Seeing the Light

Venice Beach Laundry © Taylor Barnes 2014

"Seeing the Light" may refer to the many levels that "light" is experienced when creating a piece of art. This recent painting posed the challenge of rendering a dramatically lit nighttime scene (alá Edward Hopper). In some ways, dramatic lighting is a cheap trick because if you do it at all well the result is a magical and dramatic work. Lighting used to portray a story within a story is something photographers and filmmakers understand only too well. A scene filled with dramatic lights and darks just screams to be interesting. Think, film noir.

I have passed this laundry for years and watched life play out in front of these well-lit windows. Some nights there is a line around the corner for the homeless to do free laundry, compliments of the management. Every night there is a congregation of homeless hanging on the steps trading information and hitting up the well-healed patrons of the Whole Foods Market next door. This laundry represents a true class intersection that is practically symptomatic of the entire economic displacement of people happening in Venice Beach. 

Through these windows, the light reveals a whole society of people normally hidden from view. "Seeing the Light" refers to the technical aspects of how this work is painted as well as the story it reveals. The emptiness is probably the future of this place. As wealthier families move into the area, they won't need a laundry. In the past, this was where neighbors gathered to meet neighbors, exchange information, or find a helping hand. Local artists painted the walls and there was a sense of an extension of home. The landscape is changing and some of the soul of Venice is leaching away with that change.

Of course, it is only a laundry mat but it is also a symbol - if we look, we can see the light.  The final part of the journey of this painting revolves around communication. In my effort to communicate clearly what I was seeing I rendered the white letters of "Venice Beach Laundry" with the precision of a sign painter. I failed to see the painting that was the engine to the image – until I showed it to both my mother and my daughter. Each, independently of the other, said the letters were too dominant and should be pushed back. Their critique helped me to "see the light." I realized that the danger of leaving the painting and the world it creates in favor or the literal world is to loose track of the dynamic of painting. By being too literal, I was loosing the spontaneity of the brush and what set my work aside from a photograph. Texture, depth of color and – lighting – were my tools. I pushed the letters back to a rougher form and the work was complete. 

In the end, I find each painting is a psychological journey into some aspect of my thinking that has yet to be revealed to me. This painting was about seeing the light, literally and spiritually. It is a little like playing God in your own personal universe, “… on the seventh day God said, 'let there be light' and there was light."

If I Only Had a Brain

 Ray Bolger sings "If I Only Had a Brain" in the 1939 classic movie, "Wizard of Oz".

 

“I could think of things I’ve never thought before and then I’d sit

  and think some more.”

Thinking is important to our development as a culture – thinking creatively is vital.

CCI – the acronym for "Cultural and Creative Industries" and the idea that new economies are about selling ideas while the old industrial production model would be selling things. America was an industrial production leader for many decades ushered in with the vision of Henry Ford. In 2013 are we being left in the dust because of our archaic notions about our educational infrastructure? It's Brawn Power vs. Brain Power.

I am thinking specifically about education. We have been slow to adopt new ideas therefore a large portion of our society has been left behind - but not in the way the "no child left behind" legislation of the Bush administration would have suggested. Our population is being left behind as other industrialized nations move from production oriented industries to Cultural and Creative Industries (CCI).

For a country to be competitive in design and creative thinking education is a vital element and yet the US is still experimenting with systems and undervaluing the field as a whole. Finland is a good case study of a country that has successfully refocused itself from being an industrial production economy to a growing CCI economy. Even though it is a smaller country than the US, without significant ethnicity and/or religious confilict it is a current example of what can be right in an educational system.

Investment in Education: Forty years ago, the Finnish government decided the path to economic recovery would involve a stronger educational system. They implemented stringent teacher-training guidelines requiring every teacher must have a fifth year master's degree and teacher training school. Consequently, their teachers are pulled from the top ten percentile of students in the country and given the same status as a doctor, lawyer, or engineer. 

The status and value put upon the teaching profession not only encourages the best and brightest to become educators but also sends a message to society as a whole that thinking and training are valued. Since Finnish teachers are given autonomy in the classroom and encouraged to develop new educational thinking the education system again reinforces the idea that they are a society that values creative innovation and respects the abilities of its professionals.

