Another weekend day...another class

So, Sunday morning, 7am, and I am sitting in Hank's class...again. I feel like we are spiraling up toward to the completion of the first project, which is our magazine spread that will be entered into a competition once we are finished. I am doing a City/Regional magazine based on Williamsburg Brooklyn, and about the lifestyle there. It has been pretty interesting and challenging all at the same time. My class got together yesterday after a long day of preparing my work to present to them and it was a really helpful meeting. So I hope everyone has gotten enough sleep and enjoyed the weekend, because mine has been a bit of a blur. Thanks again for everyone who supports me in what I am doing because I am working my ass off to get to where I want to be, and understanding from everyone of the work load I have on my plate always makes my life just that much easier. More to come soon!

Check it out!!!

http://www.portfoliocenter.com/blog/2009/01/29/inspired#more-324

Oh to be a kid...with no worries

I was at the apple store yesterday in the Lenox Mall to take my laptop in for repair. The "A" key stopped working and some of the paint is defective on the casing, so under my applecare warranty, I am able to get it repaired. The only drawback is I am without my computer for 7-10 days, which SUCKS. I told my girlfriend that I felt like my child was taken from me. My entire life runs through the hard drive somewhere on that machine, so it is hard to accept being without it. Luckily my friend had an older Mac laptop that she was able to lend me until I get mine back. But thats not the blog subject, just setting the scenario.

So I walked in and was standing there thinking that it was such an inconvenience to have to get this problem fixed and be without it, when I noticed this little girl, maybe 4 or 5, standing at a bank of iMacs in front of the service desk. She was leaning up against this stool that was taller than her. She kept pushing it ever so slightly, and then stopping to give the surroundings a look. I assumed her mischief made her curious of what all the "big people" around her were thinking, or if she might get called out on her actions. To me she was doing nothing wrong, and through my eyes that she looked in, she knew I wouldn't say anything. She continued pushing this stool a few more inches closer to the table of computers, still pausing to scan the horizon. I then started thinking of all the problems and issues that I have going on in my world right now why I watched this child work and plan her next move. This week a situation really hit home personally that involves this economy falling to pieces. A loved one's life was changed drastically because of our national situation and it put me in an entirely new emotional realm that I have never been. Even though this particular situation didn't have an immediate impact on my living situation, my heart grew a little bruised for the thought that this person was going through what they were going through, when they didn't deserve it one bit. As I watched this child move this stool, I put myself into her shoes and considered the idea that her only worry and issue in the world at that moment was to move this stool close enough to the computer so she could climb up to another world of exploration that she may had not ever experienced before.

In this time, we have to reach out to our friends and family, and stick together. Yes, situations happen to others that are out of our hands, but prayers and support can be major building blocks to putting someone up to another level of exploration that they may have never been before. Don't belittle the situation or turn your head to it just because it hasn't happened to you. It could very well be tomorrow that you find yourself in a life altercation and having the support and care from others would possibly make the issue a little easier to swallow. I hope this email finds you all in high hopes that we will pull out of this current crisis in our nation and that we as family and friends stick together through it. DO NOT belittle anyone's situation for what they are going through, for we have NO CLUE of understanding what that person could be possibly feeling.

Take care of yourselves.

Seeing eye to eye

So we have a new president. If you didn't know that, pull your head out of your ass and get with the times, ha. Anyways. My home for the last 5 months has been this art school, which has a different mind set towards things than I do sometimes. One of those being politics. Now, I will be the first to say I hate hate HATE politics, but I am not ignorant to it and know that a country needs a government to run correctly. I do think all politicians are crooks and its in the job requirements to be one, but this is my blog and I can fully voice my opinion. If you want to, start a blog yourself, its pretty sweet. Now within my family even, between the east coasters and the west coasters, we don't always agree on it and it becomes a joke most of the time that I find pretty funny. We all love each other but the fact of the matter is the different parts of the country is seething with different morals/lifestyles/and over all opinion. My friends here at school come from all over the country as far as San Fran and India, and its naturally a difference of opinion in these times. The important thing is that we respect each other's choice. I did not feel that yesterday was a smart decision but the majority of the country did, and now Obama will take the reigns. Now, I can continue with the sobbing and whining that policies are completely far fetched/ motives are fantasy based/ and that I am tired of hearing that the country feels like this one man will wave his magic wand and fix the economy and all problems, when anyone with more than half of a brain will realize our problems are WAYYYYYY too extensive to be fixed by just one guy who "says" he has a plan to do so. As a mature American man, realizing no matter what issues and problems may befall us for the future, we still remain the absolute best nation on this planet. Being in school and studying the arts and realizing the opportunities that are open for me proves this for me more and more everyday, and I don't need a presidential election to show it to me. Too many have their hands out to the government when they need to get off their ass and make something of themselves to begin with. The point of the president is to keep this country stable, protect us through decisions that impact us all. The white house is not a huge salvation army. Take the opportunities that we as Americans have, that many other countries are so envious of, and use it as a catalyst for moving toward success. Success is misinterpreted sometimes. Many think success is having a fat wallet and buying more junk. FALSE. Success is your ultimate happiness in life. If you find yourself in a good job where you're happy, a good family life where you're happy, a good marriage or relationship where you're happy, and overall a good life where you're happy, then you have reached success, no matter how others view it. Success = ultimate happiness. Your success is your own, and no one else needs to attempt to understand or ever judge you on it. If they do, screw them. Your life is not for pleasing others. One of those lessons I have strongly learned over the past couple of years and getting stronger in my heart every day. 

