Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Hand Sketches Marathon


I'm continuing with the hands series. Now I'm trying to draw them in more complex/ foreshortened poses. These are drawn from a combination of photo reference and imagination. I'm going to try and focus on drawing hands interacting with products from now on versus just hands.

Take a look and let me know what you think in the comments section.

Keep sketching!

-Parker

Thursday, November 22, 2012

I'm A "Hands On" Designer!

You'll have to pardon the bad joke! :) I'm in a funny mood today. I hope you are all enjoying the day off. Here's some more hands. The graphite pencil I've been using isn't very dark. I'll try switching back to verithin and see if the scans look better!

Keep Sketching!

-Parker

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

More Hands!


Enjoy the oncoming flood of hand sketches for the next little while!

Keep Sketching!

-Parker

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Hands

I recently received excellent advice that I should draw hands, a lot of them. So today begins a journey into understanding hands better. Hands are extremely difficult to draw. Their complexity and the fact that most everyone on earth has a set of hands means that any slight error in drawing is glaringly obvious. Add to that the fact that quick sketching requires an economy of lines, well drawn hands in industrial design sketching are a rarity. Highly detailed drawings tend to hide errors better, so spending a great deal of time on a drawing of hands usually means a good result. But when you have to sketch the hands quickly with only a few suggestive lines, each line has to be spot on.

In these first set of hands I'm focused on understanding how to reduce the form to its most simple geometry and understanding their anatomy. I'm also looking into what positions are the most difficult to draw and what I need to focus on to improve.

I've also included a drawing with labels of the bones of the hand. Being able to analyze and commit to memory the structure of a hand will allow me to draw them more efficiently and accurately from imagination, the core of design sketching.

The scans of my drawing might a little bit weird because I drew them in a hard bound sketch book. When the drawings bleed into the binding I have a hard time getting it to fit on the scanner bed flat. I'll have to find the best way to scan my stuff out of this sketchbook without having to tear the pages out.

Let me know what you think of the sketches. Expect many more hands very soon.

Keep Sketching!

-Parker

Monday, November 19, 2012

Updated Personal Identity

As a result of my internship at Quirky and my time back east, my views on design and life in general changed dramatically. My design sensibilities and my view of design's impact in people's lives took a more personal and mature turn. As a result I felt it was time to update my website and, as I will show in this blog post, my personal design identity.

My original logo and website were done about 1 year ago and reflected an incomplete understanding of the design process and a than less effective ability to create meaningful visual communication. My original logo was more of an illustration than a identity and the color was chosen to match the glasses I wore at the time.

To begin the process of creating a new identity, I worked through a self identifying questionaire featured on logodesignlove.com. This questionaire allowed me to reason and meditate on my personal values, goals, and vision of what makes me unique as a designer/creative.
I wrote the answers to the questions in a journal/notebook that I carried around with me. I often prefer time alone (I tend to be more of an introvert) and during these quiet moments I would think about the questions and I would record my reactions and the product of my thinking process.
After answering the questionaire I created a mood board to inspire me and to distill my influences into a easy to digest and compelling visual. On the board I included pictures of designers I admired, logos I liked, and activities I enjoy professionally and personally.
After the initial thought process and preparatory work, I began sketching rough concepts/solutions to the problem. These ideas reflect my love of drawing in the design process, the sculptural/form giving aspect of Industrial Design, and the joy I believe good design brings to people's lives.

Once I exhausted my creative ideas on pencil and paper I chose select solutions to develop digitally. The first solution I developed was based on the visual metaphor of a contour gauge. A contour gauge is used to measure sections of clay and foam models, most typically in automotive design. This visual metaphor was used to communicate my love of the sculptural aspect of design.
The next solution I developed digitally was based around a french curve. French curves are used to draw clean, tight and accurate curves. This solution reflects my love of drawing in the design process and draws a strong connection/association to the general preference designers/people have for organic forms.

