Creativity in a Cup!

from the archives

Was going through my old files looking for materials on a scrapbooking class I ordered before, and I found this:

An old, old layout I did for Cathy Zielske's Design Your Life class. I remember it was the lesson on balance; the sketch called to use a big photo with lots of small ones, etc. Did it on my first job ever, which was a scriptwriter (LOL) for a college-themed TV show in the Philippines. (It was fun, until the focus shifted from college students to singing and dancing, which made little sense to me). Love seeing this layout 4 years later! While I could have taken a better photo, still glad I did! And once again, this is why I scrapbook, for moments like these: stumbling upon pages years later and being thankful for recording the moments! :)

 

Finals week, among other things

Oh my goodness. How are we past the first quarter of 2012 already?! More importantly, crap, I'm several weeks behind on my Project Life book, but I've been keeping notes + sketches so I'm not totally lost.

I blame my Manila trip (hahaha) for messing up my schedule, but really, projects just got harder and harder and the weather got cooler therefore I got lazier as the months went by, hahaha! School's ending in a week; all I need to do now are refine all my past projects, prep my final projects for two classes, write five papers and I'm going to be done (and Heathrow-bound!!!).

Ahhh yes Heathrow. My crazy Travel Club has once again talked me into visiting them in London, plus my other travel buddies from back home are going to be there as well. Mini reunion? Bet we're going to be reminiscing our Asian tour from 2007 the whole trip, haha. But these are my favorite people to travel with, and we hope to hit Amsterdam & Paris, so I'm up for a great summer (not to mention I'm swinging by Edinburgh again to visit Chel, I was pretty smitten by that city last time I was there!).

A couple of things that have been happening lately:

1. Austin Kleon in San Francisco!! I was in a terrible rut over the Spring Break working on this project for Visual Literacy class that I super just wanted to throw away, haha. Then I remembered I ordered his book from Amazon. It was an easy read (light + divided into chunks) but super inspiring. Ended up reading it twice and it jumpstarted my creativity (and I ended up redoing the project. My professor said it was good, but commented, "careful of the 11th hour switcheroos." LOL! My ideas really come to me at the last minute...)

Anyway, a couple of days later, found out Austin Kleon was scheduled to have a book tour stop at Flax in SF and absolutely had to go hear him talk + get my book signed. It was awesome. Invited my entire MFA batch but only Charlie went! Well, glad I was able to share the book with one other person :D Anyway, his book was about creativity, main point being that nothing is original, and that as creatives, we should learn to "steal" good ideas from others and make it our own. Pretty interesting insights (and liberating ones, at that).

2. I went to an awesome type workshop with Lucian Balland at Swissnex San Francisco. It was like nothing I've ever done before; we had to cut type out from paper and paste/rearrange it back onto another piece of paper to make posters and copy/scan them. I guess this is how they used to set type in the past; I remember my type teacher talking about how lucky our generation was that everything was easy to set on the computer.

Two realizations from the workshop: if I lived in the '50s, I probably would have flunked out of the Bauhaus; and 2) I need to find more opportunities/situations like these where I'm surrounded by awesome people and scared out of my wits. I don't know if I undestood the brief wrong, but I kept saying I should have reviewed my Swiss style design because I found most of the final posters VERY postmodern. Hahha well, too postmodern for me, little miss I-have-to-fill-up-all-the-space-on-the-page-if-not-it-looks-empty-and-it-all-has-to-make-sense! Others just had posters with a single letter, others two letters, while I struggled with the entire event name (the brief was to create an event poster) since to me, it had to make sense.

Here was our awesome Swiss instructor. Funny, I showed him my work, explained that I felt like it had too little, and he was all, "Really? I was going to say that it is too much." Whoooops. ;)

But then I realized that this is the whole point why I'm here, right? I'm supposed to not know these things. So it was a big blow to the ego but it made me want to go look for more situations/opportunities like this. (Oh, and that girl in the jean jacket mentioned that she was a designer at Chronicle Books. SERIOUSLY. I shamelessly asked her to keep talking about her job. Hello, dream job!)

3. I originally bought these postcards to send out, but I kinda just want to keep them as chips now. (Can someone say poor grad student mode? Haha! These would look great on my wall, too..)

4. Oh, and lookie what's finally out! Speaking of projects taking up my time. Hello, Total Girl Philippines planner 2012-2013! :) This is always a fun project to work on, I'm kind of attached to it (this is my third!). Had an extra hard time this year since I had to write it as well (cheerios to Shiloah for saving me on more than one occassion, haha). Love how it turned out. Love Chichi's fun illustrations!

So cutesy. Shiloah got this great idea of making mini-posters per month, much like the ones we keep pinning and re-pinning on Pinterest. Pretty nice, I have several up on my wall! So glad it's finally out. If you live in Manila, grab a copy for yourself (or a kid you know. Or anyone appreciates cutesy stuff, really).

Back to finishing up projects + rackets + daydreaming + napping + panicking + cleaning my room + finally doing laundry. Can't believe that in a week and four days I'm going to be in effin' London, again, hahaha. Swear, I'm so easy to talk into traveling. (I did work my ass off extra hard these past three months to afford it though—all they had to say was "Paris" and "Prince William". Totally in.)

It's been a..

Project Life: Week 5-7

Hello life.

