MEEK AVE IMAGES

Here are some of the images:

FOR NEXT CLASS

Hey all!

We only have THREE meetings left this semester to accomplish our goals of creating some kind of social impact. Therefore, we really need to kick it into gear and get to work! Please come prepared to our next class so we may get straight to work.

For next class go through all of your notes and blog posts to determine relevant information that should be included in our booklet. This booklet is the culmination of our efforts throughout this class and should show the highlights of our experiences and knowledge learned along the way. We will need to inlclude images and illustrations that were created also. Group the information you gather into these nine sections:

1. Doing GOOD design.
2. What is impact?
3. Define locality.
4. Get lost.
5. Dead ends.
6. Failure.
7. Communication/Talk to your neighbors
8. If you build it, they will come/ Being positive and making it happen!
9. The AH-HA moment!/ The answer is right in front of you

Some of you who were not there for class may not have info to include in some of these sections- that is alright. Just gather what you do have and be prepared to start making the book on Monday.

This is it! This is what we have been working for!

just a taste...

messing around

Any Favorites?

working around our identity

Ask asked,

I have made many sketches/thumbnails, have have found great ways to create a design with Ryan's official identity.

they will be on the blog asap
_____________________________________

REFLECTION FOR MONDAY AND UPDATE.

As stated on Meek Avenue: Your reflection question is to consider how might DESIGN play a role in this immediate community?

Please bring one answer (i.e: The WHAT, The HOW, THE WHERE, and THE WHY) to our next meeting. Also, those of you who had small research agendas, please bring any info you have gathered.

A quick wrap-up: Corey and I will discuss shirt designs and attempt to get something started. Megan and Theresa will be working on the poster or takeaway design, and the lemon aid stand. Ryan and Erin are finding tools for Friday and future use in the area. Britt is going to check grammar and writing for any design that goes out. Mac you are in charge of getting the buzz about whats going on and try to get people involved from the ODU community (and we all should be doing this together). Lauren, Jen and Sheena, can you all work on a social site for our group? A twitter page, facebook, blog, something that can house only info for the public about our group and what we are doing?

Friday those who can meet are going to start major clean up in the first vacant lot. Meeting at 11 (weather permitting).

Monday of next week we will be meeting at my Studio: 13 East Tulane Road (It is the red brick building right behind CupO'Joe on North High in Clintonville) 6pm Sharp. More info can be found here: www.itlookslikeitsopen.com and at: www.itlookslikeitsopen.blogspot.com

It was so good to see all of you becoming apart of a new community. Remember, Impact has multiple definitions and can be applied in so many ways.

our monday night in Franklinton.

I'd first like to thank you all for our collaborative thinking to make such an impact so quick, watch reactions of the community, and even see it break out immediately to members of the community to start participating.

Over all i'm thankful for how much my heart was filled today working with you guys, and really taking in what we've done. It feels great, and I hope you all have the same feelings in your heart.

Megan and I will be putting our two different photo's styles together tomorrow. As she focused on snapping shots of the before cleanup mess, and me snapping the spots after we cleaned, we will make something amazing.

you're all amazing people, and i'm glad i've learned so much from all of you.

art=family=love

Letterhead Idea

I talked to Ryan and he said the square logo was the one he and Herb had been most interested in using. I agree, and created a letterhead design. We could print these out to give to people who live on Meek, or just use the template for any other letters we may send out.

I wasn't exactly sure of what to say in the letter, but if Theresa and Brittany have a chance to look at it and think anything needs changed just let me know.

Some possible gardening help...

Dr. Mike Kelty, who is on ODU's Board of Trustees, is also a good family friend and some type of bigwig at Scott's. We just saw him over break and it wasn't until later that I remembered this. I think this is a great in! He's invested in the ODU community already and I think this could bring us a lot of needed supplies!
Just wanted to write it here on the blog before I forgot!

Design 1.2 (revised)

Design 1.1

Design 1 color scheme 2

design 1

Design for Community IMPACT

Our Mission:
Design for Community IMPACT is a campaign designed to inspire leadership, pride and hope in the greater Columbus area. It is our goal that through community revitalization efforts, we will foster an environment of unity and collective responsibility. IMPACT supports Columbus communities by providing resources, forums to discuss ideas and the energy that allows community members to positively impact their own neighborhoods.

Our Foundation:
Design for Community IMPACT was established through a design course at Ohio Dominican University in the Spring of 2010. projectMEEK44 was the campaign’s first effort to move beyond the theories of the typical classroom setting and into the realities of the surrounding community. The project was named after a foreclosed home in the Franklinton area that was brought to IMPACT’s attention through an article in the local newspaper highlighting the blight in the neighborhood. After speaking with neighbors and city leaders, students at Ohio Dominican University choose to take action and join the community of Meek Avenue to develop a plan that would enable local residents to take control of their neighborhood through the cleanup of foreclosed and abandoned homes. ……. We’ll write the rest when it’s done!

