A Bad Case of Wanderlust

UW Design Show 2010

2010-06-03T23:41:00.002-07:00

If you're in Seattle, stop on by, if not, fly up here and then stop on by!

The new superpower?

2010-05-04T21:57:00.009-07:00

My wife and I drove home to see my family in Nebraska for this last Christmas from Seattle. I've called the Pacific Northwest my home now for eight years and our population certainly considers itself forward thinking when it comes to minimizing our impact upon the planet. They also generally, and I STRESS generally (cuz we actually have a lot of cornhuskers living up here who share my perspective) consider the midwest to be backwards when it comes to energy consciousness and environmental concern. Here in Seattle we generate most of our electricity from hydroelectric power which, though it may cut the heads off a few salmon, is generally a "green" technology. I am designing an electric car at the moment and love being able to squash the "electricity comes from coal so its just as bad as combustion engines" argument by stating the source of our power.

After my trip I started thinking that wind power could become to the Midwest what hydroelectric is to the Northwest. During our trip I noted that as I moved further east from the coast there was an exponential increase in the amount of wind turbines along the way. Wyoming was definitely the hot spot. I must say that even as a native heartlander I was impressed with the progressive stance these folks had taken on energy independence.

If pure tree-hugging sentiment isn't enough for those in the midwest to adopt green energy solutions then perhaps economically it would make sense. I recently stumbled upon this map below:

As you can see, my homeland promises to become what the middle east is to fossil fuel once widespread wind energy technology is feasible... Notice the potential of Nebraska, and North and South Dakota for that matter, even when compared to the "windy city" to the east... Once we stop paying farmers government subsidies to destroy their surplus crops we can use that acreage to harvest something that could truly benefit our whole country. A great deal of those corn crops we produce are just made into high-fructose corn syrup that contributes to our national obesity epidemic anyhow...

That's my piece, clean energy NOW!

My little girl...

2010-04-27T00:32:00.003-07:00

She's reawakened an interest in poetry for me...

I love her.

Before the natal waterslide Immersed you in the pool of birth,

I dreamed your pageant on this earth As cherub, tomboy, scholar, bride.

My heart's your plaything, woman child, Your windup toy, your music box -

For of its massive, steel-bolt locks The combinations have you dialed.

Got a minute?

2010-02-17T02:42:00.006-08:00

We launched our senior capstone project a week ago and I have decided to use this year's Michelin Challenge as the foundation for my project. The challenge is to design a vehicle for the year 2021. I am going to be focusing on small commuter vehicles because I think they will dramatically increase in popularity over the next decade. RIght now I am in the research phase, collecting data and observations. As part of that, I have designed a survey that deals with people's impressions of microcars. If you have ten minutes to spare, please help me out by taking the survey, I will reward you handsomely with my undying respect and adoration! You know you want it... click the link below.

TAKE MY SURVEY

Prosthetics project makes Seattle Times

2010-02-16T17:58:00.001-08:00

Sketchcercise

2010-01-31T19:30:00.005-08:00

More practice, this is using a style called "canson." Chrome is tough, but this was a really fun exercise...

A breakthrough?

2010-01-31T01:16:00.005-08:00

Between some of the help Ahn has been giving me in class and some sweet online tutorials at idsketching.com I have been working toward a new technique of sketching. It is a much more loose, emotional and dynamic style, important for an industrial designer. It is also much less focused on the details and mechanics of the object in question. I have been plagued by this need to make super detailed drawings that make sense mechanically and from a manufacturing standpoint but have lacked a certain shimmer, if you know what I mean. This drawing is the first of the new style. It is for our upcoming mousetrap car competition. I still have a long way to go, but it is so different from what I've done in the past that I felt I had to share it with the interwebs.

A guiding quote

2010-01-11T11:09:00.003-08:00

Rachel and I did some exploring up near the Canadian border this weekend. We visited an amazing museum in Bellingham called Mindport that focuses on interactive art and exhibits ($2 entry fee, if you're there, it is a must see). On one of the walls of the museum I found a framed piece of 8.5 x 11 with the following written in an unassuming 12 point italic:

"The first enslaving illusion is the idea that people are born to be consumers and that they can attain any of their goals by purchasing goods and services."

"What people do or make but will not or cannot put up for sale is as immeasurable and as invaluable for the economy as the oxygen they breathe."

Ivan Illich

Toward a History of Needs

Prosthetic Arm Final Model

2009-12-11T12:21:00.004-08:00

The quarter is drawing to a close and last night I finished the final prototype for my prosthetic arm design. I am quite happy with how it turned out. As soon as I finish a process book to help explain the usage and features a little bit I think it will be my finest piece of design yet.

Transhumanist art project

2009-12-07T23:58:00.003-08:00

I am counting down the days until Rachel and I depart for Omaha, I am so excited to go on an adventure with my wife and to see my family for xmas. In the meantime, however, there is still much work to be done by thursday. Tonight I finished my experimental art project for my DXARTS class. Besides this blog, which really doesn't count, it is the first complete website I have ever built. Click on the photo below to check it out!

Prosthetic Arm Project rough model

2009-11-19T10:15:00.004-08:00

After nearly a month of sketching, researching, sketching, researching, I am finally on to the model building phase. It is going well, the picture below is the first iteration of my prosthetic arm concept...

Scary Monster

2009-11-11T23:11:00.001-08:00

Things I'm doing besides ignoring my blog....

2009-04-23T17:24:00.006-07:00

I have been learning Rhino 3D, a program designers use to create digital models of their ideas. These are just some fun exercises I have done in the last few weeks to get used to the tools:

Freaks...

2009-04-23T17:11:00.001-07:00

I rode the bus today for the first time in a couple months....

Oh, how I've missed you freaky people...

Though, to you I am likely the freaky guy on the bus....

Henry Doorly Zoo

2009-03-28T12:16:00.002-07:00

A resident gorilla at the Lied Jungle....

Letterpress

2009-02-26T16:51:00.005-08:00

So, after the Astoria trip (and a sleepless week of school stuff), we met up with the Oregon crowd again this last weekend for some more adventure. Joanne's old business partner, Ed, has a printing shop at his house including an antique letterpress that we have decided to use for our wedding invites. It took something that I would really not care much about, as long as everybody knew where and when to be at the wedding, and transformed it into a really exciting and meaningful experience for me. We spent pretty much all day saturday setting type (mmmmm....Garamond) and are closing in on our final designs now.... I'm shopping for paper tomorrow..... I love shopping for paper..... We also attended Uncle George's 70th birthday party smackdown that night, it was a big crowd and tons of fun. Fran and George had a tremendous amount of food ready for everyone, as usual. I always eat so much over there that I have a favorite napping spot in their house for after meals coma.

Click the image below for the photo album of last weekend....

Astoria Trip

2009-02-26T16:18:00.004-08:00

OK, a little catching up to do, my patience is telling me that these are stories best told photographically, so it's a good thing I've taken a TON of pictures recently. Two weeks ago, Rachel, myself, Seaton, Joanne, Lisa and Rebecca all took a trip together down to Astoria, Oregon, just across the Columbia from where Rach and I are getting married this summer. We saw some sights, relaxed a bit, handled some wedding business, found the best place for B.M.s (bloody marys that is), tried some local breweries and ate dinner at the restaraunt we are going to have cater the wedding (It was so damn good). Click on the map below to go to the photo album:

Soy Vay!

2009-02-26T15:50:00.008-08:00

I try to change little things about the way I eat every month or so. I don't go crazy I just pick one thing to try to cut out of my diet that is poisonous, toxic, disgusting or otherwise bad for me and then try my best to at least be aware of when I am ingesting it. It has led to some very positive changes in my lifestyle and I change so gradually that I barely miss some of the things I used to eat everyday. For example, my naturopath told me I was allergic to bananas. I used to eat bananas EVERY DAY! Turns out that they may have been contributing to some of the health issues I've had, so I stopped eating them, or rather, started generally avoiding them. Another thing that I have tried my best to cut out of my life is HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, it sure is difficult thought, that crap is everywhere!!! It is in things you would never even think of like ketchup, dry cereal, worcestershire sauce, yogurt and most recently I found it in the Kikkoman teriyaki sauce I have always bought! WOW, what the crap?!? So, the whole point of this post is to introduce my new favorite sauce, Rach and I have totally fallen in love with this stuff... I think we have had it the last two nights on our chicken, it is thick, chunky, and much more robust than regular teriyaki and best of all, NO HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP!!! It does have a little more sugar per serving, but it's the good stuff and this sauce is so flavorful, you end up using less of it anyway. No preservatives, no poison, tons of flavor, all natural and if you haven't gathered from the name of the company, it's kosher! Seriously, pick up a bottle of this stuff and just drink a big glassful. I can't wait to marinate some chicken overnight in it with some pineapple chunks and fire up the barbeque grill on the first sunny day we have up here (it snowed last night). OK, well that's enough product placement for now, but you know I wouldn't rant and rave about something like this if it didn't truly melt my undies....

2009-02-23T15:22:00.004-08:00

Design Program in Rome

2009-02-19T16:22:00.003-08:00

Tonight is probably the last time the participants of the Design Program in Rome 2008 will all have the chance to be together... The UW faculty club is hosting an exhibition of our photography and tonight is the reception for the show. On the announcement below, my photograph is the black and white "hotel" one...

Really?!?!

2009-02-19T16:13:00.003-08:00

Really? The UW school of art replaced the already wasteful coffee stirs in the cafe with obnoxiously wasteful INDIVIDUALLY wrapped coffee stirs! Really?!?

working hard?

2009-02-10T15:01:00.003-08:00

Rach came home last night and my desk was littered with red plastic cups that I had been using to develop a prototype spout for my spout design project. There were cups everywhere in various stages of destruction and I was busy putting music to a short video I made to "document" my process. She questions the actual usefulness of this, perhaps rightly so, but I've really been wanting to learn how to use video software, so I was just playin' around with it... some of my peers have used video to their advantage in presentations and I just want to add another tool to my toolbox...

