stephanieNY

The next assignment for my graphic design class is to design four icons. i.e. the symbols we all know of mens and womens restrooms and the no-smoking symbol. Yesterday in class, we looked at the icons used for the Olympic Games.

Mexico City, 1968: On top of the awesome type, the two dimensional icons are so simple and clear.  

Munich, 1972:  Ah-mazing.  Torsos and limbs are all oriented in 45 degree increments.  Love it.  Look at the soccer player!  Amazing how it captures the movement even with the strict geometric rules they set up.

London, 2012:  Really?  Where do I even start?  I think the most offensive part about these is that they've completely abandoned the two dimensions by adding perspective (i.e. the mountain biker half-way down on the left).  The colors, the non-sensical construction lines shooting out at random points.  None of these things make them any more clear and definitely not more beautiful.  

So apparently there were some coyotes on campus last weekend. Reports say that the school sent out a campus-wide email warning us. I didn't get it!! Good thing I worked from home on Sunday. It's pretty funny though, right? Coyotes in the city? What bridge do you think they took to get here?

This guy was quoted in this article, "It's not uncommon at all, and it's going to increase in frequency," Dr. Stanley Gehrt of Ohio State University said of coyote sightings in cities.

REALLY?!  It is?  Shouldn't you tell us more, if that's the case?  What a cryptic statement to leave us with.  Is it a change in their migration patterns due to global warming? or is it a population boom? or are coyotes just modernizing?  And what should we do to stay away from them?...or rather, maybe to become their friends??  I don't know! 

The view from my desk in studio this semester:

Last week I had my first assignment due for Architectural Photography that we presented to the class. I had heard scary things about the professor, so I was kind of nervous. But I think I like her a lot. As I silently flipped through my images one by one on the projector, she said..."yes, no, no, yes, no, yes, no, no, no" and she was totally right. She liked my interior shots and thought I was uncomfortable outside. Yup.

Here are some of the "yes"es.

I completely front-loaded my semester. I registered for a few half-semester classes that happen to take place in the first half of the semester. So I essentially have two extra classes right now. I think it's all gonna feel something frantic like the first year. But guess what...I'll have a real comfy second half when my photography class, my rendering class, and my history class are all over. Here's to not getting burnt out before then.

I google-earthed Sao Paulo for hours today.

Look how huuuuuge Sao Paulo is. It's the seventh largest city in the world. This is where my studio is going in March.

And we're going to Curitiba too. It's the city that my professor was the mayor of. So it'll be like touring New York City with Rudy Giuliani...sort of.

...as in after 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th
...as in the studio choice I ended up with this semester.

Our studios are determined by lottery. Each semester, we sit through an afternoon of presentations by each professor as they woo us with their proposals. In this crucial final semester, the options were disappointingly weak for us third-years. I was really into only one (out of 18) studios. I'm still mourning it's death, as I found out only hours ago that I didn't get into it. Maybe some day I'll tell you about it. But not today. My second choice was...oh-kay. So you can imagine how I feel about my fifth choice. I'm borderline just not interested in it. I'm so disappointed. I needed this semester to roll me up tight into a complete and comprehensive masters graduate ball to bounce me out into my career. I fear this turn of events will only complicate my personal thesis and brand, and confuse my position as a designer. Dramatic, I know. But, I am mourning.

Ok, that was me whining. Now, this is me looking on the brighter side of things:

The studio I will be taking is taught by Jaime Lerner. He's sort of a big deal in Brazil. Really...a governor of the state of Parana in Brazil for a while, mayor of the capital of Parana, and a renowned city planner. Read his wikipedia page...some of his reforms as mayor are kind of brilliant (or at least refreshingly sensible). So, we're going to be proposing alternative models for urban organization and specifically, transportation. I'm pretty anti-cars and pro-living/working in cities. He seems to be too, so I'm sure it will be just fine...and I'm open to pleasant surprises.

Oh, and I'm going to Brazil in a few weeks. Hah!

My final semester started today...the beginning of the end. Can't believe it. Well, I can, I think I'm just in the habit of saying I can't believe it, because that's what everyone says. But I can.

Anyway, the beginning of my end now involves the beginning of next year's new students. Along with a few other third-years, I'm helping to review applications for next fall admissions, and we had a meeting today, to be instructed on how to evaluate the applications. It struck me how perfectly full-circle this will probably feel, helping to admit (or deny) these newbies, as I'm peacing out to move onto my next thing. But how strange it'll feel to be in a position of judgment. Who am I?

I imagine it'll be really satisfying but kind of uncomfortable, empowering and maybe a little intimidating. I fear flipping open the file on someone applying for my position at school, who is more qualified than me now...and being forced to commend them while second-guessing myself. I'll try to stick to the satisfying and empowering parts. But mostly, I think it'll be really interesting and enlightening...to see where people are coming from, what they've studied, and how they put together a portfolio. And to bring it back to myself of course, I'll probably wonder where my application fell, in a similar group of applications three years ago. But I'm judging them though, not me, right?

I could potentially be writing my last paper ever right now. I haaaaaate writing history papers, and every semester here we take a history class. And every semester, at this time, I am tortured by the task of spewing out some lame analysis of Thomas More's Utopia or Bramante's Tempieto. Not that those things are lame, I'm just not very good at saying something about them that someone else hasn't already in some book down in the library, so the papers end up being a bit lame. But I'm kinda digging the one I'm writing now. It is for my History of Theory class and our assignment is to analyze a piece of architectural theory. It's more of a subjective opinion piece, so I can blab on about what I think and how I feel. I read, and am writing about, Moisei Ginzburg's Style and Epoch in the context of Russian Constructivism...really good.

Aaaaaanyway, so next semester I am registered for a history class where the final is in the form of a presentation and not a paper. Yay!!! So moral of my story: since I don't plan on writing papers for fun after I finish school, today marks the end of my paper-writing days. It's been a rough road, but it's ending on a relatively good note.