Catching Up with some Heart

I haven’t updated this news feed in a while so I’m taking a moment to share some Hearts I’ve created in the past year.

Paisley Heart. acrylic paint on fiberglass heart. 2021

This heart was created for the Grand Foundation of Tracy, CA. The Foundation supports arts education and programming in Tracy and surrounding communities. It is currently on display at West Valley Mall and will be auctioned off November 4, 2021. For more information visit https://www.grandfoundation.org/events

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PopDot PushPins. acrylic paint on fiberglass heart. 2020

The Town of Danville invited 17 artists to create surface designs for heart sculptures that would be publicly displayed and then auctioned off to benefit the Village Theatre and Gallery. The public art exhibition was installed in June and ran through October. Hearts could be found on and around Hartz Avenue in downtown Danville. PopDot PushPin Heart was sold and is now in a private collection.

Here is what I had to say about the design:
“A push-pin is generally used to fasten notes to a board. Choosing push-pins for the heart symbolized for me the space to leave messages and at the same time the care needed not to cause pain. Little did I know when I chose to submit PopDot PushPin Heart for this project just how poignant it would be in 2020: so much pain in the world and the need for more heart. The PopDot series explores themes of culture, environment, and influences of our designed world. I work with bold familiar icons in saturated colors to draw viewer’s attention. The designs are placed on a background of exaggerated dots bridging art and design processes of the past with technology of now. Recontextualizing objects in this way allows for the addition of subtle messages that I hope inspire thought, though I am just as pleased if the work simply invites a smile. I believe strongly in accessibility of art for all in both placement of the work and content.”

Happy Holidays

For the past several years my love of color has been expressed in our holiday cards by sharing the Pantone™ Color of the Year and featuring an image from the closing year that includes that color.

Pantone choose two colors for 2021 because after this year, how could you just have one?

For 2021 I created two versions of the card because this photograph taken on Valentine’s Day in 2020 before we had any idea how the year would shift so dramatically reminds me of the hopefulness we hold for the future.

Below are some previous year’s cards.

Introducing My First Shop! Face Masks Now Available

I’ve been getting lots of compliments on my face masks, especially the beard cover style. Now they are available for sale!

Masks by Lisa are made from reclaimed, sample, or dead-stock fabric.

These mask are handmade. Each one is unique and numbered. They may contain some little imperfections. That is part of the charm of homemade. If that’s not your thing, no problem, please don’t order one because there will be no refunds available on masks.

BLACK LIVES MATTER & the Street Art of Oakland

Immediately after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, millions of people around the world filled the streets in protest. In Oakland many businesses were already boarded up because they had been closed so long due to Covid-19. After some protests turned violent in the early days, more businesses boarded up. It didn't take long for the artist to come out and full those walls with color and messages of hope and remembrance.

For another view of these images with a little more information about some of the artists, take a look at this post created with Adobe Spark.

spark.adobe.com/page/lCGlIDogUq6cY

Art & Color for Kids

In March as we found ourselves quickly adjusting to working from home, I was hearing from friends what a struggle it was to try and keep their kids focused on the home schooling they needed to do while also trying to keep up with their jobs. I offered to keep the kids occupied for an hour or two each week with an art class just for them. This has been a great way to have some fun while also giving me great ideas for how I can make my college level courses more engaging online. I figured if I could get 7-10 year olds to focus and learn for an hour, I’d have some good skills to share with 20-somethings.

Macy's Flower Show 2020

For the past six years, students on the San Francisco campus of FIDM have had the unique experience of designing and executing displays for the Macy's Flower Show. Each year, we’ve transformed an area into a breathtaking scene based on a theme developed by Macys HQ using mostly recycled materials. 2020 was "Voyage to Oceanum". 

This year was very different however. This year we ended the project as Covid-19 began spreading around the country. We installed the epic scenes the students produced only to find out the following day that Flower Show would be canceled. A couple of days later the stores closed. The designs would have been completed with live plants to breath even more life into the work. 

The installation was also designed to include an activation. Throughout the display participants were encouraged to spot fabric fish. There were three special fish with red star buttons attached. When found, we asked everyone to take a photo, post it to Instagram with the hashtag #MacysXFIDM, and be entered to receive a prize. 

