I did it!

Today's the day I graduate! 

But still, I have 116 days left till I walk in the actual graduation ceremony, so I'm glad about that :) 

Also on my countdown is my trip to India, which is in 3 days (hardly)! I'll be looking forward to many things like

- staying with my grandparents and seeing a lot of my family at my cousin's wedding!

- volunteering at a blind school for one week

- doing lots of shopping and buying new Indian dresses

- relearning my native tongue, Telugu

- getting mehendi designs on my hands (henna tattoos) 

- learning how to thread eyebrows! 

And more!

And guess what? My website is up! It's still a work in progress, but I'm glad I reached my goal of having it up by the day that I graduate :) 

See my website!!

http://neela.paramkusham.com

Bad Ideas

If at first, the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.  

-Albert Einstein

Berries and Ganache

Today's the first time I've tried strawberry flavored cake, and it tastes pretty decent!

I had high hopes of making this somewhere along the lines of a masterpiece, but ended up with just these. I don't mind though because the whole process was fun even though I realized that I didn't have enough whipped cream, which I planned on using for decoration, or strawberries, which would've looked pretty with the pink cake. Instead, I made some chocolate ganache to top off the cupcakes. I did have some cute little grapes though, so those had to work. Next time, I'm going to try fondant!

If you've ever seen the show Cake Boss, you know what edible art looks like. I am so intrigued by how realistic Carlos makes his cakes. See some of them here. One day I'll learn. For now, I'm glad they at least taste good :)

All the world is birthday cake, so take a piece, but not too much.

- George Harrison 

Oh, hi

 

Just something else I'm working into my website.

"I don’t look at résumés at all."

... is the first thing Robin Domeniconi, senior vice president and chief brand officer for the Elle Group, said in her interview by Adam Bryant for the New York Times.

She says that it's important to hear more about the interviewee's background and what makes them the person they are. 

I had to keep reading the article because it's always helpful to see the point of view of an employer. She answers questions such as the best and worst qualities in an interviewee and what questions she would want to hear.

"You can say anything to anyone, as long as you say it the right way."

The same sentence can be interpreted in so many ways, but Domeniconi says she takes the M.R.I (most respectful interpretation) of anything anyone says to her. What a relief, right? If everybody used M.R.I it would cause much less confusion. Especially in an interview setting when you're trying to say just the right thing in the right way.

Here's a list of some of the important points. The article can be found here.

• have confidence in yourself / know your strengths
• think about why you want to work there before you get to an interview
• bring your life lessons with you!
• M.R.I
• be adaptable
• how did you get over your failures? (more than just defining what they are)

I liked that this article related to my field, but Adam Bryant has a whole list of interviews of top executives in his column, Corner Office.

Absolute Position

I've finally figured out how to position things with HTML. It took a little messing around, but Google always does the trick. At first, the images would move around as I resized the browser, but I realized that I needed to add an absolute position value pin pointing exactly where on the page the image should sit. That worked!

I decided to draw the images and then make them brighter, etc. on Photoshop. Here's my homepage right now (you can click on it for the actual size):

And when you put your cursor over one of the images, this is what you'll see:

 

Back to work!

10 Days Left!

Today is the 15th, which means there are 10 days left till I graduate! 

I'm happy I'll be done with an important part of my education, but I'll also miss it a lot. I would do it all over again! 

But there is one thing I need to get done and if I don't, I just won't be as productive as I had hoped. And that was my New Years resolution- to get everything done- so it's time!
I'm going to make my website!

I broke it down into steps so I'm going to do my best to get it done in these 10 days.

The steps:

1.     Create a site map

2.     Design layouts for the site

3.     Learn some more HTML so I can make the site on Dreamweaver

4.     Find a webhost to upload the files to

 

For inspiration, I'm looking at creative portfolio sites, like the ones here.

 

The Office

Local Ad

Episode 5, Season 4

“I think it's great that the company's making a commercial. Because, not many people have heard of us. I mean when I tell people I work at Dunder Mifflin, they think that we sell mufflers. Or muffins. Or... mittens. And frankly all those sound better than paper so, I let it slide."

- Jim Halpert

If you haven’t seen this episode of The Office, here’s the link! It’s hilarious in a strange way. The Office is the first show I’ve watched that has its characters do side notes in front of the camera. After a while, this has become more popular with shows like Modern Family and Parks and Recreation. Side notes are always fun. :)

In this episode, the local Scranton branch of Dunder Mifflin, a paper company, has been given the opportunity to do a local ad. Michael Scott, the boss, is excited and wants to make a creative ad. However, he gets shot down by “the ad guys” who do the whole ad themselves and leave the last 5 seconds for the local branch to wave in front of the camera.

