visual mood journal

Monika Bodendorfaite / cu graphic design student

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I just keep spoiling myself.. This time I had a chance to visit Tate modern gallery and I found this absolutely fascinating “Real review” issue ! 

https://www.stackmagazines.com/art-design/sampler-real-review-magazine/

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London in one day!

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Such an inspiring university trip to Berlin!

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Monika that’s for you:

- Don’t be shy to present your thoughts and ideas.

- Don’t be shy to speak with others. Your language is not that bad. You made a huge progress.

- Don’t overthink. 

- Manage your time careful. Sleep 7 hours in a day. 

- Start working on your personal projects.

- Don’t forget to create your Behance profile/porfolio.

- Don’t forget to read books !

- Work hard to produce the best. Don’t be lazy.

- You have an opportunity to work in print studios. Don’t miss your chance!

- Don’t forget gym/sports. 

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Salon “Play with your memories” focuses mainly on the people’s stories and experiences through their life that are related to musical influence. It is actually all about memories and what kind of effect music has on them. Salon is going to talk through questions like what kind of effect music has on your reminiscences? How it can make you remember all kind of possessions from the past? How a certain song can make you remember a place, event or even a certain individual? The intention of this salon is to involve individuals in a conversation, to make them feel confident and to share their personal stories and thoughts.

My personal experience has been my main source of inspiration for the creation of this project, but that wasn’t enough to build a whole design concept from it. That persuaded me to explore literature sources, articles, famous artist’s and psychologist’s experimentations. Also, that involved me into discussion, it created many questions in my head. I have started growing together with this project, that helped me to delve deeply into things that I have never thought about.

 Probably, there are three words that perfectly describe my thinking behind the concept: “unusual”, “hidden” and “inexhaustible”. “Unusual”, because people are submerged in routine and they do not have time or desire to go deep into philosophical notions. That is why it can look like an uncommon question. “Hidden”, because people are afraid to expose their minds and things that are related to them. But you need to think that sometimes your word and advice can support others. “Inexhaustible” - music lives around us and goes everywhere with us, in my mind even silence is some kind of music. Its duration is never ending.

To convey my thinking and a particular mood I chose to illustrate my theme as a “distortion”. In my mind, this abstraction can be expressed more successfully in forms that are personalized, rather than through the use of realism. That is why I thought it would be a playful twist to my philosophical journey. At this point, I was inspired by Salvador Dali and his famous painting “Persistence of Memory”. I appreciated how the painting explains the quote: “There is a fine line between a dream and a memory. A dream only happens when humans are in a state of sleep. A memory has the ability to appear in any time of the day in the human mind. Humans recall their memories to deal with their current situations. Memories can manifest in dreams. Dreams are memories that are distorted by fantasy.” I was stimulated by this idea of equalizing memories and dreams through this poetic approach.

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C O L L A B O R A T I O N

/kəlabəˈreɪʃn/ 

This time I had a chance to work with a singer and song-writer Saule Boguzaite (https://soundcloud.com/saule-boguzaite). I’m pleased that she asked me to visit her in London to help developing her new album branding. I suggested to make a photoshoot, we were walking around Brick Lane by spotting busy streets. That was amazing to see her again and to chat about daily life.

After a few hours of photoshoot and a long walk we came back home. She was really happy about those pictures that I took. We decided which one could be potential for the album cover. Because her music is so soothing and flowy, we thought that it would be interesting to expose that for this artwork. After a tip I started to work on that (final version - second image). I suggested her to stay minimal with typography (she wanted her name on cover, that is why I placed that here). I’m really happy with this project that we made together. She is still in her process with songs, but it is going to see daylight soon. 

A few days ago, I talked to her about summer plans. She asked me to collaborate again. She has in mind the idea to produce a music video for one of her songs. That would be a huge challenge for me to help her with a video, because I have never done that before. But I really want to learn and try to do something with that. I’m adding this to my “to do list”. 

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word of the week : technology

Technology has forever changed the world we live in. We're online, in one way or another, all day long. Our phones and computers have become reflections of our personalities, our interests, and our identities. They hold much that is important to us.

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One day I thought that I needed to extend my collection of tote bags. That is why I decided to create my own. I picked up a jar of my favourite colour and started to redraw my old illustration of palm tree leaves on a bag. From that day, this one is my favourites ! It reminds me of upcoming summer and holidays that are all I need right now. I want to say goodbye to the deadlines,only a few days left and everything is going to be done!

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unexpected

sometimes things just happen out of the blue. you never see them coming, never know how to react.

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Academic Drawing

2 years ago,a year before school graduation I started to attend academic drawing course. That wasn’t new for me, because I had academic drawing classes in my art school, but it wasn’t that serious then. A year before graduation I started to think about architectural studies, and if you want study Architecture in Lithuanian universities you need to pass the exam, which includes academic drawing. Later I changed my mind about this option, since I got afraid of maths that might be mandatory. 

