What now?

So i really don't know which projects to vote on for this semester project. I know this will the assignment that will be the most intensive and will consuming the majority of our class time for the rest of this semester. Some people had some good work, but others seems to be generic or kind of pointless. I really liked Jason's idea of informing the youth about manipulation by major corporations in advertising, only problem is, I'm not much of a public speaker, but I guess I could contribute in other ways like design work, documentation (photography, etc.), whatever I can do. I also liked David Cherry's work, it seemed a lot like mine, but in all, seemed more put together than mine. In certain areas, our ideas overlapped so the project is pretty similar to mine, contributing to the reduction of waste. The difference would be not having an event such as me and Carman proposed, which is fine. I also think the event wouldn't have had enough time to develop, at least for my idea, with the set date being November 15th. Cherry also had the idea of utilizing screen printing skills within the advertising of the organization, which I wanted to do also, probably doing stuff over recycled paper so you get that grainy texture of paper to contrast with the imagery. I also really enjoyed Kit's idea of recording soundscapes of Richmond. I have no idea how that would carry on for a long time, but the idea of doing so, and having the possibility of getting gallery space, maybe photography matched with sound to form an exhibition.

Visiting Architect

Last class we had a visit from Patrick Farley, an architect from Watershed Architects. Having him come to class really gave me a lot of insight on how we can live differently to benefit the future of our natural world. Through his architecture firm, he is able to practice different methods of reducing the amount of natural resources stripped away from the earth and in result, conserves energy in so many aspects. I feel things like this are important to learn about, seeing that he informed me of other ways I hadn't even heard of before whether as easy as recycling. Other methods were things such as not using PVC in any building supplies for structures he builds, along with planting grass on the roofs of their homes, to give back habitat that was destroyed while building, even using alternative power such as solar or even having a water collection system so the building doesn't rely on potable water from pipes the whole time. I find things like this really make a different in the environments we live in, and the world around us, by being able to create our own energy, theres no need to destroy the landscape that surrounds us in order to gather natural resources.

This is important because natural resources such as oil, coal, and other materials are irreplaceable, and the more we destroy terrain, not only is this lessening the supply, its also ruining the earth around us, in result is also doing things like polluting the water supply. All of these things result is a more polluted environments which obviously never leads to positive results.

The next step is finding ways to convince others to live within these parameters, so that the generations to come will have a place to live. Not saying the earth will be gone by then, but theres only so much pollution and destruction the earth and take before there is no more, it is up to us to start, so in the end there is something worth saving. Even if its small things, whether recycling, using less water in the shower, turning off the light when you're not using it. All of these things can make an impact, these small add up and do save a lot more energy than we originally acknowledge. So what now? Find ways to make a difference within your household, your community, by doing these seemingly pointless tasks, we can change the world one community at a time and eventually convert these places into a less polluted, happier environment.

Group Experience

I feel there are many ways my experience from working with our groups can be applied to our class project in Design Rebels. Chemistry is one of the most important things I've learned recently within our class, getting along with people and knowing you can count on them to do their part and do quality work. I don't want to point out names, but I know there are specific individuals within the different groups who really didn't pull their weight, we didn't have that problem in the Russian Constructivism group, we all got along really well and got a lot done, i was really proud of what we accomplished. We did work our asses off making the props and everything though, it wasn't a walk in the park. I do believe we have a great group of individuals in our class, most of them at least, who can really accomplish some great things together. My ideas were to split into a group with Carmen, Cherry, Sean Berg, Vineet, Kit, just to name a few, I know all of them pretty well, we get along great, and we all do good work together, and thats important when you're working on a project such as this. One of my ideas was to get Sean and Cherry to do some screenprinted shirts, for whatever proposal we take, make some shirts with cool designs, and sell them to fund raise; its an easy way to get your name out there, plus raising money for the cause is always good. Richmond seems to have that artsy style when it comes to clothing anyways, so screenprinted shirts will probably go a long way, and if successful, they're easy to reproduce. There are other objects we can create to spread word of this upcoming "organization", everyone in our class has different specialties, i'm photo, kit is sculpture, and basically everyone else is a graphic design, but some are better than others, but either way, we can all through our skills into a hat and should be able to come up with some effective work.

Seperate from just artwork, I feel that people skills and leadership are some of the most important things I learned that we can apply to this upcoming project we have awaiting us. I believe I'm a good leader, I know what needs to get done, good at splitting up the work, even taking a good load of it myself, I'm also a perfectionist so i know the final product will be top-notch if it goes through me, otherwise it'll drive me crazy. I think attention to detail is really important completely a successful product. My goal is to try to take a management type of position within this project because I'm good at what i do, that usually means conducting the work. I'm also really competitive and don't have a problem with taking people down, putting them in their place. I dont want to sound like an asshole, but sometimes it has to be done, especially if people don't pull their own weight as they should. I know looking through the group presentations, there were people to took a backseat and didn't do much of anything, that doesn't fly with me, i'll jump on your ass until you move your feet. Okay, maybe that does make me sound like an asshole, but the point is, if you aren't doing your job, you'll hear about it from me, and i think thats what makes a good leader, even in sporting events, everyone has to do their part, and as a whole thats how you're successful, when everyone comes together and completes their desired goal.