In contrast, you have the American education system, which closely monitors the curriculum, teaches to the test, overvalues test taking, and is straddled with economic burdens which makes it difficult to implement new ideas. The American system currently ushers untrained teachers, fresh out of college straight into the classroom in an effort to keep the schools functioning but not necessarily flourishing. This is a corporate model for education, which is an extension of the old idea of a production-based economy. 

The production-based model measures quantitatively the effects of education upon its product (i.e. the student), rather than the development of creative thinking and successful problem solving. It is one of the contributing factors to why our younger population is at odds with the current culture. Their world is a fast moving, tech based, economy that they need flexible thinking skills to survive but instead they are being handed a group of archaic skills that are only good for following orders and producing product – the old industrial model. This style of education is producing an indefinable, widespread anxiety among young adults as they emerge into the work world.

Technology: The second element in the development of a CCI economy is technological development and wide spread access to the Internet, which in turn provides the knowledge and content to create new products. There have been several Congressional bills over the last few years that would have effectively put the control of the Internet into the hands of the service providers. Fortunately, these bills were defeated but had they been passed the United States would have set itself back several years in technological development – perhaps a move from which we might never have recovered. In a recent development and with tremendous foresight, major universities are putting their curriculum and some classes online for public access. The idea to socialize education is good for society as a whole and with regard to the development of a CCI economy, universal Internet access is the key to facilitating that. 

Once again, I look at Finland as the successful experiment – the Ministry of Education and Culture launched the “Development Programme for Business Growth and Internationalization of Creative Industries 2007-2013.” The idea that technology, education, and the creative ingenuity of their population could significantly increase the bottom line of their GNP was forward thinking and proved the right move to make.

Functional Social Structure: The third and most difficult hurdle for the US to overcome is to create a functional social structure. This idea can be examined on a micro level to gain insight as to how it impacts us as a nation on a macro level. For example: if the parents in a divorced family are antagonistic towards each other the children can suffer intellectually because they focusing upon coping with their emotional response to a fractured social structure. However, if the divorce is supportive, with open lines of communication and tolerance for differences the children can thrive intellectually and feel less need to focus their energy upon solving the emotional issues. Of course, this is simplistic but it is meant to show the importance of pulling together as a nation rather than against each other. 

Currently our social structure is deeply divided which is starkly illustrated during each national election as the population divides into red and blue states. There are religious, social, economic, and racial differences that pull us apart and cause our focus to shift from the fundamentals of pulling together. Using Finland as an example in this case is where we part company completely. Finland, and many smaller European countries, although they can have problems with religious and ethnic antagonism, have smaller populations of people to influence when shifting their country into a CCI economy. This could single-handedly be the biggest hurdle the US faces today. While adversity can often lead to startling leaps in creativity from individuals, it is when a country pulls together that you see world leadership born. In the current world economy many countries come to mind that could be potential candidates for that honor but the US is not one of the stronger contenders.

With our uneducated, reality TV based culture, we have turned our backs on our greatest export – the creative intelligence and ingenuity of our people. The promotion of a creative economy needs to become a concept that is understood by the individual American and something they are committed to with foresight and intelligence. If we understand that, the model of what we are educating ourselves for will shift from "how to build things," to "how to think of things" and we would begin to heal our social structure and legislate creativity into our government. 

These are utopian ideas but we are seeking answers. This article was inspired by one column on how charter schools are using young teachers in a transient manner to fill the leadership roles in our classrooms. This seems symptomatic of our band-aid approach to our future as a nation. This idea as well as many of our "knee-jerk" emotional short-term responses to long term issues will have the same effect that fast food had on America – it will satisfy an immediate need but ultimately it will be unhealthy for all of us.

The Collective Consciousness of "I"

 

3.1 Venice magazine – cover art  ©  Taylor Barnes 2013

I had a dream. I actually had an epiphany. I had a moment. Maybe a moment of insanity! But I did it. I started a magazine.  3.1 Venice was born May 30th, 2013 – weighing in at 60 pages and measuring 8.5" x 10.5".

