I thought that the occasion of finishing my last college class for EVER and ever* would be a good opportunity to share with you a little somethin-somethin…I’ve been looking forward to posting this, so without further ado:

THE GRADUATION ANNOUNCEMENTS!

Holler.

Now, obviously these aint your typical order-in-bulk from Jostens deal. A) Those are expensive, B) The deadline to order them was, uh, forever ago, and C) I’m a graphic design major, I should definitely be able to do something cheaper, cooler, and more personalized myself!

So I took a day or two to whip out this design, twice as long to assemble, and had them in the mail and on their way to the relatives in record time!

details after the jump!

I am not what you would call a music expert. Actually, I am quite the opposite. I will never be a music reporter or reviewer. It’s not that I have bad taste in music. I think my taste is fine. It is my taste after all. I just have absolutely zero knowledge of how to identify a genre. Sure, I can get the easy ones like country and jazz. Everything else, I could not classify with confidence. I have no idea of what’s the difference between punk, emo, alternative rock, progressive rock and rock n’ roll. I even struggle with the basic differentiation between hip hop/rap/R&B. If any music gurus are reading this, I’ve probably already made a fool of myself to you by claiming that two names for the same genre are in some how different or I’ve offended you by implying that punk, emo and alternative could somehow be confused with each other.

While I may not be able to tell you what genre of music I like (honestly, my taste is pretty varied. mostly whatever is on the today’s best hits station), I can tell you who I like. Right now, my top favorite is The Fray and anyone who Pandora chooses to tell me sounds like them (mostly the Goo Goo Dolls and Foo Fighters), but I cannot remove the Dan in Real Life soundtrack from my car stereo. I cannot get enough of Sondre Lerche, the Norwegian musician who wrote and recorded the score for the movie. The soundtrack is not just a soundtrack for a movie, it’s a soundtrack for life. I can play it when I’m sad, happy, on a sunny day, on a crappy rainy day, on a good rainy day, and it fits. No matter what my mood or situation, Sondre Lerche’s voice, guitar and lyrics just fit. Here’s a video of him performing a song from the album (“To Be Surprised”) on The Late Show with David Letterman:

I also listened to some clips of his new stuff and old stuff on his website, and Dan in Real Life is not a one hit wonder. He is definitely going on my Favorite Music list on my Facebook profile.

For real, my tea-drinking peeps. I got to go to school with some awesome people.

Malachi Ward is an incredibly talented illustrator and fine artist. He’s recently opened up an Etsy shop, so feel free to go have a look. Here is one of his totally kicking prints up for sale:

Map of Heaven, available here!

more details after the jump

According to one of my required-readings for class this semester, a big part of my creative type is Interpreter: meaning, I like to “play with stuff that is already there–bringing it to life in new and fresh ways. Their creativity is built upon understanding how things can be made better. Through elaborating, improving, and evolving raw material, the interpreter manifests and perfects the work in a new form.” (p.72)

Do you ever read or hear something and you just go…oh man, yes. That is SO me!

Because here’s the deal: I looove mashups and remixes almost as much as the original songs (sometimes more! Girl Talk, anyone?). I looove Robin Hood: Men in Tights exponentially more than Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. Duchamp’s moustached Mona Lisa.

Around the end of high school, Char and I (along with a few equally crazy and wonderful friends) made a 30 min movie parodying Lord of the Rings. Like, we spent our summer and life-savings on making it. And you will never, ever get to see it because my self-esteem doesn’t need the world knowing what I look like running around in hobbit-gear with eyeliner on my feet and a plastic sword in hand, getting drunk on root beer. Ha. Let me also say that there were Matrix references, Subway product placement, Jurassic Park dinosaurs, death march music, a Xena: Warrior Princess cameo, and a Shania Twain song. In short, it was about 100% awful and 200% awesome.

Char and I also went to see a less-insane and more-generally-hilarious Lord of the Rings parody called Fellowship! the Musical. I will show you a picture of them because they are awesome and returning this summer and I freaking cannot wait.

via here
Frodo, Sam, Pippin, and Merry. SHIRE!

Can you tell? I LOVE stuff that takes a serious, often awesome work and turns it on its head–either for the sake of new artistic creation or fantastic humor.

As an interpreter, I find the concept of this book (after the jump) hilarious…
have a fear of the undead? you might not wanna peak. just sayin.

As swine flu bubbles as the next big “epidemic,” I can’t help but get frustrated at the media for their coverage of the disease. No matter what the disease or its true threat, journalists and news networks can’t help but sensationalize the threat to sell the story. Yes, death and chaos sells but at what cost? Global panic? Remember SARs, how scary that was and how that was going to kill us all? How many people actually know someone who contracted or died from SARs? Chances are unless you were living in Asia at the time, none.

