Totally worth the update to WP 2.9 for me. I’m thinking I might just decide to start completely 100% over with the site. I have a new structure I’d like to try out, and actually make use of the tags as well as the categories. I may keep some older posts and repost them as time goes by. I don’t think anybody actually reads this thing as it is right now, anyway.
So, in the coming weeks/2-months, as I finish this blasted degree and start my real job (yay!), the site will probably be pretty boring, because I want to add things one at a time to make sure everything is clean and working and looking good. So many ideas, so little time- but May 9th is the freedom date.
Anyway, here’s the link on how to do thumbnails in WordPress 2.9.
There are many, many things I’d like to be doing here- but I’m not sure what this blog’s purpose is. I’ve thought many times of just scrapping the whole thing. Starting over. I’ve actually done that a couple of times. And now I’m pretty sure I just have no idea what I’m doing here.
Steve & I watched Julie & Julia a few nights ago, and I really, REALLY related to both of those women. The ups, the downs, the being passionate about what you’re doing. . . Steve said several times “Holy cow, that’s so you!” For instance when Julia Child happily said “Ta-Da!” when she finished chopping her onions before all the other dudes in the class, or when Julie gave her spiel about having A.D.D., and “That’s why I’m bad at housework.” Of course, when Julie’s husband was shoving chocolate cake in his mouth, I got to say “Holy cow, that’s so you!” to him, but that’s not the point. The point is, I loved watching this film, and it made me want to do something spectacular.
I also just found two books on Gardening by one of my favorite bloggers, Gayla Trail at You Grow Girl, and ordered them both. I hadn’t been watching her blog for a while, but every February I just get sick of all the snow and start thinking green, and thinking about growing things that will feed us. Amazon had just replenished my Christmas Gift Card amount after my Meggs History of Graphic Design failed to be delivered by the 3rd party seller (grr), and I just wanted to start thinking green, and now I’m reading over her blog going “OH! Paw-Paws!”
There’s something there that I just don’t have. One, I think, is time. The other, I think, is focus (“I think I have A.D.D.” ha ha). The site itself needs to be about my art & my business, but I think the blog needs to be rethought.
I’ve got my first “real” graphic designer job lined up already, which is super, super, super cool (especially that it’s local. And even more especially that it’s for another artist!) So if I can just survive this 21 credit hour mad race to the finish line that is Graduation. . . We’ll see what happens.
I’ll be thinking about what I’m doing here. I’ll get back to you.
In the meantime, here are the spiffy books & the movie that have inspired me this week:
Not only is Magenta not really a color (see this article. It explains), but apparently it’s owned by T-Mobile. This is a really interesting, and a little frightening article about big-business starting to own rights to something as universal as color.
This morning, buried in the comments of this post about 8 inspirational designers, most of whom I’d heard of, I found a link to this post about 7 inspirational female designers, most of whom I hadn’t heard of, but had seen some of the work before. There I found two female designers, in particular, who’s work really hit me, and I think I’d like to follow.
Her handwritten typography, swirly flourishes, and work with ball point pens (no kidding!) made me an instant fan. She has an incredibly convenient section in her “About Me” that includes answers to Frequently Asked student questions, that allows you to learn a lot about her, and her inspirations, influences and References.
Retro, Art Deco, illustrations and typography. . . I love the colors and the style here and on her site. These things make me happy!
To be fair, on the first post, I really liked Italian Graphic Artist Alberto Seveso and Logo Designer Graham Smith. But in looking at the roundup of 7 females, I realized that in all the listening and reading I’ve done in the last couple of years, the mention of boys in the podcasts far outweighs the mention of girls.
In discussing this with Prof. Benjy, he attributes this to 3 things that have absolutely nothing to do with talent or ability, which are at least equal in men and women. 1. Male’s competitiveness and drive to be #1, while Women are more prone to work cooperatively, 2. Male discrimination, and 3. The woman’s possession of the uterus. This third one is changing as men become more involved in the lives of their children. There may be more than this, these are just the things that are immediately clear to him, and make perfect sense to me.
It has nothing to do with the idea that boys are better than girls, it’s just that girl’s names tend to get lost in the jumble.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not really angry about this. It’s just the way it is. There are women out there, fantastic, talented women like Laura Smith and Marian Bantjes, for me to up to. It’s just a matter of finding them, and maybe becoming one myself. Both are things I plan to do.
So, the moral of this story? It pays to look in the comments of the blogs you read
ps. If you are angry about the oppression of women in the world of art- Benjy says check out Guerrilla Girls. And I ask that you put that anger to better use than to just complain about it.
I can’t believe I didn’t know this existed! Here I am, with Leopard on my Macbook for a year, and I didn’t know this existed!
Do you have Leopard? Find a font file on your computer. Click on it once, without opening it. Hit the space bar. You’ll see the contents of the file! Magic!
With this BrushView plugin, you can see the contents of your photoshop brush files, so you don’t have to have every single one of them loaded all the time. My sanity has been saved!
Be sure to check out “Yoga for Geeks” for stretches at your desk =)
Also “Yoga for Musicians” and “Yoga in a Gallery” Yoga in a Minute episodes.
I’m now watching “Yoga for better Memory.” He’s entertaining, charismatic, knowledgeable, and you wouldn’t know he’s from Louisville, Kentucky until he says “Fire” or “Prior” (Fahr or Prahr). Fun.
If you’ve been interested in it but never really gotten into it before, it looks like this would be the one to help. I’ll try and stick with it this time!