A budding artist?

2009-02-05T11:33:00.003-08:00

Lena, our four year old friend, stayed at our house the last few nights. One day she was playing with some dominoes and something about the way she had laid them out caught my eye. So i snapped a few images...

Flight of the bumblebee

2009-01-31T21:42:00.005-08:00

I'm nearing my tenth hour of homework today, very productive though, I knocked out two projects! First I finished my presentation that I am giving on Monday about the Italian designer Ettore Sottsass, though I am still trying to figure exactly how to pronounce his name. Then I moved on to some creative work. Ahn is giving us a little more room for creativity in our work, this weekend we had to design a conceptual pair of goggles. I feel kind of in the zone right now and really like how these bumblebee eyes turned out.....

Mighty mousetraps!

2009-01-23T18:23:00.007-08:00

Wednesday was the first annual mousetrap race car competition at the University of Washington School of Art. It was a showdown between the Junior and Senior Industrial Design classes in three categories, speed, distance and style. One of our instructors, Magnus Feil proposed the challenge and mentioned that there would be press there to cover the event. I think most of us were thinking it would be the school newspaper, maybe the photography club, etc. We were all a little surprised when the two major seattle newspapers showed up and one of the local television stations! It really added to the excitement of the event and I have to hand it to Magnus for arranging this great publicity for our up and coming Industrial Design program. It's no secret that Western Washington University has had the better program in the state but I believe their days on top are numbered thanks to our outstanding faculty and the pure energy given by my fellow classmates who are pouring their heart and soul into every detail of every project.

First, a couple photos of my trapster, I was trying for speed:

Here's the article from the Seattle PI:

And finally, I just found this today, here is a little video compilation from the Seattle Times, watch for my car at about 0:39, it was a very close race, but I lost...

late nights...

2009-01-22T03:08:00.006-08:00

I just finished up another long photoshop session. The assignments have become significantly more involved than the simple 3D shapes I posted here earlier this month. Tonight I was working on a rendering of a glue gun. It is past 3 AM now and I am totally exhausted. Just thought I would throw up a couple pictures of my recent work for anyone who wants to know what I'm up to, cuz this is it....school school school! Today was also our Trapster races where we had to build and race a dragster powered only by mousetraps. I'll post photos of my car later after I pull the images off my camera....

I have to leave for school in five hours.... time to get some shut-eye!

Blogs with cool names

2009-01-13T22:32:00.002-08:00

I stumbled on these two blogs today and thought they were fitting to be on my blogroll, turns out blogroll was severely hacked not too long ago and they are not allowing any users to access their accounts anymore, so here are the links anyway, I particularly enjoy the "mild" one, some very nice photography happening there:

A mild case of wanderlust

Severe case of wanderlust

Baby steps...

2009-01-07T22:20:00.003-08:00

Back in school, this quarter is already shaping up to be a fine one. I have an Intermediate Industrial Design studio, a course on presentation for I.D. and a 3 credit seminar on Roman art and archaeology. I just finished up an assignment for the presentations class. We are going to learn how to create renderings of our products using Photoshop and illustrator. It is an interesting leap to make after spending last quarter concentrating on hand-renderings. This was a simple exercise but it opened my eyes to some of the capabilities of Photoshop that I just haven't gotten around to learning yet...

9th annual drawing jam

2008-12-28T18:34:00.004-08:00

This event was actually a couple of weeks ago, right after I got out of school for the winter break. It was my third year attending and was SO MUCH FUN! Rachel's mom has made the trip up here two years in a row now to go to the drawing jam with me. The art school opens up the doors to its studios to the public for twelve hours of creativity. There are free art supplies, snacks, beer and wine and some very incredible models and each studio has live local musicians playing. One of my favorite studios has local Seattle celebrities doing hour long poses. This year I spent some time in there sketching Father Christmas, his costume was very fuzzy and difficult to draw but interesting nonetheless. Last year Joanne was so excited to spend some time in the sculpture studio, so she convinced me this year to give it a try. We spent four hours working the clay and I really had a blast doing it. The model was in the middle of a circle of ten of us. She was sitting on a tall turntable and they rotated her every five minutes so we could try to capture her from every angle. It was great and I think it will be the first studio I hit every year now...here is a picture that they just sent to me of my little creation:

The snow piles up

2008-12-20T21:33:00.002-08:00

This is the walkway I just cleared not even fifteen minutes ago, look at all that white stuff!!

Another holiday post

2008-12-20T21:21:00.002-08:00

I'm feeling extra holiday spirit this year for whatever reason, maybe its all the snow, maybe its the extra lights, who knows. We've been taking snow walks at night because its so damn beautiful, I snapped a shot of our lights in the snow the other night, cuz they just look so much better surrounded with the white stuff...

The snow continues...

2008-12-20T21:14:00.004-08:00

An update on our radar for you other weather junkies out there. We just got back from dinner at Talarico's and I swept the walk, by the time I finished the walk was already covered in snow again... it is so great!! Favre, the snow king, welcome to Seattle, we rolled out the white carpet for ya. We are braving the storm to make our way down to qwest field tomorrow for Mike Holmgren's final home game, he better put on his snowshoes for his victory lap! Yippee!

A storm approaches...

2008-12-20T13:14:00.003-08:00

Seattle is in for it today, this storm is coming in fast and heavy! I have been watching the radar obsessively for an hour now, the leading edge of the storm is only 15-20 miles away and I can't believe how quick this thing is coming. I think the wind is going to be tremendous! It is surely in anticipation of the snow-king Brett Favre's arrival for the football game tomorrow.

Snow dance

2008-12-18T16:28:00.006-08:00

Even though I am on winter break right now and off school already, I still feel the snow day excitement. Rach woke me up this morning and said "Joey, LOOK outside!" Yep, you guessed it, more SNOW! We have been really lucky this week with all the snowfall, that is, lucky if you're like me and LOVE the snow. We spent the day looking for excuses to go out and drive the Jeep around. First we went to the hardware store and bought nothing, then we went to target to buy some pepsi for Brett, then we made a home delivery of the pepsi for brett, then we went to blockbuster to rent movies. Then we went back home to clean the walk and let the dog loose in the snow for a little bit.

Ultimate Holiday Smackdown 2008

2008-12-15T17:05:00.003-08:00

Otherwise known as... our holiday party... There wasn't really any smacking down of anything, or anybody, I just like to give extreme names to things that are not otherwise extreme. Our party was so much fun! We had over thirty people make their way through our house on saturday night it was LOUD and MERRY and so much damn fun! Highlights of the evening included a late night pacman tournament on the big screen, christmas mai thais, Husky Deli catering (mmmm), Brett's holiday cranberry concoction served from a large fish bowl, 3 inches of snow and, later on, eight man team bobsledding down Andover street. Everybody got so excited when I told them I had an eight person sled, so we all bundled up and headed to the closest hill. Little did they know that by eight person sled I actually meant a long piece of trash plastic that had blown into my yard during a windstorm a few weeks ago. I couldn't bring myself to throw away such a large sheet of plastic, just knowing a use for it would become apparent soon, and it surely did! We had a ton of fun sliding down the hill like a bunch of crazy kids.

xmas tree

2008-12-12T10:46:00.004-08:00

Alright, things have finally slowed down enough around here for me to put up a few catch-up posts. We put up our tree a few nights ago, it is wonderful. It smells like a forest in our house! The tree came wrapped up in a big red and white mesh bag... I've never seen one like it. We are off to see the Nutcracker performed by the Pacific Northwest Ballet in just a couple of hours but I thought I'd post a few pictures before leaving.

President Obama (projected)

2008-11-04T11:02:00.000-08:00

CNN just announced that Obama is now projected to be the next president of the United States, moments after the west coast polls closed... I am completely tingling with excitement about the possibilities ahead for our country with this great man at the helm. A great day I will never forget for the rest of my life....here's to CHANGE!!

CNN's election coverage

2008-11-04T10:51:00.000-08:00

Rachel and I cast our votes, together, this morning. Some of the issues, particularly our state's public transit initiative, we continued to debate even at the polls, talking back and forth between our secret voting booths... Now, ten minutes until the polls close here in washington, Obama seems to have a commanding lead and I feel the whole world breathing a sigh of relief. I am watching the coverage of the election on CNN. Have you seen the CRAZY graphics and effects they are using?! They are talking to people using "holograms," had a virtual projection of the US capitol building sitting next to some lady on a desk, and have touch screens they can manipulate in real time to sift through enormous amounts of demographic data and voter breakdowns. It is actually a pretty nice setup. The hologram effect is a little cheesy, but interesting nonetheless. If I hadn't promised to watch the Stephen Colbert and John Stewart coverage with Rachel later the shenanigans CNN is pulling might have been able to pull me away from them anyway.

The Junior ID Studio

2008-11-01T11:49:00.005-07:00

I don't know if I mentioned yet how excited I am that we have our very own studio in the art building this year. It is such a great workspace and has been well broken in already. Many of my classmates have pulled all-nighters in here, most recently for our final drawing project. Next week we begin the model building portion of the class which means we get to spend a lot of time in the wood shop! Is school really supposed to be this much fun?!?!?

MY 200th post!!!

2008-10-28T13:16:00.002-07:00

This is the 200th post on A bad case of wanderlust (I just mistyped it as wanderslut.. heh heh), seems like a lot. I still look through the book that Joanne made for me last year and am considering making volume II. I already have so many great memories recorded here and am looking forward to many more....

