Phoenix Design Week

I’ve been asked to write something about Phoenix Design Week, and the reason why I have taken forever is because I didn’t know what to say about it.

I know now. Phoenix Design Week has helped me become a better designer, by showing me a community of talented people, who have become great colleagues, and some have become friends, and has helped me reconnect to what I really loved about design.

When I was done with college, I was mentally drained, so I took a sabbatical from performing design work. That lasted a few months, and I had some small time jobs, working with print, and learning about the industry, and then I got my job at U-Haul, performing web design on a national scale. While the jobs were good, in some aspects, it wasn’t mentally stimulating. I had lost that passion that I had throughout school.
Then came a fateful night, I had heard about the AIGA showing off the Milton Glaser movie at ASU, and I had found out some people with a thing called “Phoenix Design Week” were going. So I decided to climb out of my shell and go. I met Mark Dudlik, Sunny Thaper, and Andrew Courdek, and had an amazing night, filled with sarcasm, hilarity, beer drinking, and most importantly, I found people who were passionate about design.
Needless to say, I signed up to help with PHXDW, and soon found myself elevated from being part of the volunteer crew to a member of the Promotions team, coming up with promotion ideas, drinking coffee, and taking on the role of Poster Czar, overseeing over 120 entries to the Phoenix Design Week Poster Contest, which has been deemed as a smash success for the movement.
And it was in that Poster Contest that I regained my passion, and spent 5 days constructing, shooting, and assembling my poster.

Phoenix Design Week Submission "Phoenix Design is Natural"

Unlike the majority of the work that was created for the poster contest, mine utilized the elements around my home. A specific type of stone, twigs, and hard desert grass all came together, and building it, and seeing the results was cathartic. It made me feel alive, and I wanted to design again, and I mean actually design, not just layout, but create functional art.

So, in that respect, Phoenix Design Week has re-awakened my desire to design and by extension, my soul. Since then, I have created an identity for myself, redid my portfolio, and I am pursuing some very exciting prospects for work.

Also, being Interviewed by the Arizona AIGA, Spicywebdesigners.com, and being showcased at Phoenix Design Week helps.

Things are looking brighter. And if you’re in Arizona, and a designer, and if you have no plans this weekend, please, I urge you to go. You will meet an amazing group of people, and if you’re lucky, like me, you’ll be inspired. http://phxdw.com/register

Recent Developments

So tomorrow, things will change for me.

I start doing contract work for the illustrious Branding Strategy firm, Heasley & Partners. I will be doing social media work, as my work with promoting Phoenix Design Week, and my past with AIGA helped get me this position with them.

“But it’s not a design job! You wanted a design job!”. True, I do and still want a design job, and seeing that this is contract, I will still be looking. But this provides 2 things.

1: It’s work.

and

2: It’s something different and therefore, very interesting.

Over the past few months, I have truly seen what social media can do. Twitter is faster than the news, everyone and my mother is connected on Facebook, Myspace has morphed from a pedo-playground into a free hosting service for music, Youtube, Vimeo & Hulu all provide entertainment/news/opinions.
And to me, a brand can reach out and “touch” their audience.

Right now, I have a feeling that some people are going to call me a hypocrite, because I vehemently defend print media. As Sagmeister says, “print is like the electric guitar”, in the sense that despite the fact that we have keyboards & synths, there is still interest in using an obviously limited instrument, and what can be done with the guitar has only gotten more amazing as time goes on.

So there, not a hypocrite.

I believe this gives me the opportunity to create unexpected promotions, and keep them on the right track with current ones.

It’s been a rough road, so this looks promising.

As for other developments, this week, I will do a case study on myself, and my current re-branding strategy. I believe that the old identity that I have used for 4 years has finally ran it’s course, and I have re-worked a new identity. I just need to prepare some collateral for it, and of course, finish the new website.

And of course, I will write about my first day.

Craigslist, and the interview I bailed.

Today, I had an interview, which is somewhat of a rare thing these days. But, I bailed. For good reasons. Read on.

On Not Having Agency Experience

So, my previous post,  regarding what I’ve been doing the past 2 months, mentioned that I would talk about the difficulties that I have been facing so far while being unemployed, including not being contacted by potential employers, even for a “thank you, but…” letter,  the term “Agency Experience”, and others.

Today, I will talk about the subject of “Agency Experience”, which is an excuse that I have recieved several times over the past 2 months while looking for work.

2 Months Later

Author’s Warning:

I have been without a steady job now for over a month, slowly creeping up on two, and I have been told that I should write about my experience of looking for work, and how frustrating it actually is. That being said, there will be a lot of venom in the following paragraphs, and most likely with some rude language, but nothing too bad.

They want me to write from my heart, and to be completely truthful to myself, and to you.

I have actually decided to write this in parts, this first part is about applying and not hearing back, a constant problem and issue for people who are unemployed.

Quick post…

I will be updating soon. Went to comic con last week AND got laid off.

I will be writing a post about my experience in Corporate design, and the future for me.

What I want to do before the end of the year.

So, tonight, I went out to Wet Paint, a great art store over in Tempe, and finished up with a beer and pasty and the Cornish Pasty Company, and I was with my friend Brandon.

