How I See.
Trying to be Paul and taking photos. :)
6.24.2007
6.23.2007
Ask.com
While there are elements of Ask.com's new design that I'm not dancing over, I have to give them a huge amount of credit for embracing the whitespace. Ask has a really impressive set of features, and a lot of solid web design to back it all up (you can actually place your own image as the background of the main page...a potential disaster, but since no one else can see your crappy choices [unlike like myspace], I suppose it's OK). They almost out-do google in terms of "HI, WE'RE SIMPLE" design.
But let's face it- Google is just too automatic, and too tied into everything we do to be replace (If you were wondering...google owns/runs: Blogger, YouTube, and the internet).
Not even close to on-topic
I doubt anyone cares, but I've been uploading lame videos of me playing some songs to YouTube...if you're bored, and I mean REALLY FRICKIN bored, you can check them out here:
http://youtube.com/paulsahner
Google results
http://www.pidarch.com/
http://www.pidseattle.com/
http://milwaukee.citysearch.com/profile/11036745/racine_wi/partners_in_design.html
http://www.ansoft.com/partnersindesign/
http://www.partnersindesign.ca/
http://www.partnersspa.com/
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-54611717.html
& they keep going!
6.22.2007
Marvel Masterpieces
Back when I was in grammar school, my entire class was obsessed with collecting cards. While other people were into Power Rangers and Pog, we were into X-Men cards. So I was looking back at my collection, and I was thinking to myself that these cards were really well illustrated. Unfortunately, I stopped collecting them by the time I entered the 5th grade or so, but I managed to complete my collections for the '92 and '93 bunch (for the exception of a few hologram cards...). So here are some of my favorite cards from the collection (there are more that I love, but I don't want to touch them too much. I have a few that have dented corners). I was going to propose a challenge using these as inspiration, but Laz beat me to it! Maybe in the near future ;-)
Not quite a poster.
I already made a cd cover for OFFSPRING as opposed to a poster. I turned it in for a scholarship and printed it on photo paper. I know it's not a poster but it's already done and it meets most of the requirements so here you go! Also, look into the BG.
Poster Challenge
So I know there's been a lot of discussion among the partners to start doing more group challenges/projects. I have always been a huge fan of this, as I think it really makes for interesting outcomes. I love that we all have such different styles and abilities, and I think they should be utilized on a regular basis. In thinking about this a lot, I'm going to post the first Challenge, which was inspired by my post about Art Chantry.
Art Chantry is most known for his work for up and coming seattle based bands in the 80's/90's. He took poster work and completely made it his own and created a market for his style of design where there previously was none. His posters were innovative for the times and visually full of risk.
Keeping with this Idea, The challenge of the Week is as follows:
Create a Poster for the Single/Album of one of your Favorite Bands
It's pretty simple. Take a band that you really love and create a new and innovative poster that represent's the band's album or single of choice. This challenge is not limited to medium, so everyone should have no problem getting it done. All the posters should be done in 11x17 just to create consistency and have equal constraints with size.
This challenge isn't going to be as long in time as the other ones, as I feel people lost interest quickly. So the turnaround time will be one week from now. So by next friday, the challenge will have ended and everyone will have posted their poster. You can post the poster at any time, unless you all think it'd be best to do it all at once. Let me know on that.
Have fun!!!
Thoughts & Chantry.
As I sit in my office today, the work days ending, I reflect on this past week. This week seemed to be a little out of step for me. Where I would usually have a solid sense of either accomplishment or failiure, I am filled with utter confusion. Am I being complacent creatively or am I on my road to finding my voice? Am I happy where I am in every sense of the word or am I just going through the motions? These thoughts have no answer in my head. In fact, It's a huge tug of war of ideas that are fighting to gain the attention they deserve respectively. But neither is winning.
These feelings were further enhanced when I tuned in to Debbie Millman's Podcast on Tuesday, her guest, Art Chantry. As terrible as it is, I had heard of him but never had seen a single piece of his work to my knowledge. So for me, this really furthered my knowledge on another succesfull designer and had me doing research like a mad man. In doing so, One can easily understand why Chantry is a fantastic designer, his work nearly changed the design and usage of punk/rock aesthetics in mainstream graphic design. What I found interesting about this interview, was finding out that Chantry has lasted as long as he has without giving in to learning digital design. This man has consistently stuck to his guns (Up until now. He's just enrolled into a university to learn to use computers.) for so long and lasted. So i asked myself. How? How does the world continue to move, yet this one man stayed relevant and known in the design world. Below I've posted some of Chantry's work. Do you feel his work transcended enough to stay in demand enough for him to continue to be such a superstar? Although the answer is technically yes, as this is what he's done, do your opinions match that?
Oddly enough, for someone as seemingly chipper and upbeat, Chantry also managed to get me in a bit of a funk with all of his talk related to the computer age of design. His statements (Which have been heard a gazillion times I'm sure for you guys), were very fixed on the fact that now, anyone can be a graphic designer. Nowadays, one simply has to take a few hours to aquaint themselves witha computer and "Poof!" they're a C-Level Graphic Designer. He also stated that he is sadened by commercial art currently and this is further fueled by simply walking in a supermarket and seeing how standardized the design market is becoming. There is a bare minimum in risk. Lastly, what i found interesting, was that when asked who he thought was a good designer in the field currently he replied (paraphrasing commences): "I don't really keep up with all of the designers out there. There are designers now that i admire, but more-so there are designers of the past that I REALLY admire." Now yet another rhetorical/not-so rhetorical question: Can you really progress as a designer/artist if you don't see or understand the progress being made in the design/art world?
Now can you see where my thought process lies? As I find myself in times of comfortability in my life, I tend to assume this overly critical, internal confusion state of mind. I don't see it as a negative thing, but more of a space in time before I make a larger risk in my design/art/life that allows me to understand the further meaning of why i do the things I do. Almost a time where I can really feel confident in taking the leap forward.
How do you guys feel about all of this? Discuss like crazy folk!
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