I graduated with a BA in
Graphic Design. I studied how form, color, shape, variation, and repetition was used to convey messages in magazine spreads, on posters, as CD artwork, and how companies use visual imagery for recognition - brand development.
And for a time, all was well. Advertising was, honestly, great. I created keyart for major motion pictures, and sometimes single-handedly designed assets for global corporations. Big stuff. It was everything my undergraduate mind believed being a designer would be like when I "made it."
Maybe it was the bicycle and a new social circle that embraced active living, honest, cheap/free FUN and great times with genuine humans. It could have been the copious psychedelics that opened me to question the status quo. Perhaps I tasted one too many paint chip. Whatever it was, I began to see things differently. I left LA, started traveling, and never looked back. Since then, I've had some amazing experiences, none I would ever trade or put a price tag on. All the while living off savings, and a nice research grant from Uncle Sam (aka Funemployment). But I legitimately put that money towards what I consider my graduate degree. And in that time, I've come to have experiences that I'm now focusing on even further.
Design has shifted my understanding of life. I am a designer, taking elements, decisions, colors, shapes, people, music, places, and more or less, designing my life - living now, and forecasting my brand for tomorrow. As far as an occupation goes, to reduce myself to a single graphical user interface (a pixel pusher) as my sole form of income would be denying the purity of my human desire to be a diverse individual. A renaissance man. So I've broadened what it means to be a designer, and I think that's called evolution. As I grow, I understand stagnation is not progressive - remixing, sampling, and editing it the wave of the future and not just with the specifics of the job itself, but LIFE ITSELF. Failure, success, trial, tribulation, all that great stuff.
But I digress... we are commonly taught to specialize in one thing. Be a Doctor, be a lawyer, be a mechanic, a opera singer, or an accountant, and for a while I guilted myself into believing that my Jack-of-all-trades personality was my downfall. But I stand before you an enlightened man.
Graphic design. Edible garden design. Landscape design. Product design. Meal design. Home design. Navigation Design. Social situation design (like walking out of the room in a awkward moment). LIFE DESIGN. Who's to say one needs to be paid to be considered something? I am a human. Is there a shiny placard that grants me that? Dharmic design - that is, the cosmic path of which I walk, I design.
This is one of what I hope will be the first of many landscape projects that I'm currently working on. I will be working on five Action Items. 1. A pathway 2. Raised tiered garden bed (succulents) 3. solution for yard cover 4. Privacy/Shade solution 5. Plants & Irrigation
Google SketchUp - basic, but a great starter to get ideas rollin.
Holler at me if you're looking for a Designer of sorts.
