Take two

1. Project Summary/Overview
Taking apart a skateboard was one thing but really tracing it's roots are another thing, it's made of such common materials and pieces but where do they come from? Where do they go?
 The ten layers of information go into the objective here is to figure out:

7 layers are for the board itself.

• Where it comes from (the evolution to the form it is in today)
• What it's doing now (the modern board)
• Where it's going (recycling, dumps, jewelry, furniture, etc etc)
• Who is riding it (pros, amateurs)
• What it rides on
• Why certain pieces are used, materials and the structure they provide
• Where the images on the deck come from and their designer

 And the other three are going to relate to the shoes that you ride on with.

• What types and why their materials/styles matter
• Who creates them and company history
• How many shoes that I have worn and broken apart since I've started skateboarding and their durability/longevity

The purpose of this is to inform and educate the youth - teens and early twenties on where the decks they ride come from and where they go, why their shoes matter, etc.


2. Since there is no client in this matter lets talk about the research:
Aside from slumming around in the internet, skate magazines have been big influences, there are three books that have been good sources as well.

• MTV's second volume of Skate Decks
• Scarred for Life - a history of skateboarding
• Made For Skate - shoe histories and company branding

At this point the best way to get information is gleaning from them and the sources they provide and putting it together in a comprehensive way.


3. Message:
If you ride the board and trust the board, it's time to get to know your board and learn about it.


(I'm not sure how strong this is, this isn't a really persuasive piece so I am unsure if I need to try and find something)


4: Target Audience:
This is meant to reach a multi generation, age, gender mesh with at their core an interest in skating with possibly an even further the desire to learn about materials and sustainability and how the materials they chose - the deck type, gears, trucks - can influence how long their board lasts or how it can be recycled in the future.


Ideal Response:
The audience will take it home with them, it's not going to be a life changing earth shattering piece but hopefully it will make audience members think about the boards & shoes they buy and how the money they invest now could be better for their bodies, the earth and the street. Just an education to add to their knowledge of the board.


5: Proposed Format:
a: It would be nice to try to do this in vector image considering how other projects this term have been sketch driven. Hopefully (time pending) this can go on a skateboard deck and perhaps a pair of white shoes - just a minimal part of the design either stuck on, screen printed, or carefully hand drawn with dye-na-flow - this is currently an in progress idea.

Or this could be vinyl cut onto some glass, perhaps a glass cube if I could figure out where to get one of those.

B. It would be nice to put this into an installation or to put it into a boutique that carries skating products (or a mainstream company). It would probably be the best way to show it off if it was a possibility. 
C. The Audience would receive the piece by walking by while shopping for their products.
     

School is Eating My Life

So homework for 320, I could print this but why would I waste paper?

Biographical Narrative/Term Long

Worksheet.

1. What interests me about my topic?

Skateboarding has just been a total influence on my life since junior high, I might be a total poseur but it definitely influenced the way I dressed, ate, listened, watched, etc. I can ride and carve and grind but I sure can’t do stinking tricks and while I’ve known about surface level things (like Tony Hawk is awesome and so are the x-games) but the history & culture have always been something that you got to earn. I never had that initiation right, I love knowing and learning and this gave me excuse to nerd out about a childhood love.

1. Possible Topic Variables

For the Narrative Timeline; exploring the legacy and evolution of skate legends and underdogs, looking at locations and movements, politics and policies and how they place a big part in the shaping of the rise and fall of eras, Alt versus Pop versus Mainstream, board/style changes.

For Term Long; Since I’m going with the ‘Cultural Biography of an Object’ option B choice the skateboard I will be taking apart, however no way am I ignoring the timeline that I’ll have made – I want to take apart board materials – where they’ve come from perhaps – where they’re going to certainly. Why these materials have been abandoned/why strides in the material have made more tricks/surfaces more accessible and at what times. How certain political movements have made it that skaters have moved on from places like ‘parks’ that were safe to pools, pipes, rails, etc that are less safe requiring more durable material. I might even go so far as to look at shoes and their materials for skating and throw down some company names.

1. Where Will My Sources Come From?

Ha good question, from magazines (which I will buy) but mostly from a few books I purchased on skateboarding history, Google scholar and JSTOR have been my BFFS and also slumming around certain skateboarding magazine websites. I’ve also had the time to chat with friends who have really been around the community to get a street perspective on it.

