Blog

Hello again, friends.

Apologies that it has been another long while since you've heard a peep out of me. I have been debating whether I should publish this post after writing it out for about a week now due to the fear that readers may misinterpret some of the content. However, I've decided that it doesn't really matter to me how you interpret it, therefore, here it is.

So...in the mood for another long, sappy, soapy blog post for the weekend? Read on.  :)

Long ago, in a galaxy far far away...


Okay, so it wasn't that long ago, but last October I wrote a tremendously long-winded blog post about my thoughts on whether or not an artist should bother going to college. Read that (if you dare) here.

In the end, I felt that the short answer was no.



Again, read the post for all of my thoughts on the matter, but the main reason is the tremendous financial costs and unnecessary amount of time that it takes. In the creative world, hiring professionals simply do not care if you have a piece of paper that says you studied art for 4+ years. They want to see results. Not a curriculum vitae.

As many of you may know, the internet contains a wealth of free information on just about anything. In the case of art--it is no different.

While there are certainly great paid resources on the web (usually costing far less than college), today I want to just point you to some free ones.

Everybody likes free stuff right?


So without further ado...

Hello, fine sirs and madams of the internet.



Long time no-see.

For those of you who don't know, this is my first blog post since the end of October. Shame on me, I know. Why did I stop posting all of the sudden for an extensive period of time?

Well...

Last week I had to skip my weekly blog post in favor of completing a rather substantial assignment from my baseline video production class on time. Rather disconcerting, however, was the moment late in the evening of Tuesday when I was putting the finishing touches on my video that would be due in the morning, I received an email from my professor that class is cancelled and the due date would be extended until the next class period five days later (tomorrow, at the time of my writing). Normally I take smug pride in the fact that I can pull-off a pretty nice completed project at the 'last minute'. But this time, the joke was on me.  It was nice to know that it was finished, and I wouldn't have to stress about it anymore, but I still felt somewhat slighted for having to rush and crunch on my so-called four-day weekend.

But this makes for a nice segway into my chosen topic for this week: should you, as an aspiring artist, go to college?

I am still struggling with this question myself. Everyday.

No doubt many of you are already past the point in which you'll be making this decision, but here are my thoughts and insights as someone who has already spent more than two years of his life in college. If you are someone who is confronted with this decision, or is already in college and questioning the decision like me, or even if you are someone who has already either graduated or skipped the whole college experience and is looking for external affirmation for why they made the decision that they did--read on.

DISCLAIMER: major soapbox-standing ahead.

Reasons to Go

Learning

This is the number-one reason, as an artist, that I chose to go to college. Before going to college, I quickly found in my preliminary research that rarely do artists get hired in the professional world because of a degree listed on their résumé. Employers may not even bother looking at your résumé at all. What they really care about is your portfolio. Your portfolio, and your work ethic.

I didn't begin college as a an artist of innate prodigal talent. Whatever measure of skill that I have today is the result of a lot of practice from 'ground zero' that only started flourishing in my first drawing class of my very first semester of college.

Maybe you have raw talent.  The need for an education still applies to you.  Sure, you can pretty much "Google" any information that you could get in a college setting.  But that doesn't mean you will Google it.  The only reason people search for information is because they see the need to do so, for whatever reason.  What you learn in your college courses is a curriculum created by educators for a reason.

Here is an excellent example that I can personally attest to: art history. I can't stand studying history. I find it unfathomably boring. I tell myself, "Why on earth do I need to go through two courses in art history as someone studying illustration for conceptual design in the entertainment industry?"

The answer became more and more apparent as I progressed in my coursework: I learned a lot. I learned a lot about architecture, sculpture, and more that created the distinctive identity of past cultures and civilizations. This is information that will inspire and be infused in my work for the rest of my life.

Learning about things that you may not see as important will make you a far more well-rounded individual, and artist. All of your 'generals' or liberal arts courses will have an unforeseen influence on your creative work. Even math.  ;)

Self-Discovery

This is for many, this is the main reason for going to college in the first place. If you aren't sure what you want to do as a career path, college can be an excellent place to start. But I would caution that this is only taken so far as the reason for being in college. Of you go into college not knowing what career path you want to follow, your immediate duty is finding that out right away. To do this, take a diverse variety of subjects in your first two semesters. Find out what you truly enjoy, and pursue it with vigorous passion. You might change your mind after not too long--I have.

