HIPPO ROLLER!

Hey lovers.

I'm so confused. It's difficult keeping up with these classes that require so many similar things so blogging is going to be slightly confusing (for me).

So all these readings. Who knew? I thought I was done buying books; I dropped 175 on books for Jan's classes. And learned about many other huge expenses for this semester. Maybe I should have stuck with my other crap major. Yeah, no.

We had all of these readings from Do Good Design, Designers, Visionaries, and Other Stories, Cradle to Cradle, and The Art of Innovation.

Honestly, the only ones that caught my attention at all were Do Good Design and The Art of Innovation. Do Good Design was a really easy read and it was conversational. As in, I felt like the writer was talking to me (which makes it an easy read as well). So far on what I've picked up, it's about YOU being a designer, and the difference between designing for the benefit of not just the client and their convenience, but for the world. Or the mass. Designers aren't just the ones who make things pretty, they design for commercial reasons and for necessities, like emergency signs and their clarity.

The Art of Innovation. I started reading that last semester but never got past the first few chapters because I kinda... lost it. Haha. But it's also an easy read. I love all the little anecdotes they insert- all the examples of how IDEO improved certain products. It's strange. They turn the simplest things into the most profound ideas. Like the toothbrush handle for kids- just the way they explained their reasoning for making the handle more tactile and therefore more attractive. It's the little things that bug you that they fix which turn into what seems like the most ingenious ideas ever.

Or the biggest problems that bug you, which are solved by the simplest ideas. Ideas that make you say, "Why the hell didn't we think of that before?"

http://freeworldmedia.com/2008/05/


Quick update on everything-not-school. Christine is leaving for New York for Electric Zoo that I am DYING to go to but can't because of school... She's leaving tomorrow morning and coming back Monday at 5AM, then leaving Monday 5PM for Africa. She's not coming back until January. I'm completely bummed because we got really close the last couple of weeks. I feel like I wasted that time during the summer when I didn't see her.

Anyways, here's the rest of my summer after California;

Moved into the apartment. Dinner with Allison!
Made rainbow cupcakes!
Night in DC with Christine. One of the best nights of my life and really opened my eyes up to being adventurous and traveling (after meeting her friends and learning about her life abroad with them)
Good eats, homemade dinners :)

Days in Fell's Point/the harbor. I learned to appreciate how freaking awesome Baltimore is.

I hate how you lose quality through Blogger, but I guess that's how I can upload a million a month.

I also worked the Buyer's Market for this pearl supplier but obviously no pictures. That was quite an interesting experience. I'll have to update that later though. I'm getting tiredddddd.

+Love+