one pile

OK not really good at this blogging thing

2010-11-04T17:25:00.000-07:00

I realize now that I've started blogging about 5 different things all half-cocked like a stairway in the Winchester Mystery house that leads into the wall. It's just months of silence punctuated by non sequitor.
I'll try to do better.
Just needed to get this off my chest real quick. Now that the campaign season is over and the chips have fallen... I must say that as heinous a person as Meg Whitman turned out to be and regardless of that fact that they were not all true her campaign's anti Jerry Brown TV ads were stunningly beautiful.
One came on while I was in the kitchen and my husband paused the ad so that when I came back into the living room I could see it from the beginning.
The art direction is brilliant. The lifetime of politics legacy of failure spot especially so. It has a strong concept--using the medium of a particular era to show Jerry Brown in each decade. first a record on a turntable, then newspapers, then TV, then the internet all cycling back to the record on the turntable. Brilliant.
I include some screenshots below:

Her other ad about Jerry Brown as Mayor of Oakland is just as stunning
Here are more screenshots:

Making my own wedding dress

2010-03-05T11:19:00.000-08:00

So what happened is this. When I started digging my hands into the wedding planning in earnest I was looking at all these great blogs where brides had created all these personal touches. Being an artsy/craftsy person myself I felt like saving money and making it really personal and meaningful were two good reasons to craft things myself. So I decided to make my own wedding dress.

Most of the other craft projects have fallen by the wayside as I realized that I was turning the wedding into my own personal crafts fair and the only things left on the table were the invitations and the wedding dress.

Being a graphic designer by trade I am slightly less daunted by the invitations. But while I've sewed off and on for most of my life I've never really become expert at it and have definitely never made anything couture-level at all. So I'm terrified I'm going to screw it up but I'm also committed now.

I've already started the process and I feel the need to document it so this will be the first of a series of posts on how the dress is going.

SHOE DESIGNER OF THE DAY: DKNY

2009-09-03T12:11:00.000-07:00

So in love with all the new fall styles from DKNY. Can I just say that in terms of fashion Fall is absolutely my favorite time of year. Don't really care about Spring or Resort. Give me silks velvets and tweeds, tights, boots and menswear-inspired everything! On that note.. the DKNY shoe line-up is so perfect I almost love them all. The are the perfect fall shoes. Here are my favorites:

SHOE DESIGNER OF THE DAY: CHIE MIHARA

2009-04-03T11:55:00.000-07:00

Ok. i cannot possibly express how much I love Chie Mihara shoes. They're pretty much in the perfect sweet spot of gorgeous, well crafted, not-too-high heeled, and edgy without being too wacky. These are the perfect work-appropriate shoes for creative professionals because they're subtle enough to fit into a corporate environment but still have a lot of personality.

SHOEMAKING CLASSES / LESSONS

2009-04-02T21:06:00.000-07:00

www.shoemakingbook.com is kind of a logical place to look. There are a few books on this site. Some leatherworking books that are not shoe-specific and a few other manuals on shoe, boot and last-making. The comprehensive shoemaking book is quite expensive and ships from Australia so i haven't pulled the trigger yet but there are examples from different sections of the book to give a taste of the contents.

http://shoeschool.com/

http://www.simpleshoemaking.com/

http://jeannebjorn.com/

http://www.internationalshoemakingdesign.com/

http://www.shoecollege.com/

http://www.prescottandmackay.co.uk/courses/two-day-shoemaking.php

FAVE TEXTILE DESIGNER OF THE DAY: ETSUKO FURUYA

2009-04-01T12:26:00.000-07:00

She designs the Echino line for a Japanese fabric company called Kokka. (They make a wide range of really adorable prints) But her work stands out. It's mostly uphostery weight fabric good for pillows and bags but someday I'll make a dress out if one of these.

Some of her fabrics can be found on Ebay. There are also a few online sellers who specialize in Japanese imports like superbuzzy.com

Lots of natural motifs without being too sweet and girly. And her color choices are so unique it creates a distinctive palette.

SHOE COMPANY OF THE DAY: FRYE

2009-03-31T15:47:00.000-07:00

I've been very impressed over the last few years with the transformation this brand went through (and continues to pull off). To be able to take a brand known for basically one thing (not unlike converse or doc martens) and expand it into a diverse range of women's shoes while still maintaining a certain rugged, Americana, craftsman-like sensibility is really a feat. Docs have tried to expand to more styles beyond the lace-up boot but they really don't stand on their own nearly as well as the assortment from Frye. A sampling...

