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

education

What the hell is it? Who knows best? What is the best schooling?

School assignments give you something to do. If you’re not in school, no one will give you any assignments, so you have to make up your own assignments, and not too many people are good at that. So that’s why school works. It puts you around people, you’re in a social setting, you make friends and you remember the recesses, lunch breaks, team practices and secret crushes. It gives you a reason to keep going and its manual is:

• listen to your teacher
• make your parents happy
• do your homework
• study
• get good marks
• and you will have a better life.

That was SO me baby! I loved school. It was awesome.

But then something kicked in. I grew up. I realized that it wasn’t school that I liked, it was the act of DOING. I was the one motivating myself. I was the one questioning things, reading things and getting stuff done. I was the one who was teaching myself. I was the one who beat myself, worried myself, stressed myself and hated myself. I was passionate and I didn’t know why I just couldn’t get to what I wanted. I pursued a creative arts program in grade 7 and that’s when I discovered graphic design. It was fun! I liked computers and programs and it had no boundaries! I could teach myself as much as I wanted and the teacher had no control. So I kept teaching myself. At the age of 12, the computer became my toy. So much to explore! Graphic design was what kept me going in school, but what I really wanted was to be a super sports star.

That didn’t work out. So I chose an art school and studied graphic design — why the hell not? It was easy and fun.

Then I started discovering that, um, I need a passion. I started seeing what graphic design for what it truly was and then I started hating it as “school”. Everyone was doing it. It wasn’t as fun as before. It was like everyone else was discovering it and the profession of it became dull for me.

Who am I? Why am I doing this?

School couldn’t answer that question because school has only one answer and the answer is: “it’s not my problem – you chose to go here”

So education became exploring myself.

And that really happened in my last year of school. From 0 to 21, it took me that many years to realize that education is freedom of expression, networking and collaboration.

I take full responsibility for thinking that way because I know who I am now.

I AM education baby. All I do is school me.

Filed under: experience, life, philosophy, student life

what Time is it?

So now that I’ve revealed my disbelief in Time, I should at least make some sense of the theory of relativity and science in regards to this matter.

I don’t believe in perfection, absolutes or even words being the best way to define Nature. Nature is nature. Can nature talk, write, pay your bills, or tell you what you need to do to get a good paying job? No, I don’t think Nature had a clue that that’s what humans cherished in life. Nature is God. I don’t care who you are or what you think. Nature is God. It’s simple, I’ll say it again: Nature is God. All together now: “NATURE IS GOD.”

Good.

So now that we have that straight, why are we trying to define Nature through Science and God through Religion? Science and Religion are systems designed by humans to break apart Nature and God and make them more complex. I don’t blame us though – we are Humans. It is Human Nature to be inquisitive and since we have Nature in Human Nature, we are naturally responsive to our Body and Mind. Our Senses are what keep us alive and guide us to happiness.

It is Time to:

1. Follow your Senses through Body and Mind
2. Accept Nature as God
3. Experience the naturally inquisitive Human Nature respond to Nature

Assuming you could live a whole century and witness society develop decade by decade, at some point you’ll realize that you were always a child and no one listened to you, not even you. All you really wanted to do was play, and no one thought it was the right thing to do, especially the people who loved you dearly. So you didn’t even dare to, because it was Time that was holding you back. It was your fear of Time and everyone else’s proof of Time that stopped you. You started something, it didn’t go well, and you thought it wasn’t the right Time. So you beat yourself and cried inside. “No one gets what I’m trying to do!” You brushed it off and went back to being afraid.

It’s time to let go of Time and let it only be determined by the impact of what you have done. You take it out of you, put it out there, and see what sticks and what doesn’t. You enjoy the stickies — they can get you a little high. Sometimes they can get you too high and you might loose your head. The one’s that didn’t stick are your friends too, and they came to fight for their right. You love the stickies so much that you may forget what was in you in the first place and what you were trying to do. But that’s not Time! That’s learning by doing! It’s called research, art, poetry, design, activism, development, growth — it’s all of those things that are simply experienced. It’s not slow, or fast, it just gets determined by how much you do and how many people you tag on the way.

Play tag. It’s time to play tag!

You’re It!

Filed under: creativity, design, experience, humanity, life, love, philosophy, work

OCAD is done (part 3)

Active I became.

I was concerned about everything! Everything started to matter to me. I got on the Student Union as the GD rep, and with that role I decided to do something. In a school with many communication and integration issues, I wanted to gather students together and run a workshop to address these issues and come up with ideas for improvement of the school. So I did it. I planned it, promoted it, gave speeches about it, organized it, structured it, and documented everything. I ran 5 sessions to gather enough content from students in all departments. I then took it to the Board of Governors and Sara Diamond, spoke up about it, and had it added as an appendix to the Strategic Plan of 2006-2012 that was at the stage of approval before my forums. I met a lot of people I had never met before through this process and learning took on a different meaning for me. Activism became a passion. Small things, planned out and structured and presented well with a purpose became my mission. Step by step, moving towards a vision.