Purpose

Hello Everyone!!
I am back....:) I was not able to attend class last week because I was sick-- something serious-- not contagious, thank God and now I am feeling much better and can fully bring my ideas to fruition!!

I have been looking at various organizations that we could help get involved in this project. Before, I get started on my sharing what I can contribute/thoughts, forgive me ahead of time if I am stating something that cleary has already been said or addressed as I am pretty much "out of the loop" momentarily until Monday!

....So, back to business...

I am hughe on volunterism and I am often always researching different organizations with a similar purpose or mission to what I am trying to participate in at that spcific time; therefore,as I was thinking about our project I came across this organization called 4-H Center.

Here is the link if anyone wants to check it out, I will explain more in class but for the time being, I also would like us to consider and come back to our PURPOSE in this project.

I think often times people have great ideas and things seem like they will be perfect on the surface and then they fail because of lack of organization and PURPOSE.

So, anyhow this was my 2cents add, lol..here is the site to check it out and I am definetly willing to contact them and other organizations to partner with in this endeavor, of course, I am also willing to handle any PR things/Communications...:) :)

http://www.ohio4-hcenter.org/

Guerilla Gardening (I like the name..)

1. We need to see if we can do this without getting arrested! If that means obtaining permits, talking to banks that own foreclosed homes, or just doing it and hoping nothing bad happens we need to decide how we want to go about this.
2. Figuring out total cost… from dirt, to seeds, to tools, to marketing. Finding out our total cost is crucial and then finding out a way to on top of that to fund it. I saw somebody found a grant from the Columbus Dispatch, we could also fundraise by allowing people to “adopt” foreclosed homes, etc
3. Researching the best types of plants, flowers, vegetables, etc. I also think designing a specific piece of art, rather than just planting rows of flowers would be beneficial
4. Deciding where the gardens go and how many. In the next month and a half how many gardens can we realistically plant? Where should it/they go and why

1. I think honestly with the amount of time left we will just want to do it and hope nothing bad happens… Going through red tape with banks who now own foreclosed homes might take weeks, weeks that we honestly just don’t have.
2. I think we should try and keep the cost under $300 and give people the opportunity to get involved by “adopting” a home. However, this does run into a possible problem if we are doing it without explicit permission… many people may not want to become involved
3. I don’t know much about this, or how to best design a specific plot of land… I’m hoping one of you will
4. I think the garden should go in a home close to school and I think we should do 3. Enough that it’s a project and not one random garden, but not so many that it’s overwhelming.

Guerilla Gardening

I am so excited about this project and I think I that together we can really do something positive in our community... I have been thinking for a week now how I can contribute to the group and I have been racking my brain trying to pin point my role as well as hoping and waiting for an ephiphany....

Obviously I can contribute my photography skills to record the actual gardening but other than that I am not completely sure what my contribution should be. But then I realized that I can do a little bit of everything. I am ridiculously organized and detail oriented, as well as understanding the big picture. I am currently developing a non-profit organization with some friends;my experience in that project and my experience on a marketing/advertising team in the real world could be very benefitial to this project. Maybe I would be a good person to coordinate all the different areas we are working on. I could keep track & records of all of our tasks and make sure everything is happening that needs to be...

New Project

After last weeks discussion and change of pace, I am very excited to get the ball rolling on our new project. We all have something unique to bring to the table. We all come from different backgrounds and all have different skills and experiences we can share. I was thinking about what I could personally contribute to the group. I am a good speaker, and could help spread the word about our new project and help get others involved and excited about it. I am also someone who enjoys working with their hands, I can help build, and plant, and cultivate. If we were all working individually, a project this size would seem impossible, but because we are all working together, it will be a success.

Someone on our side... and look Shes from OHIO

Michael Moore's new movie has a lot of congress woman Marcy Kaptur in it. She is pretty much B.A. What she says is so amazing. I mean, yes its breaking the law... but so what? Hasn't Wall Street broken enough laws? Aren't these banks breaking MORAL LAWS? I feel like she could motivate us throughout this project.

Forclosed Gardens

I am so psyched about that this project I can barely wait to get started. I am up for researching for whatever is needed and putting in some hard work. My boyfriend works at the Home Depot and can probably get what we need in terms of gardening supplies. My mom also works for a nursery and knows about some plants we can get planted. This idea is going to be fantastic because not only will we be getting the community involved but gardens are also helping the environment they are a part of. Plants help with the flow flow of oxygen, plants help you think, and it would be bringing something to these communities other than just wasted space and a feeling of deterioration. I will get to work on other people we can contact about this project.
I work with John Palmer who is in University Relations and I know he might be willing to help promote our project to papers and such once we get our ideas together.

What I can promise to contribute...

