PechaKucha Night Los Angeles

PechaKucha is an event that let designers from different areas to meet, network, and show their work to public. Each presenters show 20 images of their work, each image last 20 seconds. Last Thursday PechaKucha Night was held in LA. 12 designers/artists did 12 memorable presentations on their works.

Andrew Byrom, one of the presenter, showed his oversized business cards design, which is quite impressive. But he said, after doing all these oversize cards by using all kinds of technics, his realized that, email address/phone number/job position are all optional elements on a business card. a successful card just have to let people remember who you are. In the end of his presentation, everyone got a card on which says:

"I met Andrew Byrom in Moore's Deli at the Pecha Kucha Night around 8:30pm on Thursday May 26th, 2011. Even though he gave a mediocre presentation on business cards – and I will have lost this card before I get home tonight – I will always remember him and keep him in mind when I need a great graphic designer."

This is smart self-promotion and he will be surely remembered.

Michael Lejeune, the director of Metro design studio, gave a very positive promotion about the Metro system. He showed images like: cars stuck on freeways but Metro runs fast... Those images might persuade car users switch to use public transportation. But I believe service is the key to keep customers.

The two artists that inspired me, as I remembered, they are Jessica Fleischmann and Lorna Turner. They are both designers but they presented their photography works rather than their design.

(Jessica Fleischmann)

(Lorna Turner)

Those photographs have a sophisticated feeling...showing a moment of living and death.

Lorna Turner said that when doing photography one should always be honest to your feelings. Memories is very important, we can never recreate the scene we've seen and bring it back. photography is a way to capture the fixed, short instant. Photography is a connection with hand, eyes and heart.It is a way of life.

Gauge presents John Coy

It was great to meet John Coy again after the AIGA portfolio day. He was giving a lecture last thursday at CSULA about his works and what he got throughout his life.

John Coy was the 2010 AIGA/LA fellow. He is not only a professional graphic designer, but also a very sensitive, and spiritual person.

It was funny that John Coy said several times "when I was at your age...", as he probably was the oldest and most experienced person in the lecture room. It was great for us younger designers to have this opportunity to learn about those things that we have not experienced in our lives.

There are many points that he mentioned in the lecture inspired me and made me start to think from my own perspective.

Once he mentioned as beings we all receive "inputs from the universe".

As we all know that everyone receive inputs from the world everyday, every minute, and every second...We receive sounds, images, taste, tactile impression.. etc, from the nature; As designers we get inputs from printed matter, websites, TV. I also feel that when I was getting inputs from those things made by people, I might try to imitate. This results in the uncertainty identity of the outputs. I saw an art work at LACMA presenting the idea of the uncertainty of identity, "personal identity may not be certain or fixed; rather, it is nuanced, fluid, and often hybrid." The artist transforming herself to a person who has influenced her intellectually or emotionally.

I think John Coy's view is the opposite. John Coy mentioned that everybody is unique and has their special identity. We really need some time to know ourself better and develop our own spirit.I think by saying "receive inputs from the universe" it means to build up a relation between oneself and the nature, which is the truth.

Once we received the inputs, we process those informations. Our works are the outputs. The works should show the identity. As human beings, we want to be accepted by others, as designers we want our works to be recognized. John Coy always encourage us to be ourself and trust ourself, do the best and find a place that could fit.

This also reminds me of a point of view that has been mentioned by Xudong Zhang, a professor of East Asian Studies, in one of his article:

There are two different ways to be recognized and accepted. Either attempt to imitate others, even beg to be accepted by the others; or develop the inside of oneself and change the relationship between oneself and the outside, forcing the outer world to face, understand, and respect the otherness in between.

This could apply to both people and culture. We need to keep our unique identity, rather than imitate others.

AIGA Portfolio Day

The AIGA Portfolio Day at Woodbury University last saturday was a wonderful experience. Below are some works I brought. I met with four reviewers – John Coy, Milka Broukhim, Anthony, and Rebeca Mendez, and got a lot critics, suggestions and inspiration.

Those reviewers I met are great, almost all of them has a keen eye. During the 20 minutes review time, which I think is a very short time to know a person, they can see more deeply into the works, they can see the personality, the ability and weakness that you have behind the works.

John Coy gave me very positive feedback. He is very knowledgeable, and encouraged me to keep doing what I really want to do, and keep myself on the right path.

