Inside the WMC Fest auditorium, waiting for the lectures to begin.
My laptop is happily covered with stickers now.
I had the pleasure of attending Weapons of Mass Creation Fest with my college’s Graphic Design Club. Thanks to hard work raising money on the club’s part, and some much welcomed help from our Student Activities department, 9 of us, including our excellent and supportive instructor Kristy DeCastro and another cool faculty member whose name is failing me, piled into a college provided van and braved a 5 hour drive from Ann Arbor to Cleveland. Nothing brings you closer to a group of people than being trapped in a car with them for almost 10 hours. As always, a pretty good time.
Pal of mine tried chilling in the trunk of the van. As there were no seatbelts, that didn’t really fly…
2 and a half hours in (or something) to our final destination. Sure were lots of farms.
The crew from Washtenaw Community College’s Graphic Design Club meanders towards the Festival doors.
Despite only being able to spend a day at the Fest, I feel like I got a lot out of the experience. It was my first time being in an environment completely catering to creatives within the print design industry, and absolutely awesome to hear the viewpoints of established designers such as James White and Friends Of Type. Ultimately, everyone we heard speak repeated the same theme: do what you love, do it with integrity, fuck the haters.
I was personally especially stoked to meet a designer whose work I knew very well but never actually knew as the human being behind it. James White of Signal Noise was a blast to hear speak and seemed very personable. Being that I come from a, early design background consisting primarily of a lot of fangirl-ish fare, it was particularly cool to hear him discuss how much of his recognition as a designer was borne from the work he did non-profit, merely for his own enjoyment. I feel that creating work based on your creative whims and personal likes is a sort of creative catharsis. You should love what you do, and designing or writing or filming things that you love is such a huge part of developing a successful portfolio. Things like random posters for movies, illustrations of characters you like, random typographic experiments or short films about toy army men are a showcase of character, which is part of the package a potential client is buying into. Design…creativity is about expressing yourself. What’s the use of being a designer if you don’t do that?
Back to J. White, I felt some fangirl coming on, but hopefully I held it back well when my group intercepted him on his — and our — way out of the festival for pictures and handshakes. Good practice for if I ever manage to find myself in the vicinity of DKNG.
I’ve been feeling a bit out of the road trip loop for the majority of the start of this summer. Luckily Skyrim has filled the void. WMC Fest was a nice way to break up the doldrums and get moving again. I’ve always loved the excitement and purpose of travel, though recently I’ve decided I’d like to have a place to come back to, as opposed to constantly moving, as the majority of my life has been spent. As I learn to drive this summer, I can’t imagine why people who are licensed and can drive don’t constantly go on mini-road trips whenever they get the chance. …besides ridiculous gas prices of course. If I had full time employment and a car, this would likely be a Weekenders Travelblog, no shit. Being to Cleveland — (technically for the second time in my life, last time I was a teenager and we just stopped over in the airport, and I remember not being able to get the theme song from The Drew Carey Show out of my head) — felt like one small step in the general direction of connecting with something tangible in this field that I’ve chosen. I hope to embark on many more road trips with people I like, or even just solo. I want to take the elements of the world in and reinterpret them in my own image. That’s what designers do, after all. Isn’t it?
–FUNFACTS–
– Road trips are amazing
– But always bring food
– And a pillow
– Caffeine intake: %.10
– Sugar intake: %35
– Current TV show: Last thing I remember watching was ‘Outlanders’…
and I remember it being cool and boring at the same time.
– Song of the Day: I Told You So by Karmin
– Website of the Day: The Dumpster Project
Wet Cloud Media 