Jan 26, 2010

SkillsUSA


My first real assignment for digital prepress. We had to design a logo for the SkillsUSA event in Kansas City (the acronym is not S.U.K.C., no matter how much I want it to be). It was actually a pretty fun assignment, design a logo and a t-shirt for the event. I'm proud of it, even though it looks like the work of a retarded child compared to most of the other students, but I still like it and now am forcing you to see it.

Jan 20, 2010

Spring 2010 semester in a...

So I'm back in school, taking classes in the am, the pm, and the weekendm. Mondays and Wednesdays are morning days, I go to class at 8 am, take Typography and Layout I from a teacher who thinks he's teaching advanced Typography. He seems like a smart, good teacher but he expects us to be experts in Adobe, where I just learned the basic stuff from the prerequisite, what the UNIVERSITY thinks I SHOULD know. I expect to either dismally fail, or learn enough (no thanks to the teacher) to do all right. What ELSE is annoying, however, is that we're given very little class time to work on our projects, as if we all have the Adobe Creative Suite available at any time.

After that I get to get my hands dirty, as I'm taking 3-D design. At first it seems like remedial sculpture, and it seems to stay that way. We're learning very basic basics of sculpture, so far all we've done is make a contour sculpture of a shoe out of wire. Next we have to make a functional object out of found materials. Duct tape wallet, here I come!

Then I go to work from 12-7.

Tuesdays and Thursdays are less crazy. I work my old shift from 7-4, then I have class til 7. Digital Prepress I believe is the name of it, where we learn techniques on how to get a design ready for press. I'm finally learning some of the things Tracie's family does down at McNeil Printing. It's actually pretty cool, probably because the teacher is very cool and gives us time to do our projects. I'm talking to YOU, Typography teacher.

Friday is the one day (ok, and Sunday) that I don't have any school. Saturday morning I go to Personal Finance. It's not a general requirement or anything, but I needed an extra class to keep my Pell Grant, and I (by I, I mean Tracie) thought it would be good for me to learn more about finance so she doesn't have to handle it all. I enjoy this class as well, also because I like the teacher.

There's my semester, with working about 37 hours and having class for about 12 hours and doing homework and housework and trying to spend time with a wife and baby, I am a busy bee.

But, I believe we can do anything, mostly because I'm married to the amazing Tracie who really DOES do anything and everything, and does it very well, despite what she may think. She buoys up my booty when it needs it, which it does, from time to time.

I still am enjoying my job very much, despite the fact that I still feel like I know VERY little about what I'm supposed to do. Actually, I know very well what I am supposed to do, it's HOW to do it that I seem to have trouble with. But, what would life be without excitement, uncertainty, stress and worry?

this. ↑

Jan 15, 2010

Sneak Peek


I know we've been horrible at posting, Morgan is 6 (almost 7) months old and his blog's last pictures are from October. Tracie has uploaded all the pictures from our camera and has given me the project of posting them all. (She's also made 2 picture posts on her blog if you wanna check it out.) Here's a picture of Morgan from last week, a great picture showing off the little rascal's developing personality.

Jan 14, 2010

Self Portrait of a Mirror


I know what you're thinking. "Enough with the self portraits already!" but it was an assignment. And I know what you're thinking again. "Suuuuuure, Austin. An ASSIGNment. You just wanted to look at yourself some more." While true, I assure you, it really is an assignment for my Typography class (class schedule update and life update and Morgan updates coming soon!) tell me what you think. The only rule was be creative and use typography creatively. First I wanted to make a 3D model of myself with the text bending and bulging to make my form. Then I was going to use different shade text where my face was, but the web tutorials I found didn't translate, either the tutorial was incorrect, photoshop didn't look like the tutorial, or my face broke the design. So I just used a story I wrote as background, split my face into 4 colors, deleted the 2 middle grays and added a few quotes from stories or poems I wrote that I'm more or less fond of. The quotes are (I know you're dying to know)

Let your Imagination think for itself!

The world is so much more beautiful when you can't see it properly.

I really do think Cupid has a gun by now.

)Hello(

Revenge is a dish best served with parsley.

Dammit this planet has nothing so grand as lying there whispering and clasping your hand.