Wednesday 30 May 2012
blah
Zettie thinks this looks scary :-(
Labels: typography
my appendage
So... to be honest, I really don't know what to do for this post. I tried mapping out "my world" but I couldn't figure out where I was going to go with it. I didn't go far. I did.. so little. Seriously. Whatever amount of sketches you think I've done... Take that... multiplied by zero point seven.
See what I mean?
Aaaaaaaa. I tried actually mapping but it's so simple and ugly and I didn't finish it so I'm not going to share it. So I've turned to my appendage and yes.... yes. I thought of something lame and uncool - wait, isn't that the same thing? anyway - here it is... get ready to yawn.
So um... x + y = xy
Super lame. But wouldn't that be cool? Okay fine maybe not. But it would definitely look cool. Walking in the streets of KL with a BoomBagBox playing some Bob Marley out loud like it's nobody's business. You'd have music everywhere you go and you wouldn't have to turn it off to save battery because it's.. um... solar powered! Wait, does that mean it would only work during the day? Uh... I don't know. Heheh heheh heh. Shows you how much I know about science.
Here's another lame one. But hey it came from my head and that counts! This is a plate that has a compartment under it for phones so people can read text messages and facebook and tweet while they're eating. But then I thought... How the hell are people supposed to use the phone though? They can't touch the screen. Unless there's a special kind of.. thin glass kind of thing so you could touch on the plate to control your phone (assuming you have a touchscreen phone, that is.... oh and since you'd have to touch your plate... uhh I guess it wouldn't be a good idea for very hygienic and OCD people haha and err normal people)
So... basically I have failed to blog an awesome entry for this topic! SIGH.....
Over and out.
Lynz
x
Labels: creativethinking
Tuesday 29 May 2012
eccentricity
everyone was wearing fingerless gloves
( YES, WATCH THIS VIDEO BEFORE READING THIS ENTRY :D )
I watched this video and I think it's pretty cool what he said about how everything we do today that's normal was probably weird a long time when nobody was doing it, and then someone who was.. "eccentric" at the time in his society/culture comes up with the idea of doing something and does it, and it might have seemed very weird at the time... but then everyone starts accepting it and doing the same thing as it becomes normalized or.. socially accepted. Oh yeah, not the video up there though. Haha it's this one:
I guess to put it in layman's terms, a person who is eccentric is just a person who is different and unique. Doesn't "fit in" because he or she doesn't want to or simply does not care. I mean, I'm not neccesarily accurate but hey my blog wasn't set up to give people accurate information... it's just where I voice out my thoughts about something right? Right.
Eccentricity. It particularly makes me think of hipsters. If you look up hipsters on Urban Dictionary you would find hateful definitions by people
- Such people are the true "cool cats" of the world. They're those "in the know", ahead of the norm. They're not of the mainstream. They be eternal beatniks! (And certainly not hippies). Yes, they're people who are-- or at least consider themselves to be-- "hip", as in "hip to the jive". Older hip hipsters will of course always look down on latter-day versions, those (younger) folks who think themselves to be hipsters simply because, for instance, they're able to exhibit a little facial peach-fuzz and have a taste for some generic pop music that they've deemed to be, umm, "non-corporate". Hah!
- People who think they are original and unique for having "innovative" opinions, when really the only opinion they have is the opposite of whatever is considered "mainstream" at the time. these people think they are above everyone else for being so "different," and thinking they are the shit for not conforming to society when really their whole life revolves around being different JUST to be different so people think they are cool. Being a hipster basically means THINKING that you can fool people into thinking that you have it all figured out by using reverse-psychology, when really you want to be accepted just as much as anyone else...Hipsters just try harder.
That's not all true. First of all, I don't think it was necessary in the first place to label them hipsters. I mean, everyone is different. Not everyone listens to the same music and is interested in the same thing. I mean sure there could be some of them who are just doing it to be all cool and shit because maybe they think they have dry personalities, and yeah, they do try too hard. So hard it really is pathetic. But there are really different people out there and I like people like that. It's nice to see something/someone who's going in a different direction.
