After working directly with clients for over two years, I've realized that it only satisfies a part of my need to create.
Thoughts on design 1.1
Our culture is obsessed with being original, yet I can find a million people that follow a trend. Hipsters crave differentiation but they're all the same. Designers that use nothing but Helvetica crave simplicity, but more often than not, their simplicity ends up looking the same. I'm not saying this because I'm any different, it's just an observation.
Ambition and excuses
I'm scared of failure. That's really what it all comes down to. My parents taught me the value of finishing what I've started and it's served me well. It doesn't matter if you're tired or don't feel like it. You finish.
I've accomplished quite a few things in nearly 27 years, things I'm really proud of, but I've also got ambitions. I've got ambitions of doing something bigger and better than what I'm doing now. I want to make a difference and there's one thing I've realized - when you want to do something bigger, sometimes you just have to fail. It's a tough pill to swallow and one that will probably take a while to get used to.
If you'd ask me now, I wouldn't know exactly what to say I want to do. I'd probably say that I want to get my Master's degree and maybe even a Ph.D., I want to live in Europe, I want to teach people new things, I want to work in an environment where the creativity isn't stifled by clients, I want to experiment. Maybe I'd make all sorts of excuses about why I'm not going after any of those things right now.
Maybe I'd just be a better person to admit my ambitions and pursue them rather than worrying about whether or not I'll fail.
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*Special thanks to The 99% for getting me to think seriously
So I Got Hacked
For those of you who don't know (ie. didn't receive an email from me this morning saying I was mugged in London) my email account was hacked this morning. I don't know that I've ever had so many ups and downs within the span of 2 hours. I felt like my life was being systematically deleted and by 9:00am this morning I felt like I had gone through labor.
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Down: Finding out my account was hacked
Up: Realizing there are things I can do to warn people I was hacked
Down: Realizing my Facebook account was hacked
Up: Changing my email account on my other social media and financial websites to an alternate address
Down: Realizing that my alternate email address had been hacked too
Up: Regaining access to my alternate email account
Down: Realizing my LinkedIn account had been compromised
Up: Regaining access to my primary email account
Down: Realizing all of my contacts and email had been deleted
Up: My husband thoughtfully sending out an email to let people know that they should send me an email because I had lost all of my contacts
Down: Remembering that I don't have any contacts or emails
Up: Realizing that all of my contacts are saved in my iPhone (again thanks to my husband)
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The really odd thing is the password I used for that account always showed up as strong whenever I typed it into a password strength analyzer. According to my husband, even with a strong password, it's not surprising that I was hacked. Apparently, it all has to do with your security questions. If someone could find the answers to your security questions by doing an online search or by checking out your social media profiles. Your a candidate for hacking.
The main bright spot of the day was a couple of the emails I received from people who had either replied back to the spam email (some of my contacts knew we were going to London this Spring but just weren't sure when - so to them it was totally plausible). Others were just messing around with the hacker.
Here's the original email:
I'm writing this with tears in my eyes, I came down here to London, United Kingdom for a short vacation unfortunately i was mugged at the park of the hotel where i stayed, all cash, credit card and cell were stolen off me but luckily for me i still have my passports with me.
I've been to the embassy and the Police here but they're not helping issues at all and my flight leaves in less than 6hrs from now but am having problems settling the hotel bills and the hotel manager won't let me leave until i settle the bills,
I'm freaked out at the moment
My brother's reply: Well i guess you're on your own. I warned you about going to London......idiot.
How loving and absolutely priceless. I would have loved to see the look on the hacker's face when he read that.
My sister's reply: Yo what up!!! I know it was a rough morning this morning, but if you only knew the response. The phone was ringing off the hook all morning : ) Oh and Aunt Ethel just about called David to go to the embassy and help you. Ha. That would have been a little funny. Anyway hope your day starts going better, and remember you get to see all of us this weekend so get excited!! Luv ya!
Again, completely hilarious. Plus she got bonus points for trying to make me feel better.
I've been dying to make another animated gif since Q and I figure this is my chance. Here's to you hacker. May you be spammed as much as you spam others.
P.S. To my readers: If you haven't already, please send me your email address. brookefrancesi at gmail dot com.
DESIGN #18: SHEL SILVERSTEIN
Probably one of my favorite childhood authors to date is Shel Silverstein and his "The Missing Piece" book. If you're over the age of 10 and have never read anything by Shel, put down what you're doing and get to the nearest library. You've been deprived.
NEON GLOW
After a few photoshop modifications, I've finally created a poster for one of the versions of the font I created this summer. If you compare, you can tell that I've applied motion blur and a gradient overlay to the font stroke. While it's interesting at the very least, it still looks slightly commercial. Not sure that I'm stuck on this yet...
DESIGN #13: ICH BIN EIN...
I took German for a total of 6 years (3 in high school and 3 in college) and learned about JFK's Ich bin ein Berliner speech my very first semester. It was probably the most important speech of Kennedy's presidency. He was underlining the support of the United States for West Germany almost 2 years after the Soviet-supported Communist state of East Germany erected the Berlin Wall. Critics claim that " Ich bin ein Berliner" is literally translated as "I am a jelly donut." Apparently he should have said "Ich bin Berliner," and with a firm, elementary grasp of the German language, it made sense to me. Plus, I always found it amusing that his wordsmiths could have made such a huge mistake.
Tonight my goal was to create an editorial design based upon JFK's gaffe. Much to my dismay, after doing less than 5 minutes of research, I discovered the entire jelly donut story to be a complete fallacy. Without diving into an explanation of the German language, a Berliner really is a jelly donut, however "Ich bin ein Berliner" could also be translated as "I am one with the people of Berlin."