So when I left class on Monday I immediately asked a source about donations so we can start getting physical things for this local gardens project. She said that her dad donates for needy causes, but we would need to get together more information for them about what we are doing, why, when, how, etc. So we would need to get that in written form so I can send it to her, but either way she said that she would be willing to come help us with the gardens. I also got some more volunteers to help us, so we can really get the community involved also. Now I myself, can contribute some extra time and effort into this project. Even if we just started out making a local garden and then letting the project expand from that, I would love to go on the weekends and start getting this garden going. I could probably contribute a tool or two or even ask people to borrow rakes, shovels, etc. I would be willing to go around nurseries asking for plants, or even seeds. Which ever way we decide to go about this project, it's the first thing I've been truly excited about and feel like its extremely reachable, do-able, and could better a community.

we could most definitely obtain a grant, if they can

http://columbuslocalnews.com/articles/2010/03/18/whitehall_news/news/whcouncilw_20100317_1143am_4.txt

hmm...seed bombs for where we can't grow

http://current.com/items/89653977_seed-bombs-walk-by-guerrilla-gardening.htm

oh yeah...

Awesome.

I came across this image whilst watching a TEDtalk with Stefan Sagmeister (there's a link to that talk on this site about the graphic http://glass.typepad.com/journal/2007/06/making_happy.html)


Apparently it was done by an artist named True, whom I cannot find any information on, and 20 or so of his friends who replaced every subway instruction sign in the whole system with this and other signs. In the TEDtalk there is a great image of the one which they used to replace the "Do Not lean on the doors" sign which reads: "Do not hold Grudges"


This is a great version of what my group in this class has been working on and I had to share it.

"Intrinsic quality is the only real measure of good design."

"Many executives who spend time in a modern office at least eight hours a day may very well live in houses in which the latest audio equipment is hidden behind the doors of a Chippendale cabinet. [...] The preference is for the traditional setting."
I feel like I can deeply relate with Rand on this point. He goes on to say one of the most important things about design, "Good design is not based on nostalgia or trendiness. Intrinsic quality is the only real measure of good design. There is a reason for every element of the design, every color, font, image, line. If something is designed and created arbitrarily then it is bad design and REALLY BAD communication. I'm not going to lie, I love creating things that have to do with issues I face and images I am familiar with and find interesting, but I can't just go placing my vector cartoon characters on my friends graduation announcements.
I think this goes overlooked and we as designers and communicators need to understand that every little thing MUST make sense.

teamwork, YES.

It is very interesting to read this information which comes from someone who had such a large hand in how graphic design has been used. It further reminds me of the inability to see history as it is written. The interconnectedness of this profession with all other things, namely of course business, seems to have carved out the track that it would follow. It seems that few people have stopped to question if there is a way to steer where the track leads before adding onto it.

There are some parts I really enjoy in this selection from Paul Rand:
"If asked to pinpoint the reasons for the proliferation of bad design, I would have to conclude, all things being equal, that the difficulties lie with (1) management's unawareness or indifference to good design, (2) market research's vested interests, (3) designers' lack of authority or competence.
I also enjoyed reading about the German Werkbund, and " . . . the recognition that men are molded by the objects that surround them."

These ideas are where I like to focus, as it seems ever more likely that if we, as designers, design only (or mostly) products that do good- that inform, direct, are efficient for our clients and ourselves and are in step with our own morals, than there is the possibility that only products which fullfill these criteria will be the norm of production.

It seems one of the best things we can do is to create what we can from our own standpoint of progress and good, and convince our clients that any product (including brand identities themselves) can do good, be better, and be presented as such.

In the words of "The Sphinx" in the terribly corny film, Mystery Men, "We must be like the wolf pack, not like the six pack" to which the Shoveler replies, "Teamwork, yes!"

Good Design is Goodwill Response

This reading is not at all what I had expected it to be. I kept waiting for it to talk about goodwill, but instead it seems like a tutorial on the field of design as a whole. But, I did find it interesting that it discussed a topic that we in class talked about a few Mondays ago.

It is true that there is this love and hate relationship between the designer and the infinate number of people that have their input on a single design. There are always committees, marketing groups and of course management spewing out their ideas and opinions. Sometimes this can be beneficial, but on the other hand it can be extremely frustrating. My personal experiences in advertising were very frustrating for me because I had to deal with management who micro-managed and changed EVERYTHING the design team did. My frustration had nothing to do with not being able to constructive critism, I welcome that, but I hated that the management had absolutely NO design or art background.

I realize this is one of the obstacles that a designer must face when entering the work force. And I wish I had been better prepared for that experience, I had no idea what it was really going to be like. So although the reading was not what I had expected, I think it was something important to read and think about for those who are graduating soon and entering the design world.

"Art is the best means of propaganda"

I believe art is a very good means of propaganda and more specifically design. Design sells a product and if it communicates to the viewer in the way the company was hoping, their product will sell. So doing good design is very important in today's culture.

The most interesting part of this reading, for me, was the history of design and where it started. I thought it was interesting that design was first thought of as "decoration- a legacy of the past." And how design was considered ' a woman's job,' where the men took care of the business obstacles and the women "decorate." This was very interesting to me just because I never though of design as just decoration. So that helps me realize how much the design industry has grown and developed.