2020 Flower Show Teams: “Coral Queen and Mobiles”: Christian Jouvin, Jordan Gancas, Marie McCarthy, Annelise Nolting. “Bubble Creatures on Star Island”: Danny Do, Victoria Duong, Saffia King, Dolly Xie. “Tidal Queen and Wave”: Edith Garcia, Cat Boozenny, Hannah Brock, Christiana Rodriguez

We were thrilled to be named a finalist in this year’s WindowsWear Student Competition. From the WindowsWear website:

“The WindowsWear 2020 Student Awards reached over 100,000+ people around the world, with 3,000+ submitting their votes! Each voter selected their favorite project per category, and the project with the most votes won! 

Participating schools included Berkeley College, Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising (FIDM), Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), King Abdulaziz University, Marist College, Marymount University, Parsons School of Design, Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), Seneca College, Sheridan College, University of Minnesota, West Virginia, and many others.”

Venice, Florence, Milan — November 2019

Looking back now, I am more grateful than ever that we had the opportunity to spend a couple of weeks in one of my favorite counties. We never could have guessed back in November that five months later, the country and the world would be ravaged by a highly contagious disease.

We planned the trip around the Venice Biennale. We would spend the first 5 days in Venice taking in as much art as humanly possible. Days before we left, Venice began experiencing the highest floods since 1966. The city is accustomed to some ‘acqua alta’ in the Fall and Winter, but this high water was extreme. So extreme that the Biennale was forced to close for a few days before we arrived and just slowly began to reopen the day after we got there. Our original accommodations were canceled while we were enroute and the whole situation was looking pretty bleak. Luckily we found a great AirBnB on the third floor of a building designed for high water with nothing on the ground floor except a marble entry way and a raft for tenants to borrow. Even with all the drama in the hours leading up to the trip, this ended up being one of the most amazing times I have had in Italy, and that is saying a lot! It doesn’t hurt that we were traveling with good friends and excellent travel companions.

Here are a few of my favorite visual memories from the trip. (Click the image to move forward.)

FIDM Named in Top 10 for Graphic Design

MOST POPULAR · RANKINGS

Top 10 Universities for Graphic Design Majors

November 28, 2018 // by Corey Marfitt

Elementary school taught you ROYGBIV and complementary colors. Now you know design is more than colors, shapes and letters—it’s a language. More than ever, companies and agencies need graphic designers fluent in technology to create designs that evoke feeling. Everywhere you go design surrounds you. Further your creative education at the top graphic design schools in America. Equipped with the latest technology, newly renovated studios and workshops, and talented professors, you’ll build a portfolio at these colleges that could land you your dream job.

6. FASHION INSTITUTE OF DESIGN & MERCHANDISING

Get your creative design juices flowing at FIDM. Aside from traditional graphic design classes like advanced typography, students also take “Graphic Design for Mobile” where they build an engaging mobile marketing application by the end of the course. At the Annex, Design Studio West offers studio labs, computer terminals, drafting tables and more. Students can also access the world-class FIDM Museum and Galleries plus FIDM Library, the largest fashion library on the west coast. Outside of the classroom, students interact with on-campus events like the DEBUT Runway Show, media lounge screenings, book signings from famous authors and designers and different exhibitions in the FIDM Gallery and Museums. Graphic design students can showcase their skills getting involved in FIDM Mode, a student-run magazine covering fashion, beauty, student life and career advice. FIDM also sets up industry partnerships so students can work on projects with companies like TOM and Signal Snowboards. More recently, Vespa San Francisco collaborated with FIDM graphic design students to create a custom look for the Vespa LX.

visit www.collegemagazine.com for the full list

Adobe + FIDM Creative Jam

I had the opportunity to help produce and co-host an Adobe Creative Jam for FIDM students in San Francisco and Los Angeles. During this half-day bootcamp-style design tournament, students quickly learned the basics of Adobe XD and then worked in teams of 3-5 to design an interactive prototype. Instructions given the day of the event: “Your challenge is to address a community and its residents, and design a way to make a tangible, measurable effect on their communities."