Milka was very critical, and is even more perfectionistic than I am... she criticized all my layouts, the font size, the placement of text, the trimming, the presentation of works, the writing, almost everything... but I appreciated that she pointed them out, I won't notice the problems until she pointed out – for example, some body text is a little bit too small for reader, some titles are a little bit too big that it should be, its better to show the scale of the poster when present it because the scale matters font size... It's good to be picky on works. Milka also suggested that as designer and a grad student, I need to write more about the works. Also the writing could be more deep in the books I did. Try to collaborate with other people who has a writing style that matches the design. "If you are not good at something, try collaborate with those who are good at it, that's what designers do."

Rebeca is brilliant, and very energetic. She gave an inspiring lecture as a guest speaker and showed a lot projects that she have done. She is more as an artist that has skills to work in multiple media, but not just a "designer". During the review, she gave me very encouraging suggestions. She suggested me to see Werner Herzog, Catherine Opie, and Sharon Lockhart's art works, go to museums more often; she also provided the syllabus and some reading of her photography class.

All their critics, suggestions, encouragements will strongly push me forward. I definitely need more passion to keep doing more stuff. They also help me notice my weakness, that's what I should working on in future.

the power of words

Check out this video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hzgzim5m7oU&feature=player_embedded

The same idea could be written in many many different ways. Although the concept behind the words are the same, different words could bring different feelings to the audience. This is what I learned from the first project in the Advertising Art Direction class.

In the video I shared above, the message that the blind man want to send out is he needs help, because he is blind. "I'm blind, please help" is a very direct way to send out this message, the words are plain and distance. Also I feel the word "blind" is too abstract, because most people don't have the feeling of "blind".

"It's a beautiful day, and I can't see it", is a better way of presenting the same idea, although the words are totally different. Most people can imagine the feeling of "can't see", and "can't see" "a beautiful day" is totally a tragedy. By describing the situation that the blind man is facing, brings compassion from the audience. It doesn't say "need help" directly, but the words result in help in action.

As a person who don't watch TV, and rarely read magazines and newspapers, the Ads I frequently see are the Metro Ads. They are smart, but its funny that I think everyone who rides Metro in LA knows how bad it is. The ugly service makes the Ads really ironical. Every time I see the Ads, there is a picture in my head:

waiting for bus coming ... 20 min later, still waiting ... 40 min later, still waiting...

I am not the target audience of Metro Ads. But it makes me think about, Ads sometimes (I would say "most of the time" ) show only one side of the products, which is the good side. Yes those Ads are smart, but also unilateral and so not true. This makes me feel that advertisement is using cleverness to fool people. Ads can not make life better, product design do. This is one of the reasons why I dislike advertising. I believe in good Ads serve good content.

Ismael Obregon

Gauge speaker – Ismael Obregon

Language is one of the most important ways of communication. The more language you know, the more people you can communicate with around the world. Designers dealing with visual language. Through images we can communicate with anyone maybe not verbally but through visual language.

In his presentation, he presented two pieces of motion graphic work he has done. I personally would like to learn more about print works and the design progress involved. He didn't expanded a lot on the design process which I'm more interested in knowing and undertanding specially from a person in the field like him. The rest of time he left it for Q&A.

One of the suggestion he gave to designers who want start a studio is to learn the rules of business. That is learn how to operate a business and maintain it. To start a business is much easy than keep it running and alive. Ismael said that everyone who came to his studio is very creative and if not he will make them become creative. I think this is a brilliant perspective.

Ismael explained his aspects about clients. In his opinion, clients always know what they need and designer should listen to them and understand what they need. clients are always right. I can not agree with this idea because I think clients do know what they want, but they do not know how to communicate with visual language. I agree that as a designer we should listen to the clients and understand their needs more. But also we should decide how to use the language we know to communicate with the clients and meet their needs.

Narratives of Space and Time

It is difficult to design a chart combined both space and time. Because it requires a more complicated combination of different kinds of information.

Typography matters. The redesigned New York to New Haven train schedule on page 105 has same information and is as the same size as the previous schedule, but is much more readable, because it uses a different typeface.

I think the graphical bus schedule on page 109 tells more information than the bus schedules we usually have. It shows both the departure time(not accurate) and frequency of the bus, and the typographical schedules we usually have show the accurate departure time but can not show the frequency directly.

But the schedule on p109 seems like deal with a bus which only has 3 stops, and normally a bus has more than 10 stops. A graphical bus schedule like this will be difficult to indicate the arrival time at each bus stop.

To have a photograph route map might be good for this bus schedule, but it is missing a lot detail information, like the name of roads, which will confuse the passengers who are not familiar with this area.