"To many designers, art/design is a cultural mission in which life and work are inseparable." This is a great point that Rant made. Today you have to create everything towards a certain individual in today's society. You have to connect life and means of life to what you create and work on. They need to collaborate together to create a design/artwork that will fully communicate to the people or industry.

For Fun: Paul Rand's Eye, Bee, M poster at the end of the article was really cool. I am a little slower than most people and it took me a few seconds to realize what it was saying ("eyebumblebeem"..."OH! I B M") and then I laughed out loud!!!

Total Rant

This reading was interesting but I did find much in it for me to take away because it felt to me like it was making design this over glorified field in which all the planets must align for everything to be perfect, but I did enjoy how the article talked about the history in how the design field as we know it was started and how design and product have to come together in the perfect balance for the company and the product to do well.

What I took from the article was that things must be designed accordingly. If something works well but does not appeal to a certain level of quality then no one will want it no matter how good it looks. Then on the other hand it can be beautiful to look at and not work at all but no one will care about how beautiful it looks if it does not work well. Everything has to come together to make it work.

Designers have to consider how people will respond to it by knowing the basics of human behavior. For example, it is best to design a product that will respond the best to the human body and that will make people feel that it will make their life easier. Then when you start dipping into that power are we being deceitful, no we should use these basic understandings and needs of human beings to create products, solutions and companies that create for the greater good. Who really needs another drill but when it is a drill that has taken into consideration the weight in one’s hand and the curve of one’s palm. Why not have the most comfortable and the easiest to use?

The major dilemma in the life of a designer in which they need to decide what they want to design. Who needs another Coke or another T.V., no one but designers find ways to present that we do. Round and round we go where we will stop no one knows. Designers could design things to better suit our souls other than our needs. What do we need? To stop isolating ourselves? To speak out? To clean up? What is it that we really need?

I do not know how I got to talking about this and I know this is not related so much to the reading anymore but this is what is on my mind after that reading. The idea that every aspect, reason, and talent needs to align just right and we have to know ourselves well enough to discover what we will do with this cosmic power.

In Response to : Good Design is GoodWill

As I was reading this very interesting section by Paul Rand, I began to highlight some very specific portions that I really identified with very much.

For the past couple of weeks, we have been working in groups to bring to full fruition our specific projects. Although, we have been working very dilegently and things are slowly but surely coming along, there is one particular sentence in this reading that has finally givin me the clear expression of how I wanted to communicate my thoughts on working in groups.

While, I am an individual who is able to work in groups and individually, I do enjoy exploring things on my own as well. This class has been a very amazing experience thus far, truly it has, and my group are dynamic people who will do wonders in the world but now at this point in time I think I want to explore some things in design for myself.

In this reading, in about the 7th paragraph it says, qoute.." Design is a personal activity and springs from the creative impulse of an individual. Group design or design by committee, although occasionally useful, deprives the designer of the distinct pleasure of personal accomplishment and self-realization. It may even hinder his or her thought processes, because work is not practiced under natural, tension-free conditions. Ideas have neither time to develop nor even the opportunity to occur. The tensions encountered in original work are different from those caused by discomfort or nervousness.--end quote--

When I read this I thought...wow! Absoultly, brilliant...design is very personal and I came to that conclusion this weekend! I wonder if someone would agree or disagree with me....and while it is very important to understand how to work in groups etc. in design it can be a distraction to the individual's personal art that they are trying to communicate with the world, it is their personal sense of identity, and it is their personal self-expression that creates a world of things beyond anyone's imagination. Collective is cool( not that I don't think groups can make extreme impacts--its done all the time) but personalization is priceless...

Eight Principles

It's entitled "Eight Principles for Having Fun" (or something like that...) but I think it just as easily could be... eight principles for living well, eight principles for designing with integrity.

It was shared with me and I thought I'd share it with you, not only do I appreciate what is being said, but I like how they've said it.




http://www.eightprinciples.com/

AIGI/Sheppard fairey

If you know who Shepard Fairey is, or would like to find more out...look em' up, he's got a few works of course you will know.

his show will be up awhile at the Cicinnati Contemporary Art Center. To find more info....

http://contemporaryartscenter.org/ShepardFairey

His work will be up Feb 20th-Aug 27th

p.s.

Shep knows how to own a dancefloor IN A MUSEUM

Ryan, Megan, and I had a blast!...all our welcome to ride along next big thing

Art & Copy

Hey guys! Chitwood and I went to a CSCA event & watched a preview for this movie that will be playing at Studio 35 February 27th & 28th at 4:30 PM. I HONESTLY can't think of anything more perfect for us all to do. Not to mention they serve beer & tickets are $5.50.
Here's the trailer:

.

"Creative people rise up! They can't do shit unless we make ads for them! WE should be in charge!"

I'm definitely going to be there so let me know who else is in!

Too stylized?

Is this too stylized? Once this snow clears i'll buy ton more of laminate and sticker paper.

Human Progress

On Thursday night I started to work on the graphic for our group's poster. I created an illustration showing a general scene of people standing in a line to accompany the text, and then 2 steps of action to be put at the bottom of the poster:

Please let me know what you think, there is plenty of room to improve on this design!

