What do you love most about your job?
What I love most about my job is that it is pretty stress-free. I work at a wine shop/deli and it is awesome. We have very tasty, high quality, sandwiches and awesome prices on wine. I love that there is only 8 employees and that the boss is the coolest Asian man I've ever met. He gives me bonuses on every check because I'm the hardest working employee. I love that I can have a pretty healthy sandwich for lunch everyday rather than going to Carl's Jr. or Jack 'n the Box.
What I love about my other job, which will be my career, is that it is creative. I'm just finishing school as a graphic design student and can't wait to find work at the professional level. I just found out that I won a class design competition and my work was chosen by the Fresno Ad Federation. We designed an invitation package for them and they liked mine best. I will have it up on my site in about a week.
My most recent school project has got me thinking about the, now recent, future. In this class, professionals from around town visit and present us with a design project. Most of them have been pretty cool, a few lame ones, but this one got me excited. The goal of this project was to name and design three different wines. Each wine is from a different region around the world and our name choice has to be found by doing research about the three regions. The thing that got me excited was the professional that presented this project just so happened to be the Art Director of a place I really want to work.
So my task at hand was to name a Cabernet Sauvignon from Aconcagua, Chile, a Chardonnay from Washington, and a Pinot Noir from Marlborough, New Zealand. I did my research and came up with three unique names that I feel stand out on a shelf.
My first wine I presented was my Cab from Chile.
The second wine I presented was my Chardonnay from Washington.
Finally, the last one I presented was my Pinot Noir from New Zealand.
This label was my favorite so I did my one ad for this wine. Here is what I came up with.
So now that the project is done and I have presented it to my dream employer I feel great. He called two of my designs, "Heroes". What he meant was that they were perfect and would stand strong on the shelves. I just liked the reference to comic books and I am so pleased he liked my designs. I can now look toward my future with a smile and hope that they have an opening when I apply. Other than that it was nice to know that someone in the real world acknowledged my work as something that could be actually produced. It didn't just look like student work to him, he saw the professionalism and I feel great that I have put in so much effort over the passed five years. It is finally going to pay off and I will be done with school. I will be able to focus on my career and starting a family with my beautiful wife.
Sorry for the length of this blog, but hopefully my designed pulled you through it with comfort and ease. Have a nice night, peace out.
I'm sitting here awake on a Saturday morning watching cartoons. My wife had to get up early today for a stone massage workshop so I got up too. She told me last night that she wouldn't mind if I cleaned up the house today. So when she was in the shower, I started cleaning. All the things I needed to clean have been cleaned, I got ready for the day, and ate breakfast. Now the only thing left to do is be lazy and watch Saturday morning cartoons for a change.
As I sit and watch Spiderman and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles I am slightly disappointed. All of my childhood cartoons are back on the air being made by different people. These new people use a slightly anime looking illustration style. It is hard for me too look at Peter Parker with such harsh, exaggerated angles and big eyes. It just isn't the same. The story lines are just repeating from the old cartoon because the writers can't even think of anything new. I'm just bothered by how different it is I guess. I suppose it isn't a horrible thing though.
Most kids these days are used to receiving information at the speed of light and anime style illustration allows for a lot of simplification of objects. So more information can get to the brain at a quicker speed. I guess what these new producers are trying to do is give children of the 2000s the chance to see these same cartoon in an illustration style they recognize. The ninja Turtles has done a better job with the story line because they are incorporating a lot of "cyber talk". The story line I happen to be watching has to do with the web and digital creatures coming to life to attach humans. There is a digital world that the turtles can enter that looks like an updated version of Tron. It is all just very strange to me, but I bet kids love it.
As an artist I look at the show for its illustration quality and how they use lighting and line weights to emphasize certain parts of the frame. It is all really subtle and I think it is successful. Its just sad that the more you grow up, the more retarded cartoons seem to be. I just want to be able to go back to the days of Saturday cartoons that held my attention for hours at a time and when life was simpler that it is now.
This week marked the start of winter for me because i got to bust out the beanies! And when I bust them out, I really bust them out. It almost becomes an obsession to wear a beanie every day. I love how they keep my head so very warm when the wind and cold try hard to nip at my ears. I have quite a few beanies, and every Holiday season seem to accumulate more; I have a drawer in the dresser dedicated just to beanies. Unfortunately, one of my favorites can't quite fit my head right so I don't wear it all that much. It says "Dickies" all over it in different fonts, I can name at least half of them, lol. From now on, when you see me I will most likely be wearing a beanie or have messy hair because of a previously worn beanie. Rejoice for winter is hear and all who enjoy it should wear a beanie or be a weeny.
It seems like every morning around 7:30 am some kind of garbage truck comes to pick up garbage. It might actually be only twice a week, but the length of annoyance makes it seem like all week. It always wakes me up during my last hour of sleep; and everyone know that is the best part! When I hear the truck pull up and start lifting the dumpsters, my teeth cringe. I want nothing more than to be able to transform into something big enough to crush it. To make it worse, I live in an apartment complex and there are a LOT of dumpsters around here. These trucks can be heard from my window no matter where they are in the complex.
I don't even know what the internet is anymore. Well, that's a lie; I know different parts of it now. I used to spend my time surfing all the fun website and commenting friends on myspace. Now my days are full of market demographic research and reading graphic design blogs and, of course, designing. My life has never been as busy as it is right now. I am so glad that I only have 7 weeks of school left. I will finally have my degree and be done with school FOREVER! For years I dreamed of only having to work each day and not have to work, do homework, go to school, and study. I will have the time and money to do more things I enjoy, like cooking. Maybe the gym will come back into the picture and I will lose more weight. I have kept off the 30 lbs. I lost a few months back, I just need to get back on it.
This was just a little rant to update my vox. I don't have much time to think about writing anything longer than this, but someday i will.
The semester started.
This means no longer sitting on the couch all day watching crappy tv.
It means long hours of design work to build a strong portfolio this last semester.
This means I don't get to spend as much time with my wife.
Or have as much time to cook like I want to.
It means I need to start going to the gym again.
School is not out for the summer.
This means no longer will I taste the sweetness of summer fresh strawberries.
It means waking up earlier and taking a shower everyday.
This means I have to get serious and get shit done.
Or I might not succeed and be in school even longer.
It means I have a lot of work to do.
The semester started.
This means that summer is gone, but that's not so bad.
Because autumn is right-round the corner.
I drove my ass down to the other side of Fresno today to help my brother find a job. He is almost 20 and freaking out because he has never really been employed. His chances are already less because he has one arm tatted-up past the sleeve; and he won't even take it seriously enough to dress appropriately.
He just doesn't get that I am trying to help him succeed in finding a job. When I look for a job I find one within a few weeks. He has been "looking" for like a month now and has only applied to a few places online. Everywhere I took him today he said, "I didn't even know this was here!" I was so annoyed because he could have walked a block or two and gotten to all of these places on his own. I just drove down there to make sure he filled them out and turned them in.
He ended up turning in 8 applications and finding some that you apply online for. In total (if he does the online apps) he should have about 15 application out there. That is pretty good imo, but he stills needs to keep looking because he may never get a call from any of these places. Something needs to click in him to take life more seriously, I just hope it happens before its too late.
Here are some drawings I have been doing lately. I am really trying to do a lot more hand inking. It is somehow relaxing sitting with the crow quill pen and India ink just drawing away. I think I will make a new Vox header in this style, so be expecting that in the next week or so.
Typography can go a long way to convey a message. A lot of times it is subconscious and the viewer doesn't realize it. Typefaces can deepen the message of any ad or logo.
Lately I have been feeling pretty
Why does the world always seem so 
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