p r a g u e . b l a g u e

Reappropriation (reappropriated)

So the main issues here that I wanted to expound upon after our first go at this project: CRAFT, primarily, since the drawings that I did were basically no more than a sketch of ideas; ENVIRONMENT of the tea set, what the cups were placed upon, how they sit in relation to one another; and MATERIAL, especially that of the 'chain' in question.

I wasn't sure, either, that my original choice of words that were to be stitched/woven through the cups and back into the tea tray were exactly spot on; Denise and I talked about focusing on the production in a small area of the tea set while still addressing the artifact as a whole, and this meant to really nail down a particular phrase that would speak to several different social customs I was thinking of while doing this project. So here, the chosen word is 'Dish.' I narrowed it down to this after a long list of other candidates: gab, psst, buzz, clothesline, wire, and a whole bunch of others synonomous with 'gossip.' DISH here was chosen because of it's reference not only to (drumroll please) the kitchen, and of course, dish the noun, but also because of it's relation to 1950s and 60s vernacular, a time I was hoping to reference in regards to the role of the female, domesticity, and idle chatter.  Which of course is still relevant, clearer to me now as I'm back in Charlotte, land of the soccer mom.

Hold that thought while I load these images; Laura has been nice enough to re-send me my original .psds from her snazzy laptop when my files from CD didn't open...

type

first poster redux

A few changes (again!) to the poster that haunted my semester. I'm kidding. I bulked up some of the drawings in the background to work more toward creating a more fantastical (is that a word?) illustrated environment on the page.

greetings

As part of my archive project, which was the documentation of various bathrooms around Prague and Eastern Europe, I decided to turn these mundane shots into postcards. These vary a little from the postcards shown at final review; there, I had 4 images from every place on the front of the postcards and a commentary on the back. We spoke a little about the actual composition of the shots; if I were to go back and shoot each bathroom in an almost portrait-like manner, treating each as a very particular setting to be photographically revered, I would. Treating something as boring as a bus station bathroom like material for a coffee table book speaks to that funny little line between the mundane and the so-boring-it's-interesting concept that originally interested me in CZ WCs.

Above are some examples of how these shots may turn into some material for the Boring Postcards collection. I love the gray on gray book cover. Hey I wonder why they would use Helvetica for a book about boring things. Doesn't make sense, does it.

type folio

One thing we talked about was setting this type in a less predictable way, as it is here. My typeface already sort of says, "I'm a cartoon artist," so this may be a little overkill. Still , I thought the composition spoke to the formal qualities of the typeface (flowy, hand drawn, and meant to be set without a baseline.)

some thoughts, at the end.

Well I'm now sitting in room 43 of the Domov Mladeze listening to the new street sounds outside that weren't as audible in room 32, where Laura and I got promptly kicked out of early this morning. Now we have crashed the Nicole and Islam party with all of our unpacked belongings, leftover Staropromens, half a bottle of wine, and a bag of leftover yogurts from studio. I'm waiting for Laura to take a shower so we can take our last pre-paid metro ride to the studio and clean out what we've been avoiding for the last 3 days. I guess that's the advantage and disadvantage of staying later than everyone else. You get the time to say goodbye to places and people but you realize you're also just avoiding the inevitable.

It's odd, being here now; 6 Dutch teenage boys have taken over Jaime and Anna's room and I hear the key turn outside expecting to hear that "Shay Shay" I know so well only to be greeted by drifts of cheap cologne and someone's Franz Ferdinand album playing over and over from some iPod speakers. Today after about the 5th or 6th trip upstairs from room 32 Laura and I had almost gotten everything moved when the cleaning lady (aka "Sit Down Please") popped her head in to see if she could start the demolition of everything we knew and loved. She came to the door just as I was tip toeing on my bed, trying to get the remaining pictures of home I had on the wall, wondering if I would feel the same about everyone when I returned. Seeing as my Czech isn't the most communicative of inexplicable emotion, I just turned to her from my bed and did my pretending-to-cry face and we had a good laugh. She left the room, probably in fear of a tender moment, and there Laura and I were, saying goodbye to that little yellow walled box. At the request of the cleaning lady we left the klic in the door and walked up the stairs, turning around just in time to see her disappear into the room with 5 bottles of cleaning supplies. Not a trace of "us" will remain.

But I have one full week left in Prague, 2 more days with my dear Laura, 1 more with Nicole and Islam, and a date with Jiri and Katarina on Wednesday night. Then I get to be the all knowing tour guide to Jennifer, who just informed me via email that a prosperous weekend at the Mellow Mushroom has put her $500 ahead of budget for our trip, which will take us to Barcelona and then on to Lisbon over the next 3 weeks. I can't stop hanging on to the past 3 days, though, because they have summed up a fantastic 3 months in a strange and wonderful place. One last huge group meal (and you know how I feel about those), one last packed house at Hapu, the gem of a neighborhood cocktail bar, one last all nighter at Akropolis. A hug with Denise at the Perunova tram stop and a nachspiel with 2 "AMAZING, AWESOME!" designers and now friends, too! from NODE Berlin. A critique with the same laughs and personalities but now accentuated with parents and questionable wine. As Anna and her Mom left Prague last night, we lugged their stuff down to the Vinohrady pizza place we have gone to time and time again and had one last nazdravy together and dammit Jaime, you started crying (well, you never stopped) and I felt like a 15 year old again, thinking naively that this was the last of everything and nothing could ever be like this ever again.

