Passions and Pathways

Erin Centre Middle School - Passions and Pathways Fair, I volunteered and taught grade 6, 7 & 8's about creativity. Trying to inspire them with how creativity affected my life. It's an event for encouraging, and motivating things in your life. I found it educational and fun. I learned so much as well. I was nervous and excited at the same time. I presented my life of graphic design and creative history. I presented three times to three different groups. They watched my slide show accompanied with my discussion. We followed the  presentation with questions from students and overseeing teachers. It was a great morning and thanks to Erin Centre Middle School for having me. Thanks to my friend and teacher Scott Kelly for recommending me and getting me involved. I would do it again. 

This is a link to the Passions and Pathways presentation on Apple iCloud Keynote software. You can view it here. Unfortunately you can not see the accompanying presenters notes that I used on my iPad when presenting but it should give you a little bit of an idea. I wish I could show you more. Enjoy.

Ladies Learning Code Photoshop

Volunteered for Ladies Learning Code Photoshop in Toronto. This is part of Learning Labs. This section finds that most of the tech industry is dominated by men and they want to get women involved. So they made courses for women to learn with instructors and mentor driven classes. I had lots of fun meeting new people and mentoring ladies with the Photoshop basics. Thanks for the experience. Thanks to all the ladies who came out. Thanks to all the mentors for a great day. The experience for me was great. I like to train people in tech along with creative ideas including graphic design. Most of the time it is with Adobe products, including Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator. It is fun and exciting to see the progression from a junior understanding to a more advanced one. Even the ladies at this event, most learning Photoshop for the first time, have great new unseen perspectives on how to do things. It is fun to see their eyes light up as they see the potential of what they can do. I also find it important to let them know that there are many ways to accomplish a task and in many case there is no wrong way. The truth is there are standard practises in the industry that work best. Thinking outside the box and finding how to do things a faster better way is great. This is how I continually analyze most of my projects. When starting out it is best to learn the fundamentals and the standards to produce great creative the way it is intended. Thanks again to everyone involved.

Balconies with Swimming Pools

This is a interesting link, for crazy architecture involving pools on balconies. Very cool, but I would take some time to get use to it for fear of its safety. What is your favourite over the top design project that you have come across? Are you involved in something radical? Let us know in the comments.

Is Grunge Still A Graphic Design Style?

The quick answer is of course, yes. We can apply all kinds of styles depending on the need, target market, and/or message we want to convey. Looking deeper we may find as new mainstream styles come and go, grunge may follow the same trend. It was arguably at its peak, with huge popularity in the 1990’s. Still hanging on today I feel it is more of a designers taste and depends on many factors. I even feel that it may be coming back a little bit in a odd dressed up grunge. Here is an example. Think a fancy suit company that may never have used this style in there marketing. They now have an ad with a grunge typeface including a man in his late 20’s wearing work boots and a fancy suit. The focus is to grab our attention, showing the slick high end suit and have it really stand out. I’m trying to get a term for this trend, possibly clean grunge. LOL.