Interior Decorating and Bipolar Dinosaurs

Hello hello to my wee flock of followers!

I know it's been forever, life has been busy and sometimes writing about my work is difficult, because I feel like there has been a huge lack of creative work. How sad :[

I suppose you could say I've been working on some sort of design: my room in our new home! I bought myself a fantastic new princess bed set so I've been collecting thing to go with it. Since then we've painted the room a light gold, I bought gold sheets, my sister gave me sheer curtains to use in my room eventually, I have a lamp that a previously owned plus two new ornate ones, two new decorative bonsai trees, a matching desk and bookshelf, and a chair for underneath the desk. Oh and a tray to put my jewelry and perfume in! Decorating is so fun! We have been Homegoods hopping all over the place looking for unique finds! It really makes you hopeful for the future and I love having this be a joined effort by my family. As hard as it's been this has definitely brought us closer and made us a lot stronger.

[Sidenote: Christine refers to this transformation as my adult bedroom, it's awesome because it's the first big girl decision I've made for myself since graduation :) ]

Another fun creative thing I've done recently is help my cousin Nico with his school projects. I wish my siblings got cooler assignments in their school... Nico, who goes to Monsignor Donovan HS, has been the only one to come to me with fun ideas for projects. This one is by far my favorite because it got me to kick my own designer butt into shape by making a books. I love books, sometimes I get distracted with other things that are good at but honestly, nothing beats a good night of typesetting and designing pages to enhance the content of a story!!! ::Nerds out!::

The project was for a psychology class, the assignment being to creatively depict a psychological disorder by any means you find necessary. Nico pick bipolar disorder, he was thinking of doing happy and sad gingerbread men but we thought that wouldn't be as awesome as a kids book would be!

And so, ladies and gents, I present to you the original scans from Deena the Bipolar Dinosaur. Story and Illustrations by Nico Carbone, Designed and Published by Kelly McGovern!

The little designerly elements we talked about were subtly put into the type. During Deena's manic stages, the type is Century Gothic Regular in green. During her depressed stages it is Adobe Jenson Pro Subhead in grey. I devised a simple cover on a green textured card stock based on Nico's interior illustrations of Deena.

This was a really fun project for me as a designer and as a helping hand to my cousin! I could seriously start a portfolio out of helping kids with school projects haha, I think that will be the next series of person projects I may try and tackle if I can find enough people who need help with projects!

Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for more work in the future, even if the updates are far apart, I'm always up to something!

"Helping other people helps me. Having guts always works out for me."

This past Friday (4/22) my fully installed thesis project, a poster series titled Finding Self, was critiqued by visiting designer Yoonjai Choi. I explained what the poster series was, a collection of 24 definitions of Self from friends, family, and myself included. I also made a process book for her to see how I came to this point from start to finish (I had a completely different idea for my content container and about 2/3 more content.) I picked out some of my favorites and told her a bit about the person who wrote it.

Yoonjai had talked about my level of content control in this case as more of an editor of the final content rather than a 'designer'... in this case, specifically. She said that yes, it was arranged in a grid and printed on paper, but she wanted me to describe how I saw myself as the designer. I explained that when all I wanted to do was make books (because I love them), I worked so hard in thinking and rethinking, collecting so much content, trying to make it all fit and work, and trying really hard, sometimes to the point of tears. I told her that I was the designer because of my decision to let go of over half of my content and changed my vision to one that was not necessarily something I'd usually work with. I let the content lead me in order to make it as powerful as it was.

I was then asked if I had considered taking the handwriting and translating it to a typeface. I told her that was actually something that I was working on in the way beginnings of my thesis development (during the 'I'm doing a series of books' phase.) She said that, of course, nothing was right or wrong in that sense, and also explained how the translation from handwriting to type can sometimes make things more 'authoritative.' Another aspect she brought up with the handwriting is that some are slightly more legible than others, so some will be read first and most and other last and less.

When she looked through my process book she told me that my making it was a huge comfort to her. She liked how simple the design of it was (even though it's not necessarily part of my thesis, as it will not be on display with the posters.) She thought that my inclusion of the original definitions of Self were more insightful and gave the project a different feel. She had a few suggestions for the least strong elements of the book such as the handling of typography on the cover and that my inclusion of the content that was discarded (the original book content that lead up to my decision to make posters instead of books) was jarring and could possibly do to have it's own book because of how different it felt from the entire simplicity of just having the original definitions.

I was asked what I wanted to accomplish with this project. I said I felt that lately in the world people have a hard time, or no time, to look at themselves and learn about who they are. What I wanted from this project was to touch people and have them soul-search to try and describe themselves; to see themselves and spend time with themselves. I also wanted there to be connectivity between people, to have my audience look at the writings and feel close to someone else. That's what I want out of everything I do in my design career, to be able to connect with people and give something back. Yoonjai asked what I liked working with, medium-wise, besides books of course, so I replied of course books because I like the intricacy of working with type, grids, pages, and so on, but I really have to say I like doing it all... that everything I learned to do at Mason Gross and what I'd done with some freelancing was wonderful to me.

We concluded the critique with Yoonjai telling me that sometimes designers will look back on their work 7 years later and ask themselves 'why did I do something like that?' but that I would look back and even if I questioned certain elements of the project, that I would still carry something special and sentimental that I've gained from having this experience. The highlight of my critique was when Yoonjai told me I was a very brave, passionate, and free-spirited designer to take such a chance with content, relying on others, and using a medium I may not be comfortable or enthusiastic about. She told me not to loose that because designers will sometimes feel they need to be married to certain ways and always apply what they've learned, and to be brave and take chances can sometimes be beneficial... and to also not be too free, because sometimes too much freedom is overwhelming and restrictions can be useful in shaping a project.

installation via cell phone camera

More better Canon Rebel pictures to come of course, but this is what Bri and I accomplished together when we installed my 24 Definition of Self Posters.

 

Final Touches!!!

I'm working on a rough version of my process book that will hopefully act as an aid to my thesis installation.

I want this book to be simple but give more of a look into self, particularly the selves of my participants and I. I don't want to go against the ambiguity and open-endedness of my entire thesis by adding in details of the participants such as age, gender, ethnicity into the book but I do want to give a little more.
I also didn't want to include any material I had discarded through the development of my thesis, such as the memory drawings and meaningful object photos.

Here, for now, I have the original documented definitions of Self before I edited them to select lines for the posters. I also put the names of each participant. If anyone has any other suggestions I'd appreciate immediate feedback!!

Rough Draft Process Book

The Family Series (We Always Have a Helping Hand)

The Family Series (A work in progress)

Pretty Please with a Cherry on Top!!!

Participants who have filled out their Definition of Self and given it to me:
Abbey
Alex
Amanda
Ashley
Briana
Byron
Christine
Daniel
Drew
Eddy
Elaine
James
Jenny
Kasia
Kelly (Me)
Luke
Mike
Nina
Nico
Travis
Unknown
=22


I think I'll be able to get it all done by the end of this week, but I just in case some of the possible participants don't make it I'd still take more Definitions of Self from anyone :)


Fill out your own Definition of Self on blank, line-less paper and either give it to me personally or scan it and email it to chibiladykelly@gmail.com