Design Week, hosted by the Design Council of Saskatchewan, will be held October 21-25. The week is an open invitation to the public to learn about the different areas of design through a series of free lectures and other educational events such as tours, open houses and symposiums culminating in the Premiers' Awards of Excellence in Design. Check it out!
For more information, click here.
I've been updating my portfolio the last while and came across some pieces I designed/illustrated that I haven't seen in ages. Like this Marilyn Monroe typographic illustration (circa 2003). Typography is one of my main interests of practice right now (in addition to emerging technologies like augmented reality). I'm not particularly fond of this illustration as I feel it's a bit pedestrian in execution, but I would like to revisit the concept and do an updated series:
Then there's this campaign for Winnipeg's Millennium Library (circa 2007) that was developed in collaboration with Peter Skakum and Carol Marshall of Tangent Strategies. It included transit advertising, direct-mail, brochures and more with the sole intent of generating financial donations in order to buy more books to fill the shelves with new worlds of imagination. We had a lot of fun creating this (but it also helped to have a client that was completely open to anything). The campaign was so popular that an auction was held for the in-branch banners that were located at all #YWG library branches. My favorite of the seven-part series was always the Paris Hilton heiress one. It's like a timecapsule of 2007. I still like the concept (would tweak aspects of the design if redoing today) and it's one of my favorite portfolio pieces.
When I was a little girl, my father bought a trailer. It wasn't a large one (at least not compared to the second home on wheels that people drive around with today) but rather a 13ft Bonair trailer with a gloriously tacky early 80s interior. Actually, after a quick Google search I found it exactly being sold in Nova Scotia:
During my recent return home to Winnipeg, I was saddened to learn that my father sold his as well. It hadn't been used in years - actually more than a decade - and I can understand not wanting a family of raccoons to seek squatters rights in it, but a tinge of sadness came over me nonetheless as that trailer defined my summers from the age of five to seventeen. It felt like another chapter of my life had closed.
The great outdoors by way of sleeping on uncomfortable foam cushions and having an only occassionally functioning toilet is something that everyone needs to suffer through experience. It gives a new appreciation towards nature and the realization that we are all just animals at the end of the day confined to the caves that we can afford and the social groups that will accept us. My most enjoyable moments traveling with the trailer involve staying at Tunnel Mountain Campground in Banff, Alberta, a pristine place with amazing views. I recall my father once sitting at the picnic table adjacent to our stall feeding a gopher that had grown accustomed to begging for scraps. When its lunch of bread crusts was gone, they left...and by not more than 30 seconds later a coyote that had been eyeing everything grabbed the gopher and had IT for lunch. Ah, the circle of life. You don't see that while staying at a Hilton.
The Rockies and Pacific Northwest definitely define travel for the first chapter of my life, driving for days through the shadows of giants while listening to AM radio helped develop my undying love for Fleetwood Mac and cowichan sweaters. But the Black Hills/Yellowstone region also provided many memories. I recall witnessing both a group of wild horses running free in the distance off some highway in South (or was it North?) Dakota and a herd of buffalo doing the same in Yellowstone National Park, like a National Geographic spread come to life. It's moments like that wherein you realize life is beautiful, the world is wonderful and poems and songs need to be written to celebrate it.
Then there are moments wherein you realize the yang. A 13ft trailer is not going to have a shower and using the shared facilities first thing in the morning at a KOA is equivalent to the ninth gate of hell. Long line-ups. Wet floors teeming with mildew and other germs. Intermittant streams of lukewarm, moreso bordering on cold, waterflow. I don't miss this. And I surely don't miss the few occassions when a campground couldn't be found and we'd have to stay overnight at a roadside rest. At least we weren't all murdered by a drifter.
I don't know if I will ever experience camping again, as in this chapter of my life I'm more interested in high thread count sheetsets and exploring other continents (in that order) but it was a great experience while it lasted. One that I will cherish and think of fondly whenever I get sick of my iPod and put on the scratchy realness of AM radio, hopefully playing "Rhiannon" .
Awesome day today. Received word that I won a University and College Designers Association (UCDA) Award of Excellence for work I did on this piece - the 2011-2012 SIAST Annual Report. The wire-o bound document with multiple covers embellished with silver foil will also be displayed in the permanant archive at UCDA headquarters. It's especially significant as my employer was recognized amongst nearly 1000 entries including submissions from institutes such as Harvard and Yale. #goSIAST #Booyah!
More to follow in October when awards are officially handed out at the UCDA Design Conference in Kentucky:
My first night in Shinjuku, jetlagged and lost in translation, I went to the 7-11 at the corner of the block to get something to eat. 7-11s in Japan are slightly different from the model in North America. As few homes in metro Tokyo have space for a traditional kitchen, they act as neighborhood grocers with plenty of take-out food options ranging from traditional Japanese to Italian dishes, not just stacks of Doritos and vats of flavoured slush (although you could get those too if homesick). Combing the aisles and endless options, I found something that resembled the stir-fry consisting of chicken, noodles, vegetables and teriyaki sauce that I love to order at Palatal Mongolian Grill in Winnipeg. Of course, this is what I thought it was as everything was written in traditional Japanese characters and I couldn't read a darn thing. I was tired. It was food. I heated it up in the microwave and was on my merry way. Many of my nights end this way. Sadly and regrettably.