One of the most-asked questions that get thrown at you before and during your college life is "What is your major?" For me, I would initially just answer: "Uh...Art."

After not too-long I started to specify illustration/concept art as my field of study. For my first two years of college, I would generally give this answer while I would take my generals and art electives towards an Associate in Arts degree at a community college with plans of afterwards transferring into a four-year college/university. When the time came to choose a transfer-college, I found myself looking for a college that had affordable tuition that offered a bachelor's degree in illustration...and film production.

That's right, film production. Why? I still answer that question like this: "I just want to get into the entertainment industry." This is my broad goal. My immediate objective is to be a concept artist for a film or video game studio. From there, perhaps move up to an art director position or what have you. I want to work in the entertainment industry because that is what love to do. And that is the primary criteria that I would recommend anyone use when deciding on a career--not money, or job availability. Do what you love. But that's another blog post.

Key point being, college is a great place to discover the specifics of what you love doing, but if you never progress beyond that you may become what some call a "professional student"--someone who is in college for an unduly amount of years, acquiring many degrees, always changing their minds, never moving on.

I would not recommend being that guy/gal. I think that it would be very unfulfilling in the end. Plus, college is really expensive, so unless you're rich--you'd be looking at astronomical debt.  And for what? But I digress.

The Experience

The college experience. Highly coveted and highly glamorized, but also somewhat overrated.  So why am I listing it under reasons to go to college?

I'd call this the "invisible education" or "the invisible hand" (similar, but unrelated to Adam Smith's economic principle) that guides you through that point in your life.

Whatever do I mean? Well, during the typical age that one attends college--those years are the most important years in forming your identity as an adult, as a professional, and as an individual. What you do in college will arguably form you as a person stronger than any point in your life. In my opinion, even more than adolescence.

This includes the people that you choose to associate with (friends, faculty/staff, etc.), the activities that you choose to participate in (sports, student organizations, jobs, volunteer work, etc.), courses you take (as stated earlier) and when you take them, financial decisions, life choices, and much much more.

Choose wisely, but step outside your comfort zone. Take risks, but be smart about it. If you don't like the atmosphere you've created or got attached to--shake things up. Do what is right, no matter how painful.

Networking

College can be an excellent conduit for networking. Most faculty, staff, and administration a college/university are connected with professional resources that could land you an internship, which can lead to an entry-level position, and beyond.

In this way going to college is a sort of "old-boy" network. Sometimes it may be that an instructor knows somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody who might be able to find you an internship, freelance work, or a position within a company.

You never know.

But whether you go to college or not, making yourself visible to potential employers is hugely important. Tap into social media, go to networking parties, and self-promote whenever and wherever possible. And do so with tact.

Reasons Not to Go

Cost

By cost, I'm referring to the costs of time, effort, and monetary expense.

I think everyone knows that college costs a great deal amount of money, and for the average person this requires a mountain of student loan debt. Especially private art schools, which can run well over $30,000 per year for tuition alone--not counting hidden fees (which are many, mind you), living expenses, travelling expenses, textbooks, other supplies, etc.

As jobs in the creative field don't typically pay very well (a huge societal flaw), I would boldly say that the financial costs of college, for an artist, are not worth it. Especially the astronomical rates of a private institution.

It would literally take you a lifetime, as we know it, to pay-off that kind of debt.

As mentioned earlier, employers rarely care about your education in the creative field. Your portfolio and work ethic sell you to clients--not a piece of paper that says you went to college to study art. It is the harsh truth that hurts me and inspires great doubt in me everyday. But it is a reality that you must take into consideration.

College should be way cheaper. It is something that I have advocated for since my very first year (where I was at an 'inexpensive' community college).

The time that college costs you is substantial as well. The average full-time student can acquire a bachelor's degree in 3-4 years' time. That is 3-4 years of either slowed or completely stifled portfolio development, entry-level professional experience, and client-base building. Instead, you might be in class/doing homework most of the time, and working a part-time job that has nothing to do with art in your "free time" and weekends.

That really seems like a waste of time to me.

