Welcome Spring!

It's been a while since my last post so I have lots to show/tell. Got my first screen printing project done, and I had a blast doing it! The first project was more about experimenting with the printmaking process. We had to find random objects, scan them, and make a composition of them. This is what I came up with...

I have also managed to get my resume done! YAY!!!

AND, I've been outside to enjoy the wonderful Wisconsin weather we've been having. Of course a winter in Menomonie isn't complete without a visit to the Devil's Punchbowl.

 

Today I had my meeting for Scotland. It's hard to believe how quickly that's coming up. I've even had dreams about this trip! Unfortunately I have too much work to do to get too worked up about it. Work, work, work.

First Assignments of the Year = Done

Finished with my sign proposal. Minimal changes were made since the last time; got rid of the "grunge" font on the window clings, and made the "A" in the logo for Bad Cat look different in each word.

 

I also finished my first screen print in my screen printing class (pictures to come soon). 

In the mean time, it's back to thinking about my Easy Cheese ads I have to do for advertising photography and getting my portfolio all spiffed up to send to people.

More Concepts

Had to add another element to my sign proposal for Bad Cat Bicycles. A window cling for the shop phone number, rentals, and MAMBA (Menomonie Area Mountain Bike Association) would be added to each window panel...because what bike shop doesn't have signs on their windows? I never even knew that they had rental bikes. I think that's some extremely useful information.

And could it possibly be that I'm already fixing my "finished" personal logo?? Yup. Go figure. Here's the new and, what I think is, improved logo solution.

The round logo was getting hard to work with (I'm busting my butt trying to design a resume as well here), and the simplicity of this satisfies me.

Wait...? Satisfied? As in done?   I give it a week....

And We're Off....

So far this semester has already been pretty hectic. After only one full week into the semester I feel like I have so much to do. My main concern is getting my resume and business card back on track. The logo above is the final (or so I say now anyway). I think it's almost hardest to please yourself sometimes; knowing that I can always go back and edit something is the worst. So while my resume design remains under some serious re-construction, I believe my business card is done! As stated before, this will probably get a whole new look in a matter of a few years, but for now I just need it to represent me on my quest for an internship. 

I've also hit the ground running in my Signage & Exhibition class. Our first project was to take pictures of signs and then choose one to re-vamp. Mine ended up being more about branding, and so because it wasn't supposed to go that way, I tried to focus more on the way the sign is presented rather than it's a logo. This is the proposition for Bad Cat Bicycles here in Menomonie, WI. Anyone who's ever seen this sign knows there is nothing "bad" about it. Still some tweaking to do for Thursday, as well as adding a few more signs to the windows.

CURRENT

MY PROPOSAL

For Advertising Photography we began thinking about our first ad campaign. I wanted to choose something that wasn't advertised enough, preferably a food...Easy Cheese anyone?! We'll see how this one goes (I think I have some fun ideas).
Check out my behance site too!!

Twenty-Some Prints Later...

It's hard to believe that my winter class is "finally" over. Saying it was a sprint the whole way would be the understatement of the century, and while I can't believe I'm not totally sick of the art building yet, I will say that I'm happy that I took Printmaking (Monotype) over a 3 week period. The first week and a half was focused on exploring the printmaking process. Our 20-some prints that came out of that were mainly experimentation. The last week and a half revolved around doing six 18x24in prints that were based on a theme. The theme that I chose was "Always Being Watched" (not an official title for them, just some words to base my ideas off of). Mainly = Facebook. I explored how we may look to others based on the pictures that anyone can find of us online. I'm not saying "don't ever let someone snap a photo of you with a beer in your hand", but if you are going to pose for a picture with underwear around your ankles knowing that it could hit facebook (where pictures are anyone's game) think again; because I'll find them and use them for a project :-). Essentially I'm pointing out how we are really "Always Being Watched". I really wanted to do a conversation piece and I believe I was fairly successful in doing so. We live in a world where social networking is principle, so it's safe to assume that your pictures, even the embarrassing ones, can be found by nearly anyone. One of my prints also touched base with Google Street View. I find it extremely creepy that Street View makes it possible to find any house, any address, and any place. It's even more scary that there are sites that glorify the moments that the Google van has managed to capture (women in bikinis, a couple hugging, someone whose face isn't blurred, a random butt cheek), and what say do these people have in this glorification?

Of course I'd like to point out that I'm no saint. If you Google image my name a picture of my roommates and I, with our faces ridiculously taped into odd expressions, shows up. Classy.
Also, I refrained from using any pictures of my Facebook friends for this project (though it crossed my mind).
Getting ready for my 8th semester of college is interesting. When classmates ask me what year I am, I reply "senior" and usually get an "oh really? I didn't know that!", all I want to say is "yeah me either!!" It has totally snuck up on me and I can't believe that my friends are beginning to graduate, it's a total reality check.

Thank you, Nora, for booking on Orbitz!

As if this week couldn't have gotten any more hectic, I was convinced to book my flight to London! After relying on my family for so many years to plan all of our travels, it was difficult to be doing this all on my own. So it's official. I will be flying from Minneapolis to London, taking a train from London to Edinburgh, flying from Edinburgh to Amsterdam, and finally flying from Amsterdam back to Minneapolis, and this journey begins the day finals end. Booking the flight was more stressful than I had imagined; my heart was actually pounding and I was terribly nervous.
BUT there isn't much time to be excited. I still have to focus on my winter class and I've been uploading my better projects to my Behance website. Because, even though I have been lucky enough to have the opportunity to go abroad for 3 weeks, I still have to find a summer job. Finding a decent summer job is something that I really want, so as of now I'm prepping for interviews (**fingers crossed**). I am almost finished getting everything updated except for my personal logo. It seems like I am not even close to satisfied with my logo every time I try to revisit it. Let's hope for a breakthrough....

To whom it may concern,

After taking a drawing class that used blogging to showcase our work and discuss our current artistic thoughts I decided that it wouldn't hurt to continue to the process on my own! My hope is that this blog shows my thought process, my interests, and bridges my photography and designs.
I am also currently working on redesigning my personal logo/id system so that I can get ready to hand out resumes and business cards. Apparently this is the time to get the rest of your life in order... ready, go! 
I'm taking a winter class right now that has basically sucked up all of my spare time (yet, here I sit). Printmaking: Monotype has proved to be quite the undertaking but I'm still excited about it. While I obviously have my struggles in this class, I try to remain as positive as possible. It's nice only having to worry about one class for the time being...even if that class runs for 6.5 hours a day.
Over my short break I managed to get a new lens and flash for my Nikon. While at home I did some random dabbling with bokeh photography but still have some major kinks to work out. And since I don't see the light of day here at school, I'll have to wait until the weekends to do further experimenting. But until then, it's printmaking, printmaking, printmaking!

Also, check out my other sites!

http://www.behance.net/noralanger

http://www.wix.com/noralanger/photography