In one of my classes this quarter we get to take weekly field trips to various manufacturers to familiarize ourselves with various manufacturing techniques. It has so far proven to be a very effective way to learn. The trips remind me a lot of the show "How it's made" on the Discovery Channel, especially last week's trip. We visited the Fluke injection molding facility where some of the plastic parts used to make Fluke multimeters are manufactured. My favorite machine was the one that makes the red and black test leads you see on all Fluke multimeters. It has 14 stations and is entirely automated, manned by only one employee. It was designed and built in house and is really, really cool.... kind of like a giant Rube Goldberg device. This video is of the station that wraps the test leads and drops them on the conveyor...

What is Industrial Design?

2008-10-24T15:34:00.005-07:00

Inevitably when I meet new people they ask "What do you do?" I respond and inevitably they ask "What is industrial design?" as they have images of me wearing a hard hat, onsite at some industrial complex with a rolled up set of blue prints tucked under my arm. Then I have to make sure to say "Not industrial engineering" Because I know that is what they are thinking. I have not yet thought of a short, thorough answer to this question but found a few long, complicated answers I like:

Industrial design (ID) is the professional service of creating and developing concepts and specifications that optimize the function, value and appearance of products and systems for the mutual benefit of both user and manufacturer. (FROM IDSA)
Industrial Design is concerned with all the human aspects of machine-made products and their relationship to people and the environment. The designer is responsible for these products and their impact on society and nature. The designer accounts for the product's human factors engineering, safety, form, color, maintenance and cost. Industrial design deals with consumer products as well as industrial products. In order to achieve these ends, designers must be involved in four major design and research activities: human behavior, the human-machine interface, the environment, and the product itself. Areas of design investigation include furniture, housewares, appliances, transportation, tools, farm equipment, medical/electronic instruments, human interface, and recreational support equipment.
Industrial design is an applied art whereby the aesthetics and usability of mass-produced products may be improved for marketability and production. The role of an Industrial Designer is to create and execute design solutions towards problems of form, usability, user ergonomics, engineering, marketing, brand development and sales.

Weddings

2008-10-17T08:52:00.013-07:00

I've been so busy since the Rome trip. I have been to two weddings, Rebecca and Eric got married at the Olympic Sculpture Park here in Seattle on October 4th. Chris and Lara's wedding was in Omaha, Nebraska on October 10th. Both were very beautiful and fun and just packed with people I love. The wedding in Omaha, aside from being a beautiful celebration of Chris and Lara's love, was like a really great high school reunion, except it was only the people I really liked and the booze was free (thanks Chris and Lara!). I saw some faces there that I haven't seen in years. This is the year of the wedding among my friends, EVERYBODY'S DOING IT!

Keep in mind....none of my friends have really gotten married since high school, check out our upcoming year:

Jeff and Halli Roberts -- September 13th, 2008
Jim and Kelly Heavican -- September 20th, 2008
Rebecca Staffel and Eric -- October 4th, 2008
Chris and Lara Hanlon -- October 10th, 2008
Katie Peterson and Aaron -- November 7th, 2008
Brian Glowen and Andy -- January 2009
Sean Person and Darcy -- March 2009
Sam Snyder and Melissa -- May 22nd, 2009
Me and my saucy wench(Arrgh) -- July 18th, 2009
Sara Leapaldt and J Holby -- September 18th, 2009
Katie Kassebaum and Kyle G -- September 19th, 2009

Wow, can you believe it?!? It's gonna be a busy year.

Click on the pictures below to go to my photo albums of the weddings...that is, if you're into that kinda thing......or if you're stalking me.......or Rachel....

CLICK THESE!

One last thought.....

2008-09-17T14:30:00.000-07:00

Day Thirty-One (Final day)

2008-09-17T14:29:00.000-07:00

Well, the time has come. My final day in Rome, I leave for the airport in just four hours. Tonight was a very special time. We toured one last church and then we listened to Tojo give a presentation about Roman aqueducts and fountains. With everybody's work finally complete, Chris and Susan had a surprise arranged for us, a final spectacular group dinner at a really great place. The food, of course, was unforgettable, but the highlight of the evening was getting to spend time together as one large family, reminiscing on our time in Roma. We ate, laughed and drank for a good few hours and then Chris took us all out for one last cone of gelato. Our final event as a group was to all simultaneously throw three coins over our left shoulder into Trevi fountain guaranteeing us love, luck and an eventual return to the eternal city.

Now, I must leave Roma behind and step into the next phase of my life. At my age, I have already experienced several important turning points. They come few and far between. My time in Roma has definitely qualified as a life changing event and I leave her behind reluctantly. So I depart with heavy bags and a heavy heart but really can't wait to see my Rachel and the dog-child again and as I said the other day....Rome is slow to change and I look forward to my next visit here....

Thanks for following my blog throughout the trip!

Grazie e arrivederci!

~Giuseppe

Day Thirty

2008-09-16T06:35:00.004-07:00

I finished up my book project this afternoon and am now going to have a celebratory Peroni in the Campo....

Day Twenty-Nine

2008-09-15T16:28:00.004-07:00

Although it is technically Day Thirty now, I am still up late in the studio working on the final project. We had a fun day today. Yoon gave his presentation of St. Peter's Basilica, of course he did very well. I don't think anyone had a question that could stump him. We got to do something this time around that didn't do last time I came here. We climbed the dome to take in the view from the cupola. And what a view it was! It would have been worth it just to see into the fantastic vatican gardens, let alone the entire city of Rome.

Also, here is what has been keeping me up so late. This is the first book I've ever made so it has definitely been a learning experience but also very enjoyable. It is satisfying work and has gone smoothly for the most part until now. I have to figure out how to get all the paged bound into the cover so that they will stay put, but also still be able to be turned nicely.....hmmmm....sounds like a design problem. Anyway, I am too tired to attempt any radical procedures on this thing tonight so I am headed back to the apartment for some rest.

Day Twenty-Eight

2008-09-14T14:39:00.004-07:00

I am entering the final days of my stay in Rome. I must admit, I do not feel quite ready to leave yet... Now that this place is really starting to make sense to me. I feel comfortable and at home in most any area of the city. I recognize a lot of faces in my neighborhood that I see daily and some even recognize me and wave or say hi. The days here are all very similar, everything runs like clockwork. It is comforting to know that the Roma I have fallen in love with on this trip will likely be the same Roma that I can return to a year from now, ten years from now, a hundred years from now, Roma...the eternal city. a constant.

Today we visited Villa Borghese as a group and went inside to see some fantastic artwork by the likes of Bernini, Caravaggio and Raphael. Terry was our guide for the day and did a really awesome job, he seemed to know a little something about every painting in the massive collection and a whole lot about Bernini's sculptures.

Afterward Chris took all of us for Pizza. I ordered a pizza with Pumpkin flowers on it. It was really damn good, though I am not sure if the flowers had much of a flavor to them....

I also fear Alitalia

2008-09-14T03:06:00.002-07:00

Inspired by Dana's post, or maybe more worried by it, I began checking in on Alitalia this week. They are supposed to be flying me to Amsterdam on Thursday, but it looks like it could be hit or miss as the company is in complete chaos. Crossing my fingers.....

Alitalia May Have to Ground Flights for Lack of Fuel

Pope asked to pray for Alitalia as investors move closer to walking away

Italy seeks last-minute deal to save Alitalia

Alitalia in chaos as flights are cancelled

Day Twenty-Seven

2008-09-13T14:12:00.005-07:00

Yep, that's right, my self-portrait shooting is officially out of control. I actually took a photo of myself while riding a bike today. A previous UW student left a bike here with a note on the bulletin board detailing its location and the combo for the lock. I have really been missing my bike lately and have been intending to go track down this one for a couple weeks now. It was in pretty rough shape, flat tires, no brake pads, every bolt on the thing was loose or rusted out. So, I spent the morning fixing the bike up and got it back to (just barely) rideable condition. It goes pretty well, but lacks the stopping function. So, I chose a pretty flat spot to ride where I hopefully wouldn't need brakes. I rode about 6 miles down the Tiber River, stopped at a grocery store to pick up lunch (Fontina, pomegranate and olives) and then headed north again. My whole intention for fixing this thing up was so I could ride on the Circus Maximus. So I did just that, I took about eight laps around the old track. The whole time the chain was rubbing up against the chain guard making a noise just like a roaring crowd. I pictured myself at the reins of the fastest racing chariot in ancient Rome. IT WAS SO GREAT! I won the race of course....I was the only chariot out there today. Then I sat down in a shady spot and ate my lunch. Now I have napped and showered and am heading out on the town to celebrate Notte Biancha. I don't really know what that entails but I intend to find out.

Not for the profanity squeamish....

2008-09-12T13:49:00.003-07:00

OK, I just had to include this because it made me laugh out loud. I'm working on my final project tonight and have decided that I am interested in possibly using poetry to get my point across. I figure since my book is about the people in Italy I've met and their strong sense of tradition that I should continue my own family tradition of great writers like my mother and grandma. So, I am going to write the book using verse and dedicate it to Grandma Warren. It should make up for me not sending here a postcard yet. Anyway, I typed "Haiku type layout" into google and for whatever reason, this image came up. What can only be described as positive product review, the guy is obviously very impressed with this mouse, it stands in stark contrast to the elegant writing I saw today describing the work of Jean Prouve. I wonder if I could use this style to present my own product designs some day?

Day Twenty-Six

2008-09-12T08:19:00.008-07:00

We met as a group at one of my favorite coffee bars in all of Rome, San Eustachio. After the morning caffe, we walked up to Piazza del Popolo. This is one of my favorite piazzas so far, it was wide open and modeled after the piazza at St. Peter's. We sat on the steps of the giant Egyptian obelisk in the center and listened to a couple presentations by Erin and Lauren. Notice the sky, this is the first overcast day we've had since we got to Rome, the clouds are a welcome sight, they kept it relatively cool today, though it's still very muggy...

