TheStoreFront Community story / My testimonial

I’m sorry.

I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.

That’s how I’d like to start. It’s for everyone that I pissed off, everyone that felt confused, interested but unsure how to help. It was a complete mess and I was stuck in it. 

It started off in September 2007 when I chose to take a Think Tank 3 class with Bruce Hinds with just under 10 people in the class. Hey guys, I’m still on the project! It sure was fun diving into a neighbourhood that we didn’t know anything about. Our class project was to propose some ideas for what the Bloorcourt Village BIA could do with their money to improve the area.

Questions: What’s a BIA? What’s in the area? What kind of people live there? What kind of cultures are there? What groups, schools, parks, community centres and festivals are there? That took a few months of research. Walking around. Taking pictures, talking about proposing a Town Hall, something to do in Christie Pits, festivals, storefronts…lots of talking, that’s what ThinkTank classes are, really. Ideas are great! But the class ended and we thought that our pitch to the BIA about taking an empty storefront and transforming its use would be a great way to go about designing for the neighbourhood.

Nothing happend after our proposal. No one gave up a storefront, the BIA didn’t get back to us, the City didn’t find anything for us and we were stuck complaining about how nothing was happening. 

BIG was happening then. They were meeting at Bloor CI to plan their festival for June 2008. We met them in Novemberish I believe. Long story short, our idea for having a festival cooincided with their festival planning. I fell in love with all this neighbourhood stuff, and all became history after that.

I was brought onboard to help BIG out and ended up being the designer for the chaotic, grassroots, community organized, inaugural event that shook Bloor Street like never before in history. I took an Independent Study after the class ended in December and for the 3 months after I took on the mission to get a storefront. I knew I had to move to the area, I was living with my parents in Thornhill and in April 2008 I moved out, lived with 2 roommates off of Craigslist in a house just next to Dufferin Mall.

I managed to talk my way through. This person to the next, Sara Diamond (OCAD preseident) gave me $3000 and I had the key in my had with Rafael Gomez (ThinkTankToronto), Keith Rushton and Bruce Hinds behind it all with me. Robert Markovits liked the whole OCAD name, liked the vision, asked for 1/4 of the rent monthly and off were were to prove something. We approached it institutionally — part of the reason why it didn’t work, caused me stress and ate up my insides. Well, I let it do that to me, and I was hard on myself.

The collaboration with ThinkTankToronto saved me from dying obviously. Ralph gave me a research position to go around with a survey to research Toronto’s BIAs. That let me feed myself and pay my rent, plus some money from the BIG team, I was doing fine on the surviving and just needed to get something to start happening with the space.

Let me tell you how much an empty space can drag you down. It opens the door to so many possibilities that will come at you like maggots and circulate around your head and never leave you. I felt like I was opening up a shop, with no money, no management, no clear idea and no team. I didn’t know what the hell to do, so I picked one day in June and called it “Everything Local” and off I went. 

People started coming, friends started helping, neighbours offered support. It was crazy. It was beautiful. It was intense, it was livid, raw, dirty and full of sweat and tears. The event happened and I had a breakdown. PRESSURE!!! ART is IT! Make it an art space — make it an art gallery — use it for all kinds of things — i can help! tell me what to do — what do you need? — lets use it for film screenings — artist studio — i can do fundraising — i can organize a show etc. etc.

My answer to all: “Thank you so much, yeah, awesome ideas!”

What the hell am I doing? Pick something! Okay, so we picked a graffiti mural removal case, just next door, same property owner as my space, Robert. That became the next event and I took a lot of shit from the City and OCAD for standing up against the removal of a piece that had no right to be removed. It was so political. It got in the Toronto SUN front cover. We did a neighbourhood graffiti walk, had a discussion and connected to all sorts of people in the city supporting legal graffiti art. It was a milestone of TheStoreFront project.

But I still had to deal with: “What does this space do? When are you open? How can i get involved?”

I’m thinking to myself, “I have no fucking clue what I’m getting myself into and it’s driving me insane. I love it and hate it at the same time and I can’t stop going.”

So I kept saying “yes” to everything that came to me. My whole “yes we can” approach was long before I knew Obama was running as president. My “yes” approach was deadly and I schooled myself with it. It taught me more than I could have ever imagined and I’m thankful for every single person that hopped on the plane in this journey. It proved to me that without others, and without collaboration with others and help from others you can never be successful at anything you do. You must speak people’s language, bow to them, work for them, care for them, put yourself aside, and they will do the same. It’s not about money, it’s about sweat and heart. People see through you and if you don’t come from pain, they know you’re not real.