Everyone is so busy going in the same direction, trying to impress each other, like who has the new top from Zara or Mango or TopShop.. Who's seen Justin Bieber's latest music video and stuff like that... But not everyone's fascinated by all that; everyone's different and I guess true "hipsters" don't really give a crap if they're left out in terms of fashion or music that's popular at the time. They just care about what they like and what makes them feel good. Doesn't matter if it's new or old or whatever. Whatever they do, it's for themselves. It's not about "I hope he/she likes what I wear today." or like "I hope people look at me and think I'm cool because of the stuff I'm wearing the stuff I bought from TopShop yesterday!" It's just like... they wear what they want to wear because they feel comfortable in it or because they like it or because they like the pattern or texture or color, or I don't know. Whatever reason it is, it's not for other people but for themselves. Wow, look at me, I speak like I'm representing them. Haha but yeah.
Secondly, them being labelled as "different" doesn't mean it's a bad thing, right? Right! If you're different, at least you're not invisible to society, at least you're unique, and even if people start talking about you, it doesn't mean they all talk shit about you. In fact, a lot of people would be inspired, some would even be secretly inspired deep down inside but denies it on the surface
because they're too scared to be different and be judged by their peers.
I think Daria is a pretty good example of someone who is... different. But I think there are like 2948202039 eccentric people in this world. But then again my definition of eccentric is like so biased.
It's funny though, in this series everyone else is supposed to normal and she's different, but if you pay attention you're like, wait a minute! She's the normal one! Can't you relate though? I mean come on, don't tell me you've never felt like everyone else is like.. crazy and you're the only sane one and you're just secretly judging everyone? Oh, is it just me?
Let's go back to what I said in my first paragraph. Don't you think it's true though? Everything that used to be strange or socially abnormal eventually becomes socially normal or socially accepted, or whatever. I mean look at the clothes they sell at TopShop, Forever21 and Cotton On nowadays, they're so... hipster. So everyones trying to be hipsters now? I even see similar stuff at Mango and Dorothy Perkins, and like old people shops... And mom's shop at Dorothy Perkins! So moms wear hipster clothes now too!
So my point is... I don't really know. But I basically impregnated my entry with a whole lot of crap that came out of my brain. I'm sorry if I'm boring you but here comes the interesting bits!
I believe that only eccentric people can be truly good musicians. Seriously. Because they stand for what they believe and stuff like that and YouTube and creativity has made it possible to become famous without having too much money. God bless the founder of YouTube.
So anyway, have you ever heard of Buckethead? He is amazing. UH-MAZE-ING.
So anyway, have you ever heard of Buckethead? He is amazing. UH-MAZE-ING.
This first video doesn't show how an insanely amazing guitarist he is but this is here simply because I just wanted to highlight his "eccentricity" and you can watch it until you see what I mean or something.
This one's just to show how awesome he really is live:
This is what his album music really sounds like. Oh and some advice, don't judge by the first 30 seconds because I am not just making you listen to some typical metal stuff okay! Listen beyond 30 seconds and you'll see what I mean about his... different-ness.
Lastly, this one you'd probably know if you used to play Guitar Hero... Like when it first came out, I think Jordan was in it? I'm not so sure. It might be the 2nd one? I forget.
I repeat... AMAZING! I think I die every time I listen to his songs and then come back to life. I can't imagine being at a Buckethead concert. I think I would die... but like not come back to life. It's okay. If I die at his concert, at least he'd be all like "Oh I heard about this girl dying at my concert... It's such a shame. I got my people to send her family some of my guitars and a bunch of flowers. Rest in peace.." Hahahhaa okay the fact that I even thought of that is... kinda creepy but anyway!
Sorry if I bored you there. Moving on!
Sorry if I bored you there. Moving on!