Then we visited the Ara Pacis, an altar to Augustan peace. Joey gave a really great presentation about Augustus and about the monument itself. Nice work Joey. Nice name too. In the basement of the building housing the Ara Pacis is an exhibit about a designer named Jean Prouve. It was a really great exhibit to see. He built many pieces of furniture and came up with some pretty innovative ways of using sheet steel. Also, he designed many houses and buildings, many having a modular construction and all exhibiting light, airy qualities. This exhibit really got me excited about the upcoming year at school. I liked his style, and some of his quotes were inspiring to me as I get ready to begin my first year of education in Industrial design....

"I am haunted by a passion to build."

"...man must not allow himself to plagiarize. He is on this earth to create."

"Architecture must come from industrial design, which will bring it into harmony with the achievements of science."

We were not allowed to take photos, but I found an image of my favorite piece of furniture that I saw today. I like this desk because even though it is constructed of heavy steel and wood, look how light it seems, as if it is floating above the ground.....

Perspective in Bologna

2008-09-12T07:57:00.005-07:00

While we were traveling last week I did a little project of my own. I found some old paintings in what use to be the main building for the University of Bologna. They were done in the seventeenth century or so and showed various scenes from around the city and inside the buildings. I took pictures of the paintings and then set out to find the exact spots in the city that the artist had viewed these scenes from to take pictures from there. Only one turned out relatively decent, or close, but it was still a fun way to explore the city.....

Piazza Galvani satellite map

Piazza Galvani Painting

Piazza Galvani Photo

Day Twenty-Five

2008-09-11T12:46:00.004-07:00

I got to go inside the walls of Vatican city today! We went to see the Vatican mosaic studio where they restore the many mosaics of St. Peters and also create new mosaics. The security was pretty tight getting into the place, including getting clearance from the infamous Swiss guard and their snazzy outfits. Unfortunately, no cameras today so I snagged an image off the web for those of you who have not seen their awesome uniforms.

I marked the path we took to the studio on the map below. The staff at the mosaic studio demonstrated a few things for us including how to melt down the glass they use and combine colors. They used a very powerful torch and mixed the glass together, then the guy stretched it bit by bit, kind of like taffy. They have a huge indexing system that organizes over 27,000 colors of glass. Some of it is the original ancient glass used in the mosaics, they also have new colors which they use to replicate famous paintings in glass.

Day Twenty-Four

2008-09-10T12:30:00.006-07:00

The vice president is still following us around Rome. He just won't take a hint...I did manage to get a picture of his limo as the motorcade passed though....
Today we had two more student presentations. Nicole gave a fantastic account of Mussolini and his impact on Italy. She included some very interesting facts about Mussolini's masterful use of propaganda, particularly film. I was also intrigued by the architectural style Mussolini preferred, exemplified in what is described as the square colosseum. This building style is very cold, dramatic and imposing.

Then Emily led us to two Jesuit churches, Il Gesu and Sant' Ignazio. The most remarkable thing about these churches to me are the fantastic frescos inside. They are painted using what is called a quadratura technique which was very popular during the Baroque period. (I've always wanted to work the word Baroque into a blog post, it makes me sound like a fancy pants) This technique makes strong use of painted architectural elements to give the sense of perspective and really leads to a three dimensional illusion. This scene is one of judgment day, with some souls ascending to heaven and, not shown here, some descending to hell. Look at how the painting spills off of the ceiling onto the surrounding architectural features. Also, notice the masterful use of foreshortening to create the illusion of depth. Wowie!
Our final stop was at a very old library where our friendly guide allowed us to see some rare illuminated manuscripts and books. There were also two fantastic huge globes on display. It was neat to see what parts of the world were still undiscovered at the time these were made. The name of this library is Biblioteca Casanatense. It is actually a public library and if you are ever in Rome, I highly recommend checking it out. They will allow you to study some very old, rare items that you probably would never be able to actually hold anywhere else. We even got to look at some of the first edition etchings done by Giovanni Battista Piranesi....

Day Twenty-Three

2008-09-09T13:27:00.004-07:00

I did a lot of work in the studio today. For our final project in Rome we are going to be creating a book with some of our own images in it. I am having trouble picking a sort of general theme. Initially I wanted to compare and contrast ancient Rome to Modern Rome, then I was thinking of documenting the sites of all my favorite forum stories. Finally I have decided that I want the book to be much more personal, not so much of a history lesson. So I think I will try to choose images that represent particularly powerful or emotional moments for me during the trip and use those, the theme revolving around what really stands out to me as an individual. We headed to the art store by the spanish steps in search of supplies. It was actually a very nice evening stroll and we ended up on the Via del Corso, a new part of the city for me.

Radical Design

2008-09-09T03:25:00.006-07:00

Check out this crazy piece of transportation design! I love the innovative thinking.... click on the image for a video of it in action....

Also, with this little post, I finally figured how to start getting my images to link properly again. Blogger changed the way they do business at some point. From now on when you click my images you should be able to see a full sized version.....YAYYY!

Day Twenty-two

2008-09-08T13:06:00.003-07:00

Today we spent much time in the studio working on some of our final images for the class as Mel, our photographer is leaving us on Wednesday. We did make a brief trip out into the world to go visit an institute that restores old books. On the way there our walk was interrupted by the CRAZIEST motorcade I have ever seen! There were easily fifty vehicles involved ranging from police motorcycles all the way up to huge SUVS loaded with angry men armed with machine guns. They were driving so fast through the town, blocking off intersections and making a lot of noise. Wondering who could be this important to warrant such a scene, I noticed that the limousine in the middle of the convoy was flying the american flag. So, when I got home I looked up to see what our jokers in charge are up to these days. My search revealed this:

Mr. Cheney met Giorgio Napolitano, Italy's left-wing and largely ceremonial

president, at his Quirinale palace in Rome before some scheduled sight-seeing

in the ancient Etruscan town of Orvieto. He was due to meet Silvio Berlusconi,

centre-right prime minister, on Tuesday.

Geez, just when you think you've escaped American politics for a bit by moving to Rome for a month, the vice president comes hunting you down.... The car full of machine gun guys was not very amused by a gang of photographers just happening to be on the motorcade route. They were shouting at us as they drove by. Unfortunately I really did not get any pictures to speak of.

I did however get some nice images of the super friendly book technicians we met today. They were very thorough in their explanation of the restoration process, perhaps a little too much. Interesting nonetheless.

I also liked this nun I saw today, looking quite fashionable dressed up in blue....

Self Portrait

2008-09-08T12:33:00.003-07:00

This is a self portrait taken quickly on my mac's webcam just before I left for this trip. Mainly to document the incredible amount of post-camping scruffiness I had accumulated. With all of the self portraits I've been taking recently I just thought this one would be kinda fun.....

Days Twenty and Twenty-one

2008-09-07T12:54:00.000-07:00

What a week! Now I sleep.... a few of my favorite images from this trip to date...

Day Nineteen

2008-09-05T12:27:00.006-07:00

The final day of our great Italian road trip. We kicked it off in style with a visit to the Ferrari museum. I am not a huge car buff, but you just gotta love those sleek lines and that Ferrari RED! The thing I liked about this museum was that it focused more on the history and racing legacy of Ferrari and the many greats who have piloted their vehicles than it did on the present day production stuff. From an Industrial Design standpoint though, I sure would have loved to see their production lines as well. Like I said, I am not a car buff, but at the museum I was introduced to the Enzo Ferrari shown in the first photograph below, I dare you not to love the looks of this sexy beast.

Our final destination before heading home to Rome (Rome is Home) was a stop at the Acetaia Malpighi. An Acetaia is a place that makes Balsamic vinegar. Those who know me would understand that my heart began to race a bit as soon as I stepped in the door. I love all kinds of vinegar, but particularly Balsamic. I literally would bath in the stuff if it weren't so damned expensive. The reason for the priciness was revealed to us at the acetaia by a woman who represents the fifth generation of Malpighis making traditional balsamic vinegar. Traditional balsamic vinegar is a very strictly regulated type of Balsamic vinegar. It is typically 12 or 25 years of age but can be much older. The barrel shown in the closeup below has the date written on the label. This barrel has been aging since 1860! It has outlived entire generations of Malpighis! Can you believe that? The room that the vinegar is aged in has the most delightful smell. It literally is so strong that it stings the nostrils. It did a great job of clearing my sinuses though after inhaling all this polluted air. We were joking that they could quite honestly probably charge people just to sit up there and breath. After she explained the whole process to us we proceeded down for a tasting(and purachasing). She treated us to, in order, Balsamic Jam, Balsamic syrup, 5 yr old white balsamic, 6 yr old red balsamic, 12 yr old traditional balsamic and then the 25 yr old traditional balsamic. My mouth is watering right now thinking of it and I may drool on the keyboard. The white Balsamic was of particular interest to me as I have never encountered it before and it seemed extra tangy, just how I like it!

Day Eighteen

2008-09-04T12:07:00.003-07:00

After a restless night in a hot hotel room, we headed out to a place that makes Parmigian-Reggiano cheese. We saw the process from start to finish, with the Dairy Master keeping a watchful eye on us, the cheese and his workers. The process is very cool and is quite sensitive as the qualities of the milk can change from day to day based on many fluctuating variables. It is neat to watch the Dairy Master inspecting the cheese at various stages because he is so in tune with how it should smell, taste, feel and look. Then we went into the warehouse where the cheese is aged....heaven. My clothes smelled like cheese for the rest of the day! There were 90 kilo wheels of cheese stacked all the way to the fifty foot high ceilings!!! IT WAS AWESOME!!! Afterward we were treated to a tasting of both young and old Parmigiano-Reggiano. At the Tuscan meal we had Parmigiano-Reggiano with honey, I had never had it this way, it was so damn delicious, so I stocked up on cheese wedges to bring home and share...