Eight teams working in three labs in Los Angeles and one team working at the Adobe offices in San Francisco were connected via CrowdCast and presented their work to the judges and other participants via this video chat. During the challenge, Creative Jam participants also heard from inspiring speakers Brycie Jones, Senior Communications Officer of Digital at Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Antoinette Carroll, Founder & CEO of Creative Reaction Lab. Judges included Heather Haselwood, UX Designer at NFL Media, Pau Hershey, Sr. Experience Designer at Electronic Arts, and FIDM Alumnus Daniel Santos, Design Director at Kettle.

The winning team—made up of L.A.-based Conger, Emma, Carmen, and Erika—created an app, Walking Buddy, to help people feel comfortable walking in areas they may or may not be familiar with. Jordan, Marilou, and Stephanie took home second place for their Respect You app, while Vanessa, Ari, Chelsea, and Emily won third place for their Trans Ally Community app. 

 All competitors who successfully completed the Jam received a three-month subscription to Adobe Stock. Team members on the first place team won Amazon gift cards worth $250, second place team members won $150 each, and third place won $50 each.

 Documentation of the event can be seen here:
https://www.facebook.com/adobecreativejam/videos/301452467248055/
https://www.facebook.com/adobecreativejam/videos/196376257920237/

CosmoProf + FIDM Challenge 2018

Cosmoprof North America is one of the largest beauty industry conferences in the US. This year they sponsored a special collaboration with FIDM. We combined Beauty students with Graphic students and challenged them to work in teams to create a connected beauty concept for 2050. The Graphic Design students brought to the project their understanding of target market research, design thinking, as well as logo, and packaging design skills. The Beauty Industry Management students focused on trends, consumer preferences, and product development. The winning team was flown to Las Vegas where Tina Perez, Director of Beauty Industry Management, and I presented the project at the annual conference and introduced the finalists. Congratulations Alysha and Quiana!

Slide Project, Part 2

So then what do you do with all the slides?

Lamps!

My brother had a big birthday coming up and I wanted to figure out a way to make him a gift with the slides. Some type of art would be great for his new home. Lighting made the most sense for showing off the slides so I headed out to IKEA to find something I could hack. Turns out they had these frosted square glass table lamps that perfectly fit eight slides per side. A little gaffers tape, Gorilla glue, and some simple tools helped make it happen. I started with a lamp featuring slides of my older artwork to test the process before moving on to the birthday present.

Slide Project, Part 1

For months I've had boxes and boxes of slides sitting by my desk at home waiting to be copied. Scanning with a flat bed scanner takes sooooo long and the quality is just, meh. I've gone through a couple of configurations for creating an easy way to digitize slides and this is my favorite.

In addition to the inexpensive little set up shown above, I'm using a macro lens on my iPhone, and black board with a hole cut out for the lens along with black Post-Its for reducing the glare on the slides. This takes a fraction of the time to digitize and I'm finding that the quality is just as good or better than I used to get with a scanner.

This is my favorite macro lens so far because it is large and has more lens sharpness to the edges. Images pinch a bit from macro lens distortion, but that is easy to fix digitally. I bought it on Amazon and can't find a manufacturures name. "Cell Phone Camera Lens, 0.6X Super Wide Angle Lens & 15X Macro Lens, 2 in 1 Clip-on Professional HD… $16.99" sold by YouCoulee.

The Original Man in the Hat, Larry Harvey

Yesterday Larry Harvey, the founder of Burning Man, passed away. In tribute to him I wanted to share the story of the design of the 2013 BRC Map which was inspired by his iconic hat.

I always wanted to embed a game into the Map and I decided 2013 would be the year to pull it off. The theme Larry Harvey chose for Burning Man that year was “Cargo Cult”. As I began doing research and tossing around ideas for the BRC Map, Larry’s iconic Stetson kept coming up for me. Cargo Cults tend to worship objects left behind by travelers. Larry’s hat was one of those symbolic objects. 

My main collaborator in the design of the game was Brent Boe. As we began the game design we developed a story (poetic version included below). In the story the person who held the hat, held the power to lead and we wanted many people to take a turn wearing the hat. For those patient enough to solve all the puzzles, they were led to a special shiny version of the Stetson. The hat was to be worn for a period of time and then returned to its place so that others could take their turn as the wearer of the hat.

While we were in early development of the game, Burning Man Project’s Global Leadership Conference took place. At the conference that year Larry tossed out his hat during his keynote address proclaiming in essence, the hat belonged to everyone, and Larry thought it looked great on everyone who tried it on. This was a completely synchronistic event that made me feel even more confident that we were on the right track with this concept.

