the perils of

My dog-themed business card did pretty well in last week's design class contest. It did so well that it got me an exemption for 1 out of 3 submissions this week! Yay! This week we we had to do 3 poster designs for either Ibong Adarna, El Filibusterismo, or Noli Mi Tangere. The catch is that one poster needs to make use of photomanipulation, one makes use of only graphics (i.e. no photographs), and the last one has to be based off an actual historical poster. I picked Ibong Adarna because I figured it was the easiest to represent, and I chose not to do the graphics-only poster, since I suck at illustrations. Initially Sir Marcelo made us submit the 3 posters on the day that he announced the assignment, but fortunately he was nice enough to push the deadline back by 4 days. Thank God. I was so busy studying for my Saturday Physio exam that I would've totally ignored the design project (because I am determined to give  my 110% to Physio).  Buuuuut because Saturday w...

This week in my Basic Design class, we had to make three calling cards: one for ourselves, one for a friend, and one for an existing business. The only guideline: your card has to represent the personality of the person it's intended for. We were taught the basics of color theory and, for the first time, were allowed to use color in our plates. Really exciting! Even better was that we were allowed to use Photoshop instead of just Illustrator! Squee! I felt like a bird being freed from its cage. Anyway, here's what I came up with: This is my personal calling card. The front flap has a cuddly little dog on it. When you lift it, you get a view of its mouth (which isn't as cuddly), with my name spelled out in dog treats.  I went with this design because, obviously, I like dogs. My original idea was that the dog's tongue was something you  could pull out to reveal my contact details. The flap idea that I went with was Rap's, although he had warned me in a...

I just got back from Eastwood with Rap where, obviously, we watched Pacific Rim. Rap has been excited about this movie ever since he first heard of it because 1.) it has giant robots 2.) it has giant monsters and 3.) it has Charlie Day. And for me, my first thoughts after seeing the trailer were 1.) that it was just another robot movie 2.) that it was just another monster movie and 3.) that Rap would want to see it. Okay, I'm really tired from a day of Physiology so I'm just gonna cut to the chase. If you haven't seen the movie yet, proceed with caution because I'll be posting spoilers. Oh wait, there can't be any spoilers because the plot is predictable as hell. But more on that later. THE GOOD: It's directed by Guillermo del Toro of Pan's Labyrinth fame. By this fact alone, it follows that... The visuals are amazing. Everything looked real, and the little details that were put into the movie were perfect. The robots aren't shiny and new; th...

Last night I went to the launching of Manila Noir , an anthology of stories told against the backdrop of (yup you guessed it) a dark and sinister Metro Manila. The book is the result of a collaboration between various Filipino writers, the most easily recognized one probably being the likes of Lourd de Veyra. And it was edited by  the  Jessica Hagedorn. Jessica Hagedorn isn't one of my favorite authors of all time, but when I received word that she would be coming to Ateneo, I just had to be there to have my three-year-old copy of Gangster of Love signed. I had read the book to fulfill a requirement for Lit class under Max Pulan, and I loved it. It was all sorts of twisted and funny, and after reading it I was certain of one thing: Jessica Hagedorn is one weird chick. Anyway, at the end of the talk I was lucky enough to go home with a freshly-autographed old copy of  Gangster as well as a pre-autographed and newly bought Manila Noir. National Bookstore was selling c...

As evidenced by the grades I'm getting in my basic design class, I still haven't gotten the hang of basic design. *sigh* Anyway,  yesterday Mr. Marcelo taught us how to play around with text to make them look like images. Here's what I produced: Still not awesome at Illustrator, but these things take a while, I guess.