Hand-in-hand with the time cost is the effort.  Some people treat students like dead-beat bums who have no job and all kinds of free time on their hands.  While this may be true for some, for most--it is a grossly ignorant and ridiculous assumption.

Here is a key difference between a full-time professional in the "real world" and a full-time student in the..."not(?) real world":

• A full-time professional gets paid to work.
• A full-time student pays to work.

Degrees Are Overrated

I have already iterated this point; several times, in fact. But I cannot stress it enough. Most employers DO NOT CARE that an artist has a degree in anything. Would you hire an artist to illustrate an important book cover based solely on the fact that they have a B.A. in Art with little or no portfolio to show (or a bad one)? Probably not. I hope not.

If a typical client were presented with the choice between an artist with multiple prestigious art degrees but a mediocre portfolio and an artist with no college education to speak of but has an excellent portfolio (or merely one superior to the educated artist)--the client will likely choose the latter.

The client wants to know that you can actually do what they want you to do...not how accredited you are.

If you have chosen to go the college route for any of the very good reasons that I have already given, you would be wise to try to build your portfolio and work on self-improvement outside the classroom. Sometimes this means that your grades will suffer.

At the end of the day, the student with a 2.5 GPA and a stellar portfolio is far more accomplished than the straight-A student with a 4.0 GPA and a poor portfolio. You are not doing yourself any favors by doing just what is required of you for coursework.

But then, if grades aren't really important--what is the point of spending your precious time and money at college? Exactly.

The Internet

Today, pretty much any information that you can have instructors cram into your head for thousands of dollars per year is available, free, at your fingertips via the internet. Best invention since the wheel.

Don't know how to draw well, and have nobody to teach you? The internet is your best friend. Don't know the square root of 64? The internet saves the day. Don't know how to start and maintain your own business? Internet to the rescue.

And so on, and so forth.

You get the point though right? Virtually limitless access to humanity's vast and growing accumulation of knowledge is available to you freely with access to the internet.

But here brings us back to the point of just what receiving this information at college does for you. Would you look up the difference between Greek high-classical era artwork and and the later Hellenistic artwork spread by Alexander the Great? How would you even know how to start? Or where? Or why?

Collegiate curriculum is carefully conceived, planned, and executed. It is a big reason why higher education institutions are still an integral part of society in this brave new "information age" that we reside in.

Conclusion

I think that I have made many strong points for artists to either go, and not go to college. Undoubtedly, there is a litany of points for both sides of the argument to be made that I have not listed, but these are the biggest ones from my perspective.

Those are the keywords here: my perspective.

This was a personal rant, so take it for what it is. I have given no accredited sources of my spouting, so if you find anything that I have said difficult to understand or believe--I highly encourage you to do your own research.

For all you know, I could be a crazy guy wearing a foil-hat just ostentatiously sputtering his opinions from a bomb shelter connected to internet via satellite transmission; surrounded by bottled water, pickled goods, and dry munitions boxes.

...yeah.

- Luke

Last week I left off on a [hopefully] provocative note when I made the analogy that "Inspiration is as important to an artist as a car is to a taxi driver. And we need to keep the meter running." This week I hope to elaborate on this point, as I believe that it is vital to understanding the complicated and somewhat whimsical creative process that artists and designers of all sorts have.

Creative block. We've all experienced it, artists and non-artists alike. From simply staring at a blank page or canvas, to deciding what improvements you can further make on a project that you are still discontent with. The creative mojo just doesn't seem to be there. As an artist, this is disconcerting at best; debilitating at worst.

There are several common factors that can cause this. It may be a stifling work environment, overworking, poor lifestyle choices, stress-inducing personal issues, and a litany of other variables. The most likely case is a nasty combination of several (or all) of the above. Let's look at each one closely to identify and remedy the problem.

Stifling Work Environment

This can mean several things.  For one, if your work space is sterile, dead-silent, and without visual decorum--there is little or nothing immediately around you that is helping ideas sprout in your head. For two, if you have co workers/employers that are dull, unengaging, unproductive, overly critical, and unconstructive--this will be a burden on you (and your creativity) and will also likely rub-off on you...making you that guy.

Solution:

Improve the atmosphere of your work space. Artists, designers, animators, musicians, writers, and other creative professionals are typically very audio-visual thinkers. And so, it's important to fuel this cognitive function with your surroundings.