Anyway, since childhood, I was trying hard to train my hand.When I started to attend course, my drawing skills started progressing rapidly, because I was practicing a lot. Course was 4 days a week for 3 hours each day. I had a very mindful teacher that helped me tremendously by giving me plenty of tips about the subject. At this moment I’m thinking to force myself to draw more, because I’m always looking for excuses. But now when I’m going to have loads of free time in summer I swear to myself that I’m going try to draw more. 

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Edoardo Tresoldi’s Monumental Wire Buildings At Coachella 

I was browsing the Internet and accidentally spotted this wonderful art made from wire. It caught my eye, probably because architecture is one of my inspirational sources and even a long time ago I was thinking to study that subject.

 Just look at it , I can’t believe that it is made by human hands ! 

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Coding : Why was I afraid of that?

Web design is one of the tasks that I need to submit for my Design Practice module. Coding was a very new thing for me that I was dedicated to learn. At first, we had lectures based on that, we were learning basics of HTML and CSS. From the first look it wasn’t that hard as I thought. When those technical sessions ended, I started learning to code by myself. I was exploring information at the internet, then I began watching youtube tutorials. That was really helpful to have a clue for starting my own website. But I don’t know why that messed with me? I was feeling lost, I didn’t know from where to begin and how my website is going to look like. Then I started to work with myself and really think what type of design I want to produce to show my ideas clearly. I started guiding myself by these words "Simplicity is the key". Step by step I started to code my website. It is still in the process, but I’m thinking to finish it soon, because deadline is on Monday (in 5 days from now). I don’t have loads of time, but I have a clear mind and I imagine what I want to produce. That is my short story how I defeated the fear of coding. Talking about the future, I’m thinking to extend my learning on coding, because it has came out as a very interesting and exciting process. I’m going to build up my confidence on that !

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In ‘17 summer I had a chance to collaborate with such an amazing graphic designer/art director Greta Madline (https://gretamadline.com/design/). She unexpectedly invited me to participate in her new project as a model. Actually, the main idea was to gather unfamiliar people into one place to celebrate the millennial way of life. We were going around city centre of Vilnius by wearing a crazy t-shirts with slogans (For example my t-shirt said  “Millennial,millenial,millenial. I’m not just a buzzword! I’m fine.”) and doing a photoshoot. While strolling in the streets a lot of confused looks were noticed from the surrounding people! We were spending all day together, talking about funny things, eating while sitting on the grass. That was an unusual experience to spend all day with unfamiliar people but in the end, everyone was friendly and had unique personalities. With some of them I’m still holding connections. 

Sometimes it is fun to run away from your routine and to participate in unordinary activities. 

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mood board

noun - an arrangement of images, materials, pieces of text, etc. intended to evoke or project a particular style or concept.

collecting -> executing  

That is one of the tasks from Design Practice module that I need to submit the following Monday. ( It is hard to believe that I have almost a week to finish everything but actually I’m not feeling stressed. I’m managing my emotions and resisting the pressure! ) That was one of the easier tasks that I really enjoyed because I’m that kind of person who likes to collect and keep everything from paper offsets to old magazines and etc. After reading the brief I imedietlly started to collect images and other material like literature pieces, videos on my laptop that are related to my topic and possibly are going to help me with explaining my topic. I was feeling calm while doing this mood board, because I appreciate doing something manually by hands. That is why this time I chose to print those pictures/images and prepare my layout not on laptop screen. My intention was to stay close to my topic and reveal that messy, distorted feeling that goes through my “salon” branding design.

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DESIGN PRACTICE MODULE (2nd semester) FINAL POSTER

Salon : “Play with your memories” (my theme is going to discuss the question about how music affects your memories. How can it make you remember all kind of memories from your past experiences? How certain piece of music can make you remember a place, a person or an event from your past?)

Design concept : distorted memories (distortion effect goes through my poster, catalogue and animations for web design). This idea helps me to stay playful all over my designs.

For the poster’s background I was using my own image that I made by using scanner. I was experimenting with that a lot until I managed to choose one for my final piece. I decided to use black/white, because that helps my created typography to pop out. Talking about typography, I’m going to use the same part of word “memories” for my animation that I will place to my web design. I really like how it goes and in overall, it has connection all over my branding. On the other side of my poster there is going to be a catalogue that is almost finished. Just need to add some bits. I’m planning to print it soon, but I haven’t decided what kind of paper I’m going to use. Actually, I have something in my mind, I was thinking to use something like vintage brownish or light green colour paper. But first of all, I need to find a printing house that is going to commit to this task.

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Word of the week : deadline

I’m that kind of person that leaves everything till the last minute, especially when something seems to be boring or not interesting for me at the first look.  But that doesn’t mean that I’m irresponsible, because I have never been late to deliver my assignment. Maybe I need some external pressure and stress to push me about getting things done earlier? All in all it is unnecessary to depend solely on stress to finish tasks early, because nobody is able to perform at 100% under pressure. That is one of my goals, to start working stress free and always having final product in mind, not the deadline.