I knew I was the reason why people were coming to me. I wanted to run away though. I didn’t want to be the person. I didn’t want to deal with all the pressure, the expectations, the voices, the suggestions, the emails….but I did. So I had to choose a side of me and I chose “leader”. With my leader side, I attracted “chance” and lots of cool people became my friend. NEVER EVER EVER would I have met these people in an institution, in a workplace, in one field. I realized that the school of life and community is everything that matters. It’s a language of humanity and nothing will make you realize until you throw yourself at it and deal with chaos. Dealing with chaos is how you find your true “self”.

You think I knew what I was doing when I was running around trying to find a storefront? I had no plan, no management, no money, no bodies…I had absolutely nothing but my gut. And when I got there, I figured it out, or “it” figured itself out because it was being shared.

Now ofcourse, I ran into a lot of criticism, confusions, battles and realized the toughest thing to do in life is how to manage “help”. How do you organize people? How do you allow people to do what they do best and support you while they do it? How do you find an organic structure in an inorganic space. How do you deal with politics? How do you know who is your boss?

For 8 months I hustled and talked my way into streams of money to pay the rent. I was certainly not being paid for all my sweat, but then again without Rafael’s support on the back-end, nothing would have happened.

I got an article in the Globe & Mail on Nov. 22. It was really well written. The reporter was amazing and she followed me around and listened to the chaos with me.

A lot of shit went down in 2008. 

On Dec. 2, I held a meeting that jumped to my mind (discussions, people, photos). Got lots of people that I had made connections with in one room and let them take leadership in coming up with ideas on how to maintain this concept. As soon as I did that event, I realized, wow, people care so much and coming together is magic. It’s amazing how much people care about bringing an idea to life. They all got to see eachother and the energy in the room was incredible.

A spark went off and I realized it wasn’t about maintaining that space. It wasn’t about fitting rennovations, shared studio space, organizing events, music fundraisers, projects, ideas for the streetscape, parks, cultures, families, students and entertainment in 957 Bloor West. It was about DESIGNING A SYSTEM that allows for all this to happen. It’s about people connecting with eachother and working together. It’s about business improvement by having people take ownership of place. The BIA is the root to connecting with cities and neighbourhoods need better communication systems to be able to engage in spaces!

It took me 2.5 years of thinking about what the hell to do with the Internet with a design thesis project that popped in my head in 2006, to all come back together in a new form but exactly what I wanted to do in the first place.

So that led me to MEconomist.com and 957 right now is empty. I’m sorry, but 8 months of standing there and taking charge was hard enough and brutal enough for me to deal with, and I hope there are no grudges held against me for not programming more things out of that space. But beleive me I tried to make it sustainable, and I’m sure it can be anything from a gallery, to a multi-use office space, to a cafe, a music venue or any other creative hub. I just cannot do it and I never wanted to worry about something like that. It’s all about MONEY. And getting money to run a space means business. My business is online, cheap and will do all these things that we think is great because it will be a SYSTEM that will aim to do that.

We need to design SYSTEMS. We need INFRASTRUCTURE and we need LEADERSHIP. Most of all, we need patience and a big vision!

2009, I’m coming. I’m almost dead but really I’ve never felt so close to being ALIVE. Get out of school and school yourself everyone. Life is chaos and if you can’t suck it up and live through it, you will be your own worst enemy. People care and you care about people. Just make something that you think will work and see if it does! It’s one big experiment and can make a BIG BANG if you get it right!

 

WITH LOVE

TO ALL OF YOU WHO BELIEVE!

Stay young, stay passionate and go through pain. It’s the best schooling.

Filed under: activism, city, community, education, experience, life

one life: make money to save yourself; make art to save the world

I’m sitting here on my bed with my 3 year-old Apple Powerbook — one of the old ones that has no Intel chip or Super Drive. I’ve forgotten how old I’ve become. I was in school with so much drive for social design. I must admit though, my drive made me super aggressive. Not very attractive. Is it?

I’m unemployed by choice at the moment.

Oh my! Unemployed? That’s such a disgrace to my education and my strive for being great. What a failure, right?

Sure. Why not call it a failure? I’m so tired of thinking that I’ve got the final answer and living up to my own super expectations. I haven’t been able to sleep well because of all this “design” thinking. The internet and my stupid laptop make it so easy for me to forget who I am. I’ve had so much of good and bad in my life and lost sense of what is important for my health and well-being.

