As I posted before - Zago has been exceptionally inspirational for my work and personal projects in the last few weeks. We began a redesign project for our website (which you can follow here) that has allowed all of the teams (UX, design, social impact) to organically collaborate. A lot of our meetings have been presenting process work and half-baked ideas, a exercise that has allowed us to reveal a little more of ourselves and our skill sets to each other. When the client is yourself it’s interesting how hierarchy loosens a bit and end goals shift.
I’ve been generating content and managing the blog for the project, which I hope will continue on well after we publish our new site. Give it a look.
Above is a short video from our continual exploration of the “Z bar” as a stand alone/functional element in our logo. More importantly, I was allowed to indulge a little in chiptune.
Took ten minutes on break for the boys over at DuckDuck Collective to make a quick gif in light of the launch of their new blog DuckDuck Rogue. If you follow the link, you’ll find plenty of things (no more mystery behind what they do in their off-hours) but what I’m most psyched for is their weekly radio show on Thursday afternoons. Tune in tomorrow at noon (link on their blog) for live streaming of the show.
A quick color study on a few of my Instagram photos from early this spring. I divided each of the photos into six equal parts and took the hue of their exact center point along with the center point of the whole photo. I arranged those hues in order of their shades and then allowed for three more hues to represent the photo that weren’t pulled from the original center points - those are tacked on the end.
Another short intro animation I developed for one of our clients.
The Salzburg Global Seminar organizes thinkers from cultures and institutions around the world to encourage discussion and urge leaders to find solutions to issues of global concern.
The seminars are held in Salzburg, Austria in the Schloss Leopoldskron. In my animation, the use and repetition of rectangular shapes is based on both the Schloss as a historical, robust structure and the form that houses the type in their identity. Though the personality of the Salzburg Global Seminar is quite reserved, what they represent is the opportunity for radical change across nations and modes of thought. In light of this, I explored using the burst of colors from the black rectangle in order to illustrate the life and discussion behind the doors of the Schloss.
We’re exploring a few ways to incorporate the Zago personality into our redesign. One of our recent meetings brought a little funk to the Z bar.
Operation Make It Nice has been a breath of fresh air for my work at Zago. The ratios of gifs per day has skyrocketed. Above is a short animation that literally came out of “What can do with the Z-bar?” at our last meeting.
Follow our process on our blog, our Twitter or our Facebook.
I’m EXTREMELY excited about what’s going on at Zago.
We’ve just launched an internal redesign of our company website and with it we’ve decided to track the process with a Tumblr. Over the last week and into this week I’ve been capturing our research, brainstorming sessions, presentations, discussions and debate in each phase of the project. I’ll be putting together audio, video, and photos that help portray who Zago is and how we work collaboratively.
You can follow the project via our Tumblr here, along with our Twitter and Facebook!
Above are a few photos from our kick-off meeting on the first day of the project.
I love to brag about my job at Zago, and one of the biggest reasons is because of the type of design-thinking we do. We design strategically - always with the aim of producing solid, perspective shifting work.
In short: there is a reason behind what we make.
It sounds simple enough, but many of my peers who graduated from our program have gone off to produce more white noise in a time where our culture bursting at the seams with purposeless design. To be fair, I know the opportunities to do what I do aren’t as easy to find but they are out there. And I believe they are multiplying.
In light of that, there are still some weeks I find myself working to pay the rent. Irritating clients will always exist and there will always be dull work to be done. In those weeks, I find myself needing a reminder of why I chose to be where I am. And that I am good at what I do.
(Above is a little gif of some hand drawn type animated as a break from one of those weeks.)
Several weeks ago, I attended my first Instameet here in New York City. It’s always bound to be a wild experience when you find yourself all of a sudden surrounded by insta- and internet-famous people acting like, well, normal people.
It was definitely a worthwhile experience, above are some of the photos I snapped during the afternoon save the portrait of myself and my bike - thanks to StudioJohnny.
The following as they appear in order:
HokayTokay
ShahKashani
HokayTokay and JimmyMarble
SimonAsher
I made this simple animation about two months ago but neglected to post it until now because it showed just how rusty I was having not used After Effects in half a year.