As Jon Stewart pointed out in this clip from last night’s episode of The Daily Show (be warned, this clip is funny, full of insightful media critique, but contains some jokes and language that may be offensive to some viewers), the media tells us not to panic while reporting the story in a “we’re all going to die” frame. The main focus of news stories has been on where its spreading, the increase in cases around the world, the number of deaths, and the pandemic that could ensue. But by the fourth heart-wrenching story of a quarantined flu victim, I start to hyperventilate and wonder how this thing spreads, what symptoms do I need to worry about and how I can prevent myself from getting this disease. But it took seven articles to find this link that actually sent me to some helpful information. That’s unacceptable. When it comes to health, we do need to know how many people have died of this thing and where its spreading and how fast, but I think more importantly we need to know what we can do to help save ourselves and stop the disease. Too often, journalists and editors massively fail on this front.

During my internship at my local daily, The Daily Press, I had to cover a story about the first case of West Nile Virus in our area. It was a dead bird. My editor specifically warned me not to blow this story out of proportion. I needed to talk to the officials and relay to our readership the reality of the threat or lack of threat. So I wrote a story telling people that a robin had died of West Nile Virus, how people get it, that less than one percent die of it and how people can minimize their risk of getting the disease. And guess what: to my knowledge, no one in the Victor Valley contracted or died from West Nile Virus. Best of all, no one panicked. While my story might have been boring and buried, it was honest and did a service. Maybe I’m too idealistic, but I think this is much more important than the sales and higher ratings. The press has a lot of power in how the public reacts to these issues, and (not meaning to be cheesy but it’s going to happen anyway) with that power comes great responsibility.

It’s the end of the semester, and if you’re in college and still refer to time in terms of semesters or quarters then you are probably swamped (like me) with a million ridiculously long papers, intimidating presentations and overwhelming projects to complete in the next few days or weeks. I have two 15-pagers, both require a short informal presentation, a portfolio of all my clips, and a group project that I have to write a contribution to and give a presentation for in front of several J-school faculty. Our professor said everyone comes to these presentations and is very excited to hear what we’ve come up with. No pressure, right?

This means this weekend was spent and next weekend will be spent holed up in my bedroom or office scouring through library books, making notes, hacking through the Internet jungle trying desperately to find one credible source to give me the little sliver of information I need to make my paper complete. Then of course, comes the process of actually typing everything out.

It’s a rough time, and we all need that little pick-me-up to get us through it without losing our minds. What’s getting me through the next two weeks? Sweet tea with its always faithful sidekick of homemade guacamole my neighbor let me steal from her monstrous batch. As long as I have a glass by my side that is consistently refilled, I know I can get through the this. And we’re not talking iced tea with sweetner added to the glass. This was four cups of water boiled, poured over two Lipton family-sized tea bags, brewed and then poured over a cup of sugar sitting at the bottom of my lime green pitcher. Fill the rest of the pitcher with cold water, stir all that sugary goodness around, and refrigerate. It’s like being a kid in South Carolina again. Every sip is like a mini-vacation from end-of-semester stress. It reminds me that summertime is almost here, and I only have two more weeks until I can finally breathe a sigh of relief. Find your pick-me-up and indulge because its the only way you’ll make it through the madness.

via designsponge

I am in LOVE with all things succulent right now.

Recently, I went to a guest lecture by an artist/musician on aesthetics, from a theological perspective. One of the things he said that really stayed with me was that a Christian’s life should have no room for fake plants or paper plates. Life does not stay beautiful forever, and it is not in the least dispensable. He believed we should always buy real flowers that are riotously beautiful one day, then rotting another – because it is a reminder of the shortness of our lives. And he believed we should eat off of the good china as often as we can – so that we learn to take care of the things we’ve been given, and to destroy our habits of over-consuming and never appreciating those objects of consumption.

via here and here

These statements caught my attention, as I’ve recently developed an obsession with flowers. If I had the money, I would buy a bouquet of different ones every week, just because of how much life and joy they give to any space. Obviously, for a poor college kid, this just isn’t an option. And while I could work on growing my own mini-garden (aren’t those just the most charming, like the one in Return to Me?), I have an unfortunately keen knack for killing anything requiring chlorophyll.

via yanko design
(Are you kidding me? This is one of the coolest ideas I have EVER seen. I want to tile my entire bathroom floor in this.)