The third solution I developed was a design identity based on my philosophy that good design brings joy to people and makes them smile. It also communicates the importance of drawing in my design/creative process. The flow of ideas communicated here is that good design makes people happy and good design starts in sketch form, therefore, I draw ideas that make people smile. Note the subtle play and exploration of the well worn "square box" identity. I explored a square in perspective to further enhance the visual association with drawing in design.
The fourth solution I explored was a simple identity that uses a vector of my actual signature as the main visual element. Inspired by the logos of Marc Newson, Karim Rashid and Paul Smith, this solution communicates a personal touch and individuality to my work and my process. It also is a nod to the often highly stylized way designers and artists sign a drawing or painting. My print signature is inspired by my favorite comic book artist's signature, Todd Mcfarlane. I have used this signature to sign my drawings since I was 9 years old. The challenge here was refining my signature into a digital vector while still retaining the calligraphic quality inherent to the original sketch.
Ultimately, after careful consideration and I discussed my ideas with colleagues and mentors, I decided that the signature solution was the most appropriate. Given that it is easy to reproduce in various media, it is legible at various sizes, it is extremely simple and  it reflects my highly personal and sketch driven design process, it is a clear winner for the best solution to my visual communication problem. To refine my hand written signature into a clean digital vector I paid close attention to kerning the individual characters and I made the stroke of the p and n straight lines. These subtle refinements give the logo visual structure.
With the logo solution chosen, I focused my attention on choosing a font for communicating my ideas. The 3 typefaces I considered were Dyeline, Avenir, and Helvetica neue. Dyeline is a typeface designed by Jonathan Hill that is inspired by the type on traditional architectural blueprints. Avenir was designed by Adam Frutiger and is based on Futura. Avenir is an excellent sans serif font that takes the pure geometric approach of Futura and applies a humanist, legibility focused philosophy to enhance the wonderful type that is Futura. In Avenir the vertical strokes are thicker than the horizontal strokes, the o is not a perfect circle and the ascenders are slightly shortened. All of these subtle nuances are aimed at improving legibility and making it a pleasure for people to read. Avenir is a type designed to bring joy to people's reading. Helvetica neue was considered because it is held in high regard in the design community. Ultimately I chose Avenir because of the several well considered reasons I discovered while researching it's form and history.

After choosing Avenir I developed the graphic elements and the typesetting I use for my presentation boards. The leading is calculated by multiplying the character size (13 pts) by the golden ratio (1.618) which brings the leading size to 21 pts. The line width of text paragraphs is also calculated using the golden ratio to enhance the visual rhythm and pleasantness of the page. To create a strong visual hierarchy in the different typesettings (heading, call out, body text, and captions) I chose the fibonacci sequence of 8, 13, 21, and 34 for the type size in points. The graphic elements are designed to reinforce a sense of reasoned logic in my design process. They are simple, to the point, and focused on clarity. The "text box" graphic element is a nod to design activities as communication tools. Whether I am sketching, building a mockup, or rendering a solidworks model in keyshot, all processes/skills are aimed at communicating an idea. Even in my illustration work the final solution is a visual communication of an idea.
With the typesetting determined and the graphic elements designed, I focused my attention on choosing a color for my personal identity. As a result of my questionaire process I discovered that I value design that refreshes people and exudes visual refinement. It also reinforced why green is my favorite color when I discovered that my name Parker means "keeper of the forest" in old english. I explored several variations of green to communicate various aspects of my design philosophy. Acid yellows/greens were considered to communicate a forward thinking technical approach to design. I also explored Mint/Spring greens to reference forests, rebirth, refreshment and to communicate refinement and friendliness. I ultimately chose Pantone 346 M as my official color for it's combined sense of refinement, refreshment and communication of an inviting nature to my work and personality.

Something that I learned while at Quirky is how template pages speed up the design communication process and gives our work a sense of visual harmony/consistency. For my portfolio I developed a set of template pages based on a grid system I developed and all the other initial type/graphic work I showed earlier. These template pages allow me to focus on the product/graphic solutions I am showing and not on page layouts/typefaces/colors. As a result I am able to work more quickly and my portfolio has a more consistent visual voice.