I never wanted to save the world. I have no idea where it suddenly came from. Maybe because I was angry at everyone. As if I knew something that others didn’t and I would hide and pretend like I didn’t think I was better than everyone else. Maybe all I really wanted was a companion, to really get it, and do it with me; to save the world together and use the internet to spread it.

I’m lost.

Because after all that I have done, after standing up for what I believed was right, I admit that I’m a selfish girl and everyone else is selfish too, especially the ones that deny their selfishness.

I jumped into a neighbourhood and stood still for a year. I listened to everything. It was chaos. I began to see the design of a local community and how complicated and interconnected it was. I realized that people all matter and every person thinks that they matter more. I started to see what “social” really meant. And I just designed on my way. By design I mean doing things that I was capable of doing.

I’m not going to lie or brag, but I’m a social cat. I love talking to people — from CEOs to the homeless. It’s the most enjoyable thing for me and that was something I only realized after I got out of school. I was more than lost in school, I was free. I could do anything I wanted but knew that I had to figure out the “world” part when I got out of school and I couldn’t waste any time. So speed became me and I hurt myself that way.

No regrets.

I realized that designing networks is all that matters. Networks = people. Connect people and you’ve done social design. And if you really are full of creativity, love and passion like myself, please practice it as an art. Just make art. I don’t know what your art is, but mine is poetry. I feel free when I do it. So, do something that will make you honor yourself. Put your heart out for the world to see. Don’t shove it down people’s throat, don’t say you’re right, don’t make people feel like they’re stupid and please don’t talk about how there is a final answer “somewhere” out there. Make money to save yourself; make art to save the world. You have one life and people care about who you are if you care enough for yourself to craft something beautiful and share it.  Art is something you do for free, for yourself, for exploration, for discovery. Art is the universe in your voice. 

Who knows?

Maybe you’ll make lots of money with your art one day!

Filed under: creativity, design, education, experience, life, love

the mark of unity

everything will

come together

with chance

and choice

 

balanced

and designed

with integrity 

and hope

 

yes

we can

Filed under: art, community, creativity, design, education, experience, future, life, love, philosophy, poetry, politics, social community networks, sustainability, work

revolution finished

 

GOD and HUMAN

MOTHER and NATURE

CHICKEN and EGG

MAN and ROOSTER

INVENTOR and INNOVATION

can’t go backwards

LIFE is always forward

and equal.

 

be born

re-birth

revolution

sex

acceptance

Filed under: activism, art, city, community, creativity, cycling, design, education, experience, future, humanity, iran, life, love, music, nature, philosophy, poetry, politics, school, student life, sustainability, work

love, violence and mastering the joy of design

Design. Oh design how I love you. I hate you so much because my love for you makes me hate myself. I love being a designer but I hate design. I love designing but I hate talking about it. I love talking but I hate people who talk so much. I hate designers but I love to master designing. I am a designer, I love people. I am a designer, I am people. I am passionate and violent, I make and destroy. I want to be a revolution. I am a designer, I am.

Crazy am I? 

A little girl who came to Toronto from Tehran, leaving her childhood in the land of fertility. Iran with my mother. Iran with my father. Iran with my brother. I just ran far away from everything, out to explore a new reality. 

I tried to define myself so many times. I fell in love easily. Not with boys. No, boys didn’t come into the picture until late in the game. I fell in love with the energy of joy. Joy was all I ever wanted, really. Am I any different from you for craving joy? It was my best friend and I’m sure you are best friends too.

First joy came into my life through the piano. Memorizing notes and completion free of mistakes was joy. I took lessons for a year and learnt all the notes. My teacher loved me and she said I was a great student. I started hating it though. I hated it so I beat myself knowing I wasn’t going to be the best at mastering piano. It made me mad. Others were better, I just wasn’t good enough.

So I left piano and found joy again through sport. It was the start of a very long and brutal relationship. We broke up many times. Joy wasn’t very nice to me, even though I visibly invested energy into joy over anything else. I gave my heart away for the joy of sport. I cried when winning, cried when losing. I would practice for joy. But I hated myself! I hated not being able to master it. I would try so hard but  got rejected so many times. Sport wanted it to work too but demanded too much from me. I felt like shit. I felt like I was trying hard and not getting mutual love in return – like as if he could never understand my love for him. I now think the reason for our breakup was because I wanted to master the sport over mastering the joy of the sport. Through my process of mastering, I killed my joy in sport. Others were better, I just wasn’t good enough. I broke my own heart.

