Exploring 2017

Honestly, I can say I'm pretty psyched for 2017. I started off this year coming home to a new apartment in St. Louis that finally felt like home, beginning some incredibly interesting classes at school that are putting a huge spike in my creative juices, and gearing up for my last year of college. That's some pretty exciting stuff! I've decided to take all of this positive energy and make a list of all of the things I'm grateful for, excited for, and hoping to explore in the coming year.

In Search of Positive Vibes

We all know the feeling - everything is going great, fantastic, just how it should be, and then it just isn't. Now you're stuck in a rut and majorly in need of some uplifting words. The cold weather always gets me that way, some years worse than others. This year wasn't particularly tough, but I still felt the shift into positivity and energy once the 70-degree spring weather rolled around.

I know hearing what others do to fix this problem or that can often be helpful for me to figure out how to deal with challenges that I'm having, so I'd like to share with you this little collection of things that help me get out of the slump, or just generally perk me up.

Finding my Design Flow

I'm slowly figuring out my rhythm for design. I'm always one of those people who spend endless amounts of hours planning and dreaming but rushes the night before to pull what seems like a flowering forest of ideas in my head into reality. And it never quite turns out right.

Design in Everyday LIfe

Chances are, if you are not a designer or a creative mind, you may not even realize just how much you rely on good design. Especially in our consumer world, submerged in technology and media, finely tuned design goes into everything - even the standard #2 pencil you've got stuck behind your ear or floating around inside of your backpack. The world relies on efficient, concise design that often goes unnoticed.

links / 5

Add this to the list of things I hate. It's up there, among the men who think they aren't being creepy when creepily "complimenting" me and asking for my number.

So many exhibitions I want to see at the Kemper Museum, namely this one on World War I, and another on social justice work.

I want to make amazing things, just like Henrik Ellersgaard made Drone Sans.

See look, it's science. I promise I know what I'm doing when I stay up all night.

I love poking around Jesse Chamberlin's website portfolio. It's so bright and colorful!

I think I need this.

This TED Talk called 'Social Services Are Broken' was really interesting.

Found an amazing new-to-me artist (Emily Carroll) through Fran Meneses! Her style reminds me of the Ava's Demon web comic (that I haven't finished yet....) a little bit. Kind of.

Early Morning Sunrise

Let me start off by saying I have this thing that I call a 'homework sunrise'. These rare (hopefully) things can only be seen on all-nighters, when you work so much you don't go to bed until everyone else is about to wake up. Yeah, it's fun stuff.