Voting Time

I'm a firm believer in the phrase "If it's not broke, don't fix it."

My blog's design has served me well for over 4 years now, thanks to the incomparable Lynette, my awesome sister-in-law.

But, since I am a designer, or at least trying to become one, I feel the need/desire to have a blog of my own design.

Adding into the equation the fact that Blogger has released a myriad of new blog templates, I feel the urge to design my own header and blog growing stronger.

But, contrary to popular opinion, I don't just blog for myself. Therefore what's your opinion on the blog? Is it time to make a new one, or should I keep what I've got that's worked fine and served me well throughout my blogging history?

Let me know and I might just listen to you.

Portfolio Preparation

*

The Deadline for submitting your portfolio in order to be accepted into the B.F.A. (Bachelor of Fine Arts, doncha know) Program is in two weeks, October 14.

I don't necessarily think I'm going to be accepted, but it's one of those things that I know I'll always regret if I don't at least try.

In effort however to be accepted, I have arranged a meeting with my Academic counselor to go over what they're looking for and what I can do to improve my chances of getting accepted. (Chocolate bribes notwithstanding). We apparently have to write an essay or letter or something (letter of intent, I think it is) as well. That's due next Friday. Other than write 'something,' I have no idea what to include or not include in the letter of intent. Fun.
In addition to that, I've arranged a meeting with one of my favorite design teachers (his opinion of me is still under review) to examine the portfolio and see what I can improve, what I should leave out, general feelings about it I guess and if I should just start from scratch and make a new 20 designs in 2 weeks.

It's a bit of an emotional rollercoaster (I'm not sure why people say emotional rollercoaster. I think it's understood that I'm not literally riding a rollercoaster, as that would actually be fun, rather than exciting and terrifying.) as at some points I feel the portfolio is High Art meets Graphic Design and the greatest experience my teachers will ever behold, causing them to cheer and weep. Other times I worry they'll just spend their time trying to find one nice thing to say about it. "I really like the, um, paper you used." "It's digital." "Exactly."
I'm currently feeling the latter.

I had to miss an important meeting for Graphic Design students at school tonight because I'm scheduled to work, which brings back the "torn in two directions and only being mediocre in each one" feeling I have. Work is keeping me from being a better design student, and school is keeping me from excelling/promotions at work. I should say I'm grateful to both, especially work, for how flexible and awesome they are in spite of the fact I have the schedule from Hell. So I will.

Still, I feel a bit of wasted potential and kind of crappy that I'm forced to choose, I need money and all that, but I think my priorities are mostly in the right place, Family First, Everything Else second.

Once I'm ready to submit it I'll either have jpegs of it for your perusal or just link my website austinbeckstrom.com.

Stay tuned you lucky people, and don't feel against sending me any positive encouragement you have lying around, thanks.

*that's not me, in case you were over-confident in my abilities. It's from the famous (to me) and wealthy (to Switzerland) Designer and Letterer and awesome speaker extraordinaire, Jessica Hische.

Why You Shouldn't Stay Up past 2 am Working On Design

because everything you do, no matter how stupid, appears brilliant.

East of Eden

Special thanks to the fine printers at McNeil Printing for printing this for me. It was quite a process but I am glad to have it done, now on to the next project! I don't know what it is for Typography, but in Interactive Design I'll be making a Kinetic Typography assignment, for Art History I'm working on a Theoretical Museum Exhibit (it actually is a lot cooler than it sounds), Color Theory we're doing a self portrait in the style of Chuck Close, and for AVC Lectures I'm getting psyched to see Jessica Hische. Here's hoping she doesn't just spend the time trying to sell something like other visiting lecturers in the past.

Jessica Hische is something of a celebrity to graphic designers. Meeting her must be how Catholics feel when they meet the pope, or how Jews feel when they meet Jon Stewart.

There's what I'm up to in school, in case you were curious.

Let me know what you think, but it's printed and on my book now so I can't change anything.

book cover decisions

As I get further into Graphic Design, I'm expecting that it may take over this blog completely, which may not be too big a deal to the three of you that still read this, but for my own records and for the future, here are new covers I've been working on after critique:

Pigasus

The Pigasus was used by John Steinbeck as a personal stamp with the Latin motto Ad astra per alia porci (to the stars on the wings of a pig).

The pigasus was supposed to symbolize Steinbeck as “earthbound but aspiring....
A lumbering soul but trying to fly...(with)...not enough wingspread but plenty of intention.”

So our group is designing a series of Steinbeck novels and it was my task to design the logo. Liking the Penguin logo, I made one of Pigasus, tell me what you think!

East of Eden- Work in Progress

We have roughs for my first Typography assignment tomorrow. We're to design a book cover for a specific artist, I'm in a group doing John Steinbeck. My book cover is East of Eden, and it was my job to create a logo for all the books.

Here's my first computer draft of the book cover. The logo I've decided deserves it's own post, so I don't have to write as much but get more blog entries.