You followed us along our 10 week German excursion, so I thought it would only be fair to do a little recap of the project and what we learned. Unfortunately, as is the case with most sponsored projects, we have a 90-day grace period where we can’t show anything we made. So, for now all I can let you see is our well-decorated studio door (complete with an inward-facing peep hole that we modified to show the Berlin skyline),

and the mess we made outside. (Okay, I think some of the Transportation guys may have contributed to that pile too…)
Hopefully in a few months we’ll be able to share our Piz Buin rebrand, but in the mean time words will have to suffice.

As a recap for anyone not familiar with what the heck we were doing in Germany, Brand Lab Berlin was a studio abroad dedicated to rebranding the Johnson & Johnson-owned Piz Buin (a premium sunscreen brand) to target Millennial Berliners. Fifteen students from the Graphic Design, Environmental, Product and Transportation departments were selected, and we were put into teams of three, then assigned a filter through which to approach the project. These filters were Health & Wellness, Mobility, Sports, Fashion, and Music. We spent 10 weeks in Berlin, researching the city’s culture through our filter, and analyzing the data we collected. Then we all made our way back to Art Center, finishing the term with the tools and resources that being on campus provides. Our final deliverables varied depending on the team, but most consisted of a line of products and packaging, branded environments, and experiences designed to interact with the brand throughout the city.

And now for my own assessment:
If the opportunity ever arises, please, please do a study abroad. In addition to getting to live and work in an AMAZING city, I learned things about my own work habits and design strengths and limitations in a way that simply couldn’t have happened in a regular classroom. Being able to dedicate all of your time to one assignment is something that we don’t usually get to do while at Art Center, and it resulted in a much better researched, analyzed, conceptualized, and executed project. Researching a brand and its audience for 10 weeks before designing anything changes the way you approach an assignment; never again will a google session suffice, because once you have taken the time to fully understand all the pieces of the puzzle, the design falls into place in a much more logical and informed way than the on-screen method could ever rival. At the end of the day, some of the most important lessons I learned personally, came out of not being able to run away from the project, or let it slide in favor of something I liked more—as can sometimes be the case when we get into difficult classroom situations. Working in teams as students is notoriously difficult, but being able to do it in such an open and dedicated environment made it extremely gratifying.

Berlin itself was one of the most amazing places I have ever been. Referred to as “poor but sexy,” there is a resourcefulness to the city that is truly inspiring. It is bustling, but rarely overwhelming. The public transportation works perfectly, and is conducted largely on the honor system. Art openings and music events happened every night of the week, and the unpretentious and spontaneous crowd moves fluidly between venue scales with an almost undetectable distinction between high and low culture. People stay out into the morning (and sometimes even until the next morning after that), and it isn’t scary or dangerous or the least bit uptight.

Whenever the opportunity to learn and work outside of the black box presents itself, I urge you to take it. Art Center is an amazing place to study, and our teachers, facilities, and rigor is unparalleled. But sometimes, every once in a while, it’s important to get some inspiration—and ultimately perspective—from a change of scenery.

(If you haven’t seen photos of our trip, please visit the Brand Lab Berlin section)

I was cleaning my house today, so I decided to make a pile of all the lists I’ve made this term. This led naturally to the counting and classification of the aforementioned lists, and the results were a little scary—even to the List Queen herself. Let me share the breakdown:

First, I should tell you that there are three different kinds of lists that occur in nature three different places. Macro to micro, if you will.

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The Category I list is the one we know and love from Making Lists The Amelia Way. These are legal-sized weekly lists, with an overview of what’s due for the next week.

They are often very general, and opposing colors of Prismacolor markers are absolutely integral to the success of the list.

This term I made 36 Category I lists.

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The next level of list is Category II, naturally. These lists take place in my school notebook, which anyone who has a class with me has seen schlepped around for the last three terms.

These lists are often written during lulls in my class participation / interest / attention span, and are usually made two or three times a week. They consist of every part of every project due the following week, with length and complexity based on what I know of the week’s assignments so far.

Category II lists will usually just have classwork, in no particular order, and school related errands.

This term I made 42 Category II lists.

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Category III lists have the highest level of detail and occur in a small Moleskine notebook that I have with me at all times.

