Weekly Update - Britt's Beautiful Face

Well how about that, I passed 100 blog posts and didn't even realize it! Boy, time flies. I remember starting this blog way back in 2011, when I was nothing but a bright eyed digital media student (an English elective at the time), writing posts about the seven deadly sins in media and what top ten CDs I would take to a deserted island (the answer: an iPod and a solar-powered charger – duh). I have become incredibly driven and writing this blog and can't wait to share the next 100 posts with you (starting with this one!)

Music: Timber Timbre
It's not very often that I find music to match my mood. I do try, but it often ends up being that I fall asleep on the subway listening to shuffle, and am rudely awoken by some sort of trap remix or other. This morning was not the case. I ended up waiting almost an hour in the rain for a TTC bus (yes, I know your hearts bleed for me) and happened to not feel so terrible about the whole situation because I had found the most perfect soundtrack for waiting for a bus in the rain. And that soundtrack is comprised of the musical stylings of Timber Timbre. Four men out of Bobcaygeon, Ontario come together to create a somewhat melancholy, weird at times, and overall very interesting form of music. Wikipedia describes their sound as "freak folk," but I'll let you decide what you think. And if that's not enough, the song below was featured on an episode of Breaking Bad.

Not to mention, they're part of my ongoing research for Wayhome.

Accomplishment:
I have been working away on the Wolf Parade infographic, and I'll have you know that a very lovely version of Britt Daniel's face now exists on my hard drive (tomorrow, the world!) If you really want to see it for yourself, take a gander at those full lips.

I've also taken some time to make a logo for a family friend's upcoming bat mitzvah. Can you tell she's really into sports? My biggest accomplishment was probably finding a free font that looks similar enough to the Blue Jays font without infringing on any copyrights.

Pretty festive, am I right?

Goal:
Now that I've started in on the cultivation of these beautiful faces, I feel like I have the ball rolling. I'd like to get another one done tomorrow, and a third on Wednesday night. I'll be on a company retreat all weekend (lucky me) so there won't be any precious Sunday space like there has been in the past two weekends. Oh, how I already miss my sleep-ins!

While I'm already sitting at a computer tomorrow, I'd also like to refresh my carousel images. Right now, I have these four:

• What's Your Beef
• rEVOLution
• Objects of Desire
• Expo

I think I'm going to swap out rEVOLution for Death by Numbers. My only concern is whether the image itself is eye-catching enough to work statically in the way the images work now (underlaid with type). In any case, rEVOLution's photo is really low-res and I probably shouldn't have used it in the first place. Out with the old, in with the new!

Random Thought:
Time. We're all pretty much slaves to time, which is the least tangible concept I can think of. And what is our physical representation of time? Well, obviously it's a clock. Everyone has one in their home (except for really, really smart people), and most of us check the time an infinite amount of times per day. As someone raised in the 1990s, I find that while I am an indisputably visual person, I am more comforted by the digital readout of a clock in numbers (##:##) than by an analog clock, which is decidedly more visual. Why is that? Shouldn't I be drawn to visual representation because I am a visual learner? I know I was raised on the digital clock, but surely that can't be the entire reason for my love of its blinking colon and seven-lined figures? There must be something else at play here. Could it be possible that the analog clock, in all its glory and history, is not an ideal visual representation of time? And on that note, since time is only a theory and not a tangible substance, is it even possible to create a visual representation of something so abstract? I maintain that the appearance of an analog clock and its little ticks moving around a circle are actually not a perfect visual representation of time. Now, you may ask me, then what is? Well, I haven't gotten that far yet. I know a lot of people have tried to improve the visual structure of the clock as teller of time, and I don't think anyone has quite succeeded yet. And now a clean segue into...

Inspiration: Analog Water Clock
We are constantly attempting to take time, an abstract concept, and fit it into the realm of the visual. Of sight. But we don't see time, I'd venture to say that the human sense most related to time is that of touch. We feel time, we experience it. Therefore, I bring you the tactile (and audial) alternative to visualizing time.



As the water pours from one vessel into the other, the two sound-making pieces come closer and closer together until they chime musically to awaken the sleeper. No snooze button on this one. I think my favourite part of the entire thing is that the ritual of filling the vessel with water before sleep is a natural way to ready your body for sleep. Over time, I imagine that the process itself may begin to induce sleep. As long as your body doesn't react to the sound of water flowing with a little flowing of its own (if you know what I mean) then this is a pretty interesting alternative to our little time conundrum.