...Or how I spent my Summer Vacation

SO. I don't even know how to make an intro for this, because this idea is so awesome it might blow every one's minds. Or it might start a rage of copycats. Or everyone else will think it's lame and we'll still be having more fun than whoever is making fun of us. I don't know what's going to happen, but baby, it might be bad. And By bad, I mean good.Alright. So you know, I've been thinking about blogging for a while. I was resistant at first, but really I'm sure I couldn't think of anything rad enough to justify 'publishing'....Until now. Oh yeah, the other motivation for this is that I'm a design student who needs to like, you know, make design a bigger part of my life, so that you know, I can like, you know, obtain gainful employment in what I'm goin to school for one day. This is like BFA Review accepted right away sorta shit if I can actually get my shit together.

Making a blog about it is STEP NUMERO UNO (or is it admitting that I have a drinking problem? I kid, I kid.)

And I think for step two, I'd like to think that it's hiding this from my parents out of fear that they might actually find out how silly I run my life, but, uhhh they raised me...so that's out of the question...and I mean, when we lived in Reno at our house on Bitteroot Rd, our next door neighbor's 22 year old daughter was a dancer, and when my mom asked her mom "what kind?" she said "exotic"...so mom, I know since you're an Internet genius and a blogger of many colors yourself, read my motivations above (the part where I say I want to turn FUN into design experience) and just be glad that I'm not a stripper in Brooklyn, IL. Thanks.

Dad-- Just remember your radio days and trust that someday I won't be young and partyallthetimeyeahyeahyeah. Plus, you guys hang out with Ryan Donahue all the time, so in comparison maybe I'm not such a monger for fun, and to him, I'm not chill enough. Probably because of harebrained ideas like this, but probably not.

Oh yeah I feel like I should say something to my now ex-boyfriend too...If ever we find ourselves in a position to publish this, you're who I'm calling up to be editor. Not leaving you out on any bookworld Cha-chings! And to everyone that knows me and might blush if I refer to anything crass, blame it on my intense ADHD foot in mouth episodes, and then think about like, your grandma saying "fuck" or uhhh, maybe talking to your kids about sex or something like that to level with me on turning awkward moments or embarassing mistakes into funny stories you tell at dinner parties.

Ok, so this is all great and stuff, but I bet you're probably wondering where I'm actually going to get to the part where I explain in plain terms what we're doing. I'll make like an instructional animation (start storyboarding as soon as I'm done with this) and post it in a few days or like whenever I can get something crude enough up on you tube (I better finally create an account) then I'll post it.

You best be hittin subscribe, boy; cuz you in fo a WHILED WILDE WILD ride, and Rose Bland and I and whoever joins our crusade (logo idea! hint: it involves horseback riding and the fact that I watched Men In Tights today)...sorry... *clears throat and gets back on track* ...Rose and I both get to be Mr. Toad. And we're in it for the long haul. We also gotta figure out what the fugg our pseudonyms are gonna be...so many to choose from.

ALRIGHT ALRIGHT ALREADY, I'll stop screwin around.

Intro initiation sequence beginning:

As aforementioned, I'm a design student who takes some computer science classes and I'm never on time, but sometimes my racing brain gifts me with plenty of awesome and silly ideas, and Rose seems to operate similarly. She's also loyal, dedicated, and funloving-- she told me in reference to her 'FUN!' tattoo: "Now I'm fun forever!" --so, naturally she's the perfect partner for this to actually be something we dedicate ourselves to. More members of our collective will definitely emerge as our friends discover this, but we're the first to get excited about this, so we'll be the core members. Now that we've got bi-laws all established and stuff, sort of... I'll get to the point and put this mother in high gear.

This is our summer. We own it. We love fun. We love making stuff up. And we like to put pen to paper and hands to keyboard and whatever else we can get our hands on. We're both the kind of people who spend a good chunk of our time fucking around on the Internet and still feel like we're doing research for something that'll come into play at a later date. We love our friends real hard, live for keeping up with the dudes, and make up silly hypothetical situations that make us laugh so so so so so much, it's what fills our days, really.

When Rose and I were babysitting on my birthday, I explained to Rose that up until taking this Graphic Design Products class [taught by Jon C.] that I thought I hated naming things and making Logos for things.

In real life, and like so much of my life right now, I'm trying to rediscover everything I loved when I was a kid, so my interests and personality really truly reflect who I am and who I've been throughout my life.

When I went to Roy Gomm Elementary School in Reno, NV, I checked out so many books on kitties that I still know that the Dewey Decimal call code for books on Pets is 636. I also really liked to sing, so much that one time Santa brought me the same crazy colored karaoke machine that my parents bought me.

This might seem like I'm off base, but If you watch closely enough, I'll come around full circle. So I loved to sing and I always wanted to have a band. Since I didn't write songs or play any instruments for reals, I decided that it would be a cover band. I also really liked the Stray Cats because of "Stray Cat Strut" [which I sang a mean rendition of for karaoke ON my birthday last Monday...] and so I called my band the COPYCATS. The next thing I did...was make a Logo. This will also be posted very soon, because I still think it's pretty damn good for a third or fourth grader.

I'll tell you more stories about my childhood logos in later entries, but dude, I'm back in it, making logos for everything we do that we think might deserve a logo. This could get ugly. This could get ridiculous. That's not the point. The point is, that we will be making logos all summer. We've already made one for a drink that Rose made up and then I renamed. That will be posted too. I wish I had a scanner...anyone wanna buy me one yet?

This idea also sprang from a company here in St Louis that was my now ex boyfriend's dream of a potential employer (he applied, and was really really persistent) that I also secretly want to emulate or work with or for in some capacity because they absolutely rule. The company is called XPLANE and they use visual information to explain complicated business ideas, and I think that this summer of logos idea will really get me thinking like an information designer, and it'll be easy because we'll be silly and we're going to design things inspired by our fun, so it's a little less ominous and anxiety inspiring than actually giving myself fake assignments to expand my design portfolio. Yeah. I subscribe to their CEO's blog (I'll post it on the sidebar because I'm pretty sure it needs to be there) and it's pretty great, but we'll be like the young hipster party animal version of what they do. Sort of.

Alright, so now that that's established, I'd like to say that some of our logos will be bad. But you know, as the Dyson designer guy says about failed prototypes, they're totally necessary to make really shreddin' designs. We'll at least have a few good ones by the end of summer. And so it goes, shred the gnar dudes, I promise all my entries will not be this long, just think of it as me trying to talk you into the idea initially. That, and I don't have to be your favorite, Rose will probably write a much shorter intro of what she thinks we're doing, if she even wants to write about that...and then if that's the case, Rose can be your favorite. You don't have to like both of us, you just have to like FUN.

Logo ON Wayne, Logo On Garth. I'm out, I gotta eat dinner and take a shower.

Thanks for getting through all that, we've come a long way, baby.
HLD (pseudonym decided after I consult my colleague.)

Ps- In order not to clog this blog as I just did so well above, (ooh, I feel a logo coming on strong...blogclog!) I vow to use another blog of my own for my own silly stuff. Rose has already got one, It will also be in the Sidebar. So will our respective photohosting URLs. OH and I promise our blog will either look terribly designed or we'll just leave it on whatever defaults we can, so don't judge a book by it's cover.

Get in the mood! This is such a mess I don't even want to edit it. I'll call you when I make some logos for some jokes.