This redesign of my personal identity was critical for me to move forward and to mature as a designer. I'm amazed at how much I learned over the course of a 3 month period and I think that it's reflected quite well in this redesign. After creating this presentation and reviewing it I also noticed that I'm beginning to really get a sense of effective visual spacing/white space. In the past if I sensed a lack of visual harmony I would either fill the page with more elements or make the existing ones larger. Now I can see that visual harmony is a product of a deep understanding of how space interacts with positive visual elements. There are a few pages in this presentation that I think could use more effective spacing, but the beauty of the grid system is that I can focus on that rather than reinventing the wheel each and every time. I sincerely hope you have enjoyed this post and if you have any questions or comments on the process or solution, please feel free to comment below. I welcome direct engagement through constructive criticism and conservation.

The next post will get back to sketching. Until next time.















Thursday, November 8, 2012

Ayrton Senna


"I always had a good life but everything I achieved was through dedication, perseverance and a great desire to achieve my goals, a great desire to win, win in the life, not as a racer."

-Ayrton Senna

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Pony Chair by CB2

This is a quick sketch (about 30 minutes for the page) of the Pony dining chair by CB2. Inspired by the cantilevered chairs Marcel Breuer designed, it has a subtle elegance that really makes the design admirable. Take for example, the slight "toe in" of the back as it also changes curvature for ergonomic purposes. The seat pan also has a slight concave shape for comfort. I believe this is what makes reintrepretation of mid century designs a worth while approach to contemporary design. With increasingly complex manufacturing processes readily available, designers are looking back to the minimalist works of the 50's and 60's, but refining them with improved ergonomics and subtle surface development. This is a great chair. Unassuming, refreshing, and beautiful. By sketching existing products I'm becoming a sponge and developing my visual/design vocabulary.  I'm learning how other designers approached problems and solved them. Studying the work of those before you is underrated in today's rush to "be original." Like Paul Rand said, "Don't try to be original, just try to be good."

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Tiffany

Last night was the final session of my Charcoal Wash drawing class with Bill Lundquist. It was a short class, only 5 sessions. The school that held the course is not an accredited institution (thankfully) so the classes are structured differently from typical university semesters. The school is really just a place to learn the craft of art, not a place to pick up a degree. The benefit of this is no tests, no grades, and VERY small classes. My class had only 5 people, including me, in it. I learned a great deal in a short period of time. As a result of how incredible the course is, I've decided to attend another class in January that Bill teaches.

This drawing is of our live model, Tiffany. She was a really nice person who has modeled for fashion for 10 years and has modeled for 5 years for fine art. This drawing took about 2 hours from start to finish. I was sincerely pleased with it, as I definitely captured her likeness. She seemed to like it as well, as she complimented me on it. Drawing a person with a darker complexion is an interesting challenge, as it requires you to work within a very small value scale. Subtle value shifts and appropriate darks are key.

As of right now I'm working on a few other charcoal portraits that may or may not end up here. The other post I'm working on is a post about my new website and identity, where I'll be describing my process for developing my new logo. Look for that in the next week or so. In the meantime, I'll be sketching and updating this blog as much as I can. A few new things are happening for me and I'm working on juggling it all with balance.

Happy Sketching!

-Park

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Lanna Portrait Drawing

Hi everyone. Thank you for stopping by. Today's sketch is from my portrait drawing class at Scottsdale Artist School with Bill Lundquist. I missed last week's session on account of my recent illness. Last week was supposed to be my first session in the class with a live model, but with me missing class last night ended up being my first one. While I've drawn from a live model many times before, I've never drawn a live model with charcoal.

Bill started the class with a 40 minute demo, after which I began drawing this portrait. This sketch is about 2.5 hours of effort. In a sketch like this I'm aiming to make as complete a statement as I can (because after all, drawing is about communicating an idea,) but the time really seems to fly when I'm concentrating as intently as I do when drawing. Often times during a drawing I will talk to myself. Bystanders might think I'm mentally unstable or the obsessive artist type, but in reality it keeps me focused on solving visual problems. The dialogue during a drawing might go something like this:

Ok, I want to focus on the left eye first. I'll start with the pupil and upper eyelid shape. They connect there...ok, there's a dark underneath with two thin lines. That shadow shape of the eye socket connects to the eyebrow... is the right eye higher or lower than the left... higher, ok. How far is it from the left eye...let me measure that... it's a little over one eye length away. Does her right eyelashes look like a thick or a thin line? Does it go thick to thin?

