Get Organized: A tribute to Aristotle

I spent my time totally cleaning out my desk top and all of its drawers then totally reorganizing where everything goes in said drawers. While cleaning out my desk I found papers from 6th and seventh grade, hundreds of pens and piles of random knick knacks collect over the years that had been thrown into a drawer and left to collect dust. By the end I had a trash can full of stuff that I did not even remember getting and a usable desk for the first time in months. 

Before the work there was apprehension knowing that the task ahead of me was a rather large one. It took several hours of procrastination before the combination of no good things on TV and only purple links on Reddit made me get off the couch and actually do the work. 

The work started slowly and started with the desk top which had become a display shelf for trinkets that I gathered through 18 years of life. I went through all of them and separated them into three groups, keep, donate, and trash. After I had all of them in their respected groups I performed the action assigned to the group. The ones which I kept were rearranged on the desk and I moved onto the drawers where I performed the same group process with all the junk in them. 

When I started on the drawers my mind entered a sense of calm. All of my problems moved onto the back burners and the task at hand took priority. It was as if I entered an autopilot mode and needed to complete the task. 

After I finished fully reorganizing the desk the sense of calm stayed with me for a while after. There was also a sense of pride and accomplishment that came with a job well done. When I clean I usually do a rushed half assed job to get it done, I rarely put the effort in to do a good job when cleaning.  This feeling made me want to keep it clean as well so my work lasted longer as well. 

My mind felt cleansed after I finished with my cleaning as if in cleaning the desk my mind was cleaned along with it. Like I mentioned before it was a very calm state after finishing. 

I learned by cleaning the desk that a lot of the little things I hang onto both material and metaphysical do not mean as much as I thought they did. There was a good deal that I throughout without a second thought. I have always been a collector and held onto things that I thought were important but now I am trying to let go of more and take in less

the long overdue "best of the week: origami." blog 6

Well I will admit that this is very very late and there isn't really an excuse for it not getting done but I figured that better extremely late than never at all.

               I can safely say the highlight of humanities for the week would be the documentary about origami. There are three main points that are made in this documentary that make it the best of the week which are as follows.

1.      Complexity, how complex can you make it?

2.      Simplicity, what can you do with one fold?

3.      The middle part, pushing past the difficult

In the beginning of the film they show the increasing complexity of origami and origami designs throughout the years. A point that I took out from the beginning of the film is the idea of making a design complex has found synonymy with quality which is an idea I find prosperous. While you can do amazing thinks with hundreds of folds you must remember that if you can do something in one move there is no reason to do it in two. You must find the balance of making it complex yet not going overboard and making it too busy with too much going on with the piece. That idea of complexity balance does not only apply to origami either, it can be found in all design and art as well. If an artist or designer adds too many colors with no central focus then all the artist will make is a busy mess or a sloppy design. However if they take out a few colors or simplify the design then they will end up with elegance that cannot be matched.

               This idea of complexity balance moves into the next point which is simplicity and minimalism, doing as much as possible in as few moves as possible. Minimalistic designs are a completely different animal where the idea of making a thing goes out the window and the end goal is a flow of shape. This is a concept that I find the most difficult in all of art. For a designer to make a big desk with all the bells and whistles is easy but to take that desk and strip it to bear minimum then take more off of that yet still end up with a practical design that is elegant is the most challenging feat to accomplish for me personally and for a large portion of the design world.

               Finally there is the middle, the process of making the thing. More specifically the point of no return. There is a point in every build and every piece of art where you have to make a choice about how something is going to be. There is no other option other than the choice and you can’t go back after you make it. This is the point that defines a good designer or builder. If they stall and falter at the big choice then there design or piece of art will ultimately fail. Yet if they meet the choice head on and push through the choice and complete it without hesitation then they will have a success. Even though it is easily described actually doing it in real life is extremely hard and even the greatest of designers will struggle through this middle.

               While these are just few of the ideas in the film they are the big three that I see affecting my life both as a person and as a designer. They are not just points that you deal with for a short time either, they are ideas that you people will encounter during their entire life. this is why learning about them has made this documentary the best of my week. 

iMedia: Goldfish, we come together

There is so much that goes on in this video i suggest at least three viewings to try and see it all. The high energy and fast beat compliments the 8 bit art style and dramatic use of colors. There is also a lot of nostalgia for the older video gamers in the crowd due to the countless references to a multitude of different video games of all ages. The nostalgia also has excitement with it as well because a lot of these references are well hidden and take a trained eye to spot. For example at 1:38 there is a scene where the band sneaks through an ally in a cardboard box. This happens for only a few seconds and is a reference to Metal Gear Solid, a stealth game where the main character uses the same tactic to sneak through a factory. This box sneaking method became an inside joke for gamers and a form of amusement. There are not only video game references there are references to viral internet videos, angry birds, cartoons, and the entire video plays on the cat fighting the fish idea. So if someone is not a gamer they will still find something in the video which they recognize something the gamer might not recognize and they will have their own experience watching. So not only does it offer a unique experience for the individual watcher it lets the audience discuss after word about what they did and did not see in the video.

As for the video itself more specifically the animation it is a perfect combination of 3d, claymation and 8 bit. The colors are very similar to classic nintendo and sega colors. There is also a dominating color in most of the scenes which fits with the music behind it, darker for when the beat is slower than brighter for when it is a faster beat. There are also time when the animation emulates a certain game or style such as the bowser jump from the end of the first mario game or the speed runs from sonic. This fits into the reference aspect but also keeps the video new enough to keep it interesting.

As for the song it is about a group of friends fighting to save a princess. the lyrics are just like the video, energetic. the main chores "we come together  no matter the weather we gonna love each other till the end of time" is not only sweet it is also motivating showing what people will go through for love.

all in all a great song by a great band with a great video to back it up.