After the cheese factory, we went to Bologna and were let loose in the city for about seven hours. I toured an archaeological museum filled with egyptian artifacts, a palace that was once the main building for an old university of Bologna and another palace that now houses some of the most beautiful Bolognese art. The best thing about Bologna, I got into all of these museums for FREE! How cool is that? Oh, maybe I spoke too soon, the best thing about Bologna may be the Lasagna alla Bolognese, which the waiter absolutely insisted I must pair with a glass of local red wine.....it was phenomenal.

Day Seventeen

2008-09-03T11:49:00.000-07:00

Today we visited a knife making workshop in Scarperia and the Lamborghini museum. The knife maker was intensely proud of what he does and his face glowed as he showed us his favorite knife. He was so proud of the design and craft of this knife that he called it his son.

Then we all piled onto the bus to make the trip to the Lamborghini museum. On a side note, the bus driver was a really friendly guy and did a great job touring us around Italy. We all chipped in at the end of the journey to give him a nice tip. I think he thoroughly enjoyed the trip as well, he went to all the sites with us and took pictures and made friends with all the Italians we met...not a bad gig.

Anyway, the Lamborghinis were beautiful. We got to go behind the scenes and tour the assembly line where every Lamborghini in the world is assembled by hand. Again, the quality of workmanship and pride of craft was evident on the faces of the workers and very inspiring to me. Also interesting to me was the way in which the company does business. They produce limited numbers and the workers only work a single shift from 8-5. Then the plant shuts down and everybody goes home. They could easily hire more workers and build around the clock, cranking out Lamborghinis much quicker and making more money, but the intense focus on building a quality product stands in direct opposition to this method of manufacturing.

Day Sixteen

2008-09-02T10:05:00.000-07:00

Today was highlighted by a visit to the town of Cortona and punctuated by a dinner in the Tuscan countryside. Cortona is another neat little hilltown. I took my camera with me but had forgotten to put my batteries back in after a charge so I was given a relief from the shutter release. After soaking in some beautiful examples of Etruscan art, some of my favorite ancient stuff, I left the museum and started walking uphill. Every time I came to a fork in the road I would turn in the direction that took me up most steeply. I was rewarded for my efforts with a really cool old fortress on top of the city and panoramic views of the countryside. We checked into our hotel and then went out to a small nondescript cafe in the hills for the feast of a lifetime. There were several large picnic tables that we all sat at and we ate course after course of delicious Tuscan style food, all homemade by the man serving us and his family. The food just kept coming, olives, meat, cheese, honey, melon, vegetables, bread, stuffed peppers and more that I can't even remember! After dinner a few of us went and laid on our backs on the hillside and watched the stars with the crickets serenading us. The night was pleasantly cool and we were so satisfied from the meal, perfect. I will never forget that peaceful hillside in Tuscany.

Signing off...

2008-09-01T10:16:00.004-07:00

We leave tomorrow morning for a trip to the north. We will be spending most of our time in Tuscany and around Bologna. Included in our trip is Balsamic tasting in Modena, the Ferrari and Lamborghini museums, a night in Bologna, cheese tasting at the Parmigiano Reggiano factory and walking the streets of Cortona. It should be a great little trip within a trip. I am not taking my computer though, so the blog posts will stop for a little bit. Probably ok anyhow, I feel like I have put a ton of information out on the web, now everybody can get caught up.

CIAO!

Day Fifteen

2008-09-01T07:21:00.003-07:00

Rachel left Roma very early this morning. I miss her already. I slept in a little bit at the hotel and then took advantage of the breakfast buffet downstairs, who am i to pass up a free meal? Then I headed over to the Trevi Fountain to try and beat the crowds for some early morning picture. I got there and realized that my camera battery was dead and I had left my other one at the house. Oh well, some other morning maybe. Besides, I am sitting on top of a mountain of data right now that needs to be sorted and kind of feel like I should take care of that before adding too much more to the heap. I spent most of today in the studio cropping, editing, tweaking and deleting photos. Even after I deleted a lot of sub-standard shots, I still have a grand total of 15.26 gigabytes of photos, translating to roughly 1,350 images! WOW! The number of pictures I have actually taken is well over 2,500 at this point. I am so glad that I am doing this all digitally, can you imagine what this would have cost me with film?!?!?

Day Thirteen and Fourteen

2008-08-31T12:57:00.000-07:00

I spent the weekend enjoying the most beautiful sight of all, my sweet lady. She and Seaton visited me on their way home from a fantastic French adventure. We toured a bit, relaxed a bit, church hopped a bit and ate a LOT! We had so much fun and it was great to see my sweetie as I near the halfway point of my time in Roma.

Day Twelve

2008-08-29T06:03:00.000-07:00

Today was probably my favorite day yet. We got on a bus bright and early and headed out to the countryside. Our first stop was at a place called the Bosco de Mostri (Monster's Grove). It was a cool medieval sculpture park dedicated to Giulia Farnese by her husband upon her death. The grove is filled with very large statues of various mythical creatures and monsters such as mermaids, harpies, unicorns and the mouth of hell. It has a very playful feel to it and seemed to be popular with families who have young children. We all released our inner children and ran and played on the monstrous

sculptures. Then we hit the road for a short trip to Orvieto. This town is on top of a large plateau which we took a cable car to the top of. We were released into the town for a couple hours and I tracked down lunch immediately. I ordered a Panini e Porchetto, by far the worst sandwich I have ever had. It was old greenish-grey scraps of pork fat sprinkled with what could only be moss scraped off of a decomposing log and then topped with a generous tablespoon of salt. BARF! I tried two bites, assuming that this must be some kind of local delicacy. My stomach instantly told me that this was a bad decision and my face turned as green as the rancid pork I was eating. I am now convinced that the guy simply swept the floor of his butcher shop and poured the dustpan into a roll. The mere thought of this sandwich is making my stomach tie into knots right now! I scraped everything off, ate the bread and then found a pizza to eat which helped calm my stomach a bit. Overall, Orvieto was quite lovely, but my memory

of it will forever be tarnished by the spoiled pork moss sandwich.

The next stop on our trip is definitely on my top five of most amazing things I've ever seen. It is a hilltop town called Civita di Bagn0regio. This place is really like something out of a fairytale. There are only a handful of people who actually live here, 20 at the most. It is a bit of a hike to get to, so it tends to limit the amount of tourist impact. We walked for a long time, down switchbacks and then up the long, steep bridge and at the top we were treated to an olive oil tasting inside of a very old house, half of which looked to be an old Etruscan cave, hollowed out of the rock. The old man providing the tasting made us the best bruschetta I have tasted yet in all of Italy. He toasted the bread on the coals of his fireplace! I love this little place and I think I would like to visit every time I come back to Italy.

UPDATE: I almost forgot one thing, at the end of a long, hard day of walking I had ended up a bit ahead of the group so I sat down at a table and enjoyed a nice cold DUFF beer! mmmmmmm.........Duuuuuffffff.

Day Eleven

2008-08-28T08:26:00.007-07:00

Today we had presentations including Piazza Navona and the Catacombe di Priscilla On the way I managed a couple of self portraits in the security mirror on the bus and took a shot of this dog poking his head through the railings of what can only be a shop where they make carousel horses. This little doggy really made me miss Rocky, but I know that he is having a blast down on the farm and is getting plenty of love from Joanne and Trudi. I have never been in any catacombs before but have watched several shows about them on the history channel and am always fascinated by how far they sprawl beneath these old European citites. Rome has hundreds of miles of tunnels dug by the christians as burial grounds for their dead. The catacomb system we were in today stretched for 13 km and is home to 40,000 burials. It was cold, damp and dark, like a good catacomb should be. It twisted and turned through the carved out tufa. The walls are marked in various ways, including old christian symbols, my favorite being the anchor, of course. Other markings probably qualify as graffiti, people leaving their names and the date. I saw one from 1790, one from a scholar who used to study the catacombs, marked 1861, and some more recent from American soldiers during the war. I saw the states of Texas, Oklahoma and the city of Boston next to their names. Most of the tombs had been emptied to protect them from the visiting tour groups, however some were still sealed, including some tiny little infant tombs. At one point we even saw a skull in one! No photos were allowed so I snagged one from a resource at the Vatican.....it was very spooky down there....

Sun sets on the UWRC

2008-08-27T11:45:00.003-07:00

We are all at the studio this evening working hard on our photos....I took a break to snap a couple shots from the windows of the Rome Center...

Designer Insights and the Roma blog

2008-08-27T09:58:00.003-07:00

Today I completed two of our assigned missions. The first is called designer insights. We have all been on the lookout for particularly innovative or different ways that design problems are tackled over here. If you have ever traveled overseas then you know what I'm talking about, maybe it is the little/big flush mechanism on the toilet, or the tiny cars designed to squeeze down streets that were built before automobiles, anything, here are thousands of little things in daily life that are different over here, some better, some worse and some just plain old different. I spotted my subject today on our walk to Trastavere. Check out the entry here on our official UW Design Program in Rome website. The other assignment is similar to what I do on this webpage, each of us was assigned two days of the trip to document in the form of journal entries and photos, the 25th and 26th were my days and should be posted here soon, in the meantime, check out the entries from my fellow students......

Day Ten

2008-08-27T07:37:00.009-07:00

I got some great sleep last night and am feeling well refreshed. I think it was all the gnocchi that really did me in, total food coma. We kicked off the day with a quick jaunt through the Jewish ghettos. It is an area where one of the popes ordered all Jews to move to and the site of a rather large processing area for Jewish people during WWII, there is a small marble slab on one of the buildings in memory of the over 1,000 Roman Jews who never returned after the war was over. Many Jews still live here and I saw today what I think may be a first for me....Kosher fast food! We then ventured into a Roman neighborhood called Trastevere which is on the other side of the Tiber from where I am (Trastavere literally means "beyond the Tiber") This neighborhood has one of the highest hills in Rome on top of which a famous battle between Giuseppe Garibaldi's Romans and the French took place. Every day at noon they fire a cannon here to honor the brave men who died and it can be heard pretty much anywhere in the whole city. The hike to the top of the hill is short but very steep and I was very hot by the time we reached the top. There is a large crystal clear fountain full of cold water about halfway up the hill and once again I found myself seriously fighting the urge to leap into the fountain.