Originally, I saw it as having three "steps in the illustration, but upon making the second and thinking of what to make for the third, I relized that the simplicity of there only being 2 steps made the poster even more effective, almost as to say "it's that simple, you turn around(1) and meet someone(2)." Other ideas for the graphic include the man who turned around facing the man behind him and producing an empty speech bubble, rather than the two hands about to form a handshake.

What do you think?

http://www.refresheverything.com/index

Heard about this on the radio and wondered if it is anything that would help our projects.. to get funding for projects like ours is a huge advantage! I don't know if it is something that would help or even work or not but thought I would throw the idea out to the class!

OUR Voice....OUR Story

As my group has continuosly stated thus far, our group has decided to focus on financial aid issues that many student face here in the ODU community. While thinking about our group project I decided that I would share my story with you all as it relates to showing why this is such an important topic.....

In the Fall of 2008, I decided to get the "full college experience" and live on campus. Interesting, I must say. Not to mention that I was paying about $600.00 a month out of my own pocket because I apparently did not have enough finanical aid to cover all my expenses. Ok, so I worked full-time at Giant Eagle at the time and I also had to have another job as a paid intern to cover everything I needed as a college student and just as a person period. So, tuition out of my pocket did not cover my cell phone bill, car insurance, gas, and supposedly it covers food but the cafeteria closes at like 7:00pm and; therefore, getting off of work every night at 10:30pm was not the most helpful but I had no other choice.

In the meantime, while trying to be a good student and receive good grades, I was very depressed. I was not happy and every event on campus I could not attend because it was in the middle of the day when I had to work. I often went to class tired, and unattentive. I realized that if I did not change something then I would put myself at risk for "taking a break" from school. My banking account often became negative because the payment plan they had me on would never give me a break. I went to the business office several times to explain my situation but no one showed mercy.....wonder why...could it be because they all have their degrees already?

It is good to hear that other students struggle with this and that many are willing to gather up and make a change. My parents can not afford to pay for my college education but their income still reflects on FASFA as well, which this part of the system also needs to be reformed (but that would be much more Nationally).

It is not a down talk on ODU....instead it is a challenge. If we are to truly be an institution that "contemplates on truth".....then it starts with OUR voices.....OUR stories....

--Here is my voice...Here is my story....
Britt.

Paying for College

My group is working on better financial aid assistance to help pay for college. We realized that everyone has a difficult time paying their way through college. Either they are worried during their college years or after when they are trying to figure out how to pay off the loans that don't go away.
We have a financial aid office on campus but our group agreed that those who work in the office have made our experience a unpleasing one. So, the point is to first get a consensus on how students are paying for their tuition and how worried they are about it. Once we can figure that out we can figure out what kind of help the students might need. Maybe they need to know where to go for some more help than just FAFSA because we all know that FAFSA is not as helpful as it supposed to be.
I hate to say it but the one thing that is supposed to help determine students financial need for school does not help at all. On paper a student is looked at their parents income even if they are not receiving any help from their parents. My parents were not able to afford to help me with my tuition but yet I had to put their income in for aid when it should be based on my income because I was the one struggling with paying my own way.
So, the point of our project is to help students out in the sense of acting as an extra person to help them figure out how they will pay for schooling. So, we want students to know they are not alone.

I'm troubled...

So I went home to the gorgeous city of Akron, Ohio for the weekend. My brother is in town to visit family in celebration of his birthday from Texas. Here is my attempt to try and sum him up: 23 (going on 24) years old, tall, white, male, graduated from a liberal arts college in 2008 studying English and Creative Writing, now works for TD Ameritrade, voted Most Pessimistic in his High School Yearbook, is ALWAYS right, never listens to any one's opinion, and not an ounce of compassion in his body.


I can't understand how he graduated with an English degree and still doesn't seem grasp some of the concepts I do. So you guys can understand a bit, we were talking about Haiti, and he says, "I don't understand, if there was an earthquake in America, no Haitians would be here helping. Its all bull (yadda, yadda, yadda)."
I just can't seem to understand how my own blood could say such a thing. I've obviously learned to ignore him over the years, but what if instead of the job he has now, he were ghost writing for politicians? With his degree, he could very well do so. What is going on in his brain that produces such... ignorance? Hate?
How do we touch people, who seem untouchable? Unchangeable. Is it possible? I feel like his problem is not seeing people as people something that Theresa says often (which is quite beautiful by the way).


How do we design to change my brother?
Can we?

Student financial aid... I think Sheena summed up a lot of feelings of irritation a post or so below this. I feel irritated as well; I feel that with the amount we are paying currently, we should really be getting more or even a better quality of what we are getting now.

As a design major, we are currently working on outdated, slow, buggy computers that can't even handle programs that I would really be interested in getting into. I feel like I have not even learned as much as I should have as a senior, and my second year at ODU. This is mostly because of outdated computers, I feel that I will end up elsewhere after graduating to pick up other programs that the school cannot offer with the current technology.