I can use "I" with a sense of humility because I was the instrument for the idea. Much like giving birth to my daughter - I have a sense of bringing her into the world and having guardianship over her but what happened after that was her destiny, not mine.  

I just happened to have the skill set the universe required and it used me to get the word out. But the idea came through me like a Japanese bullet train. Four weeks ago it was a conversation at the local coffee shop, a statement of conviction, "I am starting a magazine." Four weeks ago, it was an impulsively bought domain name, 3point1-venice.com and a temporary web site proclaiming an arbitrary release date of May 25th. There was no particular reason for that date (and I missed it by five days) except to proclaim to the world that "I" was starting a magazine.

But the power of conviction is what convinced me that my little village of Venice Beach, California, was interesting enough to warrant a magazine – after all, there had been two before me. The publication and the website came fully realized and in four short weeks the universe ushered to my door everyone and everthing I would need to make this a reality. 

The theme of the first issue revealed itself very quickly and it certainly was not what I would have thought if you asked me at the beginning of this journey. The very first interview, with a wonderful urban farmer, Matt Van Diepen, led to an entire issue built around the farm-to-table movement here in Venice. Each story lead to another and the discovery of the people who make our community unique. We have musician Finian Makepeace talking about Mycorrihzal Fungi and his dreams for a community garden, a profile on the modern ukulele band The Ooks of Hazzard, and a piece about Chance Foreman's film, One Day in Venice. There are other stories – The Learning Garden and the Seed Library, and interviews, art, video, photography. Everybody had something to say! All of these stories emanated from the 3.1 square miles we call Venice.

But it's the design process that was affirmed and revealed during the creation of this publication. The idea that I could be so deeply involved with the subject matter, that I could have a vision and be the guardian of it was a renewed experience. I have been here before but it has been awhile and I'd forgotten how intoxicating it can be. This project was a joyful coming together of all my skills in one place. Today, three days post launch, I am exhausted from all the joy.

I found myself in the middle of a process of collaboration, discovery, invention and communication that was energizing and inspiring and I am reminded why I love publication design so much. There is a bit of withdrawl now because it is a heady experience to bring something to fruition that was just a dream four weeks ago. But every time I look at the sixty pages of original content and the list of talented contributors, I am in awe of how creative humans can come together to build something more powerful than the singularity of it's parts.

Even though I started this post with references to "I", "I", "I" – I am ending this post as the collective "I." Think of the Borg of the Star Trek series. They were individuals all tuned into one mind – this is the "I" I am referring to. Collective Consciousness driving many people towards one binding mission. In this instance it was to create, even for a moment, a sense of community and awareness that you are not alone in the world. "I" is also "eye" when spoken, so the use of "I" with reference to a magazine could be interpreted as "I see."

View the first issue of 3.1 Venice at issuu.com

Goddess of Abundance

 Goddess Abundance © Taylor Barnes

This week I created this image, for a client, to represent a "Goddess of Abundance." I dove into the assignment with particular enthusiasm because I thought, "how great, maybe she'll bring some abundance into my life!"

That line of thinking stopped me in my tracks. What was I doing? Creating an image with the express purpose of meeting my needs financially? How crass, how materialistic, how uncreative of me! But if I am totally honest we are motivated by financial reward because it allows us to do the vanity project that is near and dear to our hearts.

Striking a balance between the monetary goal and the creative goal is the challenge of every illustrator.

Can chasing the dollar corrupt your work? Yes. But it can also cause you to hold yourself to a higher standard because you want to sell your work.

Can chasing a dollar make you compromise your ideas? Yes. But sometimes that compromise is because you are working with a brilliant art director (who is also chasing the dollar) and together you form a perfect synergy that makes both of you greater than the sum total of your individual work.

While I was working on my Goddess of Abundance, I was not focused on the money I would be paid or the attention she might get - I was focused on the process. I pondered every line, the color balance, the mood and the processes I was using. I was involved in the work I love to do.

In the end this little Goddess of Abundance retaught me a lesson I needed to learn again...