A final note, this city is absolutely COVERED with graffiti. Mel Curtis, the photographer traveling with us, actually found out that it is illegal to remove the graffiti without the proper licenses as many of it is actually of historic nature. Supposedly there is even a spot where Napoleon carved his name into a building! Regardless of how you feel about graffiti, you have to admit that these are some very expressive, and in my opinion, beautiful examples of a long practiced hobby(profession?) These photos are only from my walk today, there are literally millions of examples of graffiti throughout the city, but I felt that the graffiti in Trastavere was exceptional in execution and creative expression, check it out:

Day Nine

2008-08-26T14:27:00.003-07:00

I am so exhausted. We went to Ostia Antica today and walked all over the ruins in the hot sun. Ostia was very neat and had a lot of nautical history which I, of course, really enjoyed. These blog posts are getting shorter and shorter as I go because at the end of the day I feel I just don't have the energy anymore to write or do much of anything. However, the trip is fully documented with over 2,000 photos at this point and more to come, so I'm, not worried about it. I did have the strength for one of my favorite hobbies in Italy, grocery shopping. Noodles were on sale today for 70 Euro cents! Anyway, I feel as though this day must come to an end. Tomorrow I will write a little bit about the Italian cooking lesson I had tonight. We made Gnocchi from scratch! So, appropriately, here is a picture of me sleeping on the train on the way back from Ostia Antica.

Day Eight

2008-08-25T14:14:00.004-07:00

Today we went to see some of the very earliest Christian Churches in Rome. I decided that today I wanted to focus mainly on shooting some portrait photos of people traveling with me....

This is JT, one of the grad students

Joey, Frances and Tojo, Photographers extraordinaire

Dana presented the early christian churches to us today,

she did such a great job making it interesting.....

Joey and Terry enjoy some well-deserved gelato

Day Seven

2008-08-24T14:40:00.000-07:00

I woke up early this morning and went to an open air market. They sell all kinds of good, cheap crap there. Clothes, hairdryers, antiques, jewelry, appliances, leather goods, shoes, household items. It's the kind of place that you have to haggle to get any kind of fair price. Then I spent the afternoon in the studio working on tomorrow's assignment. After that we all went to the larger of the girls' apartments and had a potluck dinner. Their apartment is absolutely incredible, no holes in the walls, no broken light fixtures, and most importantly, no bees in the ceiling. The food was amazing and plentiful, oh, and also all made by our group. Spaghetti carbonara, bruschetta, pizza, salad and, of course, vino. I brought the pesto I made yesterday. I cooked it at the house and then carried it in the pot eight blocks to the girls' apartment. It was probably a bad idea because I had accumulated a following of a few homeless Italians along the way who were quite mad at me for not handing out my pesto....What could I do though, let them just reach in and grab a handful?!?! I felt kind of bad, but it is what it is, right? After dinner I went back to the studio and mostly finished up my first project, besides a few tweaks here and there.

Blog Fever

2008-08-24T02:22:00.004-07:00

Many of my fellow travelers have started their first blogs on this trip and some had established blogs before. Either way, if you should ever feel the need to hear the stories of our trip from somebody other than yours truly, these folks are talented young writer/photographer/designer types and will be posting often this month.....enjoy!

The other Joey's blog

Andy's thinking.out.loud

Day Six

2008-08-23T12:31:00.005-07:00

Today we didn't have any obligations with school, so I just hung around the house makin' pesto with some of the basil I bought at the market the other day. We also went to a very famous coffee shop called Sant Eustachio and had Cappucinos, they were absolutely perfect.....Oh, by the way, another mission of ours out here is to take self portraits, hence all the recent appearances of my mug....

Check out the cool "modern warplanes" poster above our stove.....

My crew...

2008-08-23T10:20:00.003-07:00

My design class took class photos last year and they have finally surfaced. Sean, one of the guys on this trip with me was a TA for our class and has posted the photo on his blog, see if you can find me.....

UW Design class of 2010

Day Six

2008-08-23T01:54:00.004-07:00

Last night was a ton of fun. We visited the Centrale Montemartini museum, It is a collection of many old Roman busts and sculpture housed in what used to be an old steam power plant. The statues are scattered about the two HUGE 5000 kw dynamos. The contrast between the ancient and the (relatively) modern is striking. I think this was one of my favorite sites so far. Afterwards we headed out for a night on the town to celebrate the completion of our first week in Rome. We went to visit one of the girls' apartments for some drinks and then headed out to mingle with the people.... We found a great vantage point in Campo de Fiori for people watching, a favorite past time of the Italians, though they people watch in a very different way than we tend to, particularly the men. They are pretty intense, they tend to stare in a way that feels a little invasive for us Americans. It is fun to follow the girls in our group and watch the unrestrained rubbernecking of the Italian men as they pass. They seem harmless for the most part though from what I can tell. Then we wound our way through the streets to Piazza Nuovana which was relatively mellow compared to the craziness of Campo de Fiori. We bought a few beers and hung out next to some centuries old fountain just shooting the shit and getting to know each other a little better. We have such an amazing and diverse group representing so many backgrounds, I am lucky to be involved with such people, it really adds to the richness of this experience. We decided to call it a night around two o' clock in the morning and walked some of the girls home to their apartment. As we turned a corner near the house, the Pantheon suddenly loomed over our heads, the oldest continuously functioning building in the whole world, and here it was, on our casual walk home after a night of drinking.

The interior of the Centrale Montemartini

One more note for today before I head out for Pizza. We were discussing some of the history of our neighborhood this morning and I noticed that my friend Dana had a really cool graphic of the location of the UW Rome Center. It stands on the same location as the ancient Roman Theatre of Pompey, which is where Julius Caesar was assassinated. Steps from my front door, the great Roman Emperor was killed, WOW! Check out her post here, and the cool graphic with it....

Day Five

2008-08-22T06:11:00.006-07:00

Day five today, and I feel as though I have been here for a month already. I am trying to make friends with the lady who works at the sandwich shop I go to every day for lunch. I used what little Italian I do know to learn her name, and tell her I will return tomorrow for lunch, she appreciated the attempt and gave me a smile when I said "Ciao, bella...a domani.". The reason I like this place, they are cheap, fast and delicious. I usually get the caprese panini, I've never had caprese in a sandwich before, it is VERY good. We are taking our ciesta right now at the apartment, naps and shots of cold limoncello. We visited the Pantheon, another huge basilica, and also went to the Crypta Balbi today. This evening we are going to visit Montemartini and then are having a party in the evening to celebrate the end of our first week here.

We have a photography guru with us named Mel, he is helping us learn and assigning us missions, one of which includes working in black and white, very useful with some of these old pieces of art.....

Day Four

2008-08-21T09:55:00.004-07:00

Another busy day, we visited a really cool marketplace in the morning with tons of fresh produce and fish. I chased a gypsy down the street trying to take her photograph and then thought to myself, isn't it supposed to be the other way around, with the gypsy harassing the tourist? We then went to the Basilica di Santa Maria degli Angeli which is so named because an apparition, thought to be an angel, once appeared above the church. This is also how the Castel Sant'Angelo we visited yesterday was named, and how dozens of other buildings in the city were named. I chalk up all the apparition sightings to heat exhaustion....it is so damn hot here. We are all coping quite well though, scurrying from shady patch to shady patch at all the monuments. We also visited the Baths of Diocletian, a 34 acre complex that could hold up to 3,000 bathers at once! A couple photos from today:

I couldn't help admiring her melons:

A friendly old nun sat across from me on the bus:

Day Three

2008-08-20T06:43:00.002-07:00

Today we walked through the Palatine Hill and I presented the Roman Forum to my group. It is so hot here that all of us have quickly adopted the Mediterranean schedule, work in the morning, ciesta, then studio time in the evening. We are in our apartment right now with no lights on and half a dozen fans going, trying to beat the heat. So, the highlight of my day was sharing my knowledge of the Roman Forum with my peers. As I predicted, they much appreciated hearing the stories and legends of the forum instead of just a memorized list of dates and names. I rewarded myself with a pistachio gelato....mmmmmm...

Day Two

2008-08-19T03:14:00.004-07:00

I used jet lag to my advantage this morning. I awoke around 4:30 AM after my body restlessly continued to insist that it was day time, not night. Rather than fighting it, I decided to use this morning to go get some nice photographs of the Roman Forum at sunrise. I left the apartment just as the first merchants were beginning to set up shop in the Campo de Fiori. I walked for fifteen minutes in the early dawn light and my pace quickened as I approached my destination. I have been studying this place for about the last two months and have learned a great deal about it, but now to actually be here? In person? My heart was pounding with excitement! I spent the next hour at a vantage point near the old tabularium, from which one can see the entire forum, with the massive colosseum in the distance. It was breathtaking. I savored the moment for ten minutes or so before getting to work, just taking it all in, so as to remember it with my own senses, not just the sensors of my digital camera. Here are a couple photos of the Temple of Saturn and the great Roman Forum at sunrise!

Day One

2008-08-18T12:15:00.000-07:00

Today we checked into our apartments, did some orientation type stuff, familiarized ourselves with the immediate neighborhood and then all gathered at a large table in the UW Rome Center for a lasagna dinner. Everybody is so excited that jet lag is hardly evident in anyone. I have already had such a great experience and everywhere I turn there is something amazing and wonderful, and this is JUST THE FIRST DAY!!! I imagine that many of the blog entries I make over here will be mainly photographic, since that is the primary objective of our journey....so here are some pictures of my surroundings....

