Sketching @Jougert bar

A month ago I was going to meet my Taiwanese friend who I haven't seen since graduate (5 years!) in Jougert bar. It was a little bit chill in the afternoon and I was sitting in the shop with the short. The shop owner, Robert, asked if I want the door closed and have a hot tea. My friend and I had a good time in this cute shop. BTW I'm a huge fan of greek yogurt! I have greek yogurt almost every day!

Then I came to this shop again by myself and just sit down sketching. Robert saw my sketching and he really liked it. He asked if I could do some drawing for Jougert. 

Then I got really sick in the next week, busy at design event in the following week, then....lots of things postpone it...lol. Finally I spent two hours ideating based on the yogurt cups they offer and did the different versions of drawing.

Colored version  - 

I'm glad he loves it! :-)
He gave me a free large yogurt (Orange blossom) as reward. Hehe 

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Dance - Free the authentic you

I LOVE dancing especially street dance such as HIPHOP, HIPHOP Jazz, Burlesque Jazz, House and Dancehall (Reggae). I'm not a cool kid started practicing dancing since I could walk; I began to learn HIPHOP groove when I was studying in the university in Taiwan (NTHU). I don't have talent in dancing so it took me so much time to make my body move like "dancing". 

The main reason I liked about dancing at that time is that it freed me from the stress while focusing on body movement. My mind was occupied with the music rhythm and really paid attention to control different parts of body. I like HIPHOP because it expresses my inner intense emotion (anger? lol)

At school's dancing club, I mainly learned from the more experienced students in the same club. But I feel I learn and improve much more in professional dancing studio. People might think it must be expensive. Actually, it's quite affordable in most of the dancing studios I visited: USD $11-16/ class. I saved my meal fee for dancing class haha

You don't need to be good at dancing to enjoy it. It's also not good just trying to be cool showing off your skill. You have to LISTEN to the music. Really Listen. People can see if you're true to yourself and music while you're doing freestyle solo. That's also the reason why I like people in the dancing studio. They are real.

I sincerely respected all the dancing teachers I met no matter what style they teach. Somtimes they would tell us the history, spirit, development of a specific dancing style and share his/her experience. Dancing is also the process of finding yourself; fuse your style into the dance; use your body to express the emotion; share and communicate with your dancing buddies; act according to the music and choreography even though you're shy inside. Once I took the Burlesque Jazz in Debbie Reynolds in LA, we had to wear high heals and put on red lipstick. While practicing catwalk, the teacher stopped the music and looked at me. "Are you a shy person?" he asked. I answered timidly: "I guess so." He said no matter what kind of person I am, I should express sexy side of a woman. I come from the relative conservative culture which people usually repress emotion and sexy may refer to slutty. I was scared and insecure and not used to walk with high heels. After several classes of practice and his stimulation (he would say "give me your eyes! teasing me! teasing me!" when he passed by me), I gradually allowed myself being sexy and enjoyed the feminine dance. 

Last week I went to Illadelph Legends of Hip Hop Festival Bay Area 2015 held by Embodiment Project. I was meant to help a girl filming the event and interview with the teacher and join some classes. The opening on Jun 25 (Thu) was about introducing the purpose of the event, teachers who traveled from different places to SF, and the history of HIPHOP. I noticed they talked a lot about the topic of racism and also expressed in the dancing in the performance on Sat night in Zspace. I have to say that dancing performance was one of the best show I've ever seen!! It totally blew my mind. Fluent and stunning dance, powerful storyline, great acting, and professional visual presentation made everyone stand up and clap after 2-hr show. I didn't expect the girl danced with me as a partner earlier in the House class was also the performer on the stage!! (I was flattered)

Dancing is lots of fun! Learning dancing might be frustrating sometimes but it's probably not your problem. Some teachers prefer show fancy stuff which intimidates people have no fundamentals. Below is the list of dancing studios I've been and I highly recommend:

Broadway Dance Center in NY

Debbie Reynolds Dancing Studio  in LA

Taiwan: MM (I've never been there but my friends teach there), MIX, DanceSoul

Let's go dancing!! :-D

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Chalkboard Art

When people ask what I'm doing in internship, I usually say different sorts of design: graphic design, environmental design, brainstorming ideas, sometimes even editing others' powerpoint which usually makes me headache... Anyway, I did something really interesting today and it's not confidential so I can share it here :-) Recently we're decorating our SF office and just embellished the chalkboards on the kitchen cupboard. We had a graphic designer made all the graphic and me, was the one drew on the chalkboard! (Graphic designer has already done two boards)

I thought the chalkboard handwriting in Trader Joe's were all done by chalk until today. Chalk markers make my life much easier. It can be wiped out by water so I don't need to worry about making mistakes :-p

It was fun at the first 30 min then my arm started to feel sore.... then my neck...

