pretty things one

i love sunny buick‘s tattoos. she has the most awesome tattoo script writing. it reminds me of louise fili, one of my favorite branding/packaging design firms for its lovely typography. i love the colors she uses in all her tattoos. she does a great job of retaining the old traditional sailor jerry feel but has a lot of fun with subjects and content. her portfolio is brimming with rockets and tea cups, luchadors, pin-us and kitties. female tattoo artists are such babes. another lady i’ve added to my list of ppl i want to be when i grow up. i’d also settle for just getting tattooed by her. next time i’m in paris…



her protege Sailor Roman also just got a sweet identity designed by Cosmo Sapiens. check it out.
judgement day

i’ve been helping judge a photography contest for the past week now for River to Well, an annual event held to raise money to fund wells in south africa. last year the event raised over $5,000. i blushed when katie’s sister asked me to help judge, but i’m really glad she did because i’ve had a blast analyzing photographs. good and bad. and spending hours color-coding and foldering. example: so far so good, but i’m having a terrible time narrowing down to the top 4 for each sub-category of student, amateur and professional. tomorrow the judges are getting together to show each other what we’ve chosen and fight for our favorites.


i wanted to talk more about what i’ve thought about the judging process, but i’ll hold off until the competition is over. vague is good. esp when you might already be breaking rules for showing your color coded folder system..


lastly, because i am i judge i couldn’t enter my favorite photograph from my trip. i wouldn’t have won, but i love how it turned out. so much color! mm take me back plz

taken with my pentax film camera

ReTweet

I found these inspirations I had posted on my old blog for Graphic Design II. I looked back at them today because I’m using a similar cut & paste style, but also because these sites were just so cool. This is something I need to start playing with a lot more on my free time. I want to become a lot better at ornamentation and layering, and doing things in my free time in general.. Enjoy!



website . Misprinted Type

>>also here’s the link to the Harry Potter fan site I redesigned forever ago. Choose ravenclaw!




Learn Origami

Oh, ya. These were the last few pages of my audit with the instructions for folding the pastry box with lid, and loose-leaf tea bag. Learn! Fold! Love! Origami!





school is my life again

We had another one of my favorite paintings in class today.


Death of Marat, 1793 Jaques-Louis David

David didn’t give Charlotte Corday the time of day, and painted a man in a tub. Wonderful. Design wise its uses so much negative space—believed to be inspired by David seeing the body presented in the large open cathedral—and the reference to the Pieta in the pose, and a crown of thorns-esque towel that would have been soaked in vinegar due to Marat’s skin condition. It was also not anything like the allegory and history paintings that, at the time, were the main styles being used to capture important modern events. Good job David for being entirely too creative.

Also, for Graphics I settled on rebranding Composting. This will be exciting. And hopefully get me to compost, along with millions of others like the Got Milk? campaign!
gender&revolution

Two buzz words that completely pulled me in. I was thoroughly agitated with myself today on my first day of classes, when the class I thought would perhaps include revolutionary and propagandistic poster art, but instead includes Rococo paintings of french aristocracy and the controversial Marie Antoinette. The teacher talks to fast for me, but it may just be because I’m used to slow and broken English—man I miss it. I’m looking up another art history class now, along with times for a french class that I spontaneously decided to take after a meeting with my Peace Corps advisor! This year is going to be awesome. Especially because my new roommate is wonderful. Lindsey. Not Dora.


Here, though, are some nice paintings I saw from class that may or may not make this class more appealing.



Caspar David Friedrich, The Monk by the Sea


William Turner, Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying


Jean-Augustine-Dominique Ingres, La Grand Odalisque
Oh Hai Princess

This past week was so crazy and so amazing, and to be honest I can’t believe it was real. I got the opportunity to participate in an international project where 77 young artists from 7 schools in poland, germany, belgium, france, and ireland came together for week-long workshops in different facets of art leading up to a big exhibition held at the castle of Namedy, Germany. I took the photography workshop, because this was actually the form my photo class was in this semester for Trier. There were also workshops in ceramics, architecture, land art, metal sculpture, visual art and illustration, performance and media. Everyone stayed in hostels in the town over called Andernach, and we took a 5 min train every morning to Namedy to work on our projects at the castle all day, and came back every night to chill. For some reason I was really outgoing all week, and ended up meeting almost all of the 77 student and it was so much fun and some of my french came back to moemory and i also learned a few things in polish!


