sarahviola.org » Design

Inside All of Us

sarahviola — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 05:48:34 +0000

Did you know they’re making a live action movie of Where the Wild Things Are, adapted by Dave Eggers and directed by Spike Jonze? Could there be a more perfect team for this project? No. I’m so excited, I have goosebumps.

The other day I stumbled across these still shots from the set. They’re beautiful, I couldn’t wait to share.

And then I saw this video, some test footage from the filming. I love everything about it; the light, the voices, the soft-fuzziness.

It’s due in theaters on October 16, 2009, starring two of my favorites, Catherine Keener and Mark Ruffalo, and Chris Cooper, James Gandolfini, Catherine O’Hara and Forest Whitaker provide the voices of some of The Wild Things.

Ooh! Official trailer!

So. Who’s coming with me?

The Unveiling

sarahviola — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 16:44:30 +0000

I’ve been back in my office for almost two weeks now after a four-month leave of absence. I’m a Designer. A typeface addicted, color theory curious, design history loving, visual communications problem-solving designer. In the super-competitive creative industry, my biggest fear is losing relevance, losing inspiration, losing trust in myself. I thought it was already gone. I never knew that taking four months off to spend with my son would be so good for me

For the past three-ish years, I’ve been more active in a leadership role than in a creative role—which is so rewarding, don’t get me wrong, but not in the same way. Before that, I’d always put my whole heart into my work; building my portfolio, staying inspired, reading, participating, sharing… But lately, it’s been more important for me to put my heart into the people than into my creative work. But I know that at my core, I’m a designer first, a leader second. This is where my passion is.

I should have kept working, kept challenging myself, in my free time for my own sanity. But free time? Wha? Even before I had a baby, by the time I got home from my ten-hour day, the last thing I wanted to do was go back to work after dinner. I was getting married, then I was a newlywed with a new home, then I was pregnant, then I was trying to sell our home… I was so burned out and just exhausted.

And so full of excuses.

Motherhood has given me a real ass-kicking, just in reminding me that I have to let some things go. I can’t be a good mother, a good wife, a good daughter and friend and designer andwriterandhousekeeperandcookandOHMYGOD. I needed to be willing to just let it go. And it’s made me a better person, I think. A better person who sometimes lets people down and has a really messy house and two metric tons of dirty laundry, but still. Better. And more free to do the things that my Type-A personality wouldn’t allow me to do before. I didn’t know how much I needed to be creating, needed to be pushing myself, but I do because it’s good for my soul. I’m trying to take care of myself, make me the best, most emotionally and physically healthy person I can be. This is my resolution.

One month into my marathon maternity leave, I started designing again. Nothing too groundbreaking; a couple logos for friends, a few sarahviola.org headers for myself, an invitation. But DAMN did it feel good to be working again. I mean real, inspired design, not micromanaged putthishere and makethatthiscolor and rotatethisinthatdirection and usethisfont. Design for people who trust me.

Design like this.

It’s been so much fun and so satisfying. I didn’t know if I’d get that back. But I did.

* We’re still working through still a few bugs in Safari! Eeep!

Protected: Then again, this could all just be PMS

sarahviola — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 02:00:51 +0000

I Love Robots. And This Song.

sarahviola — Thu, 31 May 2007 03:55:11 +0000

Keepon is a creature-like robot full of scientific purpose and research value.

The goals of “understanding humanity” and “humanizing robots” are tightly related to each other. Infanoid Project is trying to relate robotics to human sciences in order to understand the underlying mechanism of social communication specific to humans and some species of primates.

Early communication between a child and caregiver is mainly embodied through touch and eye-contact. By investigating the developmental mechanism of the embodied interaction, we are trying to study the core human communication capabilities and design principles for future info-communication systems with which we can make symbiotic relationships.

Currently, we are implementing the social development on these robots; also we are observing and analyzing how human children interact with these robots. We believe these two complementary activities will help us to model social communication and its development during the first years of life. In addition, we are transferring the research outcomes to our society by utilizing the robots in the remedy for children with developmental disorders and by organizing a series of international academic workshops “Epigenetic Robotics”.

Cool, yeah. But also? IT DANCES.

I’ve got a Fevah

sarahviola — Fri, 25 May 2007 04:07:50 +0000

Yeah…it’s like that.

*Also, to the person who ended up here by googling ‘negative test 3 days late clearblue’ I say: stay strong, sister. And, clearblue sucks.

Running the Numbers

sarahviola — Tue, 15 May 2007 05:11:36 +0000

Chris Jordan’s Running the Numbers project features photographic prints of the massive amounts of waste we produce every day. Go see them. Now.

Running the Numbers An American Self-Portrait

This series looks at contemporary American culture through the austere lens of statistics. Each image portrays a specific quantity of something: fifteen million sheets of office paper (five minutes of paper use); 106,000 aluminum cans (thirty seconds of can consumption) and so on. My hope is that images representing these quantities might have a different effect than the raw numbers alone. Statistics can feel abstract and anesthetizing, making it difficult to connect with and make meaning of 3.6 million SUV sales in one year, for example, or 2.3 million Americans in prison, or 426,000 cell phones retired every day. This project visually examines these vast and bizarre measures of our society, in large intricately detailed prints assembled from thousands of smaller photographs.

cj, January 2007

On Beauty

sarahviola — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 00:09:14 +0000

A couple of years ago I had the pleasure of attending a design conference and listening to Brian Collins, Chief Creative Officer of the Brand Innovation Group at Ogilvy & Mather, discuss the launch of Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty. Working with Dove, Brian’s team created and designed the traveling exhibit “Real Beauty.” Sixty women photographers were invited to define real beauty in any way they wished; the resulting images, many of them unexpected and iconoclastic, ‘challenge the damaging feminine cliches perpetuated by advertising.’

The following ads, which feature images of women of varying ages, shapes, sizes, and colors, have renewed debate about images of women in the media. The women in these ads are proud to show off their curves, their wrinkles. “The Campaign for Real Beauty supports the Dove mission: to make women feel more beautiful every day by challenging today’s stereotypical view of beauty and inspiring women to take great care of themselves.”

This video is part of the Dove Self-Esteem Fund, created as an agent of change to educate and inspire girls on a wider definition of beauty and to make them feel more confident about themselves. I think that this is awesome, and so necessary.

As a designer, campaigns like this make me proud of what I do, and make me want to do more. I want to make a difference. As a woman, I can proudly say that these ads and images have affected my view of my body and my self-image. I love who I am, and I want to be healthy for me, not skinny for everyone else. I celebrate my curves, and my freckles and my (someday) wrinkles. And even those two gray hairs that keep coming back.