Of course, that’s not fair, and goes against what I’ve been trying to change about myself since I moved to New York: vulnerability. And this represents that two-fold, in sharing my personal life and personal work.
So in a couple of hours I pulled a few photos of the New York and Chicago skylines, montaged them together and illustrated their outlines into vectors. From there, I exported the layers from Illustrator to After Effects and added a few type elements. It was made for my boyfriend, who at the time was in Chicago for a job. The references in the skyline of Chicago are historical events and landmarks and the references in New York are memories between the two of us.
It’s been a few days over six months now that I have been living and working in New York City. To tell the truth: I am exceedingly happy here. Happier than I can remember being for a couple of years. Though in light of that, I think I still surprise people when I struggle to answer immediately when asked if I love living here…or the city in general.
I’m not entirely sure if it is my fear of commitment - as if saying that I “love” the city would require me to actually live here forever - or if it is my pride that keeps me from admitting (to others and myself) that this is anything outside of another transition. Either way, I have found what I think is the reason that I most enjoy my life in the city, which I realized while I was queuing in Target this afternoon.
Purchasing groceries further than a few blocks from your apartment can be…suicidal. One of my roommates recently attempted a spree from Whole Foods (including fruit trays) in Union Square to our apartment in Prospect Park. There was a rolling suitcase involved. In New York City there is no “Oh, I’ll just hop in the car and see where the wind blows me.” Dakota Fanning lives here - maybe her life is like that, but mine certainly is not. Any trip that involves transportation requires a strategic plan. I debate every afternoon whether or not to take back home the seven empty Tupperware containers stacked in my desk drawer because I didn’t bring my backpack that day.
Cue the point: Everything in this city is an effort. Right down to your basic needs. Meeting for a coffee could be 54 minutes on the G train. Having a quick shower after work before a night out is easily a two hour event. You don’t move to the city and all of a sudden find yourself taking evening strolls in Central Park or having an improv Saturday afternoon at the MET (but isn’t it romantic when you do, those are the moments Hollywood capitalizes on.)
But I like it.
I like that if I want to foster relationships outside of my apartment (and the internet) I can’t be lazy. That if I truly want to explore the city I should pack a sandwich and wear comfortable shoes. New York breeds a lot of less-than-ideal personality traits (examples include but are not limited to hyper-individualism, greed and envy) but it does not breed lethargy.
And although I know that this afternoon I will (barely) arrive at my apartment with mangled bags and a few potential casualties from two subway transfers, a ten-block-lug and a three-floor walk-up, I delight in the idea that a trip to the grocery store results in such a sense of accomplishment.
(Above: Part of an illustration of New York for an animation I made as a gift from afar.)
About the third, and now final, time I considered moving to New York I made myself a deal. With my responsible though strikingly noncommittal personality I knew I had to have at least something relatively stable before I packed up and didn’t look back. And at the end of the summer, the end of a job and the beginning of a school year (the first in 16 years that I wouldn’t be a part of) I didn’t think I was asking a lot to have at least a job or an apartment sorted out before my one way plane ticket.
Okay so it is a bit much to ask.
I flew up to New York, interviewed and searched for apartments simultaneously. Thankfully I had some great friends keeping an eye (and a bed) out for me and a pretty Class A future roommate to guide me through brokers and bullshit. By the time I flew back home to pack, I had a few job offers and an application submitted for a place in Brooklyn.
Did I just conquer New York in 8 days? It can’t be this easy.
It wasn’t. I tied loose ends, waved goodbye to a few people and breathed in some coastal summer air with family one last time and hip hopped back to the city. One night later I woke up to an email from the owner of the place in Brooklyn apparently regretting to inform my roommates and I that he had decided to go with another group. A group that didn’t exist when we spoke to him on the phone the day before asking if anyone else was looking at the apartment.
And so began New York Last Minute Apartment Hunting 2.0 and the onslaught of piles of official documents emails/calls/texts between South Carolina, New York and “Joe/Jane Brokers.” Did I mention I started my first, real, adult job at the same time?
Apartment hunting and Photoshop replaced eating and debatably breathing. Apartments ‘nestled’ under overpasses, apartments above pizza shops, apartments in neighborhoods where I was warned by homeless men that I did not belong - I learned that the best way to get to know New York geography is to search out of necessity for a place to live. Odds are your broker doesn’t know where they are going either and you might have to hop through a second floor window to let THEM in..
Four and a half weeks later David, (aforementioned Class A roommate) Paulina (our new addition post-3rd roommate crisis) and I waved goodbye to Harlem moved into our new apartment in Brooklyn. Though the dishwasher doesn’t yet work, the water pressure in the shower is comparable to Africa in the dry season and I wake up with headaches from the smell of floor polish - I no longer live out of 8 cardboard boxes. I wake up to the sunrise and I can bike over the bridge to work. I have several new running routes, a local coffee shop, and a park that reminds me of summer morning walks with my mom. And when the nostalgia of home does get to me, God knows there will be enough undiscovered places to distract me.
Above: Paulina devouring butter pecan ice cream in the Harlem apartment just before we left; Paulina and David atop our roof in Harlem; David mid-meltdown on moving day.
Before I moved to New York, I read a few articles (like this) and had many, many people give me advice on how to adapt to a big move and a new city. One of my closest friends, Alex, made me a challenge list which included things like:
Don’t get consumed by the city, or myself and Do something significant for myself.
I’m working on it but even though people flock to New York City (and other places like it) because they say you can be anyone you want to be - that it still a feat regardless of how you look or what you do for a living. And in naked honesty, for me, New York is hard.
I only believe New York has endless opportunities for creativity and a constant vibrant, brimming atmosphere in every alley because someone told me that. In fact, lots of people told me that. Of course there is plenty of truth in those things but I have found there is a layer of loneliness that covers the city and everyone in it. And no one had advice beforehand about it. Struggling with community works against you here. Even my most positive attitude and hopeful heart gets rained on and I return to a room that is not mine feeling physically worn out and slightly defeated.
I do not think New York is special to this feeling and I do not think that I am either. I do not think that moving hundreds of miles from whatever community I did know should be easy. I fully expect my heart to break before it can come to love what I’ve chosen to be the next step.
Lucky for me I like competition more than I like admitting defeat (or, anything.) And the last thing on my list from Alex is this:
Enjoy your life.
Above: Simple illustration of a quote from an email my mother sent me earlier today.
I’ve been neglecting writing this blog about my first, full-time, adult job (oh God, is that another commitment issue?) But once I get over this, I’ll be able to post about all the neat stuff I’ve been doing since. Here goes:
I accepted the position of UI/UX Designer at EnduringFX about five hours before I walked across a stage to shake President Harris Pastides’ hand and bring my undergraduate career to a close. After spending most of my spring interviewing for jobs in New York and applying for internships in Europe having this opportunity suddenly materialize was a bit of a shock. But even moreso when I heard myself saying “I do” to a minimum of three more months in Columbia. (Opportunity, interview, offer and acceptance spanning 72 hours.)
When I accepted the position (lured by the idea of designing holograms and Pearl Izumi cycling jerseys) I didn’t know I was about to step into a high speed startup software company on the verge of potentially receiving 100K to change the way urban dwellers see and use public parks. Only a few days after settling into the office, myself and the two other full-timers (yes, it’s just the CEO, director and me) hopped on a plane to New York to present at the Data Design Diabetes Demo Day Challenge. I won’t even begin to explain how steep the learning curve the business side of EFX has been for me (perspective: I sat a few seats back from Aneesh Chopra at the DDD Challenge.)
What we do seems to change daily but our focus is to make an impact on diabetes (starting here and going global) and fitness through the use of interactive technology and incentive programs in public parks and fitness facilities. Medgadget did a neat little write up about us that might help explain how we’re going to change the world.
I know that doesn’t properly describe what I do but I think that’s key here. Because what we do is changing, what I do is just as dynamic: I put a dog on a billboard yesterday for heaven’s sake..just before Cameron Runyan can be seen pumping iron over the Blossom Street Bridge.
Where fitness and design meet - sounds like a reason for me to stick around the south a little longer and see how long it takes us to get offers for remote offices here, here or here (did I mention the technology we use comes from the Netherlands?)
Above is a photo of Susan (our director of marketing) and I in our Columbia office and a slew of snips from our time in NYC. Including a trip to Nike Town and Apple 5th Ave.
