RETURN TO CASTLE TRAVENSTEIN

So… this quarter has been rougher than the others for me. I’ve been getting less sleep and my job has been more stressful than usual. I spend almost all my time doing homework and traveling to and from school. I’m grateful for all the new skills I’m learning but I’m basically fried. Last Thursday my car broke down.

I’ve been taking the lightrail to school. I live in Greenwood and it’s about a 20 minute walk to the train station in Northgate. While it’s annoying to get up earlier and spend a longer time commuting, I’ve realized the walks- look I haven’t walked anywhere in months. Every morning I get some fresh air. I walk fast so I get sweaty. It feels good. It wakes me up. It gives me some time to think or not think.

Trees and plants are blooming. On my third day of walking to the station I noticed a massive floral tree showing off in the sun. I don’t know what kind of tree it is. The flowers have a gradient from bright magenta to a muted white. So when I noticed this tree I realized I hadn’t noticed it for the first two days I walked past it. I immediately thought of my partner and how she would stop mid-sentence to appreciate it’s presence. It made me reflect on the way I’ve been spending all my time in doors behind a computer screen. It made me grateful for the walk. I’m excited for the summer. I can practice the skills I’ve learned, actually sleep, and hopefully spend some time outdoors. Of course I’m stressed now and I have a million things to do, but I’m also looking forward to something. It makes it a little easier to accept the imperfections of the day. Anyway, I’m on the lightrail now with about four hours of sleep behind me,coffee and a spicy(bad idea at 6am)vegan sausage in my guts. A lot of unnatural world to start the day. I’ll see that tree on the way home.

Hello and welcome to the blog. I’m here today to talk to you about our branding strategy for Pet Cube. Pet Cube allows busy pet owners to check in with their pets via webcam. You can check in on your pet from anywhere, talk to them, and even toss them treats at customizable distances! With that in mind we’re targeting the busy professional with expendable income who loves their pet, but just isn’t able to spend as much quality time with them as they’d like. As you can see from our mood board we’re planning to use imagery that is relatable to our target demographic: Energetic pets in sleek modern homes interacting with Pet Cube. The marketing campaign will include Pet owners going about their busy day and checking in on their furry friends when they have a spare moment. For typography we’re going with the lightest weight of Avant Garde. It’s elegant, it’s readable and it’s legacy has carried over into a lot of fonts used to sell high end luxury merchandise. Our color options range from classic, high contrast black and white combos, and muted, metallic teals and blush pinks often associated with luxury products. You work hard, you deserve the best, and so does your pet.

Do I want to go freelance, contract or full time? I’m not sure. The agency route has some obvious benefits, but is vampiric in nature and benefits the companies more than the employees. That being said, it may be my best bet at finding a position I’m happy with and it seems like a likely course of action for me. Freelance seems great in a perfect world where there is always work and it’s all stuff I actually want to do. Full time work offers a sense of security, but it may mean long hours grinding it out for a few years.

Honestly I’m anxious about finding a job. I’m 40 years old and I am not excited by the prospect of busting my ass and working late nights to impress an employer. I’ll be starting my design career later than most, and I’m afraid I’ll have trouble getting hired. Ultimately I hope to end up with a career that is stimulating and productive and doesn’t kill me. I’ll have to weigh the options over the summer and talk to friends working in the field. Here’s some stuff I found:

UW Graphic Design Position – I’ve actually spoken to the lead designer at UW about their job and they seem to really enjoy it.

https://www.glassdoor.com/Job/seattle-graphic-designer-jobs-SRCH_IL.0,7_IC1150505_KO8,24.htm

Retail Graphic Designer Cotopaxi – Visual design and branding seem like a good fit for me and this company seems to have a decent relationship with their employees.

https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/search?keywords=junior%2Bgraphic%2Bdesigner&location=Seattle%2C%2BWashington%2C%2BUnited%2BStates&geoId=104116203&trk=public_jobs_jobs-search-bar_search-submit&currentJobId=3594059009&position=2&pageNum=0