Do what you love and the money will follow.

New Christmas Card for Max & Mia

The studio has been active this holiday and I thought I would show you one of the new pieces. The color is unexpected for a holiday card but somehow it all worked. This card is for a clothing line called Max & Mia.

It's Starting to Feel a Lot Like Christmas!

 

Santa in the Forest ©Taylor Barnes 2010

Sagittarius - A Seeker of the Truth

 

Sagittarius © Taylor Barnes 2010

Sagittarius is an interesting sign to welcome us into winter. They respect truth above all else and avidly seek independent thinking. In the cold darkness of winter truth is obvious - there is no time to be languid about the decisions we make. In ancient times winter was dangerous and carried the threat of death. Only in the light and warmth of spring did we experience rebirth and celebration of another year. So is it any wonder that Sagittarius is a sign that seeks truth and ideas? It is internal and self-motivated. Between now and spring we are dominated by signs like Capricorn - that make rules, Aquarius - who dream big dreams, and Pisces - who invent the future through their psychic connection to humanity. Sagittarius is an extension of the winter pattern of internal thinking and psychic exploration that begins with Scorpio. But unlike Scorpio, Sagittarius does not tolerate secrets or deception, they want facts and truth.

Sagittarius is a fire sign and concerned with creativity and expression of ideas. Aries and Leo are fire signs also but each one expresses their energy along the lines of tkarmic evolution through the signs of the zodiac - Sagittarius being the most evolved. The more evolved Sagittarius focuses on high ideals and expressing the truest good of humanity - the less evolved will be self-righteous and concerned with their individual idea of the truest good of humanity.

All of this exploration into astrology does have some bearing upon how human beings have adapted to survive our environment. As we gain control  over our environment we have less connection to or threat from nature, resulting in a loss of our sense of rhythm with nature. The blood in our veins and the chemicals in our brains still respond to the changes in nature just as it was for our ancestors, so it would behoove us all to pay attention to where we evolved from. 

How often you have spent a vacation far from the city and experienced the awe of a truly black night only lit by stars? Or felt the calmness that descends upon your body as you sit on a beach and listen to the waves beat upon the shore. That is who we are and as we move away from that connection some of our humanity is being lost too. 

When I examine the signs of the zodiac it is not so much from a belief in astrology but more from a curiosity about the mindset of ancient man and what they were observing in nature. I can gain a glimpse into the mind of ancient man from observing history, philosophy and science. I try to remain open - not naive - but analytical. I have not bought the "technology is God" idea. I wish to believe that some day the laws of nature and the laws of technology will meet in the middle and truly improve the quality of life.

A New Look and A New Attitude!

                         Virgo by Taylor Barnes © 2010


A redesign is a good but unnerving thing to undertake. I approached this one with so many possible ideas but one criteria – I wanted things to lighten up. I am fond of saying, "white space is your friend" yet I wasn't practicing what I was preaching. Hence, the redesign.

I am happy with the cleaner look and you may have noticed the new logo in the header for L'Image Graphics. My primary focus as a designer is to resurrect the brand that I developed several years ago. I had not planned to walk this road until a few months ago when three completely random emails requesting to buy my products sparked an idea. It seemed to me that if, after all this time, people were interested enough to track me down then maybe I should be interested enough to produce that product again.

But once again that brings me to the subject of 'redesign.' Of course I couldn't put out the same product I did several years ago -times have changed. But what parts to keep and which to change are the difficult challenges we face as designers. A brand has to be respected but it can't get stuck either.

So with all that in mind welcome to the new and improved L'Image Graphics. If you are interested to see the new work you can find it at www.zazzle.com/limagegraphics.

Enjoy.

Rhythm in Design - the music behind the art

Rhythm is the synchronicity that happens in good design when all the elements come together harmoniously. Your eye moves around the piece from point-to-point only to end up at the beginning again. Rhythm takes you on a guided tour of what should be noticed in the art.