The computer. Oh the joy of the computer was there for as long as I can remember. Commodore 64 in Iran was the favourite childhood toy. Gaming was joy. We came to Canada in 1996 and the computer became more embedded in our lives since my dad had always been ahead with computers and software. My brother and I had the advantage of being raised with computers. I still remember the dial-up days, with Yahoo Chat and ICQ. Not that many people in middle school were tech saavy back then. I still remember the computer labs very limited with their computers programs and barely any of them had access to internet. All-the-Right-Type was a speed-typing program that I will never forget. I had a joy for mastering that too. Type fast! Free of mistakes! That was joy.

What about art? Well drawing was fun. I liked drawing things. But hell no, I was by no means the best artist. I was decent but it didn’t give me deep joy and I never thought about doing any masterpieces. I didn’t draw for fun for that long. I forced myself to do it because I wanted to master it. I couldn’t. I wanted to draw from my imagination, but couldn’t. Someway or another, I ended up in a program that was starting in a middle school called CyberARTS. My grade 6 teachers recommended that I go there. So I got in. I think that’s when my life began to take shape. I started dating art and computer fun, but I was still in love with the joy of sports.

From grade 7 to grade 12 (1998 – 2004), I continued getting to know computers and art. I was already in the pot to become a graphic designer. I had no choice, it picked me. Graphic software was fun for me to learn. It was a new language and I loved being given projects to work on using that language. I learnt so much about the life through the process of each project.

Writing? Well as you can see I enjoy doing it. Writing to me has always been the best way to express myself and articulate my thoughts. Writing was a joy for as long as I can remember. Did I ever dream of being a writer? Nope. Did I ever want to master writing? To some degree, but it didn’t bother me as much as my other mastering obsessions. I viewed it as a tool to be creative and expressive. It wasn’t until this past summer when I took a Creative Writing course (after OCAD told me I needed to take one last credit to graduate) that I confessed to myself I am a poet. Lillian Allen empowered me. She told me I had it. She said it to my face. I didn’t take my English teachers seriously in highschool when they would give me high marks and lots of comments on my writing. My grade 11 teacher used to go crazy over the poems I wrote in her class. I just never thought it was worth anything. I liked doing it for myself. It was my method of becoming my own teacher and mentor.

When the athlete in me died, I was dead. I knew I had to fall in love again. So I gave it all to graphic design. I’m free baby. I’m out to love you. I had 4 years of professional loving at Ontario Collage of Art & Design to master the joy of design. I did it, and quite well actually. I mastered the joy of design and I’d like to take this time to thank myself for mastering this joy. I could not have mastered this joy if I didn’t love myself. So I thank me for loving myself and staying in this relationship. I continue to call myself a professional graphic designer but I thank myself for realizing that I am by no means the best at anything. Because the only thing I am is me. And that is the story I just told you.

I am love.

I seek the joy of mastering design because I am Ghazaleh. I want to learn. I want to apply my learning and I like to use my brain. I don’t want to be the best at anything that confines me because I want to be free of order. I want to do what I want to do, when I want to do it. I learnt that being a graphic designer is a privilege so I used it to my advantage. I threw myself out to the world with it. Here I am world! I design!

I could have never learnt more about myself by letting go of what I thought was best for me. I broke up many many times. But I was me. I had only me, my two eyes, ears, and my gut. I went to Florida with it, Chicago, New York, UN headquarters and even the MIT and Harvard campuses, on my own two feet with my own money. I admitted that I had some things to figure out.

Here I am now. 2009. What can I tell you?

I am Ghazaleh, the girl you always knew — doing what I want, designing from what I learn. Because design is beyond what you ever thought was real. Design is the process of mastering joy for people. So in order to master the joy of design, you have to design for people, constantly. Design is the ultimate creative force in each human being. Design means taking responsibility to make something that impacts those who interact with it. Whether its one person, a neighbourhood, or a nation, design is not an object – it is energy. It’s not what you make but the people who it resides in. It is people.

Be a designer. Listen. Look. Think. Link. Plan. Do…and never stop.

The fancier you think you are, the further away you drift from being a real designer. Stay true. Stay real. Find joy. Suck it up and fight for it. You have to be mean to win the grand prize. And winning the grand prize of mastering joy takes a lot of designing, even the grand prize itself.