Associate Graphic Designer Sounders FC – This is what we’re all going to school for right? A cool and exciting job working on projects everybody sees? Well here it is!

https://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=graphics+designer&l=seattle%2C+wa&sc=0kf%3Aexplvl%28ENTRY_LEVEL%29%3B&vjk=70eadabf94afa2f4

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For today’s blog assignment we have been asked to upload photos of textures, patterns and/or shapes we find inspirational. I decided to dig into my Letraset/Zip-a-tone archive for this one. Textures, patterns and shapes abound. Using tactile design tools brings me joy. I amassed a collection of Letraset rub on transfers some years ago after initially discovering a few sheets at thrift store. I mostly have typeface sheets, but I have one box full of textures, dot tones, and image based transfers. I also just love looking through the typefaces. Holding a physical object made specifically for design is inspirational to me.

I am a cartoonist, and Zip-a-tone textures and dot patterns are fairly common in comics. I remember wondering how these patterns were achieved when reading Marvel books as a kid. Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira is filled with Zip-a-tone digital camo as there are a lot of soldiers in the series. I love the pages that have a ton of soldiers marching. They got a lot of mileage out of those camo sheets.

My first artistic love was punk rock. Letraset played a big part in the design aesthetic associated with punk. Raymond Pettibon’s Black Flag show flyers are particularly dear to me. He used Friz Quadrata rub on letters for a lot of his work and composed the black flag logo using four letter Is. Letraset isn’t the easiest thing to use. The letters crack, warp and bend all the time. There’s a lot of room for human error. These common imperfections made it the perfect vehicle to communicate punk’s aesthetic.

Adding greyscale to images using dots is cool, but what I really like are the crazy patterns and textures found in some of these sheets. I also have some image based sheets mainly used for architectural diagrams. I like using the repeating images to form patterns. In the past I made collages using repeating images by collecting stacks of grocery store or office supply ads and cutting the same image out of each ad. Rub on transfers provide me with the same kind of repeating imagery with less waste. That being said, I covet these sheets. There is a finite amount of them in the world and they can be expensive. They were made to be used and I use them, but once I finish a sheet there is a strong possibility I will never find another one.

who am I? Well I’ve been a prince and a pauper you know. I believe I’ve grown into an empathetic and creative person with a passion for absurdity. I’m a decent friend. A good partner. I am prone to intense stress. I can be jealous and competitive. I’m changing all the time. I’m constantly learning new things and trying to release myself from the patterns that no longer serve me. I’m trying to focus on progress not perfection. I’m tired.

What do I want to do? I’m figuring it out. I don’t have a clear path in mind and I’ve decided to accept that rather than stress over it. In terms of what career I’m hoping to get out of my school experience I’d like something that’s challenging but requires less work than an average quarter at SCCA. Something that’s creative but doesn’t drain the energy necessary to work on art projects. Packaging seems like a pretty safe bet for me. Based on the fact that every speaker we’ve had this year has changed careers 20 times and since I’ve already had a few myself, I suspect I’m going to end up doing all sorts of things and changing directions based on life experience. Hopefully this will happen with more money in the bank than I have now. I love type design and particularly hand drawn lettering. Most of my entrance portfolio was hand drawn lettering and I want to start incorporating it into my work here at school. The dream is to have my own publishing company and design logos and type for you know, things I like. I think I can do both of these things but I’ll probably also have to find work with a minimally vampiric corporation too.

Why? HA!

Well, I’m good at making things. Though I crave structure, I’m kind of a casting arrows every which way kind of person. With creative pursuits I tend to stick with something for a few years and move on. In fact it’s very reassuring to discover this is a common path for folks who work in design.

Where do I want to go? As far as these wings can carry me baby. Ideally I’d like to work in a field where my contribution has a positive effect on the world. Physically I’d like to be able to work from anywhere. The pandemic made me think a lot about the benefits of working remotely and I enjoy travel.