So where am I going with this? I will respect the president who has taken office, and trust that he will do everything in his power to keep this country afloat and representing the best and most successful nation in the world. No room for whining and complaining because it does no good. On the other side when Bush was in office, I constantly saw the lack of respect from Americans for him, when the truth of it was, HE IS THE LEADER OF THIS COUNTRY! Yes, he may have made decisions that everyone didn't agree on, but when you have a nation of 305,657,264 citizens, not everyone is always going to see eye to eye. I am not saying the email jokes and funny SNL skits of the president is uncalled for. I will be the first to laugh my ass off at that stuff. But in reverence to it all, we now need to unite together as a country and look to President Obama to lead us in the right direction. And besides, if its possible for the country to get screwed up any more, it is for only 4 years, hahah. (That was a joke)

More to come about work and project updates and my trip to Nashville this upcoming weekend. I also will be meeting with Carla Frank tomorrow, designer and director of Oprah Magazine, along with several other amazing projects. Check her out!!!

My prediction was correct...

Yep, got out of class at 6:00 Pm. That is a straight 12 hour class. Thats rough but I guess we all do what we do and make sacrifices to make it somewhere in this world and follow our dreams. I have much more homework to get caught up on today and get prepared for my trip with my class to Nashville on Friday. We will be visiting Hatch Show and it should be a good time. More to come with some video...

Its frickin' early...

Well I am sitting in class at 6:46 am feeling like a zombie with coffee on my breath. Coffee is basically the only substance I feel that keeps my blood flowing so I can stay conscious at this time of the morning. I'm watching Hank fish through emails so he can send us a little bit more reading material, and the rest of the class with glazed eyes. I am looking forward to sleeping in a little bit tomorrow morning, but am starting to realize that there is so much more to do with your time than sleep, although I enjoy it so much. Not too much going on this weekend. Mostly homework. I have to take some pictures, do some more logo sketches, read more of my trilogy, and hopefully hang out with the girl some too. We are also planning our trip next week to Nashville, which we are going as the Publications Design class (what class I am sitting in currently) and going to visit Hatch Show Print, which is an amazing company that does music based print work. I believe its affiliated with the Country Music Hall of Fame, which is pretty cool too. Anyways, more to update after that. I plan to take the vid cam to document the trip, so be looking out for that as well. 

I also wanted to explain to all that receives the email updates of the blog, you should also visit the actual blog site too. It isn't just general emails, it all links up to my blog @ ewddesign.blogspot.com. You can see some more stuff on there, like links to fellow blogs which are also good to read, pictures, and just more stuff like that, so check it out. Anyways, I guess Hank may be getting back to explaining what our work is so I should stop typing this up. I hope everyone had a good night sleep of at least 8 hours, because I definitely DIDN'T!!!

Back in the ATL

Hey guys. Holidays came and went and its time to get back to work. We officially start 1st quarter today. Here is my schedule of how my weeks is going to go for the next 3 months:

Advertising Concepting 1 : Monday 6-10pm

Intro to Photography : Tuesday 8am-12pm

Intro to Design : Tuesday 6-10pm

Digital Concept and Design : Wednesday 6-10pm

Publication Design : Friday 6am - who knows

The last class I have on Fridays does indeed start at 6am and has been known to last ten hours at a time. It is taught by the president of the school and there is a small group of us. Should be an interesting experience to say the least but a really good experience. On Thursday's we will continue having our Seminars, which is when a random speaker which is usually a person from the industry who comes to speak to the school about their agency or firm. This gives us a good opportunity to rub shoulders with some really incredible people that could lead to job opportunities or internships.

Also during the break, I met one-on-one with the president of my school to discuss future opportunities and he asked me to become a student assistant, which is basically 1 of 6 chosen students to work along side of the president assisting with various tasks. This is quite an incredible opportunity as well, due the fact that there are 250-300 students and they only choose 6 for these positions. I will remain in this position until I graduate. Very very excited about this and we will see where it leads for the future.

We closed out the quarter with critiques, which is as I explained when we have a 15 minutes to present our deliverables and the remaining 5 minutes the panelists take to critique us. This is what everything amounts to because it leads to graduating with great work that has been run through fingers of current industry workers. We are graded by 3-4 panelists out of a 10 point scale. My average for the critique was 9.4, and had some very very encouraging comments that just continues to push me further into what I know I was made for. 

Last thing, I am having to sell my car for financial reasons, so I will be living carless which shouldn't be too big of a deal. I have good friends around and my girlfriend lives on the next street. Yea, that's right, girlfriend. You will have to just wait on more details on that, but it is really good and she is very supportive and encouraging during stressful school days. Now I just have to stress over getting these car payments off my back and focus on finishing up and getting to New York City in less than 2 years.

More to come as I am sure some really exciting things will be happening. Take care and thanks for the support!