I think I know about 10 people who I consider to be eccentric. Let's talk about this one guy I'm very very close with. He's really different (yeah, what a way to start..). First of all, he doesn't like school. Sound familiar? Yeah who likes school, right? Haha. But anyway he hated school ever since he was in kindergarden and his parents had a really hard time forcing him to go to school everyday. You'd think it's a minor problem but then it shit gets serious... He kept moving schools and getting held back but sometimes skip a year stuff like that. On some days it wasn't such a hard time getting him to go to school but on other days it's just extremely impossible, you would not believe the things his parents had to go through in the mornings to get him to go to school. And they both have to go to work after sending him.
One day his dad got really really REALLY pissed at him and forced him to go to school. No mercy. So this guy gets really angry and starts crying and raging but he can't argue with his extremely angry father so he just sucks it all up, bottles up his emotions and just goes to school. A few hours later his parents got a call from his teacher telling them that he had a seizure and they didn't know what to do so his parents rushed to the school and took him to the hospital. They found out he was epileptic.
From that day onwards his parents didn't want to force him to do things he didn't want to anymore because he gets angry so easily and with his epilepsy, it would stress him out which usually leads to a seizure. His parents were always terrified by all the times they've seen him seize and so no more forcing would be thrown in his direction.
So now he just does everything he wants to and he doesn't have to do what his parents tell him. Sometimes he doesn't even shower for a week, he would eat whatever he wants to whenever he wants to, his parents would buy him almost anything he asks for (thankfully, the stuff he wants aren't that ridiculous). He's learned to do a lot of things for a person who doesn't go to school. Obviously the stuff you don't learn in school. He learned to make music on FL Studio, he learned to use Photoshop, some programme called something something Cinema 4D? He can play the guitar, the drums, the keyboard/piano, he's a crazy gamer, too. Okay I'm making him sound pretty normal.
But I don't know. I think he's really different especially because of the lack of exposure to socialization or something. He's very anti-social. He doesn't really talk to anyone except for like a little group of friends from the last school he went to. Probably because he doesn't like it when people ask him why he doesn't go to school. People look down on him and I think that's their loss. I think he has a very high IQ because I notice how he can learn stuff so quickly and independently. It's like when I finally figure out how to play some guitar riff which usually takes about 42083 years (hahahahahahaha) he only takes 5 minutes to master it. And I'm the one who taught him how to play. It's so unfair. I'm like level 2 and he's like already on level 100. But that could be because I'm a girl and I'm kind of stupid... or just slow..... but I think I may be stupid.
So anyway. Eccentric people are awesome! Eccentricity should always be looked at positively. People who fail to see the good qualities in eccentricity should die. Heheheheh heheh.
Here are two eccentric people that I love so dearly and my favorite quotes.
One day his dad got really really REALLY pissed at him and forced him to go to school. No mercy. So this guy gets really angry and starts crying and raging but he can't argue with his extremely angry father so he just sucks it all up, bottles up his emotions and just goes to school. A few hours later his parents got a call from his teacher telling them that he had a seizure and they didn't know what to do so his parents rushed to the school and took him to the hospital. They found out he was epileptic.
From that day onwards his parents didn't want to force him to do things he didn't want to anymore because he gets angry so easily and with his epilepsy, it would stress him out which usually leads to a seizure. His parents were always terrified by all the times they've seen him seize and so no more forcing would be thrown in his direction.
So now he just does everything he wants to and he doesn't have to do what his parents tell him. Sometimes he doesn't even shower for a week, he would eat whatever he wants to whenever he wants to, his parents would buy him almost anything he asks for (thankfully, the stuff he wants aren't that ridiculous). He's learned to do a lot of things for a person who doesn't go to school. Obviously the stuff you don't learn in school. He learned to make music on FL Studio, he learned to use Photoshop, some programme called something something Cinema 4D? He can play the guitar, the drums, the keyboard/piano, he's a crazy gamer, too. Okay I'm making him sound pretty normal.
