oracle

its all a dream but im still running

[mothercain]

[lronage-deactivated20250901]

[0utlaw-t0rn]

you’re so smooth

[cheruib]

the show (going out to get groceries. making myself a nice dinner. showering and opening the windows. being kind to myself in everything i do) Must go on

[iseesound]

𝐈 𝐒𝐄𝐄 𝐒𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐃! 𝐑𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐨 ミ★♫ Thursdays @ 2PM-3PM, ヾ(´〇`)ﾉ♪♪

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[jacob-romero]

listen! listen! listen!

[jacob-romero]

design diary 003

awfully late i know, won't happen again.

midterm season was approaching, fast. for us design students we don't really have midterms, at least not traditionally. instead we have a big final project for each class.

so what did we decide to do? throw a party.

my first "college party" was a potluck with all my friends

a delicious potluck, jesus.

the food was so good, filipino food to indian food, there was so much good food that night.

however, after the party it was back to reality. for 3D form studio we were tasked with a group project to build a garden nome. the catch? it was made out of concrete, and was divided into three modular parts.

from carving it out from red foam to preparing the molds, it was a long, long process that took a few weeks to do. ours was a cat in a ufo who was stuck to a claw in a claw machine.

it was a particularly messy process making the molds, but it was fun since the whole class was doing it together.

when it came to the concrete pours... it took a couple tries. it took a few tries figuring out how to tap it on the sides, how to shake it, and pour it so it would come out as smooth as possible. in the end Manny helped us figure out how to smooth it out with water and sandpaper.

we had thanksgiving break, right before the school of design's final week. for me it was no break, i had two days of work back to back plus a family trip to indiana. i was so tired but i finished a portion of my gnome project half asleep on my aunts sofa in indiana.

while all of that was happening, for design drawing i was drawing this dreaded mouse... why did i choose this mouse...

we had about a month,

we were tasked to draw the mouse, not once, not twice, but fifteen different times. three perspectives, an exploded view, different iterations and then once again another three perspectives. this project lead me to do things i didn't think i would do. i spent most of the month preparing the sketches that would be used as my templates, i had a system for this class. i drew the drawings all on one page and kept them at home, then i would work on them by tracing them onto new sheets and working on them at school, incase i messed up, i had the masters at home to trace. (i learned this from loosing my second project on the train two days before it was due, i was saved by a few masters i had at home which helped me finish on time)

a week before it was due, i was on track, halfway through the coloring process, however, i realized i was doing too much. this realization came to me on thursday during break…4 days before it was due.

i was rendering the mouse with more detailed than asked. however a big part of the grade was consistency, so i had to push forward. from spending 40$ on one set of prismacolors i then again spent another 40$ on another set. (thankfully to my understanding drawing will be digital in later classes so i won't have to spend more than this) and then.... those markers began to die. so what did i do? i bought insulin syringes!

i sent this photo to my mom, she asked what was it for, and i said drugs.

in reality though, they were to try to revive the markers with a liquid i forget the name. ill link the article if anyone is interested. i found it hilarious.

specifically this,

"fifth, replace the cap on both ends of the marker and shake it like you've never shaken anything before in your life. you are the san andreas fault and that marker is california. knock san francisco right into the ocean. shake!" - katiecandraw (2009)

this did in fact barley help. the markers were kind of revived but i did not get the results katiecandraw got. i should have realized sooner that a post from 2009 was not gonna help me as much.

after this i was in panic mode. i pulled my first all-nighter ever.

it was a very chaotic night. and i wasn't alone the whole class was up till 4, 5 in the morning working on this project.

but we pulled through! i gave a decent presentation for the critique, although i did ramble about my disdain for computer mice design and my love for the apple design....

i was running on two hours of sleep.

after the class ended, we all fell asleep on the beds that the architecture students had built for a project exploring public sleeping. truly a blessing.

this day we also finished our gnomes for 3D form studio. thankfully the gnome wasn't due for a few more days and we got to work on it without worry.

i won't lie i was a bit manic that day, i think we all were. we were all running on little to no sleep. but we all pulled through. here’s the final project:

i passed the semester with all a's !!!

so we lit.

finishing writing this at ML Kitchen on taylor street with friends at 2:32pm on january 17th

[trailcams]

source

[incelslayer420]

realizing i’m in my flop era is actually one of the most heartbreaking moments of my life. i’ve literally been sitting here so astounded like damn what did i do to end up here?

[jacob-romero]

real

[jacob-romero]

design diary 002

can you imagine that this one white rectangular prism took me over 15 hours? it's our first real model we make. the idea behind it is to prepare us for when we make models of our objects later on. we learn how to use the project lab, the tools, and the patience and care we have to take.

i think i've spent a good time in this place already, and i've only done 2 projects in here. we were first given the wrong type of paint which instead of taking one hour to dry took around 4-8 hours to dry. in my case a few times i had to wait overnight for it to dry. originally we had a week to get it done, which should have been possible but because the spray paint was for metal, not wood, we all got backed up. on top of that, it is illegal to buy spray paint in Chicago, so to get regular paint i had to take time to go to my local Menards, that however did not happen until i started my second project, pictured bellow, my truck at the time was being fixed.

i learned to be patient, and to know when to stop. ended up messing this one up right at the end but it ended up being more presentable. my next project for this class is rectilinear forms. an exercise that was made by Rowena Reed Kostellow (awesome name).

we're starting with clay sketches. i have grey clay, but i would like to have an ultramarine blue or forest green clay. would look really nice in my portfolio. this project is so complex, 4 weeks to do it. i really want it to look good, will be in our final portfolio to get into our major. each block consists of multiple pieces of wood. it's not just one. lot's of work but more room for interesting compositions.