How do you establish rhythm in design? It is similar to music - there is a visual "beat" to how you look at something. The beat could be color, color, TYPE, or PICTURE, picture, picture, LINE. Think of the design elements like counting beats in music, 1,2,3 or 1,2,3,4. There are half notes (pieces that are equally strong in color and type, for example.) And there are long notes, four full beats of a full page photo or just type. The "full beat" design is calculated to have you hang on the entire image and let it impact you. A good example is the think different Apple ad campaign (one example is the Yoko Ono and John Lennon ad below.)

 

Design is music in visual form. Whenever I am struck by the balance of a work I feel the 'music' behind the design. The rhythm creates the bones of the work to help guide the viewer. The Man with the Golden Arm poster, circa 1955, by the great designer Saul Bass is a wonderful example of "visual music." The pieces of the design dance on the page causing a vibration that varies from bold and sharp, to a light "melody" created by the type floating above the solid black elements.

I would love to ask various designers to show their work and see if they can remember what type of music they may have been listening to during the process of creating it (if any.) I think it would be an interesting experiment to see how the music may have influenced the visual rhythm of their work.

The next time you look at a great book cover, billboard or movie poster see if you can "hear" the design.

Nothing up my sleeve...

I have been having fun in the studio for the last few days. The process of creating and exploring new ideas is positively magical. I entered full of angst and worry, and I emerged…well I emerged!

Below is a new design I did for a t-shirt. The message is my friend's but I think it is so appropriate for the times. I am about to put the finishing touches on my new line of products and what is driving me is my belief in myself. To everyone who has a dream –

 

copyright Taylor Barnes © 2010

The Covert Affairs of Helvetica...

She is smart, sexy, blond, a CIA agent and her code name is "Helvetica?” During an episode of the new TV show, Covert Affairs, the lead character was given the code name "Helvetica." I was taken aback by the use of this font for something so dramatic and well… covert. Helvetica is anything but covert, as a matter of fact it is everywhere in our daily lives. Thanks to the wonderful documentary, Helvetica, the font now seems to be in the fashionable lexicon of hip words as well.

If you have not had the opportunity to watch this documentary, you can download it through iTunes and make an evening of it! To the uninitiated, a movie about a typeface may not sound too exciting but once you watch the film you will understand how much Helvetica is a part of your everyday life. Due to its newfound celebrity, Helvetica is even sexy enough to be the code name for a gorgeous, CIA agent. 


Trailer for the film Helvetica

 I showed Helvetica the movie to my graphic design students who proceeded to go out into the world and send me photos of Helvetica in their everyday lives. The examples were endless. Perhaps my favorite tribute was the student that chose to dress as Helvetica for Halloween - a plain white t-shirt with the word 'Helvetica' on the front - written in Helvetica, non-italic, regular.


The power of the visual media in action once again. By shining a light on the unique qualities of what was once a very industrial font, Helvetica has become a typography star. This font now trumps all others in the common person’s vocabulary (maybe with the exception of Arial - a Helvetica clone I might add.) What of the gorgeous Garamond and the conservative Copperplate fonts of the world? Will they ever get their day? My suspicion is only one font can carry a movie and Helvetica was the lucky one.
 


Mad for Mad Men

Here I am with the Mad Men gang - if you would like to make a scene with yourself in it you can Mad Men Yourself on the AMC website. My face is different because I did a little adjusting in adobe illustrator but you can still fritter away a good amount of time playing with the options they offer.

Yes it is that time again - Mad Men premiers on Sunday and I am very excited! The show is brilliant and so different from anything else on the air! Beyond the wonderful scripting and character development lets talk about set design and costuming.

As a designer I cannot get enough of this show. The subtle changes is style and the merge into the rebellious 60s from the conservative post-war 50s are fascinating to watch. The original use of mid-century design and the overall color palette of the show are inspirational.

I am sitting on the edge of my vintage Eames chair waiting for the premier!

Bruce Lee - an artist

This is a very rare interview with Bruce Lee - a brilliant actor, philosopher and founder of the founder of the Jeet Kune Do martial arts movement. He died too soon and today marks 37 years since his passing. If you don't know who he is start by watching "Enter the Dragon," the movie he is probably most famous for in America. He influenced an entire generation of Chinese action heroes and still none of them could quite capture his humor, intelligence and sheer force.