• Put some posters on your wall, some figures, toys, bobble-heads, and statues on your desk(s)/shelves, life-size cutouts...--anything that you find visually interesting into your studio/office.
• Be bold and creative on how your work space is lit. If you just have some dull, typical room lighting like incandescent or *gasp* fluorescent light, it can adversely affect your mood and creativity. Try some colored lights, Chinese lanterns, Christmas lights, etc.
• Have music or ambient sounds playing.  Dead silence is highly destructive to reading, thinking, learning, and creativity. As a general rule of thumb, it's best to play something that's not very attention-grabbing (aka distracting) in the background, and at lower decibels. However, if you find that a certain type of music/sounds help you most--perhaps at higher volumes--go for it.  It's a personal thing.

Of course, this isn't so simple if your job requires you to travel, but then again, you are travelling. Find interest wherever you can. Visit landmarks, museums, and other points of interest. And bring music. Always.

As for the problem of less-than-helpful co workers, colleagues, and employers, there are a few moderate and extreme measures that you can take.

• Moderate: Take the initiative to reduce or reverse the effects of nonconstructive people in the workplace by personally facilitating better work practices amongst your fellow collaborators. Infect them with your passion, enthusiasm, ideas, etc. I would even go so far in bond-forming to engage them outside of the workplace. Offer to help them with personal projects, invite them to partake in weekend recreation with you.
• Extreme: If you know that your work-partners are causing a lot of unneeded issues that are adversely affecting your ability to accomplish your goals, then you may want to consider the alternative work options at your disposal. If possible and practical, you may very well need to shed the dead weight of your coworkers. I know such decisions are no light affair, so be sure that it's what you truly want.  And when the time to part ways comes, be kind, be tact, and leave on a good note. Your reputation will always proceed you. But first consider this: are you the real problem? Food for thought.

Overworking

This is a very common creativity-dampener. You are likely working furiously to get all of your work done by a deadline, working many after-hours, and into the weekend with virtually no breaks. Your subconscious thoughts rationalize that the more you work, the more you will get done. While this is certainly true for many jobs, both "white-collar" and "blue-collar", the creative professional does not have such linear control over productivity. So much work is mentally and physically fatiguing.  It causes "task-oriented" tunnel vision. All you are thinking is "...get it done...get it done...get it done...", rather than actually thinking about what should be done and how.

Solution:

Take a break. It is so tempting to just keep plugging away at your work and power through your problems, but your work will greatly suffer from doing so. Just stop. Get out of the studio and do something that will clear your mind, relieve stress, and inspire you. Here are a few suggestions:

• Go for a walk, run, or do some kind of workout. This relieves stress, releases chemicals in your brain, and surrounds you with different scenery. Don't try to think.  Just let thoughts come let you.
• Go on a leisurely photo shoot. Take pictures of anything that inspires you. Landscapes, architecture, events, people, wildlife, plants, etc. This forces your brain to observe new visual imagery, think about the best way to portray/compose what you see, and feel productive at the same time (especially if you are a professional photographer).
• Read a book. More specifically, read imaginative literature. You don't need to hunker-down and read a book from start to finish--just read a little bit to slow down and focus on something other than your work.
• Grab your sketchbook and go to the coffee shop to draw from life, sketch out ideas, and simply sit and think. Contemplate. Meditate. Everything about a coffee shop is conducive towards kindling creativity and new ideas. The sight of tasteful interior design and [usually] local art hanging on the walls, the ambient noise created in the background of the bustling employees and chatty customers, and the taste and aromatic scent of coffee are incredible aids to creative thinking. And let's not forget the pervasive effects of caffeine...