But I don't know. I think he's really different especially because of the lack of exposure to socialization or something. He's very anti-social. He doesn't really talk to anyone except for like a little group of friends from the last school he went to. Probably because he doesn't like it when people ask him why he doesn't go to school. People look down on him and I think that's their loss. I think he has a very high IQ because I notice how he can learn stuff so quickly and independently. It's like when I finally figure out how to play some guitar riff which usually takes about 42083 years (hahahahahahaha) he only takes 5 minutes to master it. And I'm the one who taught him how to play. It's so unfair. I'm like level 2 and he's like already on level 100. But that could be because I'm a girl and I'm kind of stupid... or just slow..... but I think I may be stupid.
So anyway. Eccentric people are awesome! Eccentricity should always be looked at positively. People who fail to see the good qualities in eccentricity should die. Heheheheh heheh.
Here are two eccentric people that I love so dearly and my favorite quotes.
JULIAN CASABLANCAS
"With a hundred ways to do a dozen things, why not try it all?"
"Vanity can easily overtake wisdom. It usually overtakes common sense."
"Anger is weakness, patience is strength."
KURT COBAIN
"I'd rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not."
"It's okay to eat fish because they don't have any feelings."
"Wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are."
Labels: creativethinking
Sunday 27 May 2012
wings and things
If I could have wings, they would be made of bananas and other cool things.
Hahaha wow I just rhymed. I should be a rapper. K maybe not. But wouldn't that look cool? I don't know how it would function though since bananas are so heavy. I made this during the first week of our course when we had nothing to do; when we were assignment-free. Ah, those were the good old days. I mean..... boring.. those days were pretty boring... Heheh heheh. Total snoozefest.
Anyway...
Ew the colors look horrible because I accidentally saved it in CMYK. Learned my lesson there. Well, even if they were in the right colors, this piece would look horrible anyway.. Um so these are the things I thought about therefore those are the things I'll be "concentrating" on when I'm blogging. Supposedly...
Anyway when I process the word wings, I thought... wouldn't it be cool if wings could be made out of anything? Even like.. Bananas. Or pizza. Or pears. Then you'd have... a pear of wings. Ha ha ha ha hahahahhahahhhahahaha.
At one point I wondered why pegasus has wings. And then it progressed into why do animals even have wings? Why do they have to fly?
I think wings represent freedom because they enable you to fly and therefore you can escape any situation with it. Well.. not completely.
Wow, this is such a bad entry. I really don't know what to say. Uhh let me distract you with my randomagical powers!
Ooooooooooooooh are you distracted? Are you distracted yet?
Meh. Fail. Um so... I guess wings are cool though. But you know what's cooler?
Chicken wings.
Labels: creativethinking
Saturday 26 May 2012
the forgotten ones
This is just a short post on what I left out on the stuff I've already blogged about.
Basically they're just pictures. I don't know why I'm blogging them but I think since I took the time to "make" them, why not.... (Even if they suck)
I was sketching out some stuff last night and I realized I've brainstormed about aesthetics VS. the machine earlier and it looked so much better than what I blogged! I mean, the ideas. So... I don't know. I was thinking of doing "take three" but I have a lot of other stuff to blog about so maybe I'll put that on hold. But I'll show you the stuff I forgot to upload because they were on my phone.
This was my not so brainstormey brainstorm on creativity, but I managed to blog a lot on it because I absolutely love talking about it.
And here's a part of my costume idea development. I haven't figured out how to sow yet so I'm pretty much screwed..... I'll just wing it tonight and find a 'creative' way to sow. Hahahahahsgdjkhds
Labels: creativethinking
Friday 25 May 2012
aesthetics vs. the machine: take two
I apologize in advance for this post because I don't think I'll be able to nail it. But I'm going to go ahead and try anyway. I mean why not, right?
Um... so... I'm going to start with cars because I don't know where to start but I remember Mr. C mentioning cars when he told us to blog about this topic so I'm just gonna work my way out from there.
What's more important in a car? The appearance, or the stuff it can do? Well.. I guess it all depends on the person who is buying the car. Let's say this guy in his early 30s has a busy life because, his office is in the city and somewhere very difficult to find parking, has a wife who works as a teacher at a public school, with 2 kids who are both in kindergarden -- he has to send all his 3 family members to their respective daily destinations. Income-wise not so glorious..... because he's a mail-boy at the office...