(Full Moleskines from the last three years)

These lists are the final frontier of list making, and tend to include everything from task management by-the-minute, to sub categories and sub sub sub categories. I will often make multiple Category III lists a day, usually consisting of the same exact content, multiple times, in different classifications and hierarchy breakdowns (for instance, one list may just be about getting each task on paper by class, while one is about breaking down the days in which each thing needs to be completed, and yet another includes the order in which each should occur).

This term I made 83 Category III lists, using up two and a half Moleskines.

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That’s 161 lists in total.

(Maybe it’s time to see a doctor)

(Do they have list doctors?)

(Am I the list doctor?)

So, I decided to share some of today’s inspiration:

As it turns out, everyone is lying to you through their teeth. Pesky little things like car crashes and needing to sleep every once in a while seem to make this task nearly impossible (although a few have done it). After the traumas of last term there was no question about my particular level of burnout. But this term was supposed to be better. With the theme of Just Make it Pretty, I set it up so that I wouldn’t have too many classes that required me to go on a brainbender. But alas, my work has still been mediocre, forced, and probably pretty boring. When did design become like pulling teeth?

I thought I was a design machine—that sleep was unnecessary and having to do it made me weak. Things like going to bed or taking the afternoon off are simply unacceptable, and when I inevitably succumb to one of these earthling tasks I beat myself up. The problem is, when you live with this attitude for too long, your body will eventually start to hate you. Everyone has a breaking point, and mine seems to be right around now. I took an internship after my fourth term, and planned to do another one in the fall as “breaks”. You would think that I would understand at 40 hours a week working in Beverly Hills or New York City isn’t exactly R&R, but remember, I’m a design machine.

Let it be known here and now, I am not a machine. Turns out, something had to give, and it was looking a lot like my sanity was going to be the first casualty. With two terms of classes left to graduate, boring and mediocre just don’t cut it. I need inspiration, rejuvenation, and little bit of sleep god dammit—or my graduating portfolio is going to look just as tired as I do.

So, here’s the plan:

I’m going to spend my summer term living in this:

Working for these people (two Art Center alums) on a little project called HOERAG (more on that later), doing an independent study (including a lot of photography and writing) with this guy, and maybe eating a few of these:

Edison, Washington is a town of 133 people (yes, that’s even less than my alma mater, the world’s smallest highschool) where my parents own 40 acres of farmland. It’s a quirky artist’s enclave surrounded by miles and miles of agriculture. It doesn’t get much more rural than Skagit County (population density 59 people per square mile). They have promised me a few chickens, a few farm responsibilities, and all the peace and quiet I can possibly handle. I’m even going to trade work for vegetables and ride my bike everywhere. How much more idyllic and quaint can life possibly be?

Now if I can just survive the next three weeks…

Okay, almost. Jeez.

Click to make it bigger–more when I finish finish, and when it’s not 3:45am.

Extra sharp cheddar cheese, sour rye bread, pure delight.

Seriously.

I was originally going to do a horse magazine, because I thought I had paid my dues with other topics and it was finally time to do a pony project. My very first creative exploits consisted of drawings horses–all told I think I probably made 1000s of them–but at some point in highschool I was told to give the equines a rest, and I did. For a good…plenty of years. Horses would be a fun and easy magazine topic. I would be able to take my own photography and practice the photo retouching skills I’m learning in another class.

But alas, it was not to be. I was bored to tears almost instantly. The thing I forgot–or maybe just didn’t realize in my horse-crazed teenage years–is that magazine about horses are more than a little dry. Not to mention poorly written. When Nik (our department chair) sat down with me for lunch in the cafeteria last week and asked what I was working on this term, “Trot” was not sounding particularly promising, even to me. We tried (rather unsuccessfully) to figure out how to bring this rather unpromising magazine to life, but it turned out I was just beating a dead horse (ahem), as it were. You can lead a boring project to water, but you can’t beat it to death once you get there.

Starting over week 5 (more than 1/4 through the term) is always fun. My first attempt at the feature article about decapitation is below. Yummy. (Click to make them bigger, and please don’t talk about my widows–I haven’t worked on the type yet.)

For my cover I’m going to have a flap of paper covering the main image, to be lifted off for a reveal of the (very understated) masthead/logo. I’ve been playing with some fun imagery to hide, and I’m excited to mock it up.