#dentity

[page-2-ids]

-dentity: A suffix for genders that identify as something

-dentify: A suffix for genders that identify as something

[love-is-an-orientation]

11 May – 15 October 2017. Room 69a, Free. Desire, love, identity: exploring LGBTQ histories

If you're near London, perhaps it is worth you going and let us know what it's like 😀

[lexidei]

Yesterday, a guidance counselor reminded us to be visionary. Successful people are visionary. It is wherein you have a clear imagination of what you could be like years from now.

I know for sure that some, most, of my classmates saw themselves as law students in 4 years and as lawyers in 8 years.

Me? I didn’t know. I had no vision. I thought I was gonna die young and I can’t become a lawyer. I didn’t even see myself holding a diploma nor surviving for next years.

It’s on my mind that I have cancer due to bad health and I’m gonna die a damsel.

Today, I just woke up and saw on my feed the homeless people with achievements in their past. (Everybody has achievements, of course.) I saw myself in them. I might become a homeless person or maybe an activist.

Well, this may be an effect of having a low self-esteem and being lost in the identity cycle of life. I do not know what I want but I know what I do not.

[thimblings]

Do you think art school is worth the price?

okay, so i’ve been thinking about this, and here’s my (very long) answer.

I actually didn’t go to art school, I went to university and majored in Studio Art.

This might have been a cheaper option? (Sorry, I didn’t even look at art schools because all we had was the Dallas Institute of Art and it didn’t seem very legit to me at the time?) But my main reason for going to a university was that I could change majors easily if I ever wanted to, and I wasn’t just stuck taking only art classes (I really like learning like a lot). Unfortunately, UNT has no illustration program to speak of and I knew, after two semesters, that I had no desire to be a fine artist but I didn’t know what to do with the fact that I’d already started on that path.

Learning about this Game Design grad school was fantastic, because it allowed me to use my fine art skills in a very illustrative way and I’m doing assignments that I actually enjoy most of the time AND can still do strange, abstract art on the side.

THAT BEING SAID, I had a horrible teacher the first half of my grad school and it’s basically made it so that I’m spending upwards of 60,000 dollars to teach myself how to do things because my teacher didn’t do it. At all. (This is a WHOLE other rant, but basically, when you tell fine art students that you love to have them and want to encourage more fine art students to start in the curriculum, maybe you should make some effort to make sure these fine art students are actually taught how to use the programs and not berate them for not having the knowledge already)

But I’m also happy to be here? Like…The fact is, you can go to art school or you can’t. You can get a job in the art industry without it, as long as you have the skills. Art schools and things like them (like my grad school) facilitate learning and basically give you the initiative to improve and to keep working. You also have access to teachers who can teach you things or guide you through different tasks. If you are willing to do all this work on your own - learn the techniques and the programs and work hard to be as good as people who DO go to art school - then, no, art school probably isn’t worth it.

For what it is, I think art schools are way too pricey (my grad school is astronomically too pricey), but the best thing about them is that they get you working constantly. AND they help you build connections. In the professional art world, you will not get anywhere unless you know people. And that’s pretty much a fact. You need networking and promotion and all that jazz. It’s the same in the game industry. You won’t get a job if you don’t put yourself out there.

For me, it really just came down to, yes, I am teaching myself a lot and I was teaching myself in undergrad too - but would I teach myself if I weren’t in school? 

Art school will make you love art and hate art. You get to a point where you realize you are making art for a grade and not because you want to and it’s a really hard moment because suddenly you aren’t passionate about this thing YOU’VE ALWAYS BEEN PASSIONATE ABOUT. And you gotta push through it and you gotta think, “Is this really what I want to be doing every day for the rest of my life?" 

And for me, that was a no. I didn’t want to be a painter. If I’d gone to an art school that had illustration or animation, it might have been a different story, I guess. If I’d known about printmaking when I was a freshman at UNT, I’d definitely be a Print major I think.

TL;DR: I do not regret spending the money I did, both at UNT and here at SMU because I am a much better artist for it AND, despite often being in a “teach yourself" atmosphere, I know for a fact that I would not have taught myself anything OR gotten better without having been a Fine Arts major.

You get out of art school what you work to get out of it. You make it worth the price and you find a way to be an artist in whatever job you land. Because art is a very self-driven field and your education is only a one-up on other people if you really work at it.

[deksia-blog]

In the beginning

In 2000, we started a production framing company; we did a million dollars in labor alone, the first year.  We were amazed, so I started asking people we did work for why they used our company.  Most everyone responded with “branding” (well they are in the construction industry so they probably said things like “it looks cool,” “seems professional,” and “consistent”).  So we started thinking, “well how can we turn our success into money?” Seeing that we were both getting older and neither of us wanted to swing a hammer all our lives, we started up Dentity in 2003, with one of our first clients being Falcon Custom Homes.

I was doing all of the graphic design when I realized that I wasn’t “THE BEST.” I was good, but not the best.  We wanted a company that consisted of the best. In 2005, we found Josh Ryther, an amazing artist; to call him a graphic designer would be to call a Wusthof, a knife.  This propelled us to a new level; one of our first projects we worked on was SHINE.  We then started talking about needing someone to do client relations, seeing as how busy we were starting to get. 

We started to realize that Dentity didn’t really speak to the Informed & Passionate approach that we were using so we changed the name to DEKSIA, which in Greek means the RIGHT DESIGN.  We found that a lot of industries would start their consulting session with, “tell us what you are looking for?” and basically design what the client was asking.  We don’t do that; we find out what your customer wants to see.   We really don’t care what you like or even really what I like.  If you knew what the logo was to look like, you’re either WRONG or in the wrong business.  Why is it that people think they know what their image should look like?  Do you tell your dentist that he is using the wrong tool to clean your teeth, or that you don’t like the look of that spark plug to your mechanic? 

In 2008, we brought on our first sales person; the problem here is we brought on a guy who was just good and not great, so it didn’t work out.  In 2009, we woke up and brought on Will Swets, an amazing relational expert.  If you can make Will mad, I’ll give you a 100 bucks!  In early 2010, we added the next all-star - Michael Yoder - one of the top Social Media crusader in Michigan.  Michael’s passion for social media is such that if you were to ask him about social media, you better have two hours to listen to his answer!

How do we get all of these amazing people?   We give them a piece of the company; we know the American dream is to own your own business.  Once you have achieved a certain level, you are offered partnership, much like what is done in law firms.  All of these decisions continue to help us strive to be the best branding firm in West Michigan; if you or someone you know is the best, we’d love to get to know you.