So you're there thinking...
Oh yeah he definitely drives one of these
Ok no, but maybe one of these.
But in fact, he actually drives one of these
Wait, wait... no let's exaggerate a bit here..
He actually drives one of these
So you're there all like... What?! How can he even afford a Rolls Royce? He's just a mail-boy! And that's another thing! Why would a mail-boy be driving a Rolls Royce? And how the hell do you find a parking spot for a Rolls Royce for a mail-boy?
Peer pressure makes the impossible.... possible. He should be driving that red car up there because it suits his monthly income, caters to the size of his family and is small therefore easier to find parking spots, especially when there is no such thing as special privilege parking for mail-boys, and most importantly, it gets him where he has to be! Functionality is obviously more important than looks but when peer pressure comes into the picture, everything goes haywire.
Take clothes for example. Some people don't really care about brands, some do. So some people would be willing to spend a ridiculous amount of money just to buy a piece of clothing while others spend as little as one-digit to buy a piece of clothing. Because in the end, all that really matters is as long as you're wearing clothes.... that's good enough. But people are trying so hard to impress each other and keeping up with fashion and yada yada yada... that we all have to buy new clothes every time there is a new trend when it's actually not even essential.. One thing for sure though, is that t-shirt and jeans never go out of style.
(not that I'm saying all cheap clothes are folded while the expensive ones are on hangers haha)
Look at this.
Then, look at this.
Which one's prettier? Yes, yes, the bottom one, I know. Even if my feet are in the picture, you think it's pretty. Just because I put that one image I took when I was in Cambridge and all the cherry blossoms were falling, and used my tablet to do magical stuff on Photoshop. It definitely looks prettier than just the text in Times New Roman.
Unless you're a diva or a princess or some sort, you do not need a pen that costs you 67 times more than what you would pay for to get an ordinary un-aesthetically-pleasing pen. As long as you can write with it then it's fine!
So with this I guess I'll just end my post here because I don't think I'm doing a good job on this topic anyway...
Labels: creativethinking
Tuesday 22 May 2012
creativity improved!
Because Lynz loves flowers!
I think everyone is creative. Anyone can be creative. I mean sure, everyone has to stick to rules and instructions when it comes to doing work for somebody else but when it's for yourself or when there aren't any rules, you tend to go crazy with your ideas and that's when people get creative. Creativity is a way of expressing yourself. Yeah, that sounds pretty typical but I think it's accurate. It's a way of communicating, or something.
For example, some people dress the way they do to show other people what kind of person they are. Not everyone does it intentionally though. Some people do it because of their workplace or their jobs, some people do it to look rich even if they're not; just like how some people dress like they're poor even if they're not. It's like, you dress yourself in a way that you want to be perceived as. I don't quite know if I'm making any sense but let's try that again. Where people aren't required to wear uniform or a specific kind of clothing or fashion, people dress the way they want, and the way they want to dress comes from their brain, so that somehow means the way they want to dress shows their personality. Some people intentionally dress how they want to be perceived as, they picked specific pieces of clothing and carefully “measured” how well they go together, including the little accessories, but other people just dress the way they do because it’s the only thing that they could find that was clean and as for the accessories probably because they were the only ones visible if per say the person was a very messy person who’s room is where you wouldn’t be able to see the floor. Heheh… heheheh definitely not me though. Oh no no no.