This is Campo de Fiori, as viewed from the fourth floor of the UWRC. It is an open air market during the day, a popular hangout at night and my front porch for the next month. The shaded yellow area on the right is our apartment. The next shot is of our studio, it is AMAZING, the facilities here are better than what we have in Washington, mostly because it's OURS! After that is a photo of my desk (the one on the left), the imposing brick wall that sits behind me is actually incorporated remains of a 13th century medieval tower. The final photograph shows my entire design group at our first group dinner, lasagna, salad and vino....Not even the best photos could do this place justice, but I will try...

Landed in London....

2008-08-17T10:43:00.000-07:00

I bought an hour of time at a hotspot so I could Skype Rach and figured I'd update the blog real quick while I'm at it. I am at London Heathrow Airport right now waiting for my next flight to take me to Rome. The flight was good overnight. I managed to sleep quite a bit. The flight attendant was the only disturbance I had all night, he was super effeminate. Every hour or so I'd wake up and he'd be sort of prancing down the aisle announcing some new thing he had to give out and just generally spreading cheer and fabulousness. Imagine Steve Martin doing his best prance and speaking with a lisp, that was this guy. When he brought my dinner, he asked if I wanted wine with it and I asked if I could have a Heineken instead, his reply? "Well of course you can you big silly goose...." That's right, he called me a big, silly goose....

A Brief Stop in Seattle.....then on to ROME!

2008-08-12T11:09:00.000-07:00

I am back from Part I of Joey's Excellent Adventure '08. It included a few nights at Rachel's folks' house, more than a week of camping in the Oregon Cascades and a brief stop in Portland on the way back to catch our breath. The highlight of it all was something I've been looking forward to for much of the last year. I canoed Rachel out to the middle of the lake her family has been visiting for nearly 30 years and I asked her to marry me! Yippee! Shazaam! Yowzah! I am very excited about the whole thing, there is something very satisfying about looking into someone's eyes and telling them that you wish to spend the rest of your life loving them. I wrote the whole story on the Henney Family Blog for those of you who are interested...

So much happened on the trip, maybe it is best told BY THE NUMBERS:

1..............................Vehicles we took to Oregon

2.............................Vehicles we brought home from Oregon(We bought Isaac's red pickup)

13...........................days I went without my cell phone

0.............................days I really missed having my cell phone

80...........................pounds of potatoes brought camping from the Mclennan farm

2.5...........................hours it took me to mow the Mclennan farm

29............................sea shanties sung while mowing

2..............................shanties I actually remembered all the words to

234.........................pictures Rachel and I took while camping

2.............................starting population of campsite on Sunday(thanks Jo and Claire)

14...........................number of people Rachel, Isaac and I prepared dinner for Wednesday

42...........................people at camp on Saturday night

11............................canoes and kayaks in our fleet(give or take)

2..............................hours before sunrise Rocky starts whining to get out of tent and play

4,000.....................calories Rocky burned per hour while camping

10...........................calories Rocky burned per hour in the days immediately following trip

32...........................cuts, scrapes and bruises on my body after trip

9.............................times Rachel made me stop playing to patch me up

9.............................times I whined about it in my best little kid voice

1,023,789.............mosquitoes collectively swatted by the group

1,001,491..............of those mosquitoes killed while visiting latrine (encourages speediness)

10..........................capacity of backwoods sweat lodge

11...........................pedicures performed at backwoods spa

542........................cocktails served by backwoods tavern

110.........................man/woman hours worked by backwoods public works department

23..........................references to Blazing Saddles campfire scene on chili night

Man, that's a long list....it could go on and on. The amount of food and booze consumed alone deserves its own list, I mean, there must have been over 2 dozen coolers under the food canopy at its peak!

Thanks again to everybody who cooked meals for such a HUGE group, I ate better in the woods than I typically eat at home. Thank you to Seaton and Joanne for all their hard work and planning to make sure everybody had such a great time. Thank you to everybody who pitched in, whether it was unloading or loading monstrous canoe loads, chopping firewood, sprinkling water on the ground for dust control, ferrying drinks to the floatilla, making sangria for the whole group, washing mountains of dishes, digging the latrine, setting up camp, breaking camp, repairing the table and bar area, bringing extra chairs, or one of the hundreds of little things that make this camping trip such a success every year, thank you! And, thank you to Rachel for loving me and for not tipping the canoe and soaking me on the night I asked you to be my wife, although you came pretty close!

Nature Calls...

2008-07-28T12:28:00.000-07:00

I am moments away from getting on the road for a camping trip. Destination: Top Secret.... It is our annual trip to the backwoods of Oregon and this year I have decided to stay for NINE days instead of the usual long weekend. I am very excited, a chance to get away and forget all the troubles and cares of city life. It is freedom delivered by simplicity. I will be thinking of my family and all of the wonderful summer trips we took together when I was a kid. Thanks mom and dad, for all the adventures...

Rocky's out for the count...

2008-07-21T10:41:00.000-07:00

After a long weekend of playing in the surf, running the beach and galloping next to a bike. Our camping trip out to Twin Harbors was really fun. It was chilly much of the weekend, but the sky cleared up enough on Saturday for us to have a really good beach day. We played frisbee, flew a kite, Rachel beat me at Risk again(my favorite board game, I have NEVER beat Rachel, she is ruthless) and I got to swim in the ocean, though briefly because the water is so damn frigid this far north. Friday when we arrived, Rocky was so excited that he was positively twitching with energy, so Rach took him out for a good, long bike ride to wear him out a bit:

It makes me so happy to get the dog out to a place where he can run as fast and as far as he wants. We spent the afternoon playing cribbage and eating chips and salsa until the haze burned off. Then we went down to the beach for some fun! The beaches in Washington are really interesting. They stretch for miles and miles and cars are allowed to drive onto them. There are some areas that cars are not allowed to go and that is where you can really get away from everybody since they don't want to venture far from their vehicles. So Rach and I had a nice 1/2 mile of beach mostly all to ourselves. I wrestled with Rocky a bit, but the water was way too cold for him, so he was very concerned when I decided to jump in...check out these photos, have you ever seen a happier dog?

Homemade Pesto

2008-07-18T10:16:00.000-07:00

Rachel and I followed the pesto recipe left by Joanne under Farming in the City (Part II) and the result was deliciously potent. It stings the nostrils in a very sexy way... We harvested about half of our basil in the dark last night because we needed to get the pesto ready for tonight's camping dinner. We are leaving to go camping at a place called Twin Harbors State Park, our site is quite literally a stone's throw from the Pacific Ocean. I CAN'T WAIT!! It is the same park we stayed at last year for our surfing adventure. Although last time we had to stay in the cramped RV section of the park. Since then, Rachel has taught me the art of sweet-talking phone representatives, mainly, just being nice to them. My new skill made the reservations lady super helpful and she hooked us up with the beach front site even though I called the day before our arrival and the online reservations system said everything was full. Cool, huh?

Seen on my daily walk...

2008-07-17T13:12:00.000-07:00

Another new pub! Within walking distance! It is very exciting, only a few blocks from my house and right next door to another pub that will be opening soon as well. The one that is opening soon-ish(from the looks of the construction) is called the Bohemian, it looks to be offering fine food, wines and spirits, all of which I am a huge fan of:

And then, right next door, today I noticed the signs for a GERMAN place called Prost! This space used to be a weird super expensive home decor shop that NEVER had anybody in it and had such boring stuff for sale. This will be a great improvement, time to brush up on my German beer hall songs, I can almost smell the schnitzel:

Farming in the city (part II)

2008-07-11T10:00:00.001-07:00

Rachel and I are headed off to Minnesota today, where it all began for me, to attend a friend's wedding. Before we go though, I just wanted to put up a couple more pictures of our yard babies... Have a good weekend everybody!!

MINI Day Lilies

Lettuce and Basil

(I made the planter from surplus cedar fencing planks)

Some juvenile peaches

(you can tell cuz they're just getting their peach fuzz)

Snap Peas

MINI Strawberries

Farming in the City

2008-07-10T11:42:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was harvesting the cherry trees in our front yard and our neighbor came out and said "Keep farming Joe, just pretend there is not a city street right behind you." I laughed because it is so true. Seattle is crowded, not as dense as other metro areas, but the surrounding bodies of water limit our escape routes significantly. We have a relatively large yard for Seattle, still only about 10,000 square feet though. We have done our best to put our little plot to work though. This year we have strawberries, cherries, pears(not edible), plums, apples(starchy and gross, but still apples), peaches, snap peas, salad greens, cilantro, dill(which we are actively trying to kill), blackberries(see dill), two kinds of basil, mint(for hot day mojitos), shallots, carrots, cucumbers and garlic chives....all on our little .22 acres of land in the middle of the city. It is not enough food to sustain us, but is certainly a lot of fun to have around and constantly makes me forget my urban surroundings which is definitely worth the work. So, my little friend Lena helped me harvest four and a half pounds of cherries last night, Rainier cherries to be exact, YUMMY!!!

Happy 4th!

2008-07-07T13:25:00.000-07:00

We had a great weekend up here, bbqs, friends, food, camping, the works. Brett had us over for a bbq on Thursday night at her place, then Friday we did our usual 4th of July event at Gasworks. Even though it is very crowded, it is really relaxed too. We showed up at the park an hour or so before sundown and spread out a blanket. The fireworks start shortly after sunset, this year we were treated to a performance by the SeaGals and the Seahawks drumline, Blue Thunder. They were up on a short stage, not even 20 feet from us! Some photos of the night:

The next morning we headed up to the mountains just to get one night of camping in. For whatever reason we have not been able to get out and go camping yet this year until now. It was a lot of fun. Rocky got to swim for a bit in the lake, we had a campfire and made hobo pies for dinner...