Why am I devoting a post to a man who practiced Kung Fu on a blog about design? Bruce Lee illustrates that art has no boundries in its expression. Kung Fu was his art and he practiced it with the same grace and devotion as a painter or a musician. To watch him in action is to be inspired to do better with your own work. To strive a little harder.

Bruce Lee was known to be very dedicated to the training of his body. His body was his canvas. When you watch this video pay attention to how fast his hands and legs move. The camera can not catch the motion - it is a blur. In the 60s and 70s his artistry inspired boys (and some girls) all over the world to take up Chinese martial arts.

He was a brilliant flash on earth but his legacy lives on.

FAIL U R

Self-Portrait, Vincent van Gogh, 1853 - 1890

“Men succeed when they realize that their failures are the preparation for their victories.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Failure - to fail, the act of failing, to royally mess up! Why are we so afraid of making a mistake? I wrote the title "Fail U R" to demonstrate, in type, how personal failure is when you are making a creative effort in a public arena. I did not say "Fail I M" because to fail as a designer is usually very public. We are judged first by our own standards, then by our client's and finally by the customer/public.

Within this process our egos as designers tangle with our need to creatively experiment. Without experimentation we lose the opportunity to benefit from the happy accident.

I illustrated this post with two paintings by Vincent van Gogh because during his lifetime he sold only one painting and that was to his brother. He was unappreciated and probably considered a failure. Despite this he never stopped producing art that was important to him. In the end his work succeeded brilliantly - how do you analyze the irony of such success?

I once had a painting professor who taught me to not value the part of the painting that I found perfect. He said that if I found one area too precious I would paint around it and not respect the work as a whole. I learned technique from painting that one small part perfectly but I learned far more from painting over it and retaining the memory of painting it perfectly. I gained confidence every time I destroyed my "perfect" work that I would be able to paint that way again and again. It was one of the cornerstone's of my artistic evolution.

"Fail U R" means you are only a failure if you allow other people to define you as a failure. Failing is part of the process that helps us grow - if we learn from it. How we define failure is subjective, one person's failure is another's personal best. If the standards are so arbitrary why do they matter?

Why?... because in the end we do the work because it makes us happy and doing the work to the best of our abilities makes us even happier!

Staring at the white page...

White Three Panel Painting, Robert Rauschenberg 1951

Here I am again – staring at the white page. The white page, or the blank white posting box, is possibly the most unnerving thing an artist or writer can face. Perhaps the abstract expressionist painters, such as Robert Rauschenberg, had the right idea - see the beauty in the white space.

When I begin a project I have very noble aspirations but my first mark on the page reveals the long journey of creation that is before me. Over the years I have developed a bag-of-tricks to help me get through this initial launch of an idea. I make lists, lots and lots of lists. I research my list ideas and then I make new lists. But at some point I have to stop because what was once a productive activity has become a huge time waster.

What next? Clean the house of course! Do the dishes, catch up on the laundry... you get the idea. It is painful to dive into the creative abyss. And then I do...

Once I dive in I wonder why I waited so long. I get in the flow, my mind starts to hum and I go into that space where the work is no longer about me but about the process and whatever it is that I am trying to channel.

Maybe this post was a little boring but I had to fill the white page with something.

Emotion + Design

Emotion is an essential component to any design. It is this subtle element that binds the visual together. Sometimes emotion is not so subtle - such as the work of designer, Tibor Kalman for Colors Magazine. He was a rule breaker and creator of wild, emotional conversations through design. His visuals were controversial and inspirational. Such as the Colors cover below...

Issue No. 7, Colors Magazine, 1997

Typography can convey an emotion with its shape and carefully chosen juxtaposition to the word it is rendering. Consider the following examples and how the mood shifts from word to word. Once all the emotional words come together they create a comprehensive mood along with the individual tone.


Finally, words and images together create the total emotional impact. "A picture is worth a thousand words," or perhaps one emotion. Add a word to that picture and it becomes either trite or moving, depending on the sensitivity and artistry of the designer. Consider the next illustration which I designed to portray one of the seven deadly sins, Wrath. This word and the illustration were full of emotion and it was my responsibility to pick the words, images and colors that conveyed the proper emotional meaning of wrath. You tell me if I succeeded or failed...