People think drawing is about being loose and just scribbling, but it really is a deliberate effort of focus. It isn't mentally taxing the way writing a dissertation might be, but it is highly engaging work on multiple levels. What I just described above is simply the effort required to record the visual facts of the model. The true aim of art is creating a statement or recording a impression that a camera cannot. For example, in this drawing, I tried to capture her intense eyes and the wonderfully rich dark of her hair. I was trying to emphasize what time hasn't taken away, as the wrinkles reveal she isn't in the prime of her life. A camera cannot selectively emphasize or study a person like an artist can.

Lanna was a wonderful model from the Ukraine. She had a rather sweet disposition, but I didn't pick up on that until talking with her at the end of the session. From the beginning on she struck me as a rather serious person and I think you see that in this drawing. I absolutely loved Bill's drawing of her as even her eyes were smiling. She seemed like a gentle angel in his drawing. She's modeled for him extensively, so I think he knew that side of her better than I did.

Bill has been such an excellent instructor for me that I've decided to take another class he has in January called "The Really Useful Drawing Class." He and I can have wonderfully insightful discussion about my drawing. He helps me to correct proportions and see the true visual impression my eyes are receiving. The challenge in drawing accurately is drawing what you really see, not what you think you see. Bill has been instrumental in helping me to do that and I want to continue studying with him. This class has been one of the highlights of my whole life up to this point and I want to keep this feeling going. I just love to draw.

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Butterfly Stool

Today's sketch a day is the Butterfly stool by Sori Yanagi. He recently passed away earlier this year. You may read a obituary about him by Jasper Morrison here :
http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/8/view/18378/sori-yanagi-obituary-by-jasper-morrison.html

courtesy of designboom.

I first got to see this product in person at the MOMA over the summer in NYC. I was instantly struck by it's delicate, organic shape and the simple nature of it. To me it exemplifies what I so deeply admire about East Asian art and culture, particularly Japan's.
It has a wonderfully considered and poetic nature about it. It's simple, but also intriguing at the same time. It's modern, but also timeless. I visited Japan in 2007, when I got to see first hand how deeply ingrained aesthetic sensibilities are in Japanese culture. That trip fueled what will be a lifelong admiration and respect for Japanese art and design. Walking through the streets of Tokyo and Kyoto it is deeply apparent that Japan is a special place. The buildings, the graphics/logos of businesses and the city lights blaring at night are some of the things I miss most. I remember thinking to myself during that trip "Wow! This culture is light years ahead in design and creativity." I was at once humbled and inspired. I felt privileged as a child of such a young culture like the U.S. to see the wonderful aesthetic refinement of one of the oldest cultures in the world. Put simply, Japanese people inherently just "get it" when it comes to beauty.

This stool is such a wonderful design. It looks like it could have been designed this year and yet it was designed in 1956. Sori Yanagi is probably the best designer you've never heard of. He was passed over in my design school; although I'm disappointed, I can see why. His work, like much of Japanese culture, is quietly poetic. It doesn't scream at you like the Italians do and it doesn't generate the money American design does. But it quietly exudes grace that no other culture could ever dream of. Simple but refined, humble and unassuming. I learned a lot about the subtle nature of curvature in sketching this. This product is an exemplar of warm materials and restrained but elegantly fluid form.

The story behind this design is also quintessentially Japanese. Sori designed this stool after becoming inspired by the bent wood techniques pioneered by American design duo Charles and Ray Eames. Sori took their American technological pioneering spirit and applied elegant, timeless Japanese aesthetics to it. It is pitch perfect in this regard. New and old. Forward thinking while honoring the past. Japan may not invent technologies, but they make them better. Yanagi San, I love your work, you did well!

Tell me what you think!