What would I want to say? Accept yourself as much as possible. Resentment is a poison. Racism, sexism and homophobia are diseases that can be cured. Pad thai is delicious. Fugazi was a great band–sonically and ethically. Nothing feels better than drawing a bunch of cool looking letters in a note book. I am very grateful for my partner Lara Kaminoff and I’m glad I didn’t die all those times I could have.

I enjoy Cut’s output. Their content is usually as fun as it is uncomfortable. I have tried to think of some fun concepts we could work with here on campus without pushing the limits of acceptable content.

1. Have students or faculty from others floors/department guess which students in a line up are graphic design students, and which are visual media students. This could be fun for us and give us some insight into what people who are not a part of the program think of design/visual media students. What stereotypes are out there? What does a designer look like?
2. Cut has a segment where a person off the street tries to match artwork to the artist. We could do this with students at SCCA. We could have visual media students guess which works were created by which design students and vice versa. This has comedic potential and it ties in the school as a major component in the concept.
3. The two ideas above are okay and I suspect you may get similar ideas from other students. What may be lacking in my first two concepts is some of the tension involved in Cut’s approach. Maybe we could do something involving professors, like “which SCCA Professor did crazy thing x in college?” A lot of the students seemed really surprised by the old picture of Erik that Andrew showed during his presentation so this could be a fun one for students to work on.

Oh the metaverse. I suspect in the near future all social media platforms and gaming services will be owned by one company that controls all commerce. Initially I thought the king of the new world would be someone obvious like Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk but based on my recent experiences I’ve changed my mind. Those guys have made their fortunes selling physical objects which I believe will become a relic of the past. The future is all about getting paid to create things that do not actually exist. Why would you drive a Tesla when all you want to do is put on a headset and be transported into a completely customizable fantasy realm with no physical limitations?

My first trip to the metaverse went pretty much exactly as I expected it would. After customizing my avatar I walked around a digital environment until I found some other users. The majority of the avatars I saw were very customized. So these people already spend a lot of time and money in this space. I should mention the metaverse space I was visiting had been the site of a Taco Bell sponsored wedding just days before. Now I was watching avatars play poker in a digital casino. Many of the user names involved crypto currency. There was a billboard for something called “DMT GODS.” Virtually every action I took prompted me to connect to a wallet so I didn’t do much.

Overall I was impressed with the user experience. It’s very much like a video game. I can see the appeal for folks who grew up gaming. They are accustomed to the mechanics of games, and interacting with other users in this type of environment. I’m gonna guess if you connect your wallet and start spending some cash you can have a lot of fun. A lot of people seem to be interested in the customization of digital space and avatars.

I am 40 years old. I feel rooted in the physical world and I have attachments to physical objects. The idea of spending money on a digital hat that a character on a screen can wear is ridiculous to me. That being said, I understand there are a lot of people with a lot of money, who place value on what is essentially nothing. So, I’m not above making a pixelated digital t-shirt and selling it to some guy with too much bitcoin. Maybe I’m admitting to my lack of integrity here, but I’ve never worked a job in my life that hasn’t been in service to someone richer than me, and this seems – well, easy.

Admittedly, I will probably enjoy the metaverse more and more as it grows in popularity. I held out on streaming video, I said I would never use Spotify and now I use both constantly. I’m going to try to remain open to whatever happens while maintaining my cynicism.

A few years ago I was given the opportunity to publish a comic with a publisher I really respect. The owner is a friend. He had distributed some self published books of mine and thought it would be a good for both of us if he published a book for me. I was very excited by the offer but almost instantaneously I felt overwhelmed by a fear of failure. The thing that sent me over the edge was when he emailed me asking what sites and publications I would like my work sent to for review. Suddenly everything became very real. I got really in my head about the idea of reviews. I suddenly had imaginary expectations to live up to. I worked really hard on a couple scripts and then decided they were not good enough. I had published small runs of comics in the past but this project would have a much wider reach and therefore a wider variety of scrutiny.

