WHY the ‘swoosh’ symbol for Nike has meaning, while “swooshes” used for other sports brands do not…? Like, why does Nike get to be the swoosh? Doe a swoosh mean much of anything? No. But it’s been that way for 30 years – more years than I have been alive. So is that what makes it recognizable, that it’s just been around forever?
I struggle so hard with this đŠ
of the part-time/internship variety.
So, if for some reason you, or anyone you know, is thinking “Hmm, I have this creative part time job/internship and no one to fill it…” – you can now think “OH! I have a part time job/internship that requires someone creative and I can’t wait for EMMA THEA HOOP to fill this void!”
I have ample time in my measly school schedule this semester, and I also have a lot of drive and enthusiasm – a very win-win combination for anyone needing to hire someone like me!
I have already filled out two applications and returned them with no responses as of yet (well, no real responses; I recieved one addressed to someone else RAVING about her enthusiasm and talent – which I have plenty of. Too bad my name isn’t also ‘Christine’!)
Please and thanks. And seriously.
Love forever,
Emma Thea Hoop
Bones
1. Fix one thing in the apartment from the list of repairs ourselves
(mounting the doorbell ringer and taking off the Pur water filter attached to the kitchen sink that doesn’t work 100% efficiently)
2. Clean the kitchen from top to bottom and throw away old food
3. Buy a water filter and use it (got out the old Pur pitcher and filled it up!)
Breath
1. Run your hands over every wall in your apartment
2. Clear space for an âOutboxâ (the corner in the ‘office’ because it’s out-of-the-way-enough)
3. Clear one surface using the âOutboxâ (cleared off the little cafe table in the living room)
Heart
1. Buy fresh flowers (got two small bouquets on sale – so two for $5 sunshiney yellow and white flowers)
2. Determine your style (according to the book I am “modern: contemporary” which is a ‘catchall’ for people that can’t decide on one modern movement, but I think that I am more ‘Scandinavian with and American Grandmother’ because I like a lot of bright, birch wood grain and white stuff, but also a little vintage-treasure-finds, too – PLUS I like almost all of the industrial design classics like the egg chair, tulip chair, etc. etc. etc.)
Head
1. Find a new recipe and cook one meal at home (planning on making an Alfredo pizza with spinach tonight)
2. Choose the date for your housewarming party ((August 6th, Friday night of summer finals week))
(âgraduationâ from the cure, at the end of the whole eight weeks)
And the One-Room Remedy:
1. Decided what activities you want in your room & where they will go
2. Buy, borrow, or make a floor plan tool
3. Map out the room that bothers you most and work out a solution
4. Name your vision
5. Build a shopping list
I’m also starting on the FlyLady ‘Beginner Baby Steps’ – tonight is #1 and I’m supposed to shine my sink before I go to bed.
To be honest, I haven’t been doing anything design related for portfolio or otherwise (I did doodle a penguin/puffin-type bird out of geometric shapes in my notebook yesterday during class, but that hardly counts). I realized that during my one week off between classes that I was spending all of my time on the computer with the Adobe Creative suite open, instead of “enjoying free time”. Part of my problem, I’m starting to think, is that I love design so much that it’s hard for me to define when I’m trying to make something ‘for work’ instead of ‘for fun’. Doesn’t really matter all too much since I’ve been relatively busy with classes instead – ‘ordinary’ classes, which is a little surreal sometimes. Out of the four classes I’m taking – two are easy and two are hard. Two I just show up for and sit there, and two require daily homework/practice/review/etc.
It is insane to think that we are done with one week of school, so that there are only 10 left. Oh my!
Back to designer-y things: I feel almost obsessed at times to come up with ‘the perfect’ things – the perfect grouping of colors, the perfect grouping of graphic elements (stripes, antlers, etc.), the PERFECT symbol to ‘represent me’. It’s been so stressed to be cohesive across all elements and to ‘brand oneself’ that I always feel like I am striving for the perfect visual representation of myself. But what if someone hates green? And stripes? AND antlers? Ah. Design life is so hard! I go back and forth between trying to find neutral things that everyone could potentially like and also ‘things that express myself well’. It is difficult to try and be cutesy and professional and edgy and all-around appealing. Plus I could never be ‘traditional’! Pfft! (sligh sarcasm there, y’all)
Finally, getting to the subject matter of the title of this post – I have been tirelessly trying to decorate/clean/organize the house! I feel so sad that it’s still in the crazy state that it is. The real reason for my frustration is the large amount of items from Ikea that are all approximately the same height, color, and fake birch veneer – making everything sort of bland. I wish that I had more carefully selected ‘exotic’ or ‘eclectic’ pieces. And I am trying to decorate without having to buy anything – at all (although I really do need curtains in some places).
I just don’t have any money in my monthly budget (to pay for haircuts or guinea pig food) to try to buy extra things for the house. I also can’t/don’t want to work right now when I really need to/want to spend all my time focusing on school.
Started back to another semester of classes at Tech today! Woo! 14 hours over the summer is going to be an interesting experience to say the least. I have to get used to the schedule and stuff, but I don’t really have any time since we’re already getting into everything – especially lab on Wednesday already!
Anyway, I’m sure I’ve said it like 304 times already but – I want to use my free time this summer to continue design work and possibly *gasp* have fun via painting and photography or whatever. I just struggle with inspiration – the start to a project. The initial spark, the problem to solve. I’ll spend hours thinking of things I could be doing instead of having something to do. So, before I lose my motivation, I’m going to try and play around with ink, paint, and other art materials and work on the Converse stuff a little bit…
Sorry this was quick and disjointed, I’m just afraid to lose momentum!
This month I’ll be working on finishing two projects – VIM bikebag website and all the things that go with that, and re-doing the Converse promotional products and posters. I’ve been working on both of these projects lately – and especially this past week – for my independent study (did a lot, but still have a lot to do for my own standards, ya know how it is). So cool! I guess for now I’m going to try splitting my month in two, and focus on one project at a time. This shall be my trial run to see if splitting each month into two two-week sessions is better than sharing projects the whole month! I’m excited to finish up the ‘website’ I started for the VIM brand since I still have the DIY bag section to finish out -> this is all finishing/re-working/whatever the ‘Give Me 3’ bag that I worked on with Chris and Allison for the final project of fall semester of junior year. I’ll try to share tidbits of the project as I go along!
brand website for imaginary company of bike-bags = VIM
I’m finished with another semester of school, with a week of free time before I return to summer school. Although this sounds horrible, I am actually insanely excited. I’m (sort of) on the homestretch to graduation (soonish)! I just looked up the commencement schedule for December and I’ll be graduating around December 18th which is close to my birthday – a lovely present to have while I’m still 21 and still during the school year of 2010 (so it SEEMS like I’m still a 2010 graduate)!
Now that I won’t be having a scheduled studio class, I have time to work on projects to prepare for graduation and a job search.
Right now, as I sit on the couch in the comfort of my home, I feel thrilled and excited and optimistic about my future – even though I have absolutely no idea what might be happening. When I say “I have absolutely no idea what might be happening” I mean that I don’t know where I will get a job at yet, or where I will move to, or any of those details. But I am quite excited about the idea of all of the options and freedom and all of those things that will open up in a few short months (some days short of eight, I counted).
I’m also pleasantly surprised with all the things that I’ve accomplished withs studio so far. You see, I won’t be taking anymore studio classes at Tech because I’ve completed the eight required studio classes (and doubt they’d let me sit in on any others) – but looking back, I can tell that I have learned a lot and improved. I think that as a designer, you’re taught to be really critical, and to always assume that whatever you do could be much better. It’s hard for me to feel really good about the things that I’ve done (made, designed, created, crafted, what-have-you) because of two reasons – 1. if you fall too much in love with the idea that you have, you can’t see that there’s more you need to do or think about or that ‘blah-blah-blah’ detail isn’t 100% right and 2. you have to be humble about your designs because they might not appeal to everyone and everyone is entitled to their own opinions, so I believe that you need to be ready for people to be …not to pleased with your shtuff.
Anyhoo, I’m just feeling pretty good because I’ve managed to make a really long list of all the projects from every year and another list of things I want to work on – so I’ll be doing two projects every month for 7ish months, then re-assemble my portfolio for the end of December and then get a job! Woop!
Excited to get going on things again, and keep a record of everything. I found that theses blogs are incredibly helpful. David’s idea so long ago was really wonderful, and I’m glad to keep up with it. It’s nice to go back through old blog posts and remember what I was thinking in the middle of projects – especially when I need to re-work something or have forgotten what it was that I meant to do with some specific detail that doesn’t make sense now. I’ll also be updating my portfolio website over the summer, although I’ll have to think more carefully about what it is that I want to put on the internet in case people think I’m amazing and steal everything…haha
That’s all for now! Just wanted to share my excitement and plans!
I am designing a lunchbox for “The Communal Fridge” scenario, i.e. people that are forced to share a fridge with others (office, fraternity, dorm room) but people will often nibble, eat, steal, plunder the food of other people. This is a serious problem that needs some solving (I suppose)!
My goals for this project and the presentation that I’ll be doing rather shortly are as follows:
Create a lunchbox for adults that is
– age appropriate (styling, materials, colors)
– secure (provides security and calm for the user; worry-free about other people getting into it)
– sustainable (what’s the point of a buying a lunch box, only to fill it with plastic sandwich bags that will be thrown away?!)