-Park

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Portrait Sketch

I've been extremely sick this week. It came upon me very suddenly Friday and zapped me of my energy. As a result I missed my Monday night class. Bill is an older gentleman, so when I still felt so terrible, I thought it would be better of me not to bring it along with me. Sadly I missed our first session with a live model, so I decided to draw another sketch with the aid of a photograph. This one took about 2.5 hours as well and was a lot of fun to do. I tried to imagine having Bill looking over my shoulder saying "bring the nose in a bit... the eye's not right." His ability to spot inaccuracies is incredible. What is so wonderful about his feedback is that it's already improved my eye as well. On this drawing I was able to spot inaccuracies with much more confidence than ever before. He's also helping me to spot the lighting and structure of the head with greater accuracy. Over all I'm pleased with the likeness, but I need to make another pass with the blending stump and soften some of the edges. If I like what happens, I'll update this post with the refined drawing. (updated: the drawing has been blended with a stump to smooth out the values of the original.)

Let me know what you think!

-Park

Sunday, October 21, 2012

Stool ideas continued

I'm sorry about missing yesterday. I've been extremely sick this weekend. Today I'm feeling better, so I managed to sketch some ideas today. I'm continuing with furniture because it's an area of design that I really like and I'm trying to refine some ideas for a possible future project. Overall I'm pleased with the page, but there are some nagging perspective issues. Take for example the drawing explaining the feet assembly. The ellipse of the felt tipped foot is too narrow, it should be about 5 degrees larger. The other perspective issue is with the far legs on the left side drawing. The way they arch doesn't match the near side legs. Oh well, things to work on for tomorrow's sketches!

Thank you for stopping by!

-Park

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Stool Design 2

So, today I decided to further explore the idea on the left of yesterday's sketch. I won't elaborate too much today, particularly because I'm not very pleased with the perspectives and proportions of these sketches. The legs don't seem to sit right on the seat pan and the legs on my largest sketch are a bit thick for my taste. One of those days where you just have to keep going and look for long term trends. ;)

See you all tomorrow!

-Park

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Stool Design

This sketch page is a collection of stool and seat pan ideas I've been inspired to come up with after sketching furniture/ chairs. The idea is for an artist's studio stool. It's something that I explored in school but I was never truly satisfied with the result of my efforts. In these sketches I'm aiming to capture a "workmanship" like appearance- unassuming and solid, but I am also trying to arrive at a design that reflects the "zeitgeist" and has a elegant sense of proportions in the legs and seat pan. Something that struck me about the Bouroullec brothers' chair is that it has a blue collar / unadorned sensibility at first glance, but upon closer inspection it has spectacular refinement that only highly trained and experienced designers could accomplish. I like the larger sketch on the left, although the two right large sketches are also rather interesting. Let me know what you think!

See you tomorrow!

Park

Steel Wood Chair by the Bouroullec brothers

The sketch of the day for Monday was the Steel Wood Chair by the Bouroullec brothers. It was featured in their interview for the documentary "Objectified." Which I'm sure most of anyone who comes to my blog has seen. It's interesting to sketch this chair after watching that interview because they spoke of harmony and "solidity" in the design. There's a saying in the art world, which unfortunately has not carried into the design sketching world, that goes " Drawing teaches you to really see." In this case, drawing this chair made me realize how refined and complex this seemingly simple chair is. The arms gracefully flow into the back rest while the fillet on the arm rests blends into the fillet of the back. The complexity of this design also comes through in the stepped in surface of the metal which allows the wooden legs to be attached and flow with the rest of the design. All in all what strucks me as utterly fantastic about this chair is the it feels like something out of the American Puritan era at first glance, but in the details it feels completely modern and fresh. Unassuming, solid, and elegantly refined. These guys know what they are doing.

See you later today! (I owe you a sketch a day today, remember?) ;)

Keilani

This is my sketch from last night's class. This sketch took about 2.5 hours. The model's name is Keilani and Bill told me that she has modeled for him in the past. This drawing was based off of a photograph he took of her from one of their drawing/ painting sessions. Bill told me that she is half Japanese and half Irish, but spent much of her childhood in Hawaii. He also mentioned that she was Miss Arizona in 2000. :-)

Looking through the stack of photo reference is an overwhelming experience, as he brings seemingly hundreds of photos with him. Once I stumbled across this photo, though, I was instantly compelled to draw from it. The lighting, the perspective, and her salt and pepper hair struck me as rather interesting. Her eyes seemed to communicate a certain confidence and wisdom that comes from having a few years " in the books" so to speak.