Other than that, some people show creativity through cupcakes. Back at home I would bake like almost all the time because of orders and all these people would request such cute things on their cakes and I’m always like ohhhh my goodness how the hell am I going to do that? But then I would find my way in the end because of… well… let’s just say I’m blessed with creativity. Hahahah ok no. But you know, there isn’t a book or YouTube video that shows me how to make a Jack Daniel’s bottle with fondant or how to make a ketupat with fondant or whatever, in full detail and stuff. I mean maybe there is if you Google 23793819 different things and you would finally find something similar to what you’re actually looking for but I just don’t have the time to do that so I just make up my own way of doing all these things with fondant. It’s pretty fun. Like this one time I was studying in the UK and my mom got an order for cupcakes with graduation hats on them and she had no idea how she would make it and then I showed her how to do it with kitchen rolls, and I took pictures of it and uploaded it to a private album on Facebook and she went like ohhhhhhhhh okay I can do that! It was cute. She would update me on her orders and I would give her little tips on how to do the stuff she didn’t know how to do. But she’s pretty creative herself, obviously. But she has a different taste to mine in terms of color schemes… I think it’s probably because we’re 30 years apart.
So yeah, I guess creativity also means finding another way of doing something. Oh and here's the picture I put together for my mom:
People can be creative through music as well. Like, you know how when there’s a new song out and it becomes very very popular and when you’re on YouTube, there are like 282039 different covers of that particular song. I love going through cover videos. Sometimes you could find a very very good cover that you wouldn’t even listen to the original song. And most times when there is a very very annoying song that you very much loathe and then one day you find yourself singing to that very song but in a slightly different way because of a good cover.. For example, listen to this:
Horrible, isn't it? My ears bled when I listened to it. And I didn't even listen to it till the end. But now, listen to this:
See? Dave Days makes it a thousand times better. And I think I saw you dancing a little bit over there. A-ha!
Anyway, I think Parodies are very very creative, too. Like, the first parody I’ve ever seen is probably Blink 182’s All The Small Things. Is that even considered a parody? Haha I was very very young when I saw that but I remember it very well, they did a series of parodies of the different music videos from different pop artists at the time, like Britney and Christina and The Backstreet Boys and All Saints.
Creativity through art has come a very long way. I believe that true art does not have any rules. I’m not quite sure how to say this but it is insane how there are 29320381 ways of making art. You could paint with acrylic; you could paint with poster paint, oil pastels. You could draw a portrait with crayons, or paint with melted crayons, or color pencils, or charcoal. You could drop a blob of ink on paper and then blow in different directions with a straw and it would look amazing. You could combine so many different techniques into one piece of artwork.
I'm not very artistic but I can find quick and lame ways to making "art". I googled toast - because I love toast, I mean who doesn't love toast right? - and this came up:
Oh and since I'm creative, I even took the time to make that circular frame around the pretty bread. Wait, wait, I didn't type toast to get this image, I think I typed bread first. Anyway, so I re-created it by tracing it and coloring it in very badly but it looks errr.... creative!
Say whatever you want but I think it's pretty darn cute!
Then I googled toast and this came up:
I cut it out from the background and played around with it and made....
This! Look at all those cute little multi-colored toast! Wait, is toasts a proper term for more than one toast? Is toast even singular? Ok let's just call them toasties... because we're creative.
9gag is pretty cool in that it’s like a whole different bunch of people posting these hilarious posts and nobody even knows who makes them. I mean, who invented memes anyway? They’re just simple cartoons that are recurring characters on 9gag and we know them, and we know their personalities and we even make up voices for them. I find that very amusing.
Hahahahhahahahahah. Anyway, that's not the point... the point is, I was trying to figure out where to get a wig and I managed to find a few places but they all sold wigs at 3 digit prices and I was like.... Heck no I am not spending gjhefh-hundred Ringgit just to buy a wig and mess it all up so it looks all surfer-dude-ish for one Communication Theory exercise. And I wanted to get a tie-dye shirt but you know when you're looking for something specific and you're looking for it like crazy because you want it so bad... you can never seem to find it... So this is what I did:
Bahahhahahahhahhaha yes I just painted my costume with watercolor on 2 pieces of A3 papers from my sketchbook and cut a whole for my head to go in. Now isn't that creative?
Oh and the day after I did this, I found a tie dye top at one of the stalls at the
Boardwalk bazar......................
Labels: creativethinking
Sunday 6 May 2012
metamorphosis update
Very sorry for the extreme messiness but here goes nothing....