But Michael doesn’t give up; he makes his own ad and sends it to corporate. And it gets shot down. I guess it didn’t meet their requirements.

I thought the ad was pretty great though!

Update

In other news, today was a snowy, snowy day. And I couldn't let it pass by without taking a few pictures!
More in the photography link on the side :)

 

Gossip Girl

I haven’t watched Gossip Girl since the second season ended… but in every episode there's a teenager mass texting gossip so everybody finds out the news. When I first started watching the show, I thought it was mean. But I began to learn more about each character and saw things from their perspectives and all of a sudden it wasn’t so mean anymore. Was I becoming desensitized or is the world really like that?

Well, ok I won’t go that far. But one thing is for sure: news travels fast! Especially with the power of social media. Many campaigns such as Pepsi, Tostitos, and Vitaminwater are using social media to get people’s attention. The best part of this is that people voluntarily pass on the news, serving as free advertising for the company. And now that mobile apps are popular, it takes no time to spread the news. But with this kind of power, I think it's important to use social media wisely or else you know what power in the wrong hands can do...

XOXO

Project Runway

...is addicting. The twists that the hosts Heidi Klum and Tim Gunn throw in make everything so complicated. How and why would you ever need to make an outfit out of vegetables? But it’s all part of the challenge. I tried to sew a dress one time, and it’s still sitting there in pieces. I think I can do a decent job with the right sewing machine… but for now I’ll stick to painting t-shirts.

There’s always a point when I’m painting and I realize the design looks really bad. Then I have to figure out what I did wrong and how I can fix it without making it worse. It’s a “make it work” moment, as Tim Gunn would say. Usually, I’m able to work around the mistake, but there have been times when it just goes bad. And I can’t do anything about it but hope that someone might like the mistake.

Fortunately, that didn’t happen this time :)

 

Glee

"Oh, Hell to the no! Look, I'm not down with all this background singing nonsense. I'm Beyoncé, I ain't no Kelly Rowland!"

- Mercedes Jones, Season 1, Episode 1

I love watching TV shows because I get involved in the plot. But then there are shows like Glee that have something else to look forward to - the music! It’s a great way to increase viewership, I think. 

On the same lines, music is a great way to get people’s attention. Especially because anybody who likes music probably doesn’t mind it playing in the background when they’re ignoring a commercial. Maybe they’ll even remember the commercial when they hear the song again! I always find myself getting a song stuck in my head and remembering what commercial it was from, but not the name of the song. In that way, commercials can be like song identifiers.

Coca Cola

Dell

Yoplait

I know there are a lot more, but I'll update them when I think of them!

TV Show Week

This week is going to be different! 

I'll be using TV shows as themes for my posts while also relating them to advertising, graphic design, or marketing topics. Here are some possible ones I may use:

• Glee
• Lost
• The Office
• Mad Men
• Cake Boss
• Project Runway
• The Simpsons
• Gossip Girl

                     Stay tuned!

Ice

I'm putting up pictures of the ice sculptures from Boston's First Night 2011! These are pictures a friend sent me and they look amazing! I love the sculptures, but the photography is just as beautiful.

 

All in all today was a very icy day. I went ice skating, fell once, and shivered all the way home (and it was worth it). That's what inspired me to have an icy theme for today's post.

What I love about these sculptures is that they are not only spectacles, but they have the power to draw in crowds. They become a tradition and another way to celebrate a new year. The artists who create these sculptures are so lucky to be able to contribute such a significant part of the First Night.

6 Years Ago...

... I was halfway through high school. 

And today I had fun remembering all the art work I did back then! It was interesting to see how I thought and expressed myself through my art back then. A lot of credit goes to my art teacher who taught me not to be shy with bold colors!

Now I realize how little I do any art work. It used to be because of college and now I'm trying to keep up with art direction on the computer.

Even though a lot of art work we see today is in print form (magazines, billboards, posters), most of it goes through the computer at some point in its creation. However, I still think that hand-made art work plays an important role in art direction because ideas start on paper and evolve their way into the digital world. This is especially prevalent in the world of T-shirt design. I was really inspired by all of the art work done by other designers on Threadless Tees (you can see them here).

I also find that when I start a project straight from the computer, my ideas are more restricted. Tools let you do only so much, whereas when I start from pen and paper, I can think of new ways to place, organize, and design elements in original ways.



I put some more art work under the "Links" menu on the right :)

Threadless Tees

I came across a site called Threadless Tees, which lets people submit t-shirt designs to be printed! First you have to download the template, then put your design on it, and then upload it to the site to be voted on.