Anyway I went off with a slight rant that I had to force myself to stop adding onto... I will probably discuss more during class.

What I feel about our project? I feel that it is something that needs to be brought up, that if students talk about this more, that they will be able to realize what they are really paying for. Students should really be paying attention to their current financial aid, and maybe somewhere there will be some kind of a reform... A reform where loans won't be so outrageous, that interest rates won't be so high, and maybe the cost of education will be more affordable because there are people right now struggling -- and there are a lot of people struggling -- to even be in college, only to have to struggle with debt later. I know I will be one of those people, I do know I have loans currently ticking per month, and another pile of them waiting to start ticking, and its something very stressful.

I hope our project does get somewhere, even if it starts off as a small whispering voice that will reach out to students.

For our current project, my group is focusing on financial aid issues that many student face here at ODU. Problems and issues concerning financial aid for higher education is something a lot of students here face, and something that a lot of other students at other colleges and universities all over the country face. Here is a sort of outline of what our group is focussing on:

What we need: Financial Aid Reform

Where we need it: ODU

Why we need it: Financial Aid for higher education is something that weighs on the minds of the majority of our students. Retention is down while tuition is up

How we are going to get it: Letting students know that their peers are facing the same financial problems that they are through a poster campaign, and petitions aimed at the financial aid office and policies. Our goal is to create an organization that will act as a peaceful and rational liaison between the student body and the University.


My group has decided to create and distribute a survey here on campus to get a better feel for how the vast majority of students at ODU feel about financial aid. Some of our questions will include:

1. On a scale of 1-10 (1being not worried and 10 being always worried) How much do you worry about being able to pay your college tuition? Either during your college education or after you have graduated.

2. How do you pay for your college tuition at present? (eg. Loans, Grants, Parents, yourself)

3. Have you ever talked to anyone in the ODU Financial Aid office? If yes how was your experience

4. Do you have an off campus job to help pay for tuition?

5. Do you have an on campus job to help pay for tuition?

Financial Aid Reform

This week as my group and I have been working on ideas to move our project concerning financial aid reform forward, I can't help but be severely irritated about the topic overall...

**P.S. Group we need to find actual statistics about how much students are paying these days at private and public universities and compare those to the last few years.**

So many times this week I have wondered, WHERE IS MY MONEY GOING??? As all of you know I am on my umpteenth degree here at ODU so I have certainly been around and paid my fair share of tuition. Not to mention my first degree in photography cost A LOT of money for equipment alone. But what boggles my mind, is that after graduating from a four year program I came out without a single loan and my tution paid in full. And here at ODU I cannot take more than part-time hours because I simply cannot afford tuition.

.... here is where I get irritated...

At OU we had state-of-the-art facilities filled with top of the line Apple Computers, huge Epson printers, 2 extremely large studios, and enormous dark room , 2 computer rooms, and tons of lighting and camera equipment we could check out to use.

At ODU we have a leaking gallery, worthess computers, and limited supplies. WHERE IS MY MONEY GOING?

I know I am not the only one who feels this way, students and professors alike are fed up. I am glad we are taking a stand and finding a way to say outloud what everyone else is thinking.

and also check out the Tips and Warnings on the How To.. funny to think of Warnings or What not to talk about when talking to strangers!!!

For the project Megan, Ryan, Teresa, Corey, and I are working on I decided to look further into communicating with strangers. Since this project is about recognizing those around you as people and treating them with the dignity all humans deserve, I thought it would be fun to find a way to help those who are more shy, such as myself, find it easier to talk to the people you don't know that are all around you. When talking about this project as a group, I knew it was going to be something I, myself, was going to struggle with. I am not the first person to strike up a conversation with strangers I stand in line with. To go forth on this project, I will be stepping outside of the box and hopefully gaining a new sense of confidence. In a way I am excited and I think we could all benefit from becoming more open and willing. Not only will this project make an impact on others but myself too, because I will we able to strike up a conversation with anyone around me and therefore creating confidence to talk to people you don't know in the workfield. I do get very shy talking to people I don't know so I am excited to see where this project takes me and it will be fun to read about everybody else's stories on the blog. I read through this How to.. and I thought it was silly to read about a 'How to talk to strangers' but suprisingly it might be helpful. Check it out and get ready to talk to the humans you share at least one thing in common with, not just strangers! Whether its in line for the bathroom, or maybe the post office, or even sitting next to someone on a bus, talk to them and find out what else you share in common. Goodluck, I know I will need it!!!

Here is a little help for those others that don't usually strike up a conversation with strangers:

http://www.wikihow.com/Start-a-Conversation-with-a-Stranger

Helvetica

Over the past few weeks in Design for Social Impact, I've noticed the love and respect many of you have for this typeface so I'm interested....

http://www.bustedtees.com/helvetica

Funny graphic design joke or total lack of respect for the most amazing typeface to ever grace a computer screen?*




*These are the times when I sincerely wish there was a sarcasm font!