Filed under: design, education, experience, life, problem solving, student life

waste vs live

i don’t waste my life trying to prove i am right.
i live my life doing what feels right.

Filed under: activism, design, education, life, love, philosophy, work , philosophy

internetoflife – the collective language to simply learn

Anyone who is reading this is a part of the book. internetoflife is one word but it assembled of three other words that we know in English.

The final direction for my thesis after 1.5 years of research is internetoflife.com

I believe in the power of the collective to share wisdom and create links.

I believe in words to reflect identity.

I believe in words of wisdom, quoted by you.

So please visit the site and contribute.

First round of submissions for final presentation at my gradshow are April 12, 2008.

Anyone, anywhere you are, if you are reading this and you are interested in the concept of my network and want to support it into fruition, please click on the submissions page. I would also like to request for volunteer translators to translate the internetoflife questions into other languages, so we can get a universal network of words. Text and colour are universal languages — lets ’simply’ use them to broadcast ‘who we are’.

More information on how I arrived here will be posted soon.

You are also welcome to add me to facebook since I have nothing to hide about who I am.

Filed under: activism, art, community, creativity, design, education, humanity, life, love, music, philosophy, poetry, problem solving, quotes, school, social community networks, sustainability

i care to DO

I’m frustrated with everything and I’m only saying this because I believe that I have answers for how to find the answers. I have a voice that I’ve made through listening and thinking. My voice is of DOING. I have a voice that cares to voice others because the voice of others is my voice.

I have never fit in, nor have I ever thought I had to fit in. Now people look at me and think that I’m too young to have answers, but I’m not telling you that I’M THE ANSWER, I’m telling you I know where the answers are and I care enough about them to bring them to the forefront of the conversation if we’re talking about answers. So don’t get intimidated by me or think that I’m self-indulgent. I just love what I DO because I do it for people and communities, hence I should love myself for doing it. I want to share the love with you all. You might see tears in my eyes if you catch me in a passionate conversation.

I just got home to my parent’s Thornhill condo suite, after a very important panel lecture series Manufacturing Neighbourhoods held by Toronto’s Architecture for Humanity at the Gardner Museum. The panel speakers included Bruce Hinds (my professor, close friend and project supporter) along with the highly reputable Ken Greenberg and other engaged reputable speakers just as concerned about community development in Toronto.

I thought it was a wonderful discussion and I just had to put my foot in there and talk about community activism since I know what that is about, because I practice it and preach it simultaneously. Sitting in the front row and having my hand up since the floor could ask questions, being dismissed about 5 times before the moderator came to hand me the microphone, I spilled my heart out on this topic of ‘building community’.

I’ve been at OCAD for 4 years and I have involved myself in its community and politics — because I care about making it a better institution with better education, more exposure to its possibilities and direction for building a unique community. Bottom line, I’m telling you, I know OCAD because I’ve experienced it and I care about its future. Everyone on the administration knows me. I have made myself and my voice visible, fearless and passionate. I have tried my best to speak for the majority of the population of the school and enhancement of its education for its students precisely with ‘building community’ and increasing student engagement, which mind you is not any different than doing something for a neighborhood. I have DONE things and that goes to tell you that I can speak about them and have a right to make a statement after doing something that people care about and don’t care enough to do something about.

Here is proof ONE and TWO of what I have done. Boom. Done. I’m publicizing myself because no one else on earth is going to do it for me. It’s not just two, it’s more! I care about my gradshow, so I care to get involved in making a structure for it so that the students are involved in the future. I put myself through challenges and hours of volunteering to initiate something I believe in. I care about the decisions made for the school. I care to speak up and give an input, because if I don’t, no one will know that I actually care. I want a better future for others and if I don’t act on what matters, then what matters will never have my voice in it. I know my voice creates vibrations and it’s those vibrations that I believe in, nothing else.

I’m fed up with people who don’t DO and sit and complain and complain and complain. There are people who talk about doing, tons of them might I add. In fact, that’s all we do! We (as in majority of Western society) just talk about doing and then the next time we do the same thing again. As much as I whole-heartedly agree the doing begins by having a conversation, but what about making the conversation HAPPEN? Who wants to take responsibility of that and who wants to invest their time in something that they’ve never done? Stop watching your damn television and stop listening to how hard it is to do things. It’s all built to scare you and turn you away. You’re not MEANT to have a voice; that’s what you’re meant for through the media.

