A few weeks ago, I sat down and put words to my passion for graphic design.

You can download my statement in PDF form here.

Having lived in the US as an adult for three years now, I have noticed the huge difference between the way I feel and the way many other people seem to feel about interacting with foreign call centers. I think it’s exciting to talk with someone who has an accent and learned my language to be able to help me with a problem. I tend to feel less threatened than I might otherwise. And yet I hear so much from others about how frustrating and unamerican it is to outsource these services.  I decided to research American perspectives on international business service outsourcing and see if I could cut through the divisiveness and learn anything. I did!

Read the Paper

I also made a little visual aid. Now that I’m in an Illustration class, I would completely redo this by hand. But cheap and dirty got the point across at the time. I perceive that some Americans seem to view the rest of the world as an economic black hole — anything we send out is lost forever. I propose that we recognize a sowing and reaping principle at work. The more that nations freely give, the more there will be to harvest.

The typeface Helvetica was developed in 1957 in Switzerland. 50 years later, Gary Hustwit made a documentary that interviews typographers. Their feelings for Helvetica range from amorous to dismissive. We watched the documentary in class, and then redesigned its DVD packaging – twice. The pieces on the left are modeled after pure Swiss design: clean lines, negative space, alignment to grid. The right-hand pieces represent “Swiss with a Twist.”

I had seen this documentary once before, but its rewatching became for me a startlingly spiritual experience. As I saw letterforms in the limelight and listened to the overflow of the most typographic souls alive today, my thirst to actually design type was intensified.

It is something of a mystery to me how and why Jesus would create such a seemingly inconsequential arena as well as people to engage and redeem it — but there’s no question in my mind that He did. My suspicion, then, is that typography is not inconsequential, that in fact there are depths to be explored in this discipline that will lead to revelation of the character of God. If that’s true, sign me up!!

You’ll want to check out the PDFs for close-ups and to read my ‘critical review’ of the documentary.

For Research & Technical Writing class, I wrote a paper about vocational graphic design schools and how they do not adequately serve the upcoming generation of graphic designers.

For the record, I attend just such a school. I don’t wish I were elsewhere, but I would love to see some things change.

Read the paper

The following is a journal entry from Research & Technical Writing class, written after reading this interesting article about the social networking revolution. It also explains my recent Facebook absence.

This prompt comes at an interesting time: I have been completely off of Facebook for sixteen days, and my plan is to continue this hiatus for at least sixteen more. Just prior to my withdrawal, a Facebook app determined that I was only 51% addicted to the service. I agree with that; half of the site’s community seemed to be significantly more active than I. And yet, the talons of social networking do penetrate deeper than I knew.

The decision to go cold turkey occurred after an evening of half-baked scholastic effort, constantly interrupted by Facebook browsing. At this particularly busy season of my life, I need to stay very much on task in order to fulfill all of my responsibilities – even if that task is resting. Facebook had become a drone of low-calibre entertainment in my life, a sedative that I would draw on multiple times a day. Facebook was for the times that I didn’t feel one hundred percent motivated to do something else. I was tired of facing that beckoning portal of self-indulgence.

I turned off all email alerts and set my language to Hebrew. This setting, of course, both encrypts and flips the orientation of the oh-so-familiar page. Also, my new, unused password exposes the insecurities that lead me to hang out on Facebook in the first place — measures to ensure that I will not surreptitiously log back on in a moment of weakness. Nevertheless, my first thought the next morning was to whether or not I should hint at my interesting dream in my status update.

I wonder, why am I compelled to offer my thoughts as a commodity? Shouldn’t they be worth more? Perhaps people should have to pursue me in more substantial ways to gain access to them. I used to make an art of profile pictures and carefully conceive each status update. Why? I suppose I wanted to be pursued more, and faster. But now I see that I have not been pursued better in ninety percent of Facebook interactions. A couple weeks removed from my News Feed, I am sensing the freedom from grooming my online identity. If I must already fight the fear of how my immediate social circle perceives me, I cannot afford to cater to the ambient awareness of 300 profile-perusers.

The search for a healthy and balanced life usually demands reconditioning, and I have found it good to periodically abstain from the things I assume to be essential. Ironically enough, with my online shrine to self shut and locked, the competing sacred cow of identity-through-productivity arises. When can I fast from school and work? But that is another journal entry for another time.