1. What Type of Data Will I Gather?

Narrative: Analytical, timelines, charts, diagrams, exploded illustrations maybe? Mapping.

Conceptual, Storytelling and Narratives

Timeline:  Analytical, diagrams, exploded illustrations, mapping, probably some cutaway stuff, really playing with the aspect that the deck format allows.

Conceptual, stories, data, statistics.

1. What Solutions and Ideas Exist to Solve Problems and Issues in way to my topic?

I would like to say not many, more logistical issues, having too much data, rain will be a problem with the narrative as drawing itself can be problematic with weather. Time as far as when I can do things and how long it takes to order a skate deck or two will be my issues with Term Long.

1. What Solutions do I pose?

I ain’t getting on any soapbox, I just want to inform people about skateboarding, nothing political or crazy here.

Audience:

My audience for both projects is going to be similar, the average age is going to land somewhere in the 22 area. Mostly suburban or city dwellers who have a mild interest for skating, mostly on the amateurish side where they just don’t know about it but they would be interested to learn. They could ride anything to get where they need to go and shop wherever, in all earnesty I think as long as that interest is there – whether from Junior High mishaps or a trendy deal they feel it’s relatable.

Reachability: The audience can be reached via the web, their favorite blog, twitter, or in a gallery (not that I’m pandering that my work is good enough for that).

Objective:

Entertainment, sheer entertainment, and also a bit of education for shiz.

Form:

Narrative: It’s going to be in chalk form, hopefully in four – five parts that I piece together in adobe and either make into a little foldie thing or gianormous.

Term Long: Skateboard decks, printed, hopefully with some printed pieces for the wheels and fake cardboard trucks that I have xyroned onto.

Distribution:

Internet, installations.

Quotes

For Digital Page Design II the teacher is having us do something a bit babyish but I see the usefulness. We're making text images but not being allowed to rasterize type, it must contain it's form, we're allowed only one traditional typeface - it's good stuff.

We have to do a predominant figure and I have decided on C.S. Lewis.

I want to use this as long as teacher doesn't disaprove

the type copy has to be quotes of his so I've started stockpiling favorites and saving them here for future use.

The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate deserts.

Literary experience heals the wound, without undermining the privilege, of individuality. There are mass emotions which heal the wound; but they destroy the privilege. In them our separate selves are pooled and we sink back into sub-individuality. But in reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. Like a night sky in the Greek poem, I see with a myriad eyes, but it is still I who see. Here, as in worship, in love, in moral action, and in knowing, I transcend myself; and am never more myself than when I do.

You can't get a cup of tea big enough or a book long enough to suit me.

Make the choice adventurous stranger, strike the bell and bide the danger or wonder 'till it drives you mad what would have happened if you had.

If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair.

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny excersised for the good of it's victims may be most oppressive. It may be better to live under the rule of a robber Barron than omnipotent moral busibodies. The robber barrons cruelty may sometimes rest, his cupidity may be satiated. But those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

Vivisection can only be defended by showing it to be right that one species should suffer in order that another species be happier ... If we cut up beasts simply because they cannot prevent us and because we are backing our own side in the struggle for existence, it is only logical to cut up imbeciles, criminals, enemies, or capitalists for the same reasons.

Aim for heaven and you'll get the world thrown in. Aim for the world and you'll miss both.

Education without values, as useful as it seems is rather to make man a more clever devil.

You don't have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.

Just a start for now I think, more later to come.

Snap

On the note that I have another photoshoot tomorrow (perhaps I should charge people >.>) I wanted to post some images from the shoot I did this summer, I know flickr and facebook are so convenient to share but if I want a 'portfolio' site I figured this might be a good way to start utilizing the 7.99 I spend a month on this little baby.

Just a jist of things, I have more but Squarespace is being a super bug tonight about java vs chrome.

Summer

 So I felt like I would accomplish alot more this summer design wise. Don't get me wrong, I've read books and tinkered a bit. But I was still in school and I had a break up a few weeks ago so it stalled my project that I was working on.

The name of it is 'manufactured' and I want to figure out where some things come from and present a bit of a backstory to it and a wee bit of art. It's still coming but next week, I'm sick now and I head to a family reunion in a few days but I already have the first thing planned. I'm not good at scheduling myself so this is a rather good reminder to me to do the right thing.

Until this, to fill some space, a tinker I've been strugling to figure out the type for.