Green Research

What i've been up to lately is doing more research on my cause, figuring out what does/doesn't already exist within the area, so i'm not pitching an idea thats going to waste my time. My idea has been to influence VCU (the school and student body) to make a shift towards green, whether its recycling, not using as much energy, riding a bike to school, maybe just switching lightbulbs or buying secondhand furniture. All of these contribute in their own way, so its really about how do we do this, but I feel this is one of the questions we address when we actually break into the group. So far, the research I've been coming up with is more reading over text from places such as VCU's policies and OfficeMax, which is contracted through VCU for the majority of their print work, mainly to find out what they're environmental policies are. It seems this kind of influence already exists, but maybe the Design Rebels part of this isn't so much starting the movement, but taking this movement that already exists while using our classes design expertise to further the movement visually. By putting our heads together, we could come up with posters, a website, etc, that will more influence the student body and employees to conserve energy and recycled within the community. I will post the links at the bottom for the sites I've researched thus far. My other idea was to push this same idea onto local businesses (possibly in correlation with ShopRVA), whether its printing menus on recycled paper, recycling beer bottles, using low energy bulbs, there are so many factors that would work into the equation. Overall, the plan is that if we can push local businesses into functioning this way, it will directly impact the local area, making Richmond a more environmentally friendly city as a whole. We could start within the Fan and branch out from there. Maybe RVA Magazine isn't printed on recycled paper?

So what? Well, millions of trees are cut down each year to replenish our continuous irresponsible use of virgin paper. By simply recycling this paper, we cut down on the amount of trees that are chopped down to create paper, but also conserves the amount of water and other resources that are needed within this process. In the end, just something as simple as recycling paper winds up benefiting in many more ways than we intend originally. I feel that Richmond is a close knit community, mainly within the art community, if we can branch out to these galleries, artists, we have a focus group to start with. In my experiences, the artists within the area are the ones who care the most, whether promoting being vegan, environmental issues, that would be key in starting a boom in this movement.

What I do next is to research a little more, probably within local businesses: Sticky Rice, Chop Suey, galleries, any place that uses paper for menus, print work such as ads for upcoming exhibitions. Once I figure out what places are and aren't working within these manners, the next is to plan around that, figuring out the best approach to converting these places. I find my idea to be solid, the next is coming up with a solid name that will stick, ways to advertise. One idea I had was to create false parking tickets, they're green, and you pretty much have to open them, so posting them around the Fan could be a promising idea. Within the envelopes can be facts about conservation: how many trees it takes to, you just helpful information that gets people to visual that actual impact. This is all I've got for now, but there will be more to come. Here are the links of the sites I've jumped around to.

http://www.identity.vcu.edu/index.html

http://www.energychallenge.vcu.edu/index.htm

http://about.officemax.com/html/officemax_environmental_policy.shtml

http://about.officemax.com/html/officemax_environmental_policy_paper.shtml

My Expectations

As far as the Design Rebels upcoming project is concerned, I'm actually pretty excited to see what happens when some of us put our heads together. So far in the class, for my group project, I was teamed up with people I wasn't sure I'd work well with, just because I wasn't all that acquainted with them. But after that small project and finished and done with, we really had a lot of fun working on the Russian Constructivism presentation, which makes me believe that there is some real talent in our class that can lead to some awesome work. The cause is really the question for me. I really don't know what I'm going to do for my "proposal" as of now, I do have an idea, but looking through the VCU website, I haven't found the answers I was looking for, so I guess I keep digging until something pops up.

I would say my expectations for the upcoming project are pretty high, I don't see any reason why they shouldn't be. Just from seeing how far Derek and Alex have come from their "shop rva" project, I don't see why our class shouldn't be able to go just as far, if not farther than they have come already. Just comparing the classes in size and talent. Not to say the last class wasn't, but with a line up like me, Shawn Burg, John Boy, Cherry, even Kit, we all have really great ideas, and being able to throw all of our thoughts into one project, its really going to be an experience to remember. Me, Derek (my brother) and Berg are already discussing starting a design firm on the side, it'll probably stick with the standards of Design Rebels, but talent-wise, we have what it takes to go far.

Because "shop rva" has been such a success so far, my expecations are really high for our group, especially with the number of people we have working on the collaboration, but then again, I've already noticed that some people put in a lot less effort than others, which should prove to be a problem in the future. When I work in a group, I find myself always taking a big part of the responsibility, I like being a leader and taking action, so in that case, I think we'll be okay. I don't have any problem yelling at people who don't pull their own weight.

I don't know where the project will take us, subject wise, or how far, but I do know that as long as we can all put our heads together we should be successful. But I do feel that "shop rva" made it so far because the cause was something that would have a really good effect in Richmond, not to mention the people who took the reigns knew what had to happen to keep it going. When an opportunity like that arises itself, you need to recognize the situation and grab it. It will be something that will build a great reputation, and a resume builder. I'm also helping along with the shop rva process, mainly doing photography for the website, but I am also good with graphic design, so I could do other stuff down the road. I'm really looking forward to seeing what we can do with the remainder of the semester, its going to be a lot of work, but could prove to be a very successful one as well. Until then, I just need to come up with my idea first, search in the nooks and crannies, make sure I can find the info i'm looking for to pull off the VCU transition to becoming a green university.