This is my very very first brain-storm attempt when I really had no idea what I was going to be doing. I just moved on from Michael Jackson to Lady Gaga and then Julian Casablancas to Kurt Cobain, but then I suddenly thought of hair.... so I started 'brainstorming' and writing down stuff related to hair... and from then I realized how much of a complex topic it'd be if it was just... hair. So I thought... oh, hairstyles are always almost completely different if you compare it to a different decade...
So then I thought of beginning with a frame of a caveman... next frame - 1920s, and then the next would be 1940s... and the last one would be... a skull with a little bit of hair... But then it didn't really have a concept... I just randomly thought of it so it lacks substance.
Then I thought about growing up as a girl.... But that was too boring, too. So I stuck with hair... I asked my lecturer about how we're supposed to end it - as in, what to put on the last frame, as an ending - but he said it's metamorphosis. It never ends. So I could put whatever I want (well not whatever... but whatever that would make sense..) in the last frame... So I thought.. Hey! Why not do hairstyles in the 1920s, 1940s, 1960s and 1980s.
I came up with a very small list of things I should find out about hairstyles in these different decades:
To be honest, I did a lot more research on the 1920s than I did on the other decades because I was really interested about the Flappers.
So anyway, about Flappers. Basically, in the 1920s, after World War I ended, there was a period of liberalism, social and political turbulence and increased transatlantic cultural exchange and these led to the "new breed" of young Western women known as Flappers (refers to a young bird flapping its wings while learning to fly) who would usually be described as a young lady who hasn't promoted to long frocks and wearing their hair up. They had bobbed hair, listened to jazz music and flaunted unacceptable behavior.
More keywords for flappers:
Excessive make-up, drinker, casual sex, smoker, attractive, reckless, independent
Meanwhile, in the 1940s, when millions of men joined the armed forces, women took on an active role in World War II and took on many paid jobs that previously had been held by men - such as bank teller, shoe salesperson or aircraft mechanic. Woman started working in factories - this was called the Rosie the Riveter phenomenon. They mostly wore dull-colored, unladylike uniforms - factory overalls, to be exact - but they still managed to look feminine by styling their hair and putting on lipstick.
In the 1960s, there was a whole psychedelia phase as there was a widespread use of psychoactive drugs which influenced the whole psychedelia trend. People wore clothes with bright colors and psychedelic prints consisting of flowers and paisley and whatnot. 1960s was a decade of anti-war/the peace movement.
This is one of my many failed attempts to draw a flapper...
As for the 1980s, since MTV was established in 1981, the 80s was called the MTV generation. Everyone had big hair. I was particularly interested in the people who had crazy (and messy) multicolored hair influenced by heavy metal bands that were popular at the time..
Labels: illustration, visual narrative
Friday 4 May 2012
aesthetics VS the machine
Obviously, functionality is more important than beauty. However, I would be a hypocrite if I said that without also saying that I sometimes (OK.. most of the time) buy/pick something because I like the way it looks. But I think it has to have a balance… Like, when it comes to clothes, they'd have to look nice and comfortable to wear. When it comes to fashion, (and when I say this, I'm just assuming) I think men are less fussy (not all, of course, but perhaps maybe most). We women are so picky about what we wear. If it looks nice and it doesn't make us look fat, we'd buy it, even if it hurts our wallets. When it comes to shoes, most women don't care if it hurts their feet when they're wearing pumps and crazy high heels… as long as they look gorgeous. It's crazy, really, how we depend on all these things to make us look pretty. I mean, the stuff we wear isn't even part of our body. If it weren't for the person who invented clothing, we'd all be naked (sure, it's pretty disturbing if you think about it, but if we never knew about clothes and all we knew was nakedness, we wouldn't think it was weird.. would we?) and we wouldn't have to spend so much money on all these different brands of clothing through which people judge us by in today's crazy society. In today's world, you are what you wear and I think that's pretty crazy. But here I am hurting my wallet every other weekend buying stuff from TopShop or Forever21…
But there's something else to consider. Beauty means different things to different people. But I would be drifting away from the topic if I started blabbering about that so… nevermind.