Then on Sunday, we wanted to go up into the mountains for a little fun in the Jeep. We scouted out some possible future camping sites and saw some pretty amazing things. We drove along sheer cliffs, which always seemed to be on Rachel's side of the Jeep and made her a little nervous. We even had a brief encounter with a bear as we rounded one of the corners and it ran like hell to get away from us. Near the end of our adventure we were lucky enough to come to a washed out bridge. I say lucky because now we REALLY got to have some fun fording the substantially sized creek in my Jeep, YIPPEE!!! We made it safely across and poor Rachel was gripping the dash so tight she couldn't high-five me, she is such a trooper to let me get away with crazy things like this.

THE CREW

THE VIEW

THE "ROAD"

My New Glasses

2008-06-20T10:43:00.000-07:00

Thank you, taxpayers, for my brand new, stylin' frames. The VA kindly sent me my glasses in the mail yesterday, I lost my last pair four or five years ago and haven't found the time to replace them. Like them?

Glean It!

2008-05-29T12:50:00.000-07:00

I received an email from the Community Harvest of Southwest Seattle today. They are a non-profit group who go around and harvest all the neighborhood fruit trees out here in the West Seattle, White Center and Delridge neighborhoods. The fruit (and vegetables) they harvest is then distributed locally by way of food banks and other outlets to those in need of fresh produce who could not afford it otherwise. They also provide fruit canning, tree pruning and veggie gardening classes to anybody who is interested. The group is growing rapidly, it looks like they have a goal of harvesting 2000 lbs of produce this year, all from our community's yards and gardens, pretty cool huh. They harvested our plum tree last year and reportedly pulled a couple hundred pounds of plums off of it, though the marker for our tree on the website's map indicates only 45 pounds.

This is how I first became involved with the group. Then I mentioned that I was in design school and could possibly help develop a logo for them. They agreed to let me have a whack at it and I noticed today that they have put it into use on their website, it is the little house with a heart-shaped piece of fruit in it, along with the slogan I suggested "Sharing from our hearts and our gardens." I am not trying to brag, merely excited to see my first logo design actually being put to use! Especially for what I feel is such a worthy and exciting cause.

DONATE YOUR TREE!!!

I had to take a break from the group as my workload at school became too heavy, but hope to get involved with them again this summer. The most fascinating part of the whole thing to me is the idea of contributing to a more sustainable lifestyle. After a whole winter of buying out-of-season organic produce, some of which is farmed and harvested thousands of miles from West Seattle or grown in hothouses in California, it is exciting to me to think of what we could produce in our urban environment that would travel a thousandth of that distance from where it is grown to where it is consumed. Also, after meeting the local food bank manager, I am deeply concerned about the quality of food available to people with lower income. Especially with the economy in the state it is, healthy, natural food is becoming more and more out of reach, contributing to the declining health of our population. What I see in this fledgling organization is hope for change in the way that we live our lives and I am happy to see that they are not just giving away produce, but also focusing on developing skills for people to learn how to provide for themselves, using their own land here in the city!

Still here...

2008-05-02T15:10:00.000-07:00

I have so much on my plate right now! Luckily (almost) everything is quite enjoyable and challenging. Preparations for Rome, an anti-bottled water campaign, a book over project, and new this week, assembly of portfolio for my entire sophomore year. Now, the first we heard about this portfolio was last week, everybody is scrambling to gather EVERYTHING we have done this year. This is a slight problem considering most of it hasn't been returned to us after grading and some has been inadvertently destroyed, HOW EXCITING!! I finally got back some of my sketches from fall quarter that I had so much fun doing...

Here's a model of the self-checkout machine I designed:

Boys Will Be Boys...

2008-04-03T17:46:00.000-07:00

Nobody ever tires of pet photos, right?!? I took a little break from my studies to snap a couple shots of Rocky and Miki playing. They have so much fun together, what with all the face biting and such. This one makes me laugh out loud, it looks like one of those dioramas you see at the natural history museum of prehistoric beasts engaged in an epic fight to the death.

Great Groups

2008-04-02T11:16:00.000-07:00

One of my classes this quarter is 'Collaboration and Improvisation.' In the assigned reading for the class I found this little excerpt that really got my blood pumping.

It is of interest to me because it is something I have been wrestling with in my own mind over the last couple of days. Rach and I were just discussing this very topic last night. I reached a point in my Naval career where the Navy was all. I was on the ship seven days a week, driving my team to completion of every task thrown our way, striving to improve every aspect of my system and my sailors for the good of the Navy. My chain of command loved it, my sailors rarely complained. After realizing I hadn't had a day off in over three months, however, I really noticed that my health was declining rapidly, I couldn't sleep at night and I was becoming irritable and really out of touch with what life is really about.

I know the adrenaline rush involved in being part of something amazing and accomplishing things that no individual could conquer alone, but surely there MUST be a point when enough is enough and you should take time for your personal life and those you love. I use to write in my journal that I wished I could find something that would release the fire I felt within me. After years of searching, I am confident that my current path will accomplish this. Now I only hope that it will be a controlled blaze and not a wildfire.

Puerto Vallarta

2008-03-31T22:45:00.000-07:00

Spring Break has come to a close, we returned from Mexico on Sunday and jumped right back into school and work. Our time in Puerto Vallarta was unbeatable. I was really able to unwind and enjoy just being in the sun, breathing in the sweet jungle air and having so much fun with an amazing group of friends. We spent the first couple of days just hanging around our condo, making frosty drinks (including some with fresh-cut coconuts from the surrounding palm trees), playing in the pool and just relaxing. Then we ventured into Bucerias, a small little beach town, for a day of haggling with vendors and beers on the beach. Our final day was spent in Puerto Vallarta. We found a good place to hang out with cheap buckets of corona and spent much of the daylight, you guessed it, soaking up sun, drinking coronas and playing in the ocean. That night we had delicious cuban food for dinner and then headed out for dancing. I had the most fun I've ever had a dance club, it is not usually my scene. This is only a brief summary of our Puerto Vallarta experience, but you get the jist. Simply add some counter-top dancing, a beer chugging contest, an encounter with the Mexican police, evening walks past crocodile ponds, fun trips to a Mexican MEGA-store, water volleyball games, afternoon naps in the sun, clam juice beverages for breakfast, being rear-ended in our rental car, gourmet home-cooked meals, crazy birds that sound like car alarms and some sweet tattoos and you begin to get the picture.

OUR CASA

OUR BACK YARD

WE MAKE THESE LOOK GOOOOOD....

3 AMIGOS

SUNSET IN PARADISE

AMIGOS Y AMIGAS

BEACH SMOOCH

MOJITOS AT DUSK

It's about time!

2008-03-19T17:47:00.000-07:00

According to the West Seattle Blog, the Mayor(hizzoner) is declaring war on potholes. The streets are so bad up here that I had to buy a tougher bike for my daily ride to school as the rims were getting bent on my road bike. Whenever we are returning to Seattle from a trip we can tell when we are getting close because the car shakes so much it wakes up the dog and anyone else napping in the car! The article also features a really funny clip from a show called "Almost Live," it is a sketch comedy show kind of like SNL but is local to Seattle. If you've ever driven through Ballard, Seattle's little scandinavian neighborhood, the video clip will REALLY make you laugh!

Hizzoner to Declare War on Potholes

D E S I G N F I N A L S

2008-03-18T20:57:00.000-07:00

There is no way to begin to describe the satisfaction I am deriving from my design courses right now. Today was our final critique day for Typography and Human Centered Design courses. We showed up to the type critique at 2:30 today and the professors and T.A.s had provided a feast because they knew that we have all been working so hard on these projects the last few weeks that we had likely skipped many meals.

There are fifty students total in our group, half of us are leaning toward Industrial design, half toward graphic design, all VERY talented. The atmosphere in the room felt much more like we were graduating than just finishing a quarter in our sophomore year. People were hugging, laughing and taking photos together. The demands placed on us this quarter have really unified us as a force to be reckoned with in the design world and there is a very vibrant dynamic growing in our group.

The design program at UW has undergone some drastic changes in the past few years, including a complete retooling of the I.D. program. It is interesting to me how much we are gaining strength individually, but AMAZING to me how we are progressing as a group, UW Designers 2010. The environment is so electric that I often feel I am living what it must have been like to practice at the Bauhaus, or being in the company of the dadaists or among the great minds of De Stijl. On the drive home today I was overwhelmed with the creative energy fueled by the passion of my peers.

Anyway, my final typography project included a simple portfolio of all my work for the quarter and a 3-D project involving packaging design. We had to take our favorite coffee and redesign the packaging. I did not use a brand name in my project because it was not really the focus.

Here is my solution:

Now, on to my favorite project so far.

For our Human Centered Design course we had to develop a "Visual Identity Cube." Basically, each three person group had to select a person(designer, artist, architect, etc.), company, art movement, or anything that has a really distinct visual identity. We were then to develop a cube measuring approximately seven inches on each side that best represented the visual identity of whatever subject we had selected.

My group chose the great architect Santiago Calatrava to focus on. His work has only recently begun to pop up in the States with the Milwaukee Art Museum and a tower in Chicago that is currently under construction that will dwarf the Sears Tower. His sculptures and buildings take much influence from natural structures and forms such as bird wings, the human body and others. Though I was not familiar with his work before this project, I had great personal interest in this particular aspect of his design aesthetic since the structures and systems I had studied in Biology class a couple years ago were what fascinated me and influenced my decision to switch from a science major to being a design student.

His structures also tend to exhibit a great deal of motion, both implied and actual. The natural forms, use of space and light, and aspects of motion were what we focused on while brainstorming ideas for the project. Our final solution not only implies motion but it actually moves, thanks to a system of laser-cut cams that we designed and implemented into the central column. It also interacts well with light, producing amazing shadows and reflections.

First, some examples of Calatrava's work:

Some brainstorming sketches studying our cube:

Our final cube: