Project Launch: Heirloom

For my independent research project in my Folk Art and Folk Life class this semester, I am planning to research the story, design, materiality, and personality behind objects members of my generation hold significant or irreplaceable: a study of the Heirloom. I hope to interview anyone and everyone I can in MY generation who has an object they consider irreplaceable and document my findings in a book I will edit, design, and bind by the end of the semester.

This is where you come in. If you are under the age of 26, have an object that you consider unique, irreplaceable, or significant for ANY reason, and (preferably) are located in the Baltimore, MD or West Chester, PA area, please consider letting me interview you for this project; it would be a huge, huge help. If you are interested, or have any questions, post a comment below, shoot me an email, give me a call, or otherwise get in touch with me.

I will be sure to provide status updates as the project moves along!

The Center for Design Practice

This semester I am going to have the unbelievable privilege of working with Mike Weikert and Ryan Clifford, along with a small handful of other undergrad and grad students, at the Center for Design Practice. We are working on an exciting project I will not explain just yet, but Mike & Ryan have said it will be okay to blog about the work we do, so I hope to document the project fairly thoroughly on here.

Now that school has started back up again, my work will be for ME and I will therefore actually be able to post it. Hopefully things will get a lot more lively around here in the weeks and months to come!

Your Recession is My Renaissance.

Had this bouncing around my head for some time and threw it together. I think it, or something similar would make a fine screen print. Thoughts?

Thievery Corporation at Ram’s Head Live

Cameron Sinclair and Architecture for Humanity

I was fortunate enough to attend Cameron Sinclair’s lecture at MICA tonight, something I have been looking forward to for a very long time. His lecture did just what I thought it was going to do for me: he was amazingly inspiring while simultaneously overwhelming me.

For those of you that aren’t familiar with him, he got fed up with the world of Architecture with a capital A catering to the designer crowd and not the common man, or as he calls it “the other 98%”. So, one day after seeing the refugee situation in Kosovo in the late 90′s on the news, he just straight up called the United Nations and asked to speak with whomever was in charge of refugees. Long story short, they actually patched him through to whomever is in fact “in charge of refugees” and he talked his way, quite accidentally, into presenting housing solutions to the UN, who had not spoken with an Architect with an implementable plan in some time. This really kicked Sinclair’s drive to put architects and designers in situations where they could be a part of real change in real time into high gear, and he co-founded Architecture for Humanity, an open source community of designers and architects that give a damn. He throws all of the preconceived notions about what it means to be a designer to the wind and focuses almost entirely on how to use one’s skills to be a positive force in the world. The program has grown immensely over the last decade, but don’t take it from me, check out what they’re up to: www.architectureforhumanity.org

I am immesely impressed and inspired by the man. He is a big “If you are not part of the solution you are a part of the problem” kind of guy, and I am going to be trying very hard in the future to be an integral part of the solution, instead of just polluting the world with classy boardgames and my own personal philosophies set in Clarendon.

MICA/UB Leadership Retreat Branding: Catalyst

This past Saturday I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to help facilitate a Leadership Retreat for the MICA and University of Baltimore community. I had been working with the planning committee for a few months prior, and the whole thing went off without a hitch and was a really great experience for me, and I hope all involved. I had, with the help and feedback from the planning committee, come up with the branding for the retreat, and it was cool to see the logo plastered all over folders, name-tags, signs, and screens at the event. (more…)

Back In Baltimore, Posting Will Resume

Made it back to Baltimore and MICA last night just before they closed the roads for Obama. As I am now back at school and no longer wasting my time/life posting will resume and be of and about things that actually matter (hopefully). (more…)

Charm City Map Project

A screenshot from the Charm City Map

I have had the pleasure of working with some students and faculty members at MICA on a map designed specifically with incoming freshman in mind. Pushing the boundaries of HTML and CSS (with a little bit of php for the includes) I was able to create a dynamic map showcasing points of interest, mass transit routes, streets, and roads around MICA‘s campus and all of Baltimore. I used a few advanced/unique ideas in CSS to achieve this goal and after the jump I will explain how it’s done. (more…)