Sweet Deal

As most of you already know, I'm the apple campus rep for Humber College. This year I'll be around for all of the back to school activities which means that I'll be able to let all of the new students in on all the promos that are available.

Since no-one in 3rd year will be around for the back to school events I thought I would fill you all in on a deal that's seriously worth considering.

Buy an adobe creative suite with your new mac and not only will you get a student price on the mac itself(up to $200 off on the macbook pro), but you will get the adobe suite for up to $300 less than the adobe student discount. Forget $1200, forget $600, you can get it for around $350 depending on the suite.

I dont know if you've considered buying as a student, but we only have one more year to cash in on a good deal. Even less if you want to take advantage of the promotions, they're only available until October.

















Get in touch with me anytime for more info.

Designing the future

Having spent the semester asessing my view of the design world and developing my personal design theories, I can see that there is no way to encapsulate my thoughts and feelings on design in only one paper. Above all else, design is an element of change, the rhetoric we use and the concepts we create are extensions of our need to communicate and change the world around us.

In the last 49 blog entries I have come to understand the value of challenging others to think critically about the world they live in. Whether my designs accomplish this fact, I dont know, but having seen examples of how designers can incite change in the world, I hope that I can rise to the challenge.

The Urban Forest Project

Creating Awareness for the environment is something that I am particularly tuned into, as a self proclaimed hippie I have a keen eye for dynamic eco friendly projects.

I found the Baltimore Urban Forest Project searching for poster competitions to enter. Some of the work is really great, clever and unique posters like Yeohyun Ahn's poster targeted to the large community of computer scientists and physicists which depicts a mathematical equation for growth.

My Compliments

My Compliments go out to the team involved in putting together the Black book affair for the graduating classes of 2008. My girlfriend Debbie participated in organizing the event pro-bono with her classmates from the public relations program. Its nice to see students work together towards a common goal, coordinating copywriters and designers as well as event decor and audio visual presentations.










As I am 'in the loop' with some of the basic activities related to design that take place at Debbie's work, Faye Clack Communications, I often hear how PR people often work with designers. Theres a ton of freelance opportunities out in the business world but we need to know where they are and how to get them.

Debbie has been tirelessly working to make sure things go off without a hitch throughout the busiest time of the semester so I think she definitely deserves my compliments.

Check out the pieces of work on the facebook group linked above, theres some great advertisements like this beautiful example of script typography designed by Meghan Lynch.

Illustrating the passage of time

One of my favorite illustrators of late is Olofsdotter, a sweedish artist whose illustrations are often minnimalistic but can be dramatic and decadent as well as gritty and dissident.

Her website and portfolio houses a chronological illustration (left) that interconnects across space and time as it were.

I would like to see more talented illustrators featured in advertisements, I think it adds so much personality. Heres an ad for divine chocolates that is right on the mark.

Design Power

I think that theres an enormous opportunity for designers and design educators to promote social change. Creative for a cause is an organization that promotes social responsibility in design. There are a ton of links to 'role models' and case studies- people and design firms who are using their power to make change.

I think people are fundamentally decent, but I don't feel that we are naturally compatible with one another. With modern technology moving forward at such a pace, the ethics of interaction are not keeping up.

Living in a city as multicultural as Toronto has give me a strong sense of how people perceive one another through filters, only seeing what they perceive to be negative qualities. I am a strong supporter of what the Dalai Lama calls 'a need for a Secular System of Ethics' that is non-theistic in nature.

So, As a designer I hope to promote decency and respect between people and a shift from seeing the world from the inside out to seeing it from the outside in. Change can only occur within, thus we should use our considerable communication skills to share what we know and provoke others to do the same.

Creative Education

Creativity

I had an unusual childhood. Well, unusual by todays standards anyways. Both of my parents are still married, and my three siblings are happy and (relatively) well adjusted. To say we were difficult kids to manage would be a grand understatement, all four of us had some degree of attention deficit disorder. Think of a wild pack of savages, put them in white collar suburbia, and you'd have a reasonably accurate idea of how we behaved.

Needles to say, many of my talents were overshadowed by my inability to perform academically, and few teachers were able to identify what it was that I DID do well. I was a comic book junkie ever since I was a kid, probably collecting and trading cards was an outlet for my social nature and my appreciation of good art(many of my trades were not strategic but aesthetic).

It wasn't until high school that I started to see myself as creative. Almo, my bro from back home, spent all of his time inventing comic book series that never went anywhere. So we developed an endless cast of characters as our creative outlet. While my skills as an illustrator are beginning to fade due to a preference for digital art, my skills were definitely developed through the amount of drawing and conceptualization I did in high school.

Education

My experience as a designer is actually relatively short. I never focused on communications in high school partly because the school I studied in was poorly funded and archaic. My perception of design was linked to advertising which was unfortunately a negative connotation because no-one ever bothered to dispel the perception that all advertising is evil. Maybe chalk it up to bad career counseling or a lack of awareness of the booming advertising industry of design.

Rather than risk wasting a degree in fine arts, I decided to pursue Youth and Addictions Counselling as I have always been a calm, trustworthy and social person. I felt that if I could make a difference in someones life that I would be able to enjoy my job. Upon moving into Toronto to study at George Brown, I discovered that the program I chose was not an appropriate fit, but fortunately I met a student studying graphic design while I was there.

That was when realized that if I wanted to combine my skill with words and people with my passion for art, I would be able to do so as a designer because of the collaborative nature of Graphic Design.