written March 30th, 2009 ·
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This guy is great. I find it really interesting to think about what our brain simply can and cannot do. We’ve all felt this before: Too much information that paralyzes us. Jonah Lehrer in this interview with Terry Gross talks about how our brains aren’t designed to deal with a lot of information. Our rational faculties are limited and he says our pre-frontal cortex can only hold 7 pieces of information at a given time! In order to combat this, Lehrer tries to listen to his emotions more, for instance, when choosing cereal in the supermarket, to decide what he really wants to eat, vs only what he should eat. If we were cut off from our emotional signals completely, Lehrer says decisions would be impossible to make. So I guess we need both. But to make decisions easier, we should limit the about of equivalent options and the amount of variables in total, otherwise our rational decision making will be greatly limited, leading us to buy only junk food for breakfast. Brain scans actually allows scientists to see the tug of war going on in our brains when we are making decisions!
He also has a great blog that I am reading where he discusses all kinds of other current events he likes to weigh in on.
Posted in What I'm Listening To
written March 25th, 2009 ·
1 comment
Planet Money started a conversation here about who to blame for the financial crisis, and I just listened to this great podcast from them called Pointing Fingers. All of this inspired me to do a few collages illustrating the outrage we are all feeling and the inner pull to want to blame someone, anyone for this mess. But would it really be possible and would it help our misery? And how would this solve our problem?
Here is the most final design so far.
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Posted in Collages, My Design Work
written March 25th, 2009 ·
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I have a weakness … Ritter Sport chocolate:) Their website is just oh-so-fun too. Crisp design and the photography really makes my mouth water! I like! My favorite kinds…
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Posted in Design, Food, Inspiration
written March 25th, 2009 ·
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I don’t like getting myself down about the economy. Instead, I like trying to understand what is happening. But I came across this Big Picture photo stream when I was reading the Planet Money blog and couldn’t resist sharing. Reality is a bitch.
Posted in Random
written March 23rd, 2009 ·
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I listened to this interview today between Russ Roberts and Nassim Taleb. It was extremely interesting for me! He talks about how he believes that we’ve been messed up by knowledge, that we over estimate our knowledge and the good old fashioned trial and error can work far better for mankind. Taleb was referring specifically to the area of medicine, where he has done much research on the subject. He believes directed research does not yield the results that undirected research does and has. This is simply because our minds need the freedom to tinker. We come across unexpected results when there are no limits set.
This ties over to art as well, and therefore I am quite interested in the theory. I often use mistakes or the results of visual experiments in my design, because it gives an unexpected charge to the piece and most definitely creativity. What I create will be completely unique because of my individual process of experimentation and conceptualizing. Experimentation is what process is in design, and in my experience, it is the best way I develope great ideas . read more…
Posted in What I'm Listening To
written March 23rd, 2009 ·
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An interesting interview between Terry Gross and Liza Mundy about Multiple Births.
Posted in What I'm Listening To
written March 22nd, 2009 ·
1 comment
This is a CD cover/insert I did as a personal project. I recently heard of Rokia Traore on NPR and really enjoyed her album Bowmboï (her myspace). She collaborated with the Kronos Quartet on a few songs, which are quite eerie and fascinating. I wanted to do a visual representation of a song of hers, Niènafîng, and decided to incorporate that into a CD cover booklet. I found a few interesting reviews of her music and threw those into the layout along with photographs and credits. I simply wanted to capture the flavor of her music and the layers and complexity within, in my artwork. I hope to print it soon and photograph it in a real CD cover.
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Posted in Music, My Design Work
written March 22nd, 2009 ·
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Hello all:)
I began my application process for internships last week and got 2 callbacks before the week was out! I was happy…but then I realized quickly, that it was too good to be true. The one internship could not guarantee that they would hire me after the 6 month internship, and the work didn’t fit my design personality (not creative enough), so that one was out of the question. And the other internship was a real job in disguise of an internship. I was floored. read more…
Posted in Life in Berlin
written March 11th, 2009 ·
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A funny article about how unfriendly Berliners can be, and a video that shows this in action. Although the video is in German, one can get a feeling for this unfriendliness. Oh, and the German government wants to change this! Letting those good old Berliners know that it is ok to smile and let a little sunshine shine through that heart. (Do not take this too negatively! I have many wonderful Berlin friends here!) read more…
Posted in Life in Berlin
written March 11th, 2009 ·
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What to do, what to do, when the economy has gone to sh** and you are a young graphic designer in a city (Berlin) overflowing with other similar creative minds and you want to find a job!?!?! Apparently Berlin hasn’t recognized that Germany is in a recession because Berlin was always in an economic slump (see Spiegel Online article), but I am noticing the difference. As someone who has scanned design jobs online periodically over the past 3 years, I see a huge drop in job options. What once used to be a 4 page (or more) job opportunity section of a popular magazine here (Zitty), has now been reduced to barely a page! Job listings online go back to the beginning of February, before you even get through the first page of results!!! That is why right now, I am finding myself looking for an internship! As someone who needs to push on in her field of experise and not digress, an internship is the only option to get valuable experience at good companies (as far as I can see). I’ll keep you posted on what comes my way.
Posted in Life in Berlin
