The most difficult challenge was coming up with a logo that represent my personality. I set down with my moleskin and started to make a list of things that are related to me: graphic design, typography, lettering, curly q’s, and etc… My initial approach was to incorporate my initial in English and Korean. It looked good on a piece of paper but wasn’t so great once I rendered the image in to Illustrator. I moved on to just to use my initials – SB. After almost spending half a day at MyFont.com to see how different typefaces handle those two letters, I came up with few sketches:

After all these sketches and trials..

tada!

I really liked the final logo however a lot of my peers told me it looks like ‘al’ instead of ‘sb.’ After few revision….

That’s my final outcome of the business card. The logo looks more like ‘sb’ and I still managed to have some curly q’s!

It was a definitely a challenge. Creating a visual emblem to represent my personality wasn’t easy task because I was my own client. oh boy, let me tell you.. I am the worst client to myself. I just couldn’t make my own mind! However, finishing up the process and holding the final outcome in my both hands felt like I accomplished a lot and ready to go out in the real world.

My senior thesis was about finding my own identity. Identity is reoccurring theme of many of my work because of my personal background. This time, I examined my cultural background and religious background. I was interested in how different layers of each influences form one’s identity. The final outcome was a painting of floral pattern that were often used in Korean traditional clothes and shaman rituals. I will post a picture of the actual piece soon.

I had to give a presentation before the gallery opening about my thesis. Since I do not enjoy public speaking because of weird awkward silence, I’ve decided to make them laugh. I cracked jokes here and there but then soon I started to ask serious questions that I have asked myself over the years. I did pretty well on it – I think an hour long practice in mt bathroom helped me. The most awesome thing was my roommate, Sarah,’s dad came up to me started a conversation about my work. He asked me few questions about my work and how he wishes good luck on my journey to find myself in religion. It was not something that I expected but it definitely made me feel special – at least one audience got a chance to think about what I wish them to think. ohhh. and department head gave me a hug after the presentation! That was nice too.

I am glad I’m almost done with the graphic design program at UTC. I’ve learned SOOOO much from my professors and friends. They taught me how to look at things in design ways but also gave me a chance to truly truly fall in love with graphic design and visual art. I have spent 5 years with UTC art department and I really do not regret a single thing about it. Amazing faculty and their never dying passion of caring students is definitely something that I would miss after I leave the school. My graphic design friends will be missed so much too. They encouraged me to trust myself, to have fun, to respect each other and our work, and the list goes on and on and on. I know we are growing up fast as graphic designers and will leave the school soon. I wish I will never forget how passionate we are about design and so many other things.

Ah… I will miss school so much… I want to thank to my teachers and friends who spent last five years with me. THANKS!!!!!

Yes. If you know me you can imagine how hard it was for me to say ‘I quit’ to facebook. It was my proud and joy…well not really but it was pretty important to me. Our relationship started from beginning of my college year when good ole myspace was slowing dying. I thought Facebook was so handsome and well built (woooo~ look at his muscular layout~~ so sexy!). He was my perfect social network mate. Oh wasn’t he just charming – connecting me with all those lost ‘friends.’

Well.. things changed a little between us when I became clingy to him. I wanted to have more time with him. He dedicated all of his time to me. In fact, he was available whenever I turned on my computer. Slowly and but surely, I was spending more time with Facebook than my true love design. It became a serious problem. I ran to Mr.Design and asked him for mercy but he was too cold! He said ‘No! I won’t take you back until you say adieu to him! Then I will take you back!’

After contemplating many days and days, I decided to quit.

Monday morning as soon as I woke up, I opened my laptop and clicked the button; DEACTIVATE FACEBOOK.

Let me tell you. IT FEELS AWESOME. I’m Facebook free.

I know it has been only few days since I quit facebook but I can already tell that I became more productive. I have finish many things done last few days, read more design related articles and looked at awesome design works by others.

Now I’m gonna go hang out with Mr.Design. I re-found his beauty. I hope y’all have good weekend. :]

As a avid fan of Lady Gaga I was anxiously waited her new album. Now, let’s be honest here. I wasn’t too fond of her new song ‘born this way’ at first. Yes, her performance on Grammy was pretty good, including her fabulous entrance in an egg, but the song was too catchy and ‘pop-y.’