Lost in Locality

Although I had a difficult time feeling lost in a physical sense, I found myself feeling very out of place while I was back in my hometown over the weekend.

Many of my friends from highschool are still there. I have many close friends there, but for the first time it has really struck me how different our lives are becoming. Many of them have decided that college was not for them and have moved into apartments around town. Our lives are starting to look very different. I found it hard to talk about a lot of things relating to school, and to the future.
For the first time, it became hard for me to imagine living in my hometown. I have kind of had this idea that I would finish school and move back, maybe get a place with some old friends and help my parents out for a while. Over the course of this weekend, that idea seemed to make less and less sense. My familiarity with this place, the people and houses, businesses and ways to pass time began to seem foreign, something I knew so well but could no longer understand. Barely anything has changed in the town since I and my friends have graduated high school. There are a few less of us, as we have began to spread out, but many remain. I however, was very different. I felt like I had traveled back in time, the present me hanging out with friends in the past. It was only a few weeks ago that I was in town doing very much the same thing, visiting friends and hanging out. But this time it finally was hitting me.
They have gone through much change of course, grown up a lot and experienced much I'm sure. But in many ways it was like they had been stuck in the film Groundhog day while I snuck out of the theater to have a cigarette or something. Very surreal. It was still a great time, but it made me question; how will my relationship with this place and those people change in the next few years?

LOCALITY

I tried on several occasions this week to get lost, and it was much more difficult than I ever anticipated. I feel that getting lost is a much more internal thing rather than external. I can go anywhere in the world and I will never really be lost, because I know that where I am, is where I am. If I am sitting in a corner, I know that that corner is where I am. If I am standing in an unfamiliar forest or neighborhood, I know that that forest or neighborhood is where I am. I am always aware of my surroundings, so therefore, I feel that the act of getting lost has more to do with the way we feel or where we place ourselves mentally and emotionally, than where we place ourselves physically. I can “get lost” in a painting I’m working on, or a song I’m writing.
I can “get lost “ in a book or an interesting film. That painting, or song I’m writing, or book I’m reading, or film I’m viewing becomes my world. Everything else around me stops. I am not concerned with my surrounding or the goings on in them. I am in my own world. I am lost in my own world.
We talked a lot in class last week about “being comfortable being uncomfortable.” I feel that I personally am comfortable being uncomfortable. I know that no matter where I am I will always be myself. When I first started thinking about locality, I thought about my hometown. I thought about the people, the sights, sounds, smell, traditions, and ideas. The more that I thought about it, the more I realized that the things I used to define locality were the things that I always carry with me no matter where I go. I carry the ideas and beliefs I gleaned from the people of my hometown. I carry the memories of the sights and sounds and smell and traditions of my youth with me. Therefore I can never really be lost. I carry my locality with me wherever I go. Home is where the heart is; my home is in my heart. So if getting lost is something I do mentally rather than physically,i cant do so in any locality, even the ones I know best. I can be “lost” in my hometown, my childhood home, in any city or town on the face of this earth. And on the other hand, because I am always aware of my physical surroundings and because I carry my home in my heart, I can also be at home in any city or town on the face of this earth. I can be lost and not lost in the same physical locality. Because of this fact, locality to me is more an idea or feeling, rather than a place on the map.

Does Locality have to be Physical?

I was frustrated at many ends in attempting to complete this project... I had no car and a busy week. I wasn't too comfortable just walking away from ODU and getting lost... as I'm sure we're all aware it's not exactly the best neighborhood around here. And when I was honest, ODU's not really what I consider my locality. Yes, it's where I am now and I do truly love it... but when I think about home and where I belong, I can't even put a physical place to it. I grew up in Upper Arlington and really loved most things about living there, but if someone told me tomorrow that Arlington no longer existed, I would be okay. The only place that really felt like home, was surprisingly a vacation spot. Every year my entire extended family spends the summer in Kiawah Island, South Carolina. Obviously to drive eleven hours to get lost there was unreasonable and likely impossible to accomplish in the time I had, I began to get really frustrated. Where IS my locality? Where do I feel like I belong, that I'm home? And I realized that for me where I belong isn't necessarily physical... I began to think of the comfort and sense of familiarity I feel when I enter into prayer and when I am with my family. And so I decided to lose myself in prayer, in the Scriptures and to sit back and observe my family at a deeper level than I usually do.
Now I finally came to this realization at the eleventh hour last night (actually at 1 AM after multiple trips to the laundry and time spent thinking, rethinking, and maybe a bit of frustrated yelling!) and grabbed my Bible, my journal and headed downstairs to Christ the King chapel. Everyday when I pray I follow the same path, I read the readings for the day, I journal on them, I read a chapter or two from a spiritual book that I'm reading and journal on that and on my life in general. So last night, I had to throw all of that out of the window so that I could really 'get lost'.
It started a little slow, I kept wanting to reach back to the safety of the books that I loved and knew well, Romans, John, Song of Songs, certain Psalms, Isiaiah, Job, Hebrews, Hosea, Corinthians... but I kept pushing myself to dive into ones that I didn't know as well Amos, Micah, Habakkuk, Haggai, Philemon, Titus and on and on... and I really did lose myself in the stories, especially those of the Old Testament. I discovered a lot, words that affected me in a profound way, passages that defended beliefs that I held dear but wasn't sure about their Scriptural foundation and I was reminded of the beauty and oneness of God... that a text written thousands of years ago can still speak to the human heart today.
I'm also a Charismatic Catholic, that means that I have a profound appreciation for the spiritual gifts of the Holy Spirit, a love for community and I enjoy praying through music. As I was reading I realized how much our songs are taken straight from Scripture and so I just started singing up on the altar, allowing myself to forget about if people could hear me or what they would think, or just how awful my voice really was... but to lose myself in total praise and worship of God.
It was beautiful. When I finally 'found' myself again, I saw that it was almost four in the morning... I truly got so lost in prayer that I was completely unaware of the time.
I was really appreciative of this experience, as a theology/philosophy major I often approach prayer with a very studious attitude, I have a set plan for what I'm going to accomplish and I do! But, losing myself in prayer was so rewarding, brought me so much peace and rejuvenation. It's definitely something I will do again!
Bear with me, as I am hanging out with my family for the Super Bowl and will post on my observings of them after that!

