Green Garage eh?

As you might be thinking, isn’t this oxymoronic? It is a parking garage that is considered “green”. Dennis Moore Ruble Yudell architects and other planners constructed the garage, which is on its way to being the first LEED certified parking structure in the USA. Currently in Santa Monica, the Civic Center parking structure (that’s its name) provides 900 parking spaces, 14 of which are specified to electrical vehicles. There are a total of 6 levels of above ground and one and a half levels below ground. There is free bicycle storage, which encourages alternate means of transportation. The garage has a solar panel that is arranged to provide all the of the buildings energy needs. It is not only energy efficient, it also contains a sustainable storm drain water treatment system, recycled construction materials, energy efficient mechanical systems and more. The Glass Association of North America also awarded the firm a design award based on the use of laminated glass panels. This really something, it is definitely a remarkable innovation to the use of cars, since garages are always a littering place, nothing good ever comes from it. They have managed to make this place somewhere fun to park your car and it is as they say “green”. I wouldn’t mind heading down the Santa Monica to see the view while parking by car in one of the best garages in the world (for now).

Uber High-Tech and just for Women... Boo!

Everyone wants the latest and high-tech gadgets. Now they managed to pull through one of the most uniquely designed watches ever created. As much as a cool design this watch is, it is a fashion statement for women (bummer). It is designed as a cuff bracelet for women, which has a hidden digital clock. It is covered in a glossy mirror-like surface that apparently allows light only underneath. When this device it not in use, a dot just appears, but when you touch the dot the time magically appears! That would be something worth picking up but only if they managed to design one for men.

Can you handle Jumi?

I myself am a neat freak and I cannot stand to have anything lying around the floor and being unorganized. I always like to have everything in its place and easily accessible when I need it. This new product that was designed by Matthisas Hiller is a great invention. It is called Jumi, I looked up the word and there is no real meaning for it and I checked some other references and only Asian female Djs came up. The product is a silicone handle made for cabinet handles or drawer pulls. It was designed with two things in mind, safety and organization (something that I have to have in my room). This idea allows for easily accessible objects with the pictograms on the side as well as the concept of not getting any bumps and bruises. This also makes it a lot easier to find things immediately, which is something that I wouldn’t be able to live without. With cool name like that and its practical use who wouldn’t want it?

Futuristic Jitz Anyone?

I am a huge gamer, whether it is videogames or board games, I always never back down from and challenge. Foosball is one of my many favorite past time activities during my breaks at school as well as going out to pubs. Usually when I go to pubs and see them, there are really sad to look at since they are getting old, and plus they’re not interesting and look disgusting. They never really have had an invigorating presence. It’s almost if they were designed by old farts living in log cabins. I was looking around for actually purchasing a new one for my home when I came across this wonderful renovation. It was designed by GRO, and they managed to mimic the best of the best football stadiums around the world and takes this gaming to a whole new level. Just the way it was designed with the curvatures of the table and the revitalization of the plastic players makes the whole experience of player even better. It is almost as if your playing in the future. This would be something I would want to definitely pick up.

My Creativity and my Education

It’s no surprise to me when I found out that this was a competitive program and only some many could be let in and it all fell on their portfolio work. To me though trying to get into a creative program you must have some sort of creativity. When I was younger, my parents always told me to do something that I enjoyed and I loved to draw and paint. When I was 12 all I ever did was draw out monster pictures movie scenes and what ever cam across my mind. They also were both from different ends of the spectrum, my mom was the creative one and my dad was the technical one. So to be frank on some way, both were pushing me to both ends of the spectrum. They never really forced me they more opened up my eyes to see what there was lying down the road in both directions. This showed me that the biggest part of my Education was influenced by them.

When I was in elementary school about to go to high school they said I need a great education in order to go to university. They never said that I needed a creative or a academic education, it was up to me to decide where and what I wanted to do. In grade 9 I took what ever interested me woodshop, art, music and science. I then lead towards art and began following my creative path. Eventually a whole lot more opened up for me along the path. Communication technologies, media studies, video production and advanced art classes, were just some of the options I could take. Decided in grade 11 that I wanted to work more with computers and it was here that was the real conundrum. I took two different types of computer courses, one that was graphic design related and the other was based on creating applications and software programs. Both were both interesting and fun and it came down to the boiling point of which I would want to take after high school. The tiebreaker was the school’s yearbook.

I was on the yearbook committee and was stationed to design the swim team page the grad’s page and a few other sports teams and events pages. I was lead designer at the time since I was in grade 12 at the time and out year book editor told us that we all had a chance if we wanted to do design the front cover of the year book. I was excited and took up the challenge. I worked on it more than anything else and pushed aside all other work to get the cover. I had asked everyone I knew what they though the school represented to him or her and how they interpreted this year’s theme “Unscripted”. I got a lot in insightful, inspirational and creative ideas from everyone. It then came down to two decisions in the end, my own and someone else’s. The other one got chosen and I was disappointed, but my graphic arts teacher told me that he was really impressed with my work and he voted for it and that I took the reject really well. It was here that I knew that I was appreciated for my work, not like my other technical analysis class, and that I wanted to go towards the graphic arts career.

That being said, I feel that a lot of my creativity developed at home and also from my friends. I started drawing and learned even more art techniques and eventually learned computer software programs that could do even more with art. I feel that I did learn a lot from those classes and I am lucky to have had the experience with each of those teachers in them. I feel that if had not been given these amazing opportunities that I would have gotten myself into something more boring like the technical analysis computer class that I had before. I believe that I have been destined to do creative work and even if it were not in the graphic arts area it would have been something similar because I was determined to something in the arts spectrum.

Insane or Innovation?

We all believe that since technology is advancing that there will no longer be any need for things to be printed because they are already easily accessible through the Internet. Every one thinks that we are moving towards a digital era and we no longer need printed materials because they take up too much space and cost us too much. Now a designer named Kyle Bean came up with a concept that is either bizarre or an idea. He has come up with the concept of books actually being mini computers that have a disc that has all of the books’ content on it. This is truly remarkable, since the fact that the industry is slowly going towards digital information. It is definitely an interesting concept and that there is a mini keypad on the pages, which makes even more, like a computer rather than it just being a DVD player. This technology is also very miniscule and portable which would definitely make someone want to pick it up. But if you look at it carefully all that he has done was carved a book, resurfaced the bookbinding and put a computer in it. But it makes you think as if this could be something that could actually become reality. It is a great way of putting a spin of something that is already a major thing.

Left Right Project

The show was actually quite inspiring because Adidas wanted to do a fun project with both ends of North America, the East coast and the West coast. Adidas gave each region an oversized shoe and the task was that for each team to create a design on the shoe, and had three days to do it. The cool thing about this was that it gave a chance for each person to be unique, use their own creative style to interpret how they saw the brand and how they could make it better and grab more attention to it. When they were finished and brought them together, they managed to get a huge response for crowds and most saying that it will definitely draw attention not just because of the design but also because of the size of it too. It was a great project for them to individualize themselves and be who they are. Enjoy it because I know I did.