Poor Lifestyle Choices

This converges a bit with the overworking concept. When overworking you tend to deprive your personal life a lot. You tend to get very little sleep, eat quick/unhealthy foods, and skip workouts (or don't workout at all). But for many people, there are lifestyle choices that aren't exactly related to overworking. There are a potentially unlimited number of time-sinks grabbing for your attention. From trying to catch up with your peers in watching a certain television series, excessive gaming sessions, YouTube binges, you name it. While these things all have their time and place, if they are controlling your life or causing unneeded stress/loss of time--changes need to be made. I don't want to be too preachy on this as no one has the same problems, but here are a few things that you can do to improve the affect your lifestyle has on your creative workflow:

• Get more sleep. This may seem obvious, but you aren't doing yourself or your work any favors by pulling all-nighters or even just lessening the number of hours that you hibernate. Your mind will be less foggy, it will be easier to get up and get to work in the morning, and your productivity will vastly improve. The amount of sleep needed differs from person to person, as does the time of day that you are most productive, so it's up to you to find that out and adjust accordingly. Listen to your body.
• Eat healthy. Even if it takes time (and let's face it, more money) to eat healthy, just do it. Your mind and body will thank you both in the short and long run. You might be thinking "I hate healthy food", but you will actually start to prefer it to unhealthy food after you get used to it. And there's nothing like the peace of mind knowing that what you are eating is healthy. You may even feel a little disgusted and nauseated the next time you walk or drive by a fast food restaurant and smell the food.
• Workout regularly. It doesn't matter if you think that you are in excellent physical shape. Do it anyway. Again, like adequate sleep and eating healthy, your mind and body will thank you tremendously.  As stated earlier, working out clears your mind, relieves stress, and releases chemicals that act as turbo mental-kickstarters. All of which open the mind for wild imagination and creativity.

Music videos. An incredibly popular form of entertainment, and yet one that I have had almost no desire to consume either growing up or to this day. This may come as a bit odd to others as well as myself knowing that I am part of the cultural stigma known as the "MTV Generation".

Generation "C" ?

The MTV Generation is widely regarded as people born or growing up in the 80s and 90s because such youth were known to be heavily influenced by music videos, which were typically mass-consumed on the Music Television network (MTV). The viewership by teenagers was excessive, and thus our entire generation has received the aforementioned moniker.

Today MTV remains popular for it's music videos, but with the advent of web 2.0, higher bandwidth speeds, and YouTube, the music video scene continues to grow worldwide by way of the internet. The largest distributor of music videos on the web is Vevo, whose videos are primarily consumed on YouTube.

Now, YouTube is arguably the most popular vendor for entertainment in the world. According to Google (who acquired YouTube in 2006):

• More than 1 billion unique users visit YouTube each month
• Over 6 billion hours of video are watched each month on YouTube—that's almost an hour for every person on Earth, and 50% more than last year
• 100 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute
• 70% of YouTube traffic comes from outside the US
• YouTube is localized in 56 countries and across 61 languages
• According to Nielsen, YouTube reaches more US adults ages 18-34 than any cable network
• Millions of subscriptions happen each day, and the number of people subscribing has more than doubled since last year

That's incredible. Every bit of it. And it continues to grow every day (probably every second).

After much anticipation, this week saw the emergence of Apple's seventh incarnation of it's iOS platform. One of the most talked-about releases in history, millions of Apple product owners (or soon-to-be owners) all around the world have now experienced the refreshed visual design with new features and core system apps at their fingertips, but has Apple hit a home run or struck-out with their latest software update? There are strong opinions on both sides of the fence. Today I'll give my two cents.

Then and now: Microsoft and Apple's mobile OS home screen changes from 2007 to 2013.  From left to right: Windows Mobile 6.5, Windows Phone 8, iOS 1, iOS 7.

"The key conceit of iOS 7 is simple: you already know how to use a smartphone. Where previous versions offered explicit visual guidance at every turn — this looks like a Rolodex, so it must be my contacts! — iOS 7 assumes you know to click on "Inbox" to go back to your inbox, or that you swipe from left to right to open your phone. You know how to use an iPhone, Apple seems to be saying, so we’ll just get out of your way.

Except iOS 7 doesn’t get out of the way — not quite. Skeumorphs and guidepost icons have been replaced mostly by bombastic animations, which tell you both what to do and what’s happening. On the lock screen, light glides left to right across the words "Slide to unlock," hinting at the direction you should be swiping, in case the arrow pointing to the right wasn’t hint enough. When you tap to open an app, it appears to open from within its icon, expanding to fill the screen; when you close it, it disappears back into its icon once again. The animations are fun, but annoyingly slow — waiting a half-second for every app to open like a beautiful flower doesn’t feel good to me. It feels like lag."