Do I still think about the song same way as few days ago..? NO. Her BRILLIANT music video changed my mind. Here are some captured images from her video:

The first image is just absolutely and grotesquely gorgeous. It reminds me of H.R.Giger’s work. The weird flesh colors with hint of vivid colors get tangled with body fluid like liquid in the shot. The birth of new creature looks pretty painful and disgusting but I found myself so fascinated by the scene. Also, reflection of mirror to create bizarre movement of the characters. All those factors combined and BAM! Now we got beautiful and gross work of art.

The second image reminds me how Lady Gaga is so good at turning ‘ugly’ into ‘beautiful.’ Also, it reflects the theme of the song: love yourself.

Hello!!!!

This is a rough sketch –

At the time, I was satisfied with it but quickly realized it wasn’t really what I wanted. The line quality is sloppy and the thick line on the baseline was blocking the flow of the form. I still need to figure out the effective way to deliver the logo. I came up with few improved sketches and ideas so I think I’m in good shape so far. I will post the final one soon.

Last two weeks, I worked on wine label. Since the logo wasn’t completely done I had to find a way to deliver the feeling of the brand without logo. The solution was fairly easy. I borrowed flowy feeling from the logo and used decorative lines on capital letter ‘A’ (A is one of my fav letter) and it became the main art work for the label. I like the visual flow of the form.

I choose Bodoni for the company name. Bodoni is very elegant and pretty (I know… pretty isn’t good word but I can’t describe the typeface with any word other than pretty. Bodoni is really pretty.) and is one of my go-to typeface. It definitely shows the elegant side of the brand.

Overall I’m pleased with the final product. It was a good exercise.

Few days ago, University of TN at Chattanooga invited Geoffrey Canada to give a speech about his Harlem Children’s Zone program (http://www.hcz.org/). His speech was just so inspiring however, Canada made me realize how kids in this country are not getting proper education to reach their dream. Public schools are failing. Kids are dropping out from school. The kids who are going to take care of this country near future are not reaching their 100% potential. They do not even get a chance to explore their talent. Why are we not doing anything about this? Why did we let this happen?

I went to public school – I spent 11 years in public school in S.Korea and 4 years in a public school in Cleveland, TN. Now, I will ask you a random question: why do you think kids in Asia are considered smart? Well I have an answer for you. THEY STUDY. In fact, they study way too much to the point where it’s not healthy for them, literally. A lot of high school in Korea starts around 9 a.m. o’clock, however, they have to be in the class 30 minutes before their own study session. After an hour lunch break around 12 p.m. class begins again and ends around 5 o’clock. Here’s kicker. They do not go home after school. They stay until around 8 p.m. to study more. I am not saying this is healthy or necessary to provide better public education system. Frankly, kids in Korea do not get enough physical activities because of all those crazy study hours. Public education system in S.Korea is not perfect overall but the students learn and study at school. I really wish public schools in the U.S. improve much more. I really hope schools in this country teach kids how to achieve dreams and goals.

What can I, as an individual, can do to make difference? Luckily for me, I’ve got a chance to participate in an event called ‘CreatAthon.’ Local designers and design students will come together April 8 and 9 and discuss how we can help local public schools. I do not have further information yet but I have definitely excited to be the part of the event. My little effort won’t make drastic difference but I believe this small step will teach me how to engage myself to the problem that we are facing in public school system.

-Designer 이관용 LEE Kwan-yong (www.sputnik.co.kr)

-Designer 정재완 Jeong Jae-wan (www.jjwan.com)

Many people know that I am a semi-bilingual. What’s semi-bilingual? It’s a made up word that indicates a person who only speaks decent in their second language. So.. I can speak Korean and some-what-ok English. Though I am not perfect neither of the languages these days (I know.. It’s quite sad), I am still very grateful that I know two different languages and their writing systems. As a designer, I’ve learned how to appreciate forms and relationship of the letters – typography. From last blog post, you can tell I really love typography. They are just so precious to me. Anyways, knowing two languages made it possible for me to enjoy typography work in each languages.

I was browsing few Korean typography websites and found those two posters above. I love how they treated the type so differently. Especially the one on the bottom looks really nice to me. The letters are stretched but they work so well together as a whole. I was so in love with it so I made it as my phone background. (continue)

I still have long way ahead of me. I’m not really satisfied with myself but I still have time. Maybe I should start my own ‘Daily Drop Cap’ project.. hmmm… sounds good to me… hmmmm.. we will see..

Thank you.

From. Sara.