As people passed by, I always invited them to draw. But it seemed like everyone was quite afraid of screwing up probably because of the prevalent notion that it can only be done by designer / artist. I sincerely think everyone can draw and should enjoy drawing. It reminds me the typography practice I did in the first term in Art Center.

This one was done by pencil. NO OVERLAY. NO TRACING. It probably took 3-5 hours...?

There's still huge piece of chalkboard need to fill out tomorrow. Massage will be desperately needed after work.

-Will update the photos of whole view once finishes. 

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Woody

Previous article: Undisclosed Project
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Undisclosed Project

This is the personal project I made in 2012 and put into the portfolio for applying the US design school at that time. It never shows in my website and I never talked about it besides my family, and they thought it was stupid to knit a sweater for an iPad. I just thought holding the ice cold iPad was not quite enjoyable in the winter. The sweater can also provide the protection (slightly)! 

Anyway, recently I saw a really cool video about interactive "fur mirror" installation and reminded me this handcraft I did.

The first one I used knitting needles then I found out it was too loose. It looks sloppy and easily slips away from the iPad. So I decided to learn new technique - crochet.

It was much more work to finish one piece by crochet... but it was perfectly tight and stiff. Part of it still made by knitting needles to make it more flexible.

Honestly I really like this one but none of my family members appreciate it.

sigh

Design spree

I was pretty lucky to join this design studio tour hosted by Art Center College of Design business club. My last class in Singapore (MBA exchange program) was at May 24 and I dashed to the airport flying back to Taiwan, stayed for a weekend, and then took a light to SF on Mon. So the whole tour was totally in torturing jet lag. It was still an eye-opening experience.

Living in SF is never boring even though I did't really know anyone here. There were two big events in the first weekend of my internship - Maker Faire and Bay to Breakers! 

Maker Faire was huge and super crowded. It attracted geeks, families , designers,... basically everyone in bay area. It was like the combination of burning man (art installation), school carnival, music festival,  and trade show. I never saw this in Taiwan so it was pretty cool for me. As a product designer, I was quite interested in different sorts of 3D printers. I probably would get one instead of spending tons of money and time printing at school. 

One of my friends from the University in Taiwan invited me to go to Bay to Breakers. It is not a traditional marathon. It's the event inviting everyone to run in costume. It's exclusively held in this crazy city, San Francisco. HOWEVER, we didn't wear costume! (Ugh... I should have...) It was really fun to see how creative people dress up and some nude old men.... (Unfortunately we didn't see young nude guys or girls :-p I guess the cold weather discouraged them...)

SF design week had kept me busy for over a week! TONS of events - special guests talking, social, learning... with booze! Some of the events were free and some needed tickets (price varied). As far as I could remember, they were all sold out before the events started. In four events I went, I met some designers, photographers, entrepreneurs... 

As a leather work enthusiast, West Coast Craft is one of the favorite events so far!

Lots of handcraft studios from SF, Portland, LA, and even England exhibited their delicate artwork in Fort Mason. OMG I love it! But it's quite expensive for an intern... I would be broke if I didn't control myself.... 

I bought a bronze bracelet because I had a nice conversation with that artist who is from LA. Then I walked to Wasshington Square for North Beach Festival. The crowd was far beyond my expectation: crazy long lines in front of street food vendors, people with beer packed in the small square confined by fences, lots of handcraft stuff but the quality were not as good as the ones in West Coast Craft.

The next day I went to Haight Ashbury Festival with a friend. It was crowded too but the crowd was mainly dominated by hippies. 

First month in San Francisco

I came to San Francisco from Singapore (MBA exchange program) in late April for my first design internship in an experience marketing company, George P. Johnson. In my free time, I like to explore this city with my NIKON camera or sketchbook. This page will mainly show the photos I took in this month. 

Farmer's market at civic center every Wed and Sun

I have a strong tendency to adjust every photo into black and white. I guess it's the sadness inside of me. Actually I really enjoy living in San Francisco so I decided to keep a log of my life.

At least today.