- David Pierce, The Verge

I know exactly what he's talking about. The animations are indeed fun. But they get irritating after not too long. Perhaps in iOS 7.1 Apple will speed them up a bit. And the disappearance of 'guidepost' icons and other skeuomorphic elements within apps takes away the intuitive nature that iOS had. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, per se, but it is a divergence of Apple's former brand identity.

Overall, I welcome the new design wholeheartedly, but not everyone feels that way. The color pallette of the redesigned core apps have been criticized by many as looking disjointed, confusing, and somewhat alien when accompanied by more subdued looking third-party apps on a home screen. Some have found the design so disagreeable that it brought them to tears.  :)


Features

The greatest anticipation that I had of iOS 7 was new features. I wanted quick-access to frequently used settings such as turning Wi Fi, cellular data, and Bluetooth off and on; I wanted better multitasking, including the ability to use applications side-by-side on screen; I wanted a more useful Siri; I wanted a completely redesigned music app (I've always found the existing one incredibly unintuitive) and photo app; I wanted fast camera access right from the lock screen; I wanted a more useful notification center; I wanted automatic app updates; I wanted NFC or something similar; and, finally, I wanted things that I never knew that I wanted.

I got almost everything that I wanted. I did not get side-by-side applications (no surprise), Siri is a little better but still not up to spec with Google Now, and Apple did not introduce anything in iOS 7 that I didn't know I wanted. I also didn't get NFC, but Apple has a *mostly* better solution with Airdrop. No need to tap phones together, just select iOS devices in the vicinity that you wish to share a file, URL, etc. with from any share button via Bluetooth + Wi Fi. The problem with this is that its not universal--iOS only. With NFC, Android and Windows Phone users can share information cross-platform. But then again, there's that awkward phone touching...

So, there are all these new features that I wanted now. The verdict? iOS 7 is now *mostly* on par with what Android has had for quite some time now. iOS is a far more consistent experience than Android as a symptom of their closed ecosystem with less fragmentation slowing down app development and less hardware variation that causes instability, bugs and crashes amongst the vast majority of Android devices. Additionally, the iPad is still the gold standard for tablets because there are exponentially more apps designed specifically for the large, high-resolution screen. But for the smartphone market I still feel as though Apple is playing catch-up feature-wise. It doesn't help that they are stuck in their iPhone 3G to iPhone 3GS to iPhone 4 to iPhone 4S to iPhone 5 to iPhone 5S rut. A lot of Android users could be won-over to Apple if they simply offered a greater range of display sizes...namely a larger display. Going from 3.5-inches to an elongated 4-inches simply isn't going to cut it. And being that the iPhone is typically a yearly release--customers are going to have to wait yet another entire year before the iPhone 6 arrives with a potentially larger screen size available. They are lagging behind the competition in that respect as well.


Conclusion

I highly recommend upgrading to iOS 7. It brings fresh visual flavor to an otherwise aged user interface, and there are many much-awaited features brought to the table as well. That said, if you are an Android user who has wished to switch to the coveted Apple experience--iOS 7 can now go toe-to-toe with most of what Google's OS has to offer, but you'll most likely have to wait at least one more year for some more screen-real estate.

I realize that it has been well over a month since my first post, but until just last week I did not have internet service in my new apartment. I am now committing to post at least once a week hence forth. I also realize that this post was another FREAKING HUGE one, which I also promised not to do in my first post. But this is a topic that is on fire across the interwebs as I write, so it had to be fairly thorough (and believe me, I wanted to write *much* more).

Let me know your thoughts on iOS 7, in the comments section below!

Peace,

- Luke

Fan art. This, of all topics, was the furthest one from my guess as to what my natal blog post would be about. To put this into perspective, the piece that I have just finished and am about to write a commentary on is the first serious stab at fan art that I have ever made outside of practice-sketches of famous people or a contest entry. Normally my aspirations call me to design concepts of characters from my imagination, perhaps as an aid to help visualize a story that I'm developing or one that's merely stirring somewhere in my consciousness. But one day I noticed that I have a fairly conspicuous absence of fan art in my life, and I asked myself why? After much introspective contemplation on the matter I found that I had a somewhat cynical attitude towards the genre. I felt that fan art was a waste of time and that there was a certain amount of pettiness to it's creation. I thought..."Real artists don't make fan art. Real artists make art that others make fan art of."