I felt frozen. I just stopped talking to him about it. Every time I posted a comic project on instagram I felt like he was looking at it and wondering why the fuck I hadn’t delivered on this great opportunity he had generously offered me. I thought I had burned a bridge . The worst part was during this time he published books by a couple friends and THEY KNEW I had the offer. I felt ashamed and embarrassed.

After a year he contacted me and told me he was still interested in doing a book with me. Finally I admitted that I had a lot of anxiety about the project and apologized for the radio silence on my part. Surprisingly he wasn’t upset at all and informed me he works with a ton of “underground cartoonists” who take forever to get work to him and it didn’t even occur to him to be upset about anything. He reminded me that he wants to publish work of mine because he feels it will be good for his company and not to do me a favor. Reviews are a tool used to sell a book not destroy it. He basically said if a book gets sent to someone who doesn’t like it, they probably just won’t review it. The offer still stands.

I’m in school now and barely have time to breath so whatever book comes out of this will happen after I graduate. The plan is to work on it this summer and come back to it with fresh eyes during school breaks, with publishing to come after my second year. Am I still anxious about it? Yes. Yeah. I am. But! I love critiques. I love having a second or tenth pair of eyes on a thing I’m working on. So maybe reviews aren’t that big of a deal.

This week we heard a lecture from SCCA alumni Brit Zerbo. Brit shared a lot about her triumphs and set backs. She talked about working hard and setting boundaries.One of her last slides included the phrase “Hard skills will get you the interview, and Soft skills will get you the job.” Below is a list of my (current) hard and soft skills.

Hard Skills:

Visual storytelling

I’m an illustrator and cartoonist and I spend a lot of time contemplating ways to present concepts visually. This essential quality brought me into the design program and it is fundamental in all the work I do.

Adaptability

This was listed in as a soft skill in the Linkedin article but I’m gonna go ahead and call it a hard skill. I’m currently learning to use seemingly every piece of complex design software in existence. Every week there are several new challenges and the following week I find myself applying the skills I’ve gained through dealing with those challenges to my work. If there is something that needs to happen I will do the research and learn to skills needed to make it happen.

Concept Development

I love brainstorming and transforming a basic idea into a fully fleshed out cohesive project. I’ll do the research, spitball ideas, strategize and find the people needed to achieve the goal

Soft skills

Conflict Management

I haven’t had an easy life. I was raised by one mentally ill parent and another who struggles with addiction. I’ve learned to adapt to and find common ground with all variety of difficult personalities. I have worked hard to detach from my personal biases and accept the strengths and limitations of the people I work with. As a result of the internal work I’ve done in this area, I have found I can now use these skills to deescalate conflicts between others.

Communication

If I have questions I ask them. If I’m working on a group project I want everyone to know what I know and the skills I have up front. This isn’t purely altruistic, I want to extinguish my stress before it happens and by proxy I want to limit the stress of others.

Empathy

You know what? This isn’t a thing I think of very often. I don’t walk around thinking I’m a super empathetic person, but I often find myself in situations where the people involved make note of my empathy. I am of service to others when I am able, and I can set boundaries with kindness. I recognize that I am imperfect and it is ridiculous to imagine anyone else wouldn’t be.

Areas for Improvement:

Hard Skills

Proficiency in Illustrator

Illustrator is the program I will probably use most often due to my skill set. My skills are improving but my taste is greater than my abilities.

Color Theory

My understanding of the relationship between colors is growing but it’s a struggle. I am trying to remain patient as I learn but often feel like I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.

Soft Skills:

Time Management

I am religiously late to almost everything I ever do and I’m always tired.

Self Confidence

Despite everything I wrote above I still mentally beat the shit out of myself and my work. It doesn’t matter what the project is or how good my grade is, I can find a reason to consider it a failure. I’m trying to keep in mind I’m a student, design is new to me, and a lack of skill is an essential requirement when pursuing any sort of education. Despite that I am struggling with feelings of inadequacy. There’s a lot of ego involved and I’m trying to admit to that and be gentle with myself about it but it’s hard.