To end, I would like to state the obvious - functionality is more important than beauty, but in today's society it's hard to think like that. However, most things are made to look very nice and function very well.. but they cost… a lot of money. And that is painful.
Labels: creativethinking
super-hero
So my idea development's been... developing very slowly on my sketchbooks. I haven't seen Mr. C to talk about it because my ideas are embarrassing and stupid so I just plan on sharing those ideas here on this blog.. Haha.
So um.. First of all, to be very honest, I had completely no idea on what I was going to be for a very long time until about 4 or 5 days ago.. I thought about being a coffee woman or something and my 'power' would be to wake people up when they're falling asleep in class or at work in order to prevent them from getting in trouble/failing their course/getting fired. I don't know if Mr. C would approve of that lame idea.
My backup super-hero would be... a banana person who dresses up in the color of bananas and has all these banana weapons to fight all evil... banana sword(s), banana pistols, but her so called special banana weapon would be... [insert drum roll here] .... the banana boomerang! This would be used to catch a person when he/she has already ran away too far for her to catch so she would aim it on the enemy's neck and it would choke him/her. Also used at times of desperation when she doesn't really know what else to do because all else fails.... she just slaps the enemy with the banana and it would (usually) make him/her go unconscious. So I guess maybe I would call her Banana Boomerang? Because that's her special weapon. Banana Boomerang is a very unsure person who's always thinking too much and ends up failing most of the time because she doesn't believe in herself. However, she really wants to fight all evil... not necessarily for mankind... but because if she doesn't help, she feels really guilty.
Wait, that sounds like my banana super-hero person is my initial idea and not my backup idea. Because the Coffee Queen doesn't have much concept to it.. but it's got a story... so I don't know if it counts... it's really lame though but here goes... Um.. she's always longed to marry a prince but doesn't think it will ever happen so she decides to make herself queen, instead of princess, because it's way cooler.. in her own world and would like to improve something in the world. So, since she's too lazy to save like, everyone in the world and thinking about all the different crimes and bad stuff happening all over the world, I mean, who is she kidding, she can't save everyone! So she's like... aww man whatever I just wanna save a specific group of people... So she starts thinking... and thinking.... and then falls asleep. So she's like damnit! I can't keep falling asleep.. I need coffee. I won't be able to think of any ideas... so she made herself coffee... but it doesn't have any effect to it... so she punched her coffee machine and it exploded..... but it was still in tact... so she tried it and then her coffee looked like it had electricity in it... so she tried to drink it and she felt her pupils constricting and started becoming all hyper and stating the obvious out loud.. and stuff... and she accidentally spilled some coffee on her roommate's face, who was sleeping, and it immediately woke her up so she thought... I could definitely help people wake up with this coffee machine that I have...
Labels: creativethinking
Wednesday 2 May 2012
creativity
c r e a t i v i t y
If you google this word you would find definitions such as:
The phenomenon whereby a person creates something new (a product, solution, artwork, literary work, joke, etc.) that has some kind of value. What counts as "new" may be in reference to the individual creator, or to the society or domain within which the novelty occurs. What counts as "valuable" is similarly defined in a variety of ways.
Creativity is the act of turning new and imaginative ideas into reality. Creativity involves two processes: thinking, then producing.
I guess they're pretty accurate but obviously there isn't just one definition for creativity. Creativity can mean a lot of things in a lot of ways. I think everybody is creative, just not in similar ways. Everybody has different interests and things that they're good at and stuff which influences the way in which they're creative... (Hopefully, that made sense...)
An easy example would be myself. I'm a graphic design student and I appreciate the design of a lot of different things everyday. And from that, I would probably intergrate some of the different designs (not exactly, of course, maybe just use similar techniques) that I'm inspired by into something that I create myself (wow I'm so horrible at expressing myself in words). I mean... that's called creativity right? Well, I don't know. You be the judge.
But yeah basically, I think creativity is a way of expressing yourself, whether it's through music, painting, a speech, writing, the way you dress.
Labels: creativethinking