The past week has been absolutely craaaaazy for me—on top of homework (it's getting funner now, with posters, book covers and magazine layouts!) I've had to pack for my trip home (home = Philippines) for my mom's 60th birthday on Feb 29! Funny thing is 85% of my bags are just full of things other people asked me to bring home (a big chunk of those are my mom's!) so really, getting them all into luggage that I can actually LIFT has been quite the challenge. I managed to pack (and seal!) an entire balikbayan box alone—hahaha, swear, packing should be on my resume. Should have taken a before and after shot; with everything laid out in my room and in my luggage. Still remember helping my cousin pack her entire down comforter into a backpack (!) and managing to stuff an entire printer (hehehee) into my carry-on bag on my LA flight :)

Anyway, back to what I was saying—the week's been super crazy and I actually finished all these PL pages this weekend, but hadn't had the time to edit and post them all. Ha, a big LOL, so much for my 100 days project. Became a 1 day project after school projects got in the way. But I'm so excited to practice doodling (LOL I JUST TYPED DROOLING). I want to be a mix of Dana Tanamachi & Mary-Kate McDevitt when I grow up ;) It's going to take a LOT of practice but I'll get there someday!

But hopefully, I can get to Project Life first— (seriously, can someone say ADD?)

 

PROJECT LIFE: WEEK 5

Ahhh, first week of school. This was also the week something snapped in me and went nuts online and in-store shopping. Hahaha but it did mean finding new boots (yay!) on sale. Plus my layouts for Discovery Girls are finally in print!

Got a couple of handwritten notes this week too. Love my cousin's random postcard from "snowy NY". Hahaha! Cheez! Another thing that got me super excited was crazy travel planning with my travel club. This is where it all begins—someone suggests "summer in London" and weeks later, tickets are booked, plans are made, Facebook message threads get longer and longer... hahaha :) Love my travel club.

 

PROJECT LIFE: WEEK 6

Isn't it so like me to include so much food in my pages? :) It was SF foodie week (according to ME!) since Sherwin and Kester seemed extra hungry this week so we kept trying new places around the city. NOW I get why they say SF is such a foodie's paradise. *drool*

In other news, I also got caught up in the whole Jason Wu fever, all because I decided to check the website for fun when it launched and saw that the top I wanted was still available in my size. Boom! Someone went shopping!

Also got the opportunity to work on the cover for Discovery Girls magazine! Super big deal for me. We went through SO. MANY. STUDIES. that I was starting to feel really inadequate and amateur but they said it really takes that long. Errr, I hope so. (Blurred it since the issue's coming out in April, in case American tweens stalk my blog, which I doubt but still). Also LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the random cherry blossom trees on the streets. Thank you, SF! So awesome.

 

PROJECT LIFE: WEEK 7

This week was kinda stressful—still finishing up the cover for DG so that meant two consecutive trips to their office in San Jose. While I don't mind the commute, it's 2-hour $20 commute so it isn't very easy on me (nor my wallet). That Monday also saw me leaving SF without an umbrella and having to prance around in the rain in San Jose for 15 minutes :((

Valentine's Day this year was surprisingly awesome though. I had to go back to San Jose for a meeting, but since I got out early, got to drop by a Target and found a Jason Wu dress in my size!! Lucky me. (The Universe is making up for the fact that I'm still single, meh!) The bus driver on the way to the train station gave me a free ride, and when I dropped by the grocery store in SF to grab some food + beer, the cashier gave me a free bottle. Yay, freebies!

And my cousin Chester was in town for a day (for work) so he became my V-day date by default! Always fun to hang out with my favorite cousins :D Cheeeez! 

Also included my favorite finds in the mail this week—postcards from Ryan from Cambodiaaa! Awesomesauce. Thank you Ryan! I heart mail, especially mail from far, faaaaar away.

Also been trying to incorporate more schoolwork into my PL pages, hence the shots of my moodboard assignment for my Type class and a snapshot of my process book for my visual literacy class. For some reason, this semester is starting to feel more like design school. Last semester, history of graphic design took up most of my time that I ended up feeling like I was still in my history program. The projects, pacing, and teachers now are different and overall it seems quicker + more serious. Book covers in two weeks! Magazine spreads in a week! Crazy but fun.

Right now I'm lounging around waiting for my flight in two hours. Zzzz, can't wait to get on the plane and snooze. Oh, just for kicks, here's a picture of me a couple of hours ago waiting for the shuttle—

The mirror's kinda dirty (gives a grainy effect). Check out my luggage—that huge North Face backpack is *just* my carry-on. I'm so ready to sleep for two days straight :)

nothing good gets away.

Found this awesome letter from John Steinbeck to his son (about love!) through Aaron (thanks A!), and aww. It's a good read. And this is something I want to remember (it gives me hope, haha!). *sniff!*

So I know my doodling/Pinterest quote style needs much improvement, so I've decided to make it my 100 days project! :) After all, if Kate Bingman-Burt said she started out hating drawing (and look where she is now!), there must be hope for me after 100 days. I mean, for sure I should get better, right?

In other news, I have the next three weeks of Project Life all done and ready for posting—just need to take pictures of it. Funny, really—I'm still very much committed to Project Life (I'm surprised at myself too), but blogging, not so much. Maybe a new 100 days project will make me blog more :)

So there! Now to look for more quotes that haven't been done yet. ;)