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graphic design

graphic design
whacked out
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My sense of visual design still feels out-of-whack. After spending 6+ hours working on a corporate America brochure that the client requested look “clean, modern, and utilize space well,” with a “dynamic” front page and “some BIG pictures,” I feel in need of fresh inspiration. Maybe that’s not actually very long to spend on a brochure for design firm billing hours, and I’m just accustomed to the production artist mentality: emphasis on production, decrescendo on the art factor. Maybe I should re-subscribe to HOW after letting it lapse for about 3-4 years. There’s tons of good print design to cull inspiration (and yes, directly copy) from on the web, but much of the cooler, truly exciting stuff is way too “out-there” for daily corporate use, and that seems to be what you mainly find online. In a tactile sense, it feels better to be reading a print magazine about print design, vs. scanning and scrolling on a computer screen. I’ve found HOW to match creativity with realistic expectations of what the client — who may not necessarily be completely dull and drab but nonetheless unable to articulate a defined direction, much less craft it visually — will actually like. I think that’s why I get so excited any time I have the opportunity (and time and energy) to design something for an art organization or show, because it’s all about vision. Does anyone out there have recommendations of other good graphic design mags to use as reference/inspiration for corporate design?
drawings, graphic design, paintings
Mouthpieces
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Pencil, ink, acrylic
January-February 2010

Lately I’ve been doodling a lot, trying to regain a sense of design. It’s funny, because although I’m a full-time graphic designer (and production artist and customer service rep and project manager and copywriter and…), I feel I’ve lost a sense of visual design, of creating and arranging elements within a space. Or maybe I’m just now seeing the differences between the two, because I don’t have any creative blockage when it comes to arranging information (text and images), but in composing an image that’s not an accident, or taken from life, I’m at a loss.
culture, digital, graphic design
DON’T FREAK OUT
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Sorry for the vulgarity — this is inspired by this Conan O’Brien version of the “Keep Calm and Carry On” poster my cousin posted on Facebook earlier this afternoon.

#1) Sometimes I feel like I’m the only white person who’s annoyed by the ubiquitous adage. I mean, seriously? Would you truly do that in a crisis just because a poster told you to?
#2) I don’t have a TV and never watched nighttime talk shows anyways so the controversy regarding network scheduling and humor rhetoric that has all social media abuzz is more interesting to me than which host said what. It’s not so much the hosts who are irritating as it is the fact that that the overall man-in-suit-behind-a-bigass-desk-with-a-coffee-mug late night talk show format is ridiculously outdated.
#3) I do think that “Work Hard and Be Nice” is good advice, although don’t forget about the part that goes something like “As Long As You’re Raking In Millions.”

This one’s more serious. It’s a phrase I’ve had stuck in my head since yesterday, more along the lines of one of my art idols, Barbara Kruger. Particularly her piece “Cram Life Into Death,” which I have in a book but can’t seem to find on the internet. I was also trying to think of what was the opposite of a crown. A dunce’s cap? A jester’s hat? An executioner’s mask? The point of a stiletto heel? A combat boot? Ah, yes. A weird, mocking, mask-like smiley face that looks not unlike the monster in Miyizaki’s Spirited Away. What does “DON’T do” really mean? Verbally? In a public service poster?
graphic design, news
±92: Downtown Master Plans, 1932-2009
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Pop Up Spaces‘ newest project, ±92, is a hybrid of art show, history lesson, architectural exhibit, planning study, performance and interactive experience. It will be unlike anything you or I have ever seen.

±92: Downtown Master Plans, 1932-2009

Soft Opening: Friday, October 2, 4-7pm
Grand Opening: Saturday, October 3, 6-10pm
Exhibit Hours: October 10, 17 and 24, 6-10pm
McLellan Building, 63 E. Congress (NW corner of Scott Ave. and Congress)

Tucson artists Bill Mackey, Julie Ray, Rachelle Díaz and Kimi Eisele, representing several collectives and entities including Worker, Inc., Pop-Up Spaces and Design Co*op, present ±92: Downtown Master Plans, 1932-2009, a compilation of over 100 Downtown Tucson master plans, comprehensive plans, studies and projects. The exhibition will include realized and unrealized plans authored from the early 20th century to 2009. An interactive timeline will help viewers track world events, economic and social trends, and Tucson’s history in relationship to the plans’ origins, realization, or death. This is a rare opportunity to see ALL of the planning for downtown Tucson in one space at one time.

Also included in the exhibition will be 92 images (by photographers including Josh Schachter) of spaces and places that make our downtown unique—some of these are a direct result of planning, some of which are not. A crew of official performing “apparatchiks” (i.e. officials in a large organization, usually a political one), will be on site to collect public input for current and future downtown master planning, for which there are no funds, of course. A small booklet entitled “A Guide to the Master Plans of Downtown Tucson” will be available for purchase.

Worker, Inc., Pop-Up Spaces and Design Co*op received pertinent plans, information, space, and materials for this exhibit from Pima County Planning Department Archives, City of Tucson Department of Transportation, Tucson Pima Arts Council, Poster Frost Architects, BWS Architects, Rob Paulus Architects, Wheat Scharf Landscape Architects, PARKWISE, Earl Wettstein, Alex Kimmelman, Donovan Durband, Sy Schorr, J.T. Fey, John Wesley Miller Companies, MOCA Tucson, Wilko, and others.

Created in 1995, Worker Inc. is a company that specializes in promoting change in the built environment. In 2007, Worker Inc. saw the need for science based research of the more mundane processes of popular culture and formed the Neighborhood Residents Resources Ethnography Studies Unit.

POP UP SPACES seeks to produce temporary, interactive, site-specific installations in empty spaces in which the visitors are not just expected to be passive viewers, but asked to be active participants. The goal of these art-based experiences is to enhance economic vitality and public engagement in downtown Tucson through promotion of the area’s culture, history, architecture and business community.

Design Co*op is a collective of Tucson-based architects, designers, and artists working across disciplines to raise public awareness of the value of affordable and appropriate urban design.

For more information, contact Bill Mackey, workerarchitect@yahoo.com; Julie Ray, juliegraphics@gmail.com; Rachelle Díaz, info@popupspaces.org; Kimi Eisele, kimi@kimieisele.com. Visit popupspaces.org to view past projects.

Press for ±92
- Zocalo magazine: “Actualized & Discarded Designs for Tucson” — August 5, 2009
- Tucson Weekly: “Designs for Downtown” — October 1, 2009
fashions, graphic design, news
New Vintage for Fall Now on Etsy
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Dress-up, bundle-up.

Mint vintage at affordable prices. Free delivery in Tucson. All this and more at artdivastudio.etsy.com.
drawings, graphic design, type
Amor Prohibido
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Finally got around to doing this, it’s an idea I’ve had since last summer. Inspired by Charanga 76’s Spanish cover of “My Forbidden Lover” by Chic. The lettering style I came up with in high school when I wrote out all the lyrics of “Stairway to Heaven” one time in study hall.

Sharpie on wood
May 2009
culture, digital, graphic design, oracles
Passing the Buck
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Downloaded clip art from Microsoft Office.

I feel the world financial depression (which started in the U.S.) was caused by an ethical crisis more than anything else. We all say it at work: “not my problem.” But imagine millions of people saying it, over and over. And if everyone’s saying it, eventually it’s going to be everyone’s problem. The optimistic feel of clip art covers up the real complacency and haste of working in the. It’s not that people are inept or wasteful or ridiculous as portrayed on the TV show, The Office. Example: I worked as an in-house designer at a title company during the Exuberance, and the mortgage/loan officers were constantly pressuring the escrow officers and assistants to closethedeal, closethedeal, closethedeal, as fast as possible. And in truth, the problem wasn’t theirs, at the time. Now I work for a printing company, and it’s much more black and white. You either get the job done on time, or you don’t. Eventually I’d like to turn this into a massive piece, several feet wide/tall.
graphic design, news
The fun never stops!
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Now every time you refresh my website here, a different Art Diva logo will show up!