I…clearly haven’t been keeping up with this that much in the past month or so, but to be honest I’ve felt so busy that I haven’t really had time to stop and write in-depth about what I’ve been working on. Not long after that last project wrapped up we had our Spring Break (read: as soon as the review was over, literally) and during SB’10 I moved from one apartment to the other and spent forever painting it, etc. I still don’t feel entirely moved in, but that’s beside the point. Then, on to IDSA Conference in Charlotte, NC. Always fun to mingle with new designers, but not enough fun to make up for this dreadful head-cold that I’ve had the past week+ since then. I’m finally starting to feel more alive and alright today, but still debating whether a trip to the doctor would be good or not…
MY FINAL STUDIO PROJECT EVER is due in a week and three school days or something absolutely crazy like that. And Thursday of this week we’re selling the products we designed at the beginning of this semester for ‘micro-manufacturing’ – 10 uniquely engraved D.I.Y photo-cards! Ugh! Oh boy! I’m pretty excited that my parents are coming down to visit and *hopefully* buy some of my postcards.
I feel like there is never enough time to get things done because that is the truth. I hate that this last studio project (again, please note that this is my LAST STUDIO PROJECT EVER even though I am not graduating this May; still my last assigned studio project for ID at Georgia Tech ever for real studio class which is totally weird) is so squished time-wise. I wanted to do so much lunchbox research! Because, oh yeah, I somehow assigned myself to solve the “problem” of storing your food in a communal fridge -like an office or dorm situation.
To be honest, I sort of feel like all of my projects this semester are turning out to be sort of cheesy. I don’t know if there’s enough of that emotive quality I strive for in any of the solutions I’m creating, and I don’t know if it’s my fault, the assignment, the teacher or what…This just isn’t what I thought my last semester of studio to be like! Especially considering that Shakespeare is my hardest class right now (also enjoyable – not a knock on Shakespeare). I’m hoping that with some extra work that these can become things I’m more proud of, but I’m obviously questioning myself right now – and not in the way that I would want to be if I were about to graduate! [YIKES! If I were about to graduate right now with the state my portfolio and apparent sketching skills are in right now I would probably be sick!]
My independent study has been rewarding and challenging at the same time – trying to find the time to work on the projects without cutting into other stuff or forgetting about it all together…
And on top of all of this, I’ve been sort of concerned about the pros + cons of putting all your design work and design thought on The Internet. I had a (semi-really-sketchy) “eco-friendly” design blog find one of my projects and make it into one of their posts…the problem being that it isn’t a manufactured item yet but if I WANTED it to be in the future….it could already have been stolen… Plus part of the studio class (one day) I’ve been taking talks about IP, etc. and so I’m just uber uber nervous.
I plan on taking a lot of pictures of the ‘process’ of laser-cutting these postcards out over the next 2.5 days. I realize that one of the things I unfortunately lack the most in my designing is ‘proof of process’ and that bothers me, since I do try to do a decent amount of testing/modeling/what-have-you.
And to conclude, without a decent transition, I have realized this semester that I am really good at solving problems if a problem is handed to me but NOT good at choosing a problem to solve. I.E. “Paint a picture” vs. “Paint a picture with an eco-friendly substance of a landscape” – > I can think of some really nifty eco-friendly paint substances (juice, fruit, tea, etc.), but I would sit for days and days trying to think of all the different paints and paint styles and orientations and subjects to just ‘paint a painting’ and probably end up not doing anything all that spectacular….
I feel like this is something I’ve thought of/shared/written about before, but regardless, there it is.
I can creatively brainstorm and solve problems, but I cannot determine problems at the drop of a hat.
[I hope that admitting this doesn’t mean that I will never be able to do design as a job…but I feel as though a lot of what design is is figuring out how to solve something with a lot of given constraints – match this already-made brand’s branding form, what else could we add to this product line of cheese graters to make more $? why isn’t this thing that looks pretty selling? how could we make ______ for so-and-so better? – instead of coming to the firm and being like “Y’all! Let’s make _______!” I guess I’ve just decided that I don’t want to be an inventor? To be honest, I just want to learn more and enjoy whatever it is that I’m doing, while making enough money to live. That’s all! Not so much to ask!]
Also unrelated: I’ve taken up that whole picture-a-day-for-365-days thing. So far it’s been fun. I’ve done it for 6 whole days so far! I’m just excited to use my camera, and so far I’ve been using the MerriamWebster.com Word of the Day as inspiration. I think in the future, when I grow tired of the WOTD, I will move on to some sort of ‘alphabet’ set ((but that only gives me 26 days to work with…)). We shall see!
And super finally, I don’t really know 100% what is about to happen in the near future, or exactly which semester it is that I end up graduating but I do know that, despite my current stuffy face and cough, I am decently happy – which is decently nice.
Here’s the list of parts I’m thinking this will need to function (with assistance from people much more computery than me):
All of these will be accounted for and then projected out for 5-1o years by multiplying their ability by 2x or 3x.
Samsung Super AMOLED video
‘Airnergy’ Wi-Fi charger explained
Marvelous Things 