Communication the whole week was extremely interesting because it played so many good and bad roles. There were a few kids who didn’t talk much at all and after a few drinks weren’t so afraid to speak in english with me, and then there were kids who were extremely talkative and funny with little mistakes. I didn’t really get much feedback for my project at all, which was the worst part of the language barrier, but it was also good to have such a new experience of being so free in what I chose to do and how I did it. I learned that I didn’t really care for it and I work the best with rules, but good times anyway! My old roommate Silke was incharge of the whole thing, with another guy Dirk, and I was so impressed with them. It really was an amazing opportunity and I was so happy to get Silkes text offering me a place at the castle!

Here are a few of the photos I had in my final presentation. I hung 7 frames from a tree in the courtyard with my photographs in them, and left one frame open. It was the biggest gold frame, and I set up a small table infront of it with 3 disposable cameras for anyone and everyone to take pictures of themselves through the frame. It went along with the theme of the whole project which was “transforming memories.” My concept was based on how the too-good-to-be-true reality of being in a castle and being surrounded by so many artists and creative energy was just so surreal and didn’t really feel “real”. This was reflected in my photos by taking real things and making them abstract and dreamlike. And I was happy because I didn’t have to touch them in photoshop minus the red one where 2 pictures were put together. Here they are, hope you like em!


Hatch Show Print





I love when things happen that remind you of how small the world really is. a few weeks ago I was hanging out in centennial park, in the hopes of joining some pick-up ultimate frisbee game. After sitting long enough to build up courage, I walked over to a game going on. After a few games, I left and walked back over to where my roommates were hanging out in the park, and a guy that I had been playing with came over and introduced himself. I told him all my plans of why I was in Nashville and studying abroad, and him, my roommate, Britta, and I talked a long time about traveling and such. Very San Francisco, according to B. When he was telling me about all the places I needed to visit while I’m in Nashville, he mentioned Hatch Show Print and I went a little crazy to say the least.


Hatch Show Print was pretty much the only place I had on my list of things I would cry about if I didn’t see it. We had talked a bit about Hatch Show in my letterpress class at KU, and even seen some large scale examples that we have in our rare books and prints library. I had even looked at doing my internship there, but the dates wouldn’t work—assuming I got accepted.

Anyway, he said that his uncle was actually the manager of Hatch Show for the past 25 years, and offered to give him a call and see if he would want to give me a little tour of the shop. I couldn’t even believe it. I was speechless in the sense that I couldn’t really think of anything else to say but, “thank you thank you thank you.” and how awesome it would be if this actually followed through.

Which it did.

I got the amazing privilege of a behind the scenes look at one of the nation’s oldest letterpress print shops..unbelievable. It’s been around for over 100 years, and still uses the same fonts and woodblocks, and bold, simple design as when it started. They’ve made posters for some of the biggest names in jazz and country history like BB King, Johnny Cash, Dylan, etc etc etc. They’re an American Institution, a Nashville landmark, and helped define the look of country music. Jim Sherraden was the uncle/manager that I got the honor to meet. He had grown up in Kansas, and even knew my letterpress teacher, and was familiar with the KU workshop! I couldn’t believe it. He was so nice, and so proud of his shop- I couldn’t help but think of one of my favorite quotes,
“Sometimes you have to watch somebody love something to love it yourself.”-Donald Miller
I tried to absorb everything he said and ask as many questions as I could think of. We talked about importance of paper knowledge—one of my favorite nerdy topics!!! We talked about working with clients, met the interns on their first day (that could have been me!), the history of Hatch Show, and lots of technical talk. He then allowed me to wander and talk to the interns and take pictures at my will. I could have stayed there all day..
Copyright Kim Koelling 2015. All Rights Reserved