But! I am happy to report that I have so much enthusiasm about being a designer, about being a part of the “international design scene” (oooh! What a sparkly, stylish world). All jokes aside, this semester was, in a phrase, just what I needed. Surrounded by creative, supportive individuals who share a vested interest in the things, I now know for sure, that really get me going. I feel reconnected (or finally connected?). As a side note, and maybe an obvious one, I’m enjoying writing again, which I realized early on must be a part of my process. This was something I didn’t give myself time for many times in Raleigh. The projects this semester really got into my brain and sat around for a long time, and I appreciate that more than I can really say. I am having fun designing and learning about design. I don’t really know what else to say. It just makes me happy.

 Last night standing around at the bar (reggae night….duh) I turned to Kyle and Jaime and told them, at full risk of sounding totally dorky, that I couldn’t wait to pursue individual projects with access to quality production when I return to good ol’ NC. Naturally the response was completely of the same nature. Who am I kidding, those two are the nerdiest graphic people around. This semester, in this place (ie: Europe), I cherish not only the appreciation for and abundance of fresh, interesting, solid design but also the desire to work in this practice and with some of these quality people. I know I’m not the only one, so back me up on this!

Jaime, I told you I'd have you a quality b l a g u e post when you got back to Central PA. I hope I've succeeded.

So I’ll end…for now…but re-worked projects will be posted soon, when I'm not running out the door to meet Nicole and Islam for a park date :) Safe travels everyone. It’s been fantastic having such good studio mates. We’ll have a reunion summer party sometime soon. At Anna’s request I’m trying to figure out a way to get as much Becherovka as possible into North Carolina. Anything else?

sarah's poster

So here's what's going up in Brooks, very scary as I usually like to do several print tests before hanging anything up. Ha, we should have put up a disclaimer! (Speaking of which, this PC is doing weird things with my borders...so forgive them)

Funny how most of this work will look completely different in a week due to redo-s.

I agree with Kyle; we had a lot of fun in studio that day putting these together, reflecting, reminiscing (sniffle)...in a way looking over all my work helped me to organize what I need to improve upon for our final critique...always a good thing. Needless to say the school pictures were icing on the cake and proof that we've had a lot of designerly fun (and otherwise) here in Praha. I'm not ready to leave! (sniffle #2)

POZOR: Many reflective, stream of consciousness posts to come. I'll try not to get overly dramatic about our time here.

San Serriffe (april fools for type nerds)

Courtesy of my Dad, Wally, a blog stalker and amateur type nerd.

San Serriffe

Just goes to show how little the general public knows about type anatomy.

fish market

Just thought I would let everyone know that Miles FINALLY received our 100 MB .pdf presentation for the Fish Market and it was a great addition to the show on Friday night. Thanks to everyone for submitting images...it's cool that we had a presence from all the way over here!

email + post = double points

Prague is getting more and more populated every day. We're now entering the finish-everything phase, always a key end of semester activity. We've survived Italian teen spring break and I think we're moving into the Spanish version of the same. They all still wear aviators, though, only this time I can understand a few of their f-bombs and trash talking...viva Espana! Other than that the Easter markets are in full effect and we're all waiting for the men to come out in droves with their fertility whips. (Ne, dekuji...) Now I'm on a mission to hit up every Prague attraction I've been meaning to do and haven't gotten to yet in the next 3 weeks. After that Jennifer S and I are making our way to Barcelona. I refuse to come home as pale as I am right now. No wonder the Eastern Europeans think I'm one of them...

Just finished an amazing weekend in Berlin, which is now where I must try and live for some extended period of time. That seems to be the consensus from the rest of the group as well. We had the opportunity to visit some fresh studios with beautiful design and typography going on, and I think I speak for the group when I say that we were really inspired, intimidated, and excited by all that was shown to us. After a snow scare on the way to Berlin we were blessed with blue skies for the most part which made the transportation around the city a little better...and let me say that Berlin has got more crazy things going on with it's S, U, XYZ lines than I've ever seen. NODE Berlin/Oslo welcomed us to their space in East Berlin and joined us for dinner and dancing until 6 am that night/morning. We call that multi-talented. Don't worry Mom, Denise was there. That day also included a visit to the studio that created Volvox, which, designer or not, you should check out cause it's pretty damn cool. Andrea was super sweet in reviewing all of our typefaces ( here was mine about 2 weeks ago...yikes).

Why I loved Berlin: (a list, in no particular order.)

1. Finally, we ate some decent Thai food.
2. Fashion: the East Berlin neighborhoods we spent most of our time in were like little pockets of cool. A walk down any given street was a grab bag of boutiques selling well designed goods in the front while a few people sketch and sew in the back. Street sensibility meets Vogue? I don't know. It just felt really comfortable and covetable at the same time.
3. Big enough to get lost in, neighborhoods small enough to raise kids in.
4. Suprising quantity of public parks!
5. Germans are nice.
6. Cute designer overload. That goes for the boys and the girls
7. Yay for clubs and parties, good music, and always a trip home on the S-Bahn as the sun rises over the city....
8. Did I mention the CLOTHES?! Shoes?! The 3 bags of licorice I ate, and the 2 meals I skipped because of it. I can't eat it again for at least 6 months. Ryley, now I know why you love all the Haribo candy.

So I could gush for days about why we all loved Berlin. I really think a lot had to do with the hospitality and warm reception of ideas we got from the designers we spoke with. Now I just have to get hired, dammit.