Arango House

That post about the Dwell/PST architecture contest has me looking up California modern designs again. I was particularly struck recently by these images of Arango House designed by John Lautner. Now, this house is actually in Acalpulco, Mexico, but the Frank Lloyd Wright trained architect is well know for some of his California designs and his style certainly carried over here.

Cat and Maus.

Summer vibes are coming fast. There is that spring scent on the wind that tickles ones memory and in an instant calls up flashes of lacksydasical days spent over past summers. Moments devoted entirely to whim, broken down with no structure, moving on pure instinct. These flashbacks often come oversaturated and washed out, that moment before your eyes fully readjust from the battery of a camera flash. This feeling is of course probably aided by the fact that many summer photos turn out the same way. It is as if the film was swimming in the same summer daze as the memories. These photos from Maus. are a glimpse into that haze.

Modernism x LEGO

I haven't been shy in the past about showing my love for California architecture. I think we've also made our taste for modernism clear. With these interests, I couldn't resist going through the entries to the LEGO building contest that asked entrants to construct an original home design inspired by California mid-century modern architecture. Dwell and Pacific Standard Time teamed up to run the contest as if it didn't already sound enticing enough. There were quite a few entries that I enjoyed. Many caused some serious nostalgia, picking up on some of my favorite elements of L.A. architecture such as building into hills and of course the attention to natural interaction with constructed spaces. Below are a few of my favorite entries, the rest can be found here.

Villa Hillcrest

 

Millennium House

 

Overton

The MoMo Home

Stillwater

 

Cedar Forest Home

Happy Easter

Happy Easter! Here are some Easter inspired photos from Jordan's photography blog.

Candy Typography Casts Sweet Spells

Last night we were working on a project using gummy letters from Haribo. When we were finished we decided to make words with the piles of letters that were left over. This set of words came from a collage that I made. Jordan hung it on the wall ages ago and whenever I am in bed I like to look at it. I am not sure where I got them from but I think they are lovely in a dark way. As lame as it sounds, seeing the words spelled out with candy reminds me how important it is to speak sweetly to people.

Symmetry yrtemmyS

Symmetry is something that I've always loved to use for composition. I mean, supposedly its natural to be drawn towards symmetry, right? I thought it might be interesting to take some of the photos that I've shot and flip them to make symmetrical images. I think the results are kind of interesting, and it affords a new way to look at my photos. While in some the mirroring is quite obvious, in others, I chose more abstract images, so that the mirroring might be more subtle.

Night Slugs

After taking a look at the visuals of Ghostly International in a previous post, I began thinking of other labels whose style I enjoyed. Night Slugs was one that immediately caught my mind. Rather than the more historically mindful, eclectic approach of Ghostly, Night Slugs has a much harder edged, modern aesthetic. This makes sense given that unlike the more atmospheric focus of Ghostly, Night Slugs is concerned with music that has its feet firmly rooted to the dance floor. Their look is much more immediately cohesive. This is in part due to the minimal use of texture (or rather, obvious texture) on their covers. The digital look that the covers give off certainly matches their brand of music.

Lil Silva - Night Skanker

Girl Unit - IRL

Kingdom - Dreama

Jam City - Magic Drops

Bok Bok - Southside

Issue 8 Cover Moodboard

Top [ Left: John Singer Sargent - Daughters of Edward Darley Boit | Right: Diego Velazquez - Las Meninas ]
Bottom [ Left: Rodarte for Lula | Center: Louis Vuitton S/S 2012 Collection // Siri Tollerød | Right: Siri Tollerød for Lula ]

Automatic Doodling

The automatic nature of doodling has always attracted me in a similar way to collage, as I described in a previous post. For all of the same reasons it is a perfect way to move past the negative feedback loop that is created by the pressure I put on myself when I attempt to make everything that I create exceptional. So when I hit a block recently, I started doodling. The pattern that I use in these images is one that I have been using in doodles since I began developing it in my senior year of high school. At the time, I was heavily interested in graffiti, and a lot of the forms that are employed in the pattern are those that my hand had picked up from sketching letter forms. Similarly, the collaged/pasted/edited/subverted elements of these images comes from that artistic background. It shouldn't be too hard to see where graffiti roots would play a role in drawing on or covering other people's work.

Being a graphic designer, I do not focus on naturalistic representation most of the time, instead looking to perfect my typography. As a result, my ability to render images that are faithful to their sources has fallen. Many of my friends are illustrators, and particularly skilled at create naturalistic images. This causes me to expect a level of work from myself that is really beyond what I'm capable of at the moment. When a drawing doesn't come out the way that I want it too, rather than work off of the problems, I will attempt to skip the early steps that I need as a foundation to move forward. This only hurts my ability to render in the end. Doodling like this plays an important role because it provides a stress free situation in which I can work, so that I can clear my mind and build my skills in later attempts.

Collage: Freedom from College

Collage has come to my rescue once again. I find that it has repeatedly helped my deal with creative slumps. It is perfect, because it requires neither strict use of skills nor high concept. It simply allows the creator to get ideas on a page quickly. Now, of course, mindless collages that are merely excersizes in composition may not be the most interesting, but the freeing nature of the work can result in something far greater than originally intended. Additionally, I've found that they can help break the feedback loop that entraps me. At times I feel like I am not creating enough, or enough good work. That leads me to self doubt, which only causes me to cease creating and dwell on my past mistakes, rather than moving forward. Collages offer a stress free mode of work where I can be free of the notion that every mark I make must exude my brilliance.

The Indecisive Moment

I'm starting a new movement in photography. I feel like alll of my work recently has been pinned down in relation to Bresson's concept of the decisive moment. Now, from what will follow, it may seem that I am against Bresson's method of street photography, but this is not the case. Don't misenterpret my words here. I love the dramatic tension and lively narrative that Bresson's work captures, but to only love one form of photography seems quite dull to me. From here on out, I am interested in exploring the indecisive moment. The stillness, the relaxation of spaces that exist unmoving. The innanimate spaces that stoicly accept the atmosphere cast upon them day, after day, after day. The languid pace at which these scenes transpire affords a more medatative image, one that gives the illusion of relying not on timing, but rather simply on ability to see and mechanical skill. Of course, this appearance is false. The actor is simply one which we do not recognize immediately. It is the aforementioned atmosphere that takes the front of the scene here. The repetative nature with which the atmophere acts is the core of its indecisiveness. It is a moment that only happened once, yes, but due to the lack of agency that we afford the actors we are unable to recognize the moment's individuality. Through affixing this title of the indecisive moment, the viewer is forced to question whether or not the image being presented is in fact indecisive, bringing about inspection of the seemingly mundane with renewed vigor. To begin exploring this concept, I thought I'd look into the work of Andreas Goroncy. Of course the thought I presented above are my own, and as the creator of these photos Andreas Goroncy is entitled to apply meaning, I just thought they would present an interesting illustration of my ideas.