OCAD offers a Mobility/Exchange in third year. There is a list of participating schools that you can choose from. I spent a lot of time researching and investigating all my choices. I then applied to 3 schools: RISD, Ringling and OTIS, and got accepted into Ringling (in Sarasota, Florida) for the Spring 2007 semester. My work at the 2006 AIDS Conference and my web design abilities enhanced my application. I was a perfect candidate to bring depth to a technical school.

The only class before my trip to Florida that stands out in my mind was with Gary Blakeley. Awesome British man. Great teacher, great projects. Very intelligent and supportive. I enjoyed all of his projects and his blunt, bold and upfront attitude with student work. I always had something to say. Ghazaleh always has something to say! War of Words, E-Life and Toronto Transit were all meaningful and practical projects for me. Graphic Design with depth, meaning and purpose – he always gave interesting and well prepared lectures that had me fall in love with Typography and become very sensitive to it. His daughter is going to be brilliant – I know it.

I flew down to Sarasota and stayed with the loving Sarah who I found on Craigslist for sharing a house, 3 minute bike-ride away from Ringling. I got my bike cheap, from a non-profit bike alliance. I biked everywhere. Ringling disciplined me. I produced a lot of work for my portfolio. I stood out – no doubt. The narrow mind-frame of “design” doesn’t cut it for me. I need meaning. I need leadership and I need open-minded thinking. Ringling was great because I needed to show my abilities as a designer and produce graphic design work that could differentiate me from others. Every project I did, I spent excessive hours in its making. I cannot produce work I am unsatisfied with. I got in touch with myself, nature, and obsessed with reaching for more.

Dave Mason came to Ringling to present the new identity of the school that SamataMason redesigned. He was from Canada too and he liked my work. So one thing led to the next and I ended up in Chicago as an intern for the summer after Ringling.

More biking, more photography, more blog writing. I went through a lot of stress at the internship with my fellow interns. It was hard to go through but again, I learnt a lot about teamwork and my strengths and weaknesses.

I was ready to take on 4th year with a thesis in mind a year in advance.

It was Ghazaleh time.

Filed under: design, experience, life, student life

OCAD is done (part 2)

I saw even more with Lewis’s GD1 class first semester second year. I realized that I could have fun in this field and learn a shit ton of things. I didn’t know that – never thought I would be given the “alphabet” as my brief; never thought I had to design a drink, or find 100 images for one word or make a book of time with one piece of paper. I cried, yes I did! Because I was learning! I was being exposed to so much so fast. Think Tank came: had me scavenging for survival in a park; recording my consumption in a week and writing a design manifesto. My voice got louder. I began to rise up. Classrooms had it. If I was in the class, you got my opinion, no doubt about it. The art of articulation became my specialty. Ghazaleh’s got something to say – that became who I am today.

I stopped the retail of 3 years in 3 different malls with Athlete’s World and Footlocker. I left my sport years behind with the consumerist, material indulgences of the cultural landscape. History of Typography made me understand what language means. Visual Culture made me rethink everything I saw. I became connected, aware and prepared for something new to explore.

TakingITGlobal took me when I chose them. AIDS Conference in the summer of 2006 employed at TIG elevated my level of thinking prepared for the next phase of design: activism.

Filed under: design, experience, student life

OCAD is done (part 1)

Done.

Graduated, screwed over, beaten-up, torn, burnt, lesson learnt, grown, explored, snored, my last resort.

It was OCAD that I attended with smiles on my face. It was OCAD that I chose between York/Sheridan Design program in 2004. It was OCAD because of its degree – its Bachelor in Design. I didn’t know what OCAD really was – I just listened to the experts in the field who said, “yea, for sure go to OCA”. I just knew Graphic Design was something I was doing, good at and wanting to pursue. I entered OCAD.

I wanted to skip first year badly. I wanted to get out and go forward with Graphic Design. I knew I was going into the damn field. I did my internship at Compass360 in highschool. I had researched all of Toronto for the best graphic design firms. Top choice I remember was Concrete. I did my research long before my future classmates knew what graphic design was coming from highschool.

I got a little confused after first year. I realized I needed depth and I realized there was more to me than just Graphic Design. I needed excitement. I wanted cool stuff, fun stuff, fun people, activation, running, jumping, dancing. I wanted energy. It wasn’t my environment. I learnt a ton in first year. It was really great to go through classes that I went through. That drawing class that I got 60 in, that Interaction Design class that had us baking cookies; that Form & Structure that had me learn about Zaha Hadid; that Design Process class that made me think about the design of bathrooms and for the first time question where the waste from shoes went; that Colour & 2D class with the coolest assignments ever and one of the most interesting pieces I had ever made (writing numbers in 100 different languages) and Keith Rushton’s class in 2D Communication that had my eyes popping out of their sockets and latched onto him for the rest of my years.

I then began to see.

Filed under: design, experience, life, student life