Shinjuku is my favorite part of the megalopolis known as Tokyo. Known as the "red light" district of the city, it is located next to the downtown core where many, many suits and their briefcases spend long hours strengthening the country's GDP only to spend their evenings playing pachinko! and openly purchasing anime porn. Besides this, Shinjuku is also known for having every square inch of building space lit up in the glow of neon lights. When advertising agencies or music video directors need a futuristic, hip vision that could be earth or could be a newly found planet in an alternate universe, this is where they go.
Anyway, back at the hotel I turned on the wonderfully weird world of Japanese TV and dug into my meal with a set of plastic utensils that I brought from home. I cannot, no matter how hard I try, ever get the hang of chopsticks. The first few bites of my entrée went down well. They were tasty and flavorful...and mostly noodles. Then I started to encounter a few crunchy bits. "Odd", I thought to myself. "Perhaps they didn't get all the bones out of the chicken?"
I continued eating and watching TV, not paying attention to my plate. The crunchy bits remained (I just spit them out) but then I bit into something that actually adhered itself to one of my teeth. Not between my teeth, mind you...on my tooth. Making my way to the bathroom mirror to investigate, I was grossed out by what I saw: a grayish thing suctioned to one of my incisors. I got it off and immediately went back to see what my dinner actually consisted of.
It was the first and last time I ate octopus.
Shinjuku by day:
Shinjuku by night:
To view more images of Japan, click here.
My bathroom renovation is finally done!!! Or at least 97% done*. As this is my first home and the first time I've gotten to use my living space as a true blank canvas, I'm quite proud of my work (and my dad's hard labour). Who knew that in my 30s I'd get excited about a faucet? Here is a before-and-after:
The picture on the left was taken when I viewed the property. The picture on the right is how it looks today. The only thing that remained is the vanity itself, modernized with contemporary handles. Everything else was trashed...especially the toilet seat made out of Pinocchio. Flooring transitioned from low-end gray laminate to vinyl plank in African Darkwood, countertop is "Tatami Wasabi" by Arborite, the new mirror was a lucky find in the clearance aisle of HomeSense (perfect size and matches floor), towel rack and "Trones" storage unit from IKEA. The waterfall faucet, my favorite upgrade, is a work of art; I've wasted a lot of water as it's so soothing just to watch it trickle down from the spout. *The only things remaining are upgrading my lighting to something more modern and a new door, just because.
I even bought all new towels as I noticed Pantone is whoring themselves out to the homewares market now. Not sure how many people outside of the design community know what Pantone is, but whatever - they are soft and fluffy.
There's still, regrettably, a lot of late 80s "dusty rose" colouring in the rest of my unit but it will soon be gone too. I've dropped a lot of other things and am focusing on making my condo the ultimate art/design project.
At the English Garden in Assiniboine Park:
My favorite thing to do when visiting Winnipeg is take a walk through LaBarriere Park, a pristine greenspace on the outer limits of #YWG that few people seem to know about as its forest trails are often devoid of anything other than squirrels, rabbits and the occassional teenager using the cloak of privacy the park offers to practice the correct method of marijauna inhalation outside of the prying eyes of their parents.
The parks 84 hectares are split between well-manicured lawns hosting empty baseball diamonds and picnic tables, to a lush forest that alternately resembles something out of a medieval fairytale to the haunted woods of the Blair Witch Project (depending on the season). When I lived in Winnipeg, I would walk my ol' dog Reggie here on a daily basis and use the relative solitude and anonymity at LaBarriere to sing. Yes, sing. Outloud, terribly, to an audience of elm and oak. It was my 70s rock phase too. Despite sounding worse than nails on a chalkboard, there is something so liberating about doing things in public that you normally wouldn't have the confidence to do otherwise. This statement can also cover my most memorable moment at the park when I hiked in on two people doing the, uh, "horizontal polka". The couple, in their 50s based on the dendrochronology I observed on their bodies, was moritifed. I got out of dodge and couldn't stop chuckling to myself wondering if poison oak on the nether regions would be something they suffer in addition to extreme embarrassment.
If legal, socially acceptable pursuits are more one's fancy, Winnipeg parks still have a lot to offer. Assiniboine Park, the biggest at 1100 acres, has a zoo, several restaurants (fine dining and casual), skating rinks/ponds, a conservatory housing exotic plants, an English garden, a cricket field and outdoor stages that showcase local music and performances by the famous Royal Winnipeg Ballet during the summer. One could spend hours there in serenity away from the city's traffic woes, noise and other annoyances. It's an oasis.
Outside of the -40 degree celcius winters, most Winnipeg parks are a slice of zen which is why I name them the #2 thing to see and do there.