Larry, thank you for the hat and all that you inspired while wearing it. We will keep those memories alive always.

STANZAS FOR THE CULT OF THE HAT

== The Man in the Hat ==
The Man in the Hat, Builder, Originator
Seeking a Perfect Workspace, The Man in the Hat found Playa
Smiling in Delight and Exclaiming with Joy
"Here we create freely"

After Seven Days of Building, The Man in the Hat built a shelter
Shelter from the Sun for rest
A Great Wind descended upon the shelter, and Destroyed it

The Man in the Hat rebuilt from the ruins.
Something new, not built before
Skilled Hands of Effort, Perseverance, and Creativity Begot the Man

== Lady Dustmask ==
To glance in her eyes would ignite a spark
And bring forth a flame to conquer the dark
Burn out your false idols, tis no easy task
And so do we turn to Lady Dustmask

The Wind it did howl, the dust it did sting
And Lady Dustmask had the spirit to sing
She stood in her camp, back straight and chest tall
for nothing of hers would break, bend, or fall

A tribute! She sought to make the night bright
Desire expressed, that we might ignite
Destroy all your demons, you might rightly learn
Refreshment of spirit and watch the man burn

=== CoyoteSpider/Trickster ===
I buffoold two-legs skilldidly
At minds time redo laughs, all eyes
You, sly eyes, comprehentionate this
When do the game make move play hand?  Moves it?
Force with rules? Turn eyes backupwards and sly eyes see

All howling chase self to flat dust
Dances wind circles, clouds make, bamfuzzled she
Howls find two legs, now self free
I tricks every-all!

Has trinkets, which time trisksties on self
Moon-time flat dust has fire spot
Two legs has pretties, fun.  Make tricksties, show fun and join
Tricksties builded it, destroyed it, wised the none.
 

Larry Harvey’s Flying Stetson – a true story from the Global Leadership Conference

https://journal.burningman.org/2013/04/global-network/regionals/the-legend-of-larry-harveys-flying-stetson-a-true-story-from-the-global-leadership-conference/

PopDot Bicycles Installed in Los Gatos

Signs Unlimited installed this box today. Super happy how the wrap turned out. If you find yourself on Blossom Hill Road in Los Gatos, keep your eyes peeled for this PopDot!

Macy's Flower Show - 2018 Edition

We participated in another fantastic Flower Show this year. The theme was "Once Upon a Springtime" and the SF Visual Team asked us to come up with a display that would signify all the seasons and time with a storybook inspiration. The students came up with great ideas and executed them beautifully.

Art Wraps for the Heart of the Tenderloin

Here's a write up on the project:
http://www.sfexaminer.com/public-art-project-brings-positivity-gritty-tenderloin/

Cam Goes to Prom

More Denim Love

Here are a couple of new salvaged denim projects I’ve created so far this year. All the denim used comes from recycled sources or slightly damaged donated denim yardage.

When I couldn’t find a good laptop sleeve for my new machine, I made one myself.

This damaged denim jacket becomes an even better one-of-a-kind piece with the addition of fabric from old jeans, hem scraps, and a bit of leather.

Macy’s Flower Show 2017

FIDM San Francisco Visual Communications students once again had the opportunity to participate in the annual Macy’s Flower Show at the flagship SF store March 26 - April 9. 

For the third year in a row we worked with the visual team from Macy’s to create these special attractions. The vintage carnival theme this year was especially fun to work with. Students are given the theme and a small budget, and are encouraged to use recycled and alternative materials. 

Congratulations to the Visual Communications students on their beautiful designs and hard work: Paige Ladensack, Ke Liang, Sydney Shives, Kyle Howell, Cindy Voong, Joy Ann, Amber Talley, Katie Jystad, Taylor Michelle Cole, Janella Amonoy, Carolina Recendez De Luna, and Nicolette Fleming. 

Cotton Candy Lady 
Designed by Kyle Howell

Oops: Spilled Bag of Popcorn 
Designed by Paige Ladensack and Ke Liang

Swing Babe 
Designed by Carolina Recendez De Luna and Nicolette Fleming

Dart Boy 
Designed by Sydney Shives

Live TV with KTVU Mornings On 2 coverage of the event.