this project is really my chance to do something interesting. i plan on using small lead weights and hollow blocks to create an interesting balancing effect.

really really excited.

seeing rosalia next week, 454 and steve lacy the week after that.

getting a skinfold test in an hour. (apparently i have 12.9 body fat percentage??? not sure that's accurate...)

life is good.

i'm getting better at my schedule, i've kept a consistent meal plan, workout, life routine. i could be better at keeping my room cleaner, hoping to do that today and get that done. i think i might, might have to sleep a little later today but at least i will get it done and feel better about it.

writing this in my color theory class at 1:09pm on september 20th

[jacob-romero]

design diary 001

week 1

in just a week i am already behind, but it's been a lot of fun. it sucks writing this, because currently i just finished week 2, the draft i had written for week 1 disappeared but whatever.

here is a photo of the school of design at the university of illinois chicago. i love the architecture of this place. there are two schools in this building, design and architecture. we both share the print lab which is located in our side, and the project lab which is located in the architecture side. (we use the print lab more than they do, and they use the project lab more than we do.)

it's a great space, at the time i haven't used the space outside of class as much.

we've been working on these letter forms in design drawing, free handing squares and lines, it's a struggle and honestly i am not sure how this will help us but, i assume it will make sense soon. we started with just free handing straight lines which was not easy coming from a art background. but i am slowly getting the hang of it. we also started working on cube perspectives like 2pt and 1pt perspective. i practiced these a bunch in my sketchbook, will post the final versions in week 2's diary

love this class, it's the one class where i am drawing, and it's fun to me, i just get to sit and do these letters and cubes

for 3D Form Studio, we did a knolling! we have a photo studio we can use and i spent around an hour photographing each of these objects individually with my phone and then doing the one big knolling, presented this in class and my teacher really liked it, he also really liked my drawings, here's my favorite, sketch i did:

and then an individual photo of my sonny angels:

we started our first real excessive for 3D form, its a cube made out of chipboard, it took forever but I think I did pretty good.

making this cube, i realized how happy i was with my choice in doing this, i did not once feel that this was boring and i would rather be doing something else, i honestly had fun, i was talking with amanda, listening to music, and just having a good time.

a photo when i just finished and the money shot of my cube:

i don't have much to say for my other two classes, Color Theory is a bit slow, i think my professor didn't know he was going to teach this class so he is getting up to speed with the curriculum. in Design Colloquium we are also getting up to speed.

we also had our involvement fair, here's a video of me beating suryansh in a bouncy house-esque game then immediately being pulled back and flipping over:

all in all i am really excited to be here, i'll leave it here for now, week 2 is where it gets really exciting

redrafted this on september 6th at 2:25pm

[jacob-romero]

even though i am on my 4th day of my first year, there is already so much going through my mind from imposter syndrome to questioning my choice in going into design. and although this comes before a real design diary entry i think this format will be used throughout the years to tackle certain subjects

imposter syndrome: my first day here, i woke up early, made my roughly 35 minute commute to school, went to the gym, and went to my first class. i sat down and we started going through introductions. then we began drawing lines with these crappy ballpoint pens that ooze out ink from time to time. by the end of the class my hand was tinted purple. ((that’s so blue, it’s black too)) about 20 minutes or so into the exercise i began to feel a tinge of, “should i be here?”, it wasn’t till after the class and making my way outside onto campus that i found myself in a sea of hundreds of people just like me making their way through campus. i then really did question myself, more directly, “do i belong here?”. later on, about two days later, i began to realize why i felt like this. it took almost 2 years to get here, from college admissions to my time at a different institution under a different major to finally be at home. and now that i finally have that i feel as though i should not be here, wether its because i’m undeserving or i feel like i should be doing something different, does not matter.

the weight of my major in a bigger context: studying something like design, feels like a privilege. it stems from many things, from culture, family, society. studying something in the arts (which includes architecture, art, art history, design music, etc.) has not only this idea of privilege around it but also it’s un-marketability. (lol) the two are stereotypes, and not true, there is an incredible amount of opportunities in the world in the arts. but that isn’t the focus of this. i do these homework assignments like, drawing five different objects from my room, and wonder, “would my time be more fruitful working on coding, or studying biology?” however when i look around, i am brought back to the reason why i chose design, and furthermore feel like i am contributing to the world. without design (or the arts) life would be bleak and boring, no one wants an ugly MacBook, nor a boring pair of Nikes. you buy Nikes because you like the design, not because its functional… (you get what i’m saying) life was not meant to look boring, literally, if it was, we wouldn’t be in awe of a sunset.

writing this on august 25th in Color Theory at 3:21pm

[jacob-romero]

the walk to school 2

clay.pigeon · Playlist · 18 songs

an ever growing playlist of music i listen to on the walk to school. it takes me 18 minutes to walk from my train station to school. im not sure what these songs all have in common aside from the fact that they get me excited. the switch from bags to on god is my favorite. two incredibly different songs but they just fit so well together, in my opinion. other times im looking for a more meditative track, silver soul and i want war come to mind. 

currently writing this in my Color Theory class at 1:15pm

[jacob-romero]

hello, my name is jacob romero. i am currently attending the university of illinois at chicago. I am pursuing a degree in design, currently in my foundation year. i find it important to archive these next few years, wether its work i do for class, or who my teachers are. so in the next few years i will be collecting interviews, and pictures and media from my time in university so when i graduate i can look back and see how far i have come along. 

i could do this privately in a page in my notion, or in a long word document, a journal. but on a public format like tumblr, ill be able to share my experience with other design students. 

currently typing this up in my 3D form studio on august 25th at around 11:11am