From the "Mona Lisa" to Mondrian's "Broadway Boogie-Woogie" eliciting emotion is one of the primary vehicles every artist must use to connect with the viewer.


How well you manipulate this element will determine the success or failure of the work as much as the execution and design. I will sign off before I become too emotional about this topic.

The Surreal Life

I have been teaching "magical realism" or surrealism in my summer school class this week and I have to admit that this exercise does open your imagination to new perceptions in reality.


The bride piece evolved 'organically' in my mind but the deeper levels of meaning to my own life are so varied it astounds me! Experimenting with this type of symbolism cannot help but become an outlet for the artist's subconscious mind.

It is the time of the astrological sign of Cancer. I did this image for my website but what is the point if it never gets seen? So here is an image for all of my Cancer friends - enjoy and happy birthday!

Inspiration...

I had this image in my mind for many months. Obviously I was inspired by the famous mural in the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo, but there were other contemporary influences as well. ET and "phone home." I saw all the movies where lovers were torn apart and their fingers cannot touch.

I applied this image in a new context for my contact page. I was an interesting experiment. But it caused me to examine how an artist builds upon the cultural references of one generation after another. But the pieces that become iconic and inspirational are often determined by a difficult to define process. It is the perfect mix of right timing, cultural and personal appeal and serendipity. Once these pieces become part of the lexicon of images that define and populate our lives they then serve as inspiration.







The Mona Lisa, van Gogh's Starry Night, The Last Supper, and Marilyn Monroe by Andy Warhol, just to name a few.

But what about the images that we see for an instant and they stay embedded in our minds? Inspiration,like lightening, can strike at any time. I have tried to repeat the circumstances of where I was and what I was doing when I had a great idea in the past and sometimes it works. I have the lucky sweatshirt, the particular way I set up my desk, the list of "must dos" before I start working. All of this superstition and preparation are in an effort to grab ahold of that quicksilver thought as it flies through my mind.

The appeal of a stroke of inspiration is how lucky you feel once it happens. Not to mention the great conviction that arises around an inspired thought that it absolutely must be the greatest idea ever because it was "given" to you by the universe. The process of creating is a little about giving up full credit and letting a higher power work through your subconscious mind.

Once inspiration has been experienced and realized into a work of art it becomes the nectar that we seek from one flowering idea to the next.

Here is to the inspired journey...

Context, context, context

This picture probably doesn't create much of a reaction in the viewer as it is. It is almost boring with how commonplace it looks. A stark, leafless tree in front of a house on a bright sunny day.

As a designer we are always asked to take the boring details of life and arrange them in a manner to give them new meaning, or a deeper meaning. We are asked to put things 'in context.'

Back to the tree... to add context to the tree I can tell you that it was brought to Venice Beach by the grandfather of a long-time resident of this neighborhood. His grandfather moved here from Louisiana and wanted a little reminder of his roots. So he brought a sapling pecan tree to California and planted it on this corner where it still stands 50 years later. The tree is a testament to the man now long gone.

That story has put the tree in context. The picture comes alive. It could be so much more now. If we added type to the picture we might think about fonts and colors that evoke the feel of the bayou. Or we may find the words of a Louisiana ballad long lost and overlay them faintly on the image of the tree to integrate the history into the picture.

Whatever we do we have added context to this picture and forever changed how it will be remembered and perceived. How we juxtapose elements and create meaning with symbols, pictures, words and color is one of the more subtle elements of design.

There is a show on television where celebrities take everyday jobs and see if anybody recognizes them "out of context." I thought about that and decided I would probably not trust my instincts and trust the context of the situation - meaning I would not see the celebrity for who they are but rather the job they were doing. The juxtaposition of ideas is a powerful framing tool that designers have at their disposal.

A good designer can make or break an idea just through the visual choices they make. There is no rule with how to use context - only to be aware of context. Hence you can't always judge a book by its cover - or can you?