Media yourself for goodness sakes! I’m a nobody and I’m media-ing me and through that I want to media my values and beliefs. Does that make sense? Ofcourse not, because you’ve never heard of it. You think that media is supposed to come to you because media is so far away and hard to reach.

It’s not though; it’s really not. Internet confuses us, because we’re confused with ourselves so when we enter a digital world with confusion of ourselves, we are even more confused and don’t know how to translate anything into reality. Hence we talk about it.

I’m also working on a community project as you should know by now if you’ve talked to me or know me, because it’s really my life. You cannot do a community project if you don’t fall in love with the community. It simply will not work. You will fail miserably and become pessimistic about doing anything ever again. I’m in love with this project and I’m in love with it because (here we go again), I simply GIVE A DAMN. Research on an area with statistics, numbers, assumptions and politics is the easy part. Understanding what the community has to offer is the most important and the most time-consuming part. This requires listening, observing, making friends and showing appreciation for what exists. If you don’t show appreciation for what is already there, you will again, fail miserably and continue to go the wrong way to make change.

Here is the link to a brief description to TheStoreFront project and here is TheStoreFrontCommunity.com which I highly suggest you join if you are in Toronto since we are holding an inaugural festival in the area: The BIG Festival. I have now understood this community, and I realize still how little I know about what is going on and I’m dying to be a part of it — this is why I want to MOVE THERE and live there and experience the community — being a member of the community that I change.

Now what else have I done? I spoke up to this community! I clearly made the effort to show that I cared about them. I’ve understood what community groups exist. I KNOW who these people are now and they KNOW ME TOO! This is how you make a change! You come in as an outsider and see it your responsibility to be humble and listen. If you want to be a therapist — which is literally what urban planners and designers are for communities at large — you need to listen and understand. You need to realize that there are no fingers to be pointed. It is your responsibility to find out how to do it so that IT WORKS and that local residents and businesses ‘take ownership of their communities’ — the answer to the question Bruce Hinds proposed to the group.

Now listen to me, I’m telling you that I’ve done this and done the investigation alone. And I can speak about it for that very reason; because I have done it and I know how it needs to be done after going through difficulty figuring it out. I’m not done and I never will be, but I hope that someone listens and follows some of these steps that I’ve learnt by DOING what you’re TALKING about. Who am I kidding, no one will buy in until it’s all over the media, and then you can come and ask me, “how do you do it?” Ask me now because I’m always in the search for answers. Maybe what I say will be of value, despite my age.

Filed under: activism, community, design, education, life, love, problem solving, student life, sustainability, work

I’m not a graphic designer

I’m not a graphic designer — don’t call me that.

Why are you calling me something that you don’t understand? How would you ever know what graphic design is to me? How could you ever have a clue if you never knew me, never spoke to me, never heard me, felt me, sensed me or cared to understand me? Why should you care anyway? It’s just me. I’m just me and I signed up to be a graphic designer — whoopdidoo!

Does that mean that I have to fit the title? Does that mean that I should accept to make your business card, your logo, your flyer and poster? I would if I wanted to; if I saw some value in it, I would. But listen, I can choose! I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to do.

What do I want to do? I want to use graphic design as just the beginning of a new world; to use it as a tool to get you to see the light.

I am a helper, researcher, listener, communicator and an information architect. I organize your plan. I articulate your thoughts and I make them exactly what you want to say, but also with a visual voice.

I am not a graphic designer; I am what you never thought a graphic designer could be. I am who you are when you practice a passion for improvement. I am what your soul wants, but never cared to reveal.

I am not a graphic designer. I am not what you label me. I refuse to wear your badge and I refuse to fit your idea of a biased perception.

I have a gut like you do and I use it as my torch.

I design me; I design future and I design potential for change. I design as much as you do, but I practice it with a joyous spirit.

If this is your idea of a graphic designer, then by all means, call me that.

Filed under: creativity, design, education, school, student life

ZEITGEIST – It’s time to wake up!

Forwarded to me by my friend Eg, this is what you should be watching. We need to think for ourselves. We need to “zoom out” as Eg says. We need to wake up and understand that there are people guiding our lives and we don’t even know it.We need to read more BOOKS not NEWSPAPERS! Television is not the truth! Leave it! Stop believing illusions!

This is part 3 of 3 – watch the entire thing when your eyes pop out. watch the full movie

Filed under: city, community, documentary, education, politics