Just Another Thursday

Hello, strangers.

Tonight was Hallmark Symposium night. Hallmark Symposium is basically a class where succesful designers from around the world come and talk to current KU students. They show us their work and discuss their journey into the design industry. 

I went tonight in a pretty terrible mood. Lately, I've been feeling super uninspired, and I wasn't happy with my work from class earlier today. I am SO happy that I ended up going because I heard exactly what I needed to hear. 

I always find myself wondering, "Am I supposed to be a designer? Am I actually doing what I do best? Is this where I really belong?" These questions were flooding my head ESPECIALLY today, or at least until I went to Hallmark. 

The designers there tonight called themselves Public Library. Public Library is a group consisting of two young guys who produce collections of work across all forms for their clients: branding, interactive, packaging, book design, print systems, and many more.

Here's a few of my favorite quotes that they said:

"Opportunities come and go. Take them when you can. Even if you already have a lot on your plate, this opportunity may not ever be presented to you again."

"Sometimes, you can't. You need to understand when separation needs to be made between you and your client. Sometimes you may not be capable of producing the type of design that they are desiring."

"You are making things. Think about how much worse it could be.. you could be sitting in the hallway doing math problems. But you're not, you're creating something new everyday! I am happy sitting in front of my computer playing with fonts and producing cool things for a living."

"There's something so rewarding about sitting in a room and being able to say 'I think that this will work best for you.' Clients come to you because you can do something that they can't. They look to you to create something precious and unique."

Also,  I creeped on their website (check it out, so cool) and these designs are my favorites:

I left Budig Hall feeling like I am able to accomplish something huge. 

A year ago at this time, I honestly would have told you that I didn't believe I could get into the KU design department. I thought I wasn't good enough. Now I am here, and I'm improving every day in my studios. I'm doing better than I imagined I would be doing, and I'm really enjoying my classes. I worked hard to get here. There were many people who didn't believe I could make it here. But I know I have the capability to design great things, and I plan to. 

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"When you feel like quitting, remember why you started."

Project Two: Complete

Another project finished! 2 down, 2 to go.

For this project, I was paired up with three other classmates. In this group, we studied how to improve poorly designed objects. We all brought five poorly designed objects to class and narrowed our choices down to one object. From there, we came up with a new and improved design. We made a prototype, a poster, and a Prezi presentation explaining our redesigned object. 

This is my group, and they are the best fo realz.

(from left to right) Kirsten, Anna, Kevin, and ME

Since the first letters in our names spelled out KAKA, we decided to brand ourselves as the KAKA team! 

So anywayssssss we decided to redesign this nifty foundation compact:

We found several problems with the compact:

-You are supposed to remove oil from your face before applying foundation, and the compact does not include anything to remove oil with.

-There is only one small mirror

-Your hands can get messy from the applicator because there is nothing to hold it with

I now introduce you to the TOTALLY AWESOME KAKA Compact:

      

You're probably thinking "WHAT? Is this really a foundation compact?" Oh, it is. 

Our redesign includes the following:

-Several mirrors (the inner triangles of the pyramid are mirrors)

-Oil Wipes (look at the last picture, the blue oil wipes are shown in the first drawer)

-Ring slots for your fingers on the sponge to avoid getting messy

Here's our mission statement so that you can better understand our redesign:

"KAKA promises an aesthetic and unobtrusive product for our insanely cool customers. We have included oil-removing-wipes, several mirrors, and an easier-to-hold applicator to keep our customers happy and looking be-yoo-ti-ful. Not only is this product useful, but it is also triangular. How many triangular foundation compacts have you seen before? Thas right, NONE. Nothing competes with the KAKA compact.

Don’t agree?

Let us know, we have a money back guarantee!"

If you would like to see the process of how we got to our final redesign, here is a link to our Prezi presentation:

http://prezi.com/9yp9bjbsghf-/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

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Designspiration

Hello, friends!

So it's been awhile, my apologies. College is busy guys. People aren't lying when they say that. BUT HEY I'd rather have lots to do than nothing at all!

I've been feeling really inspired by this TOTALLY AWESOME SUPER COOL website: http://designspiration.net

I've known about the site for a few years now. My graphic design teacher in high school told me about it my junior year, and I've been hooked ever since. Whenever I'm brainstorming for design, I always go to this website first. There's millions of ideas and millions of great designs. Maybe one day I'll post some work on there, but I've got a long way to go! Someday though, someday.
Here's some of my latest favorite works from the website:

This poster. Wow.

This branding is beautiful. Calligraphy is my favorite.

I love this product packaging for tea. This design really
emphasizes type. I think it's super interesting how well
the letters and colors create a visually appealing design.

Aside from that though....
Today is the day that I'm turning in my SECOND PROJECT. 
Woah. How is it already mid October? How? My mind is blown.

I will be posting about my project hopefully (fingers crossed) within the next couple of days. I'm really happy with how this project turned out, and I was so lucky to get placed into a group with such talented, hardworking people. It was a fun project, and my group was thebomb.com (maybe I'm biased).

// Happy Thursday!