Brandon is an interesting sort of person. I’ve known him since I was roughly 14, and we’ve pretty much stuck together our entire lives. Recently, he entered a “job transition”, that will hopefully be all cleared up by August 10th, but in order to pass the time, he has decided to embrace his artistic side, which I find completely awesome.

So he has a list of projects, some of which he has invited me to come work on, these include:

• painting a 4′x6′ panel
• him getting a car for under $500, and us doing graffiti on it
• taking the same car and either glossing it super white for White board markers, or
• (better) painting the car with chalkboard paint

All of these are incredible creative, and awesome. So I started to think to myself ” I have a ton of crazy ideas, why not get these down?”, so here’s my list.

• Re-do a font I created in college, add ligatures, change the name, and release it to the League of Moveable Type, an organization that seeks Open-Source fonts.
• Join the board of AIGA Arizona. I feel that joining the board will give me some awesome connections, and the ability to share creativity in a greater arena.
• Try to do at least 1 creative project for myself a week. I started this week with that “What The Fuck” poster I made earlier. I figure, I can do something like this every week.
• Screen Print. First thing, the “What The Fuck” design, because I think it would look totally rad.
• Customize more toys, including a big Munny. I’ve got three 4″ Munny’s done, and I think I can move onto a larger one.
• See what I can do with Augmented Reality. The concepts and what people do with it simply astound me.

And that’s it for now. I’m sure there’s more, but for now, that’s good.

Later.

What the fuck

Got bored today while the Cox guy shut down the  cable, so I made this thing. Font is Xacto Knife.

Kinda wish I could get this printed.

Finally, what is great about the DSI.

Sorry about not posting until now. Been up putting the finishing touches on my website, but I finally have the chance to sit down and talk about what I love about the DSi.

I won’t spend too long on the design of the DSi. I’ll be honest, look at it.Once again, Nintendo joins Apple in the “Who can have sexy hardware” area. The DSi is lightweight, sleek, and has a matte finish. Very nice to handle.  The button placement is effective, but someone with larger thumbs like myself can find some soreness after an extended playtime.

Now, the OS. It’s just like the wii.  And I assume most people have seen the wii’s OS, so I won’t bore you. It’s awesome. Super clear, easy to use, large buttons, perfect for a touch screen.

Now, my favorite part is the Web Browser, powered by OPERA. Booyah. This thing not only supports Google & Yahoo engines,  it is HTML/CSS2 compliant. It gets wonky with java and flash, but it’s not a deal breaker. I took some screen shots.

My favorite part is how the system gives you 2 views of your web page, the top is for viewing purposes, while the bottom gives you the ability to click links, and move about the page. Like I said, it won’t show java or flash, but it

It’s great. It really is. Sadly to say,  the browser on the DSi beats out most mobile browsers on phones. I’d say the only browser that can beat it would be Safari on the Iphone, and Android.

Hey, Nintendo…read that line again. Iphone, Android..I’d consider a Nintenphone.

Anyways, in conclusion, I do have some issues with the DS, involving security and the laughable way they handle playing games on the internet, something their competitors have down to a science, but, they have a fantastic design, and the OS is spectacular.

Thanks for viewing!

Recent musings

Man, it has been a crazy week. Quick update, then look for a final post on the Nintendo DSI tomorrow.

Recently, I have been working on a proposal for my company to start and maintain a video campaign for one of our programs, which is going to segway me into this interesting thought “Do we need websites for everything?”

The program in question has the ability to have a massive write-up, but, in a very unorthodox move,  I have decided to sell the idea of creating a video, rather than (once again), putting video and photos on our basic site template, following all of our standards completely. Basically, acting completely out of my comfort zone, and going for something nuts.

Part of my reasoning is because of some of the people I have been introduced to, and have had the absolute pleasure of being around. One of them is a Designer/Production Director named Sunny Thaper, of  Fourty Agency, here in Phoenix. He is very eclectic, some would say that he is strange, but I think he’s pretty awesome. And he’s really into video, and looking at his video work, I started to think of what I could do, melding video into design. So, very cool.  If my proposal is accepted, I will be documenting the process here.

In other news, my website is stuck at 95% done. www.puuchuu.com looks great, it’s just getting the content put together, and some of these projects I haven’t  touched since I finished college, so it really is mind blowing. The worst part is looking at projects I was second guessing myself over, taking 5 minutes, and fixing it so that the project is more attractive.

Why oh why couldn’t that have happened 2 years ago?

I wonder to myself. Oh well. Also, some of the files have not transferred fonts over, etc, etc, so really, this gives me a chance to go back and tighten up some of my best student designs, so that I can proudly display them with newer works.

Another thing is the conclusion to my first blog series about the design and UI of the Nintendo DSI. My first two posts were dedicated to what I thought were problems with the system, and now, for my final post, I will write about the good parts of it. I am absolutely in love with their browser, despite some flash/java issues. So that will be handled tomorrow.

And lastly, a reflection on this whole blogging nonsense. I love it. I like the opportunity to share my thoughts with whomever discovers this blog, via twitter, facebook, friends, or random searches, I love all of it, and I would love to see some input on what is being written and what you would like to see me write, so please, I encourage you to comment.

Thanks a ton.

-Randy