guerilla, not gorilla

week #7 entry #2 03/14 - 03/21: personal journal

pretty hair. (source: here)

I have been so inspired lately I could faint from excitement.  I ordered some sample shirts to silkscreen for my brand video/site yesterday and they came in the mail already! They're American Apparel, organic cotton.  They're super soft.  I just want to lay in a pile of them.  So, yeah, that's really exciting for me.  I thought that I would be bringing samples of all my designs around during lunch, but I have pretty much decided on the favorites.  I will be printing a bear design, the day of the week, the drift logo, a suitcases one, and an owl.  I also just got Photoshop and Illustrator in the mail, which is superb. I should have some final designs posted soon.

Today I went to the International Center of Photography (image: here) gift shop (I know, I have to get to the actual museam part, I just didn't want to drop $12).  It was the coolest store ever; tons of postcards with awesome photography prints, sick cameras, cool shirts, and great books.  Okay, it's about 100x cooler than I made it sound, but yeah it was great.  I also had to pick up The Guerilla Art Kit (image: here) by Keri Smith.  (Ms. Smith also has a really cool blog.)  The book is this excellent spiral bound book full of wonderful ideas to lighten up people's days with art, in addition to wonderful illustrations.  If you don't know what guerilla art is, here is a Wikipedia definition for you:

Street art is any art developed in public spaces — that is, "in the streets" — though the term usually refers to unsanctioned art, as opposed to government sponsored initiatives. The term can include traditional graffiti artwork, stencil graffiti, sticker art, wheatpasting and street poster art, video projection, art intervention, guerrilla art, flash mobbing and street installations. Typically, the term street art or the more specific post-graffiti is used to distinguish contemporary public-space artwork from territorial graffiti, vandalism, and corporate art.

So basically guerilla art is awesome.  The book includes some ideas to draw eyes on parking meters (image: here) or leave an idea dispenser in public and gives tutorials.  This book is full of enchanting ideas and I recommend it. I think that guerilla art/advertising is an essential part to the beginning of my brand.  Drift is whimsical and non-traditional, like i think a lot of guerilla art is.  I don't want obnoxious, in-your-face advertising, I want subtle, make-people-happy, lighten-your-mood/day advertising, if possible.  Maybe I can even just have drift kids do fun guerilla art projects for fun, to brighten up the community and I can blog about it? Hm... :)

I have much to do.  Over this two week spring break (Yay! It's spring break!) I will be going to New Orleanes to work for Habitat for Humanity, but when I'm not doing that I'll be editing designs on the computer and such.  There is much to be done over break like ordering stickers, making paper boats (more to come on that soon!!!), and preparing designs for shirts to screen the day I get back from break.  But in the meantime, I'll leave you a quote from one of the first pages in The Guerilla Art Kit. (image: here)