Locality

Lastnight- I drove back to my parents house in Wooster to see some friends and my dad on his birthday. The drive is about an hour and a half and nearly the entire drive I was thinking about what I would have to do to get lost. I thought about that feeling, of being lost. It's weird how some people react to it. I don't tend to worry about being lost unless I have to be somewhere at a certain time.

My thoughts about this seemed to keep coming back to the same question, "what is being lost?"

If you set out with no destination, can you even get lost? But, I left for a specific city, and a specific home, one that I know very well how to get to. If you are thinking to yourself, 'all I have to do is keep driving north and east and I will get there, it might take longer but I'll still get there,' or 'Once I stumble across a main road I will know where to go,' can you consider yourself lost? I thought about this till it drove me nuts and I began to loose faith in the english language and our ability to communicate ideas.


I began to question:
are you lost if you do not know what direction you are going? If you don't know the name of the area you are in or the street you are on? If you have no frame of reference to determine the next step?

I started thinking about how the dimension of time factors into it. Are you ever 'lost' and not just 'delayed in getting to a destination?' What is your locality when you are lost driving, does it extend to only to the exterior of your car because that is the extent of your familiarity and interaction? If you become lost for days on end on a hiking trip- are your friends' worries about you part of your locality or seperate distinct localities? Is your locality what someone else defines, or is it yours exclusively in sense that it can never be expressed or experienced by anyone else.

All of this got me thinking about how each individual person has a unique response to every word and eventually, I began to question proper nouns.
I contemplated the idea that there are in existence, in an abstract but very literal way, a number of each "individual" too big to comprehend . For every person that has ever met any given individual there is a definition of that person.
Ryan Chitwood is: this guy in all my design classes that I've worked with in groups and experienced critiques with, someone I've known since the 9th grade who I make music, go skateboarding and enjoy chinese food with, someone I've known since the 10th grade who I make music, go skateboarding and enjoy Jim Jarmusch films with, this guy I met at a concert, the seventh customer I had today.
All of these 'definitions/localities' are true. I think I began to understand a little more the idea that "The map is not the territory," and how it applies to so much more of our lives and our localites. There can never be a complete map, record or history of anything that does not include everything in existence.

I would love to hear peoples' answers to some of these questions, even if they're, "You are just talking gibberish"

Locality

Not originally being from Ohio, I find myself generally lost most of the time. When I'm not on campus or the general route the school's shuttle takes, I'm usually confused of where I am; especially since I'm more a visual marker person. As for getting lost, I tagged along with two of my friends who needed to do some general shopping errands. It was after dark, and I was in the back seat of the car with music blasting, unable to hear my two friends sitting in front clearly. We had started off by going to Michael's to pick up something for a class, this was near the Easton area, and in the dark it was generally hard for me to identify the roads around it (again, being a visual marker), but I had known where I was. We left that area soon after to stop by somewhere else. I tried to see if I could point out if anything looked familiar, as I did not know where exactly I was going, but I continued to stare out the window, not being able to hear either of my friends sitting in front of me. It surprised me that something simple as going to a store, even with two people that know where they were going, made me feel lost. It's those familiar things and places that made you realize you know where you were, and when they're not there, you're lost.

I had then really thought about the place I was familiar with, which is my dorm in this case. Right after the errand run, I ended up in my room to work on a project, but then I just examined the things in my room. In the long run I ended up cleaning around, only to find things as I went through a box. A few old drawings, books, even a packet of oatmeal. Each item I could link with a specific moment or a location where they came from or where I was when I received them. I was in my room which was my current physical location, but these random objects brought up a memory of location (or event).

My locality, purposely getting lost, and really examining familiar things made me think into my location, how places and things made me feel, being lost, confused, or familiar. Actually taking the time to think of where you are is an interesting experience.