What’s a green-thumb-challenged girl to do? Fall in love with plants that require little care, but can be arranged in some incredibly gorgeous ways. Once I get moved, my plan is to buy one of the awesome planters from this website (their stuff is unbelievably beautiful for the price you get it at) and then fill it with some hearty succulents. If I can keep those alive, maybe I’ll graduate myself to another small garden…but one step at a time.

via designsponge
(And seriously, that vertical garden above? How freaking incredible is that?? It’s from the astounding Flora Grubb, who is interviewed about her sustainable practices in the source link above. Check it!)

Have any of you experimented with making succulents look less like boring desert cacti and more like art? Any tips would be so loved.

This is the second time I have blogged about these incredible brownies, but they are just that good. And to my surprise, they are fairly easy. The most difficult thing is melting the chocolate, butter and espresso powder because you have to balance the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water so the chocolate won’t burn. They are so amazing and so simple that you will never go back to box brownies again.

Unfortunately, this time around the end product was not very photogenic so instead I will post the best picture I have from results of my last batch at the end of this post. These brownies are blow-your-mind good. My husband’s reaction when I announce I’m about to whip these up is very reminiscent of the look Roskoe gets when my hand reaches for the bag of his favorite treats. They are dense and heavy. You will be shocked by the weight when you hold it. Each one could be a meal, a very unhealthy but tasty meal. Being from the Baked: New Frontiers in Baking cookbook, they are decadent and moist. No cakiness here. If you like cakey brownies just walk away because the bakers behind this cookbook are anti-cakey brownies. Make these tonight for some SNL, pour yourself a beverage (I suggest hot tea or cold milk for these) and savor the flavor.

Click the link for the recipe!

there’s more to this article. keep reading…

I am such a sucker for textural design. Maybe it has to do with my roots–I probably would have never gotten into graphic design if it hadn’t been for a friend’s hacked copy of Photoshop, and an online world full of people making inspiring fanart. I fell in love with creating visual reinterpretations of stories, and mashing together the typography of song lyrics with collage-like imagery of colors and textures. Granted, I never thought of it in those high-design terms. I was simply excited by the ability to make things on my computer. And man, did I make stuff: wallpapers, web banners, lj and myspace layouts, and on and on, each featuring characters, stories, and songs that peaked my interest.

I know, I know. They were humble beginnings. I was actually kind of afraid to admit it in many of my college design classes (you got interested in design by making fanart?? Blegh). What can I say? Sometimes the design field can be uber-pretentious.

Fortunately, in one of my classes this semester, my professor asked us all that great question: how did we get interested in design? And about half of the class’ first delving into design had to do with making silly wallpapers and fanart-like things. One of the girls even admitted that she was an ultimate Buffy fan. So great! It was a really fun class as we reminisced and laughed about our early design days.

And what was intended to be a short post giving you a list of textural links has now developed into quite the trip down memory lane! Sigh. I’m such a rambler. Well, without further ado, here are some of the awesome places I’ve found to grab free textures for your work–whether it be high design that would do Rand and Hoeffler proud, or fun stuff that tickles your imagination and yours alone. Whatever it is, be creative. Make something. And take joy in it!

Design Reviver’s 300 Vintage Textures and Brushes Roundup – Extensive, awesome, very useful. Textures and brushes used in above image from this list.
CG Textures – Photographic collection of textures. High-res images available.
Resurgere @ Deviant Art – Lots of interesting textures and stock images.
StockXchng – The free version of iStockphoto: slightly less interesting images than its counterpart, but hey, they’re free! Some useful textures as well.

Do you have any other staples that you know you can always turn to? Share them in the comments!

Today was a perfect Earth Day. It was sunny and 75 degrees. It was a day for strolls in the park and spoiling your dog who has been cooped up all winter with some outdoor time. I love Earth Day. I love making little changes in my life that I know are helping the environment–using squiggly light bulbs, washing all my clothes in cold water, cleaning my house with eco-friendly cleaning products and shopping at farmer’s markets when they start up again. Best eco-friendly decision I’ve made–choosing to get a dog the eco-friendly way, at an animal shelter. Like all other things, the best way to get something that will help the earth is to get it used, recycle someone else’s trash. Roskoe’s previous owners could no longer afford to take care of him so through the Dogwood Animal Shelter, we decided to take him in. I’ve had two other dogs in my life, both purebred Labrador Retrivers. I was very nervous about getting a shelter dog because there are so many unknowns about their past, their breed and their temperment, but Roskoe is the best dog I’ve ever had. Both of my Labs were great, but Roskoe is so well-behaved and not intimidating. I love having a dog who isn’t too big or too excitable that I can actually socialize with.

Save the earth; get a shelter dog (only if you have the resources and time to give it a good home, of course).