I have a secret crush on so many of these shoes that if my other shoes knew they'd be jealous.

The color range is just right--not too solemn--throwing in some wide-open-country brights like yellow and sky blue.

The heels are substantial without seeming overly chunky, the hardware and studs are a little macho. The simplicity and finesse of the details strikes a nice balance.

SHOE DESIGN SCHOOLS/DEGREE PROGRAMS

2009-03-31T11:36:00.000-07:00

FIDM

The one closest to home for me is FIDM in San Francisco. The sad part for me is that I'd love to just jump into a footwear-specific program but you basically have to do the full program in either the fashion design or product development majors to get to the advanced study level where you can then focus on footwear. It actually looks like a great program and if I could afford to be a full-time student it would probably take me a year and a half or two. Can't really do it right now. I think the product development major is the shorter route (or so the enrollment advisor said)

The Merchandise Product Development curriculum looks like this

and the footwear portion of the program looks like this

..................

London College of Fashion

There's actually a program i was really excited about here called Footwear Summer School which naturally is a much shorter program (though not really meant to be comprehensive it would be a great intro) 10 am to 4:30 pm for about a month you learn how to build shoes and theoretically create one of your own designs. The price isn't terrible either--about $3000 USD but then you'd have to figure out room and board I guess. Much more do-able as a working woman but still a bit of a stretch in terms of vacation time.

London College of Fashion: Footwear Summer School

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Polimoda

A Fashion School in Italy has a summer course as well and also has a 2.5 year intensive course in footwear that's an undergrad degree (They also have a masters degree in footwear!) so I'm assuming you can specialize from the outset and really what better place to lear about shoes than Italy?!? The summer course is also just a month long. Very tempting. and is less expensive than the London course. A little under $2000 if you book early.

Polimoda Summer Courses

................

There's FIT, of course, if I want to move to New York. And their footwear curriculum looks like it's buried in the Accessories Design Major.

or De Montfort University in England which again is a three year program but looks like it has a big reputation and places a lot of graduates in the industry.

There are also non-university setting in which to learn shoemaking as a craft. I'll cover those in the next post.

A NEW ERA

2009-03-31T11:05:00.000-07:00

Since this is one pile might as well start mixing the pile. God knows I bounce from one thing to another often enough that if I were to update every time my interests shift this thing would be all over the map. So lets just focus on the two or three things percolating in my brain right now.

Shoe Design
I've been living with the dawning realization that where I am now is not where my passion lies. It's not really a good time to start a business (without health insurance or a safety net) so I'm going to be parallel-tracking for a while I think. I really would love to explore shoe design.

I love shoes and have my own ideas about what I'd like to see. I've been researching what it would take and there are some things out there but they're scattered across the globe and since I have this pesky job I can't pursue these education opportunities willy-nilly. Luckily I might have an opportunity to design for an existing shoe business of an old family friend. We'll see how that pans out.

Textile design
This sort of goes hand in hand with the shoe design to some degree. It also links up with my interest in fashion and fabric and handbags. I love fabric patterns that do something unexpected--especially tweaking a classic into something a little edgier and more sophisticated. The idea right now is to take inspiration from nature and develop stand-alone motifs that can also be interpreted into edge-to-edge patterns for different applications.

Ok that's two things. Which really is enough to focus on right now. I'm still doing research and gathering inspiration and analyzing what really grabs me in terms of design so I'll be putting the slush pile up here to some degree. I'm going to start by posting all the resources for shoe design that I've found.

Illo Friday:Excess

2007-11-30T17:01:00.000-08:00

Y'know that famous Coco Chanel line about accessorizing? Well that's the first thing I thought of when I saw that excess was the topic.

Blending Extremes

2007-10-15T13:59:00.000-07:00

Inspired by my home town (San Francisco) where a disheveled schlub is just as likely to be an internet billionaire as a bike messenger. And executives can be hiding some wild body art under their pinstripes.

illustration friday?!!

2007-10-12T16:45:00.000-07:00

Maybe this is what I need to get me drawing again.