,
where they belong, home at last. At first

we hope my mother won't see us, but later we don't care,
we forget her. Suddenly she makes a noise
like a game show alarm and says Hey! Stop that!
and we put our hands out where she can see them.
Our mouths stay pressed together, though, and
when she isn't looking anymore our hands go
back inside each other's clothes. We could

go where no one can see us, but we are
good kids, from good families, trying to have
as much discreet sex as possible with my mother and father
four feet away watching strangers kiss on TV,
my mother and father who once did as we are doing,
something we can't imagine because we know

that before we put our mouths together, before
the back seat of his parents' car where our skins
finally become one-before us, these things
were unknown! Our parents look on in disbelief
as we pioneer delights they thought only they knew
before those delights gave them us.

Years later, still we try to be discreet, standing
in the kitchen now where we think she can't see us. I
slip my hands down inside the back of his jeans
and he gets up under the front of my shirt.
We open our mouths to kiss and suddenly Hey! Hey!
says our daughter glaring from the kitchen doorway.
Get a room! she says, as we put our hands
out where she can see them.

By Debra Spencer

:::

and finally...

the matron lady herself.

bonfire mix.

missing the sisters.

timing is everything.

Gold

Pale gold of the walls, gold
of the centers of daisies, yellow roses
pressing from a clear bowl. All day
we lay on the bed, my hand
stroking the deep
gold of your thighs and your back.
We slept and woke
entering the golden room together,
lay down in it breathing
quickly, then
slowly again,
caressing and dozing, your hand sleepily
touching my hair now.

We made in those days
tiny identical rooms inside our bodies
which the men who uncover our graves
will find in a thousand years,
shining and whole.

Donald Hall