Family Weekend + Homework!

Another week down!  It was a crazy busy one yet again, but the time is starting to fly by!  I feel like it was just Tuesday morning, rolling out of bed at 7 preparing for 9 hours of class that day and dreading the tought of having to do for 4 days in a row!  Now, it's already Saturday night, and we are well into Family Weekend here in our apartment.  All 7 of us are here for the weekend, so we planned out a whole weekend full of family events!  Today we had family homework day and tonight Karen and Becky made us family dinner that was amazing!  They made lettuce wraps with chicken and veggies and a fruit salad... so yummy!  Tomorrow morning we are going to the market early, coming back to make family brunch, having homework session in the afternoon, and going to a sidewalk resturant called La Cabanara for dinner!  It is going to be lots of fun, but I got to make sure that I get my homework done too!

This week in class, we pushed through a lot more work to keep our projects going strong.  For packaging, we started a new project that is to be completed by Tuesday called a volumetric prototype.  What that means is that we have to design a unique packaging option based off basic geometric shapes that can contain enclosed space, yet have a lid that will allow it to open.  We each chose 2 nouns out of a jar that we had to use for inspiration.  I randomly chose a garden hose and Hawaii, and came up with a design that spirals into itself to represent the hose and has 7 sides, one for each island in Hawaii.  This is a picture of a mock up that I have in the works... now I have to create the final product and pattern!

In our regular studio class, I have been working on a completely new identity mark/symbol for the Tiber Island.  The island is home to a chuch and a hospital, so I am playing with the idea of interlocking the "i" and "t" letterforms to create a cross shape, which has dual means for both the church and hospital.  I'm still in the sketching/research stage, so we'll see where it will take me.  I also having been watercoloring images and details of the island for my sketchbook... it's a lot of fun and a good way to release your feelings without anyone else knowing what you mean!

For my advanced type class, we started creating a serious of 4 posters that have to work together as one and seperately as well.  Each poster has it's own set of rules to follow and the first one is that it can only have type and letterforms within the whole composition.  It also has to be based on the architecture of the 1000 paces that we took last week, so I have been trying to make use only type (words of things that I saw on my walk) to create a composition that can still represent building structues, but be abstract at the same time.  This is a little glimpse of what is happening so far... not near done!  It's quite a process to go through, but it's going to be such a cool project when it's done because we get to ad 3D elements to make the poster pop even more!

This week in art history we took a four hour walk through the ancient Roman Forum and down near the Colosseum area.  It was so incredible and unbelievable to see such insane sturctures and to think about how they were build over 1500 years ago.  I can't imagine building something so incredible and doing things such as importing marble slabs from Turkey without all the equipment that we have today!  It's really indescrible and my pictures do it no justice, but everywhere you see low brick walls, imagine them multiple stories high and faced with solid marble in varying colors.  Totally incredible!  We didn't have time to go into the Colosseum during class, but our tickets into the Forum gave us free admission, so a few of us decided to go there after classes on Friday.  Another indescrible structure... so big, so perfect, so dang old!  We all just stood in awe when we entered, now having been taught all that went on there and went into buidling such a structure.  You'll see the pics above, but it's so much better in person!!!

I am SO excited for this coming week... Primo Angeli, a very famous graphic designer that is known for this packaging, so coming for the week to do a package redesign workshop with us.  It is going to be so awesome to work with such a successful man (one of this famous packages is the Sunkist pop bottle/label), but we are also so nervous!  For my package redesign, I chose a popular Italian spice company called Italpepe.  They have a very 80's style of design to their current label and their spices come in glass bottles.  I created a new packaging design that can be make from bioplastics so that the containers will be more sustainable and eco-friendly.  My design is a very simple shape (think of a deck of cards, only taller and skinnier) but will stand in a kitchen cupboard very easily and will line up in a perfectly straight line to keep things organized.  The package will be a type of frosty white plastic, with a spout on one side and a shader part on the other side.  Against this clean-lined package will be a very ornate, old-world label... which is still in the works.  Add that to my list of this things to complete this weekend!  I think that it will be a simple, yet neat package and I hope that Primo thinks the same!

Sorry for the ridiculously long posts lately... I need to do a better job of posting more then once a week!  I hope that all is well with everyone at home... Miss you lots and think of you often!

A Weekend Of Relaxation!

It's been a great 2 days here in Rome, just Bridget and I doing whatever we want!  All of our other roommates went away for the weekend, so we had the whole place to ourselves and we milked it!  We went grocery shopping on Friday night and loaded up on snacks for the weekend and we've just about ate them all!  We slept in on Saturday morning for the first time in ages and it was awesome!  Then we woke up at the exact same time, super excited because........ we were going SHOPPING!  We had a blast on our day out!  We walked around the city for four hours, just wondering into any stores that we wanted and buying all kinds of fun little things!  While out, I also took the time to take some pictures of these really cool graffiti faces that are for part of my handmade book.  It was a great time out that led to coming home to do homework... what a Saturday night!  We made it fun though with a movie and good dinner in the middle of our big homework session.

This morning started off by waking up early to go to one of the largest markets in Rome.  We had been hearing all about this place and how cool it was, but we were sadly disapointed.  It was like a huge flea market combined with a bad garage sale that had random underwear stands mixed in.  We were totally confused as to why people thought this place was so cool... oh well though.  We each bought one thing today to use for parts of projects, when we were totally hoping to find all these cool steals.  Maybe next time...  Since we were up so early to go to this "cool" market, we were home by 11 this morning and started right in on homework!  It is now 10:00 at night and we have been sitting on the couch in the same position working on homework all day!  The only time that we have gotten up is to go to the kitchen to get snacks... we are lazy piles today, but we are getting lots of work done!  I spent the last 5 hours glues 1000 pages of a book together into 20 page chunks... biggest pain in the butt ever!  When the project is completely finished, it should be really neat, but the process will take a long time!  We've also been sketching, watercoloring, reseaching, illustrating, and of course skyping!  Tonight I got to skype with Nillie!  She could totally here my voice and kept looking at my picture on the screen.  She knew it was me and was so confused why I wasn't there... it was so cute!  It's been a great day of relaxing and doing homework!  Also, it's been rainy and stormy here all day, so it was the perfect Sunday afternoon in.

Tomorrow morning we are planning to get up and go to another little fresh fruit and veggie market and to hit up the cute little stores in the area... we are hoping for better luck shopping tomorrow because we want nice Italian purses, shoes, and jewelry!!!  Wish us luck... but for now, it's back to more homework!  Love from Roma!