So today, I played around with my pencil design again and put it on one of the t-shirt templates I downloaded from the site. After altering it a little here and there, I ended up with this:

I'm still wondering whether this design would look good on a crew neck t-shirt (I don't think I have a choice on this), because I like to picture it on a V or U neck. Either way, I won't lose anything by trying and I could always submit a new idea again later if this one does not succeed. I'm going to send it in in a few days, once I figure out a few different versions.

I would love to hear any ideas or suggestions on how it could be better!

Update:

Expedition 206 and the Refresh Project

Coke or Pepsi? 

By the end of 2010, both Coke and Pepsi have had some very large-scale projects to boost their presence. Pepsi’s Refresh Project’s voting ends on January 31, but Coke’s Expedition 206 finished in December.

Expedition 206

Coke’s tagline “Open Happiness” is taken across the world with the three “Hapiness ambassadors” who went to 186 countries to find what makes people happy (not all 206 countries were possible to go to). The result: 650 million media impressions around the world.

(Read more about the expedition here.)

Refresh Project

Pepsi is funding millions of dollars for community outreach ideas by US residents. The categories that the ideas can be in are Health, Arts and Culture, Food and Shelter, The Planet, Neighborhoods, and Education. The public votes for the ideas they want to be seen enacted.

I think it’s amazing what social media can do to spread ideas. But I wonder if one campaign is more successful than the other.

Coke

+ 650 million global media impressions

+ Engaged people around the world

- Limit to how many people in each country they can reach; people in places that the ambassadors did not visit may not be as interested in the event because it doesn’t affect them personally

+ Inspirational goal: finding and spreading happiness

Pepsi

+ Allowed all US residents to participate

+ Participants spread the word through word-of-mouth and social media

+ User-generated content creates personal interest

- Only targets people in the US

+ Community outreach program for bettering the country

In the end, I think Pepsi’s campaign will have a greater long-term impact by not only making the grant winners gain a new appreciation for the brand, but also by making a difference in the country. Coke’s message is inspirational but I think it changed the lives of the three ambassadors more than it did for the public.

This could mean possibly switching a Coke lover to the Pepsi side. Unless of course a person is resolute on taste preferences. In that case the campaigns would make little difference. 

Side note: A friend of mine asked me to vote for the one of the Pepsi Refresh ideas (this one!) and that's how I learned about the Pepsi campaign. I learned about the Coke campaign from a 4A's advertising newsletter I got by email.

Filling up my Closet

Goal accomplished.

After a few distractions here and there I finished painting a shirt after a really long break. But I think this will be the ice breaker because now I want to make more!
I got my inspiration for this one from my original pencil design, which is in my second post (The Story of the Pencil). But I wonder if it would look better on a black t-shirt with white paint... maybe I'll try that next. And then maybe on a white t-shirt with black paint. The possibilities :)

There's Paint on my Shirt

No, actually there isn't. I haven't hand-painted t-shirts since I left for Sydney. It's time to restart and that means I have to figure out where I left everything.  
My goal for today: finish one t-shirt by the end of the day.
Be back tonight!

An Adorable Campaign

These kittens are so adorable! The video is originally from the Purina Animal All Stars site. I don't have any cats or dogs but if I did, I would get them pet food from Purina, only because that's the first name that comes to my mind. So in a way, it's a nice way of indirectly advertising for them.

Tags

I find it hard to throw out things that look pretty. So I end up keeping them. I don’t consider myself a packrat, but I love tags! Especially unique and well-designed ones. I’ve only recently started collecting them, and the first one I decided to keep was from a burger I took to-go from Grill’d in Melbourne, Australia. The waiter wrapped my burger and tied it with this interesting tag. It has a lot of information about the health benefits of their burgers and it’s eye catching. I still remember it being a very delicious lunch.

I notice that many classy stores have a black and white theme. I think it’s very elegant, but since they look similar to each other, it may be the difference between creating a distinct brand image or grouping it into one category (i.e. "classy stores").

Then there are eye-catching tags that even those who usually tear and throw away might hold on to for an extra day. I especially like the surf board shaped one because it brings the clothes a whole new “atmosphere” or brand image. When I’m buying a product and I search around for the tag to see the price and then find a piece of art (at least I like to think that) it makes me stop and look a little longer. Maybe I’ll remember that brand for longer? At the least, it makes me think of the product that much more.

I also like this Pom Wonderful tag. It revolves around a bigger campaign, which I think is clever and it makes me smile.

I think it's amazing that something as simple as a tag can make so much difference in terms of marketing a product!