This week was much easier with the charcoal as I've been practicing through out the week, trying to get better with the medium. Next week we will be drawing from a live model (who might be Keilani, much to Bill's excitement!) I'm hoping I can carry some wind from this week's class into the next one.

Monday, October 15, 2012

Christina Ricci Charcoal

This is a charcoal wash sketch from a class I'm attending at Scottsdale Artist School. The class I'm taking is on Monday nights with a local professional artist by the name of Bill Lundquist. The class is called "Capturing the Drama of Charcoal Wash Portraits." The class is 3 hours long and this is the product of the first class. I've never really worked in charcoal before, particularly vine charcoal. Bill provided photo reference that we could use and I chose a picture of Christina Ricci. I mention this because I did a particularly poor job of capturing her likeness. I'm not distraught by this, but I am focused on making sure each drawing is better than the last. Although this is a relatively quick sketch, I'd like my next drawing to reflect my ability to manage the lights and darks better, refine the edges and capture a stronger likeness. Part of my struggle in this class is that Bill is encouraging me to use a comparative measurement system and to use a "Chain of Puzzle Pieces" approach to the drawing. Typically I follow more of an "Envelope" approach, deciding on the outer limits and working in. Bill had me start with the left eye, develop it to a satisfactory level, and use that as the "measuring stick" for the rest of the drawing. This class is also fun in that he works quickly. I'm used to spending anywhere between 15-30 hours on a portrait drawing and this one was done in 3 hours. As the name of the class suggests, the technique we are using is a combination of painting charcoal powder with water and brush, in addition to using charcoal pencils/ vine charcoal sticks to draw the face. This interplay of soft / suggestive, and precise / descriptive is what makes drawings like this so much more engaging than a photograph. My next session is tonight. You'll be seeing the results of that class soon!


Sunday, October 14, 2012

Work Lounge by Manuel Saez and Partners

Work Lounge by Manuel Saez and Partners of Brooklyn, New York. I'd love to intern / work there some day. I made the proportions too wide and short. Darn. I keep doing that. I have to make my next drawing taller than I think it should be and it probably will be spot on. I always have to focus on improving. One nice part of this drawing is that it's all ball point pen! I haven't drawn in pen in a while. Enjoy Sunday everyone!

Saturday, October 13, 2012

Emeco Chair

The Emeco Chair by Adrian Van Hooydonk of BMW DesignWorks USA. This was a fun design to draw, as it is simple, solid, and very American. Emeco was well known for its all aluminum chairs designed for the U.S. Military during WWII. This chair is a reinterpretation of the Original designed in the 1940's. This chair features a fiber glass seat pan and back with aluminum square tubing for the frame. I've sat in this chair and I can say it really is comfortable, given the materials it's made of. I think what makes it comfortable is the highly organic / sculpted seat pan. It fit my "bottom" quite well and I didn't feel an incessant need to shift around in it. What inspires me about this chair is that it's a reinterpretation of a classic symbol of American design, yet it feels fresh and contemporary even today. It feels and looks solid as well, speaking to an integrity in American design and manufacturing that is all but gone in today's globalized economy. I'm not nationalistic, but I can't help getting excited about hearing an American muscle car roaring down the road, or in this case, sit in a high quality chair made in the USA. It's more about the integrity of doing a product well than making it in a particular country. If a company takes the time to make it here (because it's insanely expensive to do so here) they usually also take the time to make it well. I really hope to own this chair some day!

Thanks for stopping by everyone!

-Park

Friday, October 12, 2012

More Chairs!

Sketching Chairs. Couple of Marc Newsons in there, the classic Panton Chair and a stool whose designer escapes me. Happy Friday everyone. Enjoy the weekend!

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Alta Chair Sketch

This sketch is of the Alta Chair from CB2 by Manuel Saez and Partners. I admired it in person at the CB2 boutique in SOHO, a short distance from the design studio it was conceived in (Brooklyn). The design is really elegant, simple, and deceivingly fluid. My sketch loses some of the subtle shaping in the backrest so wonderfully executed on the real product. I've also made the legs too short. Overall I think my line weights are pretty good (although they tend to favor the heavier side, a few key lighter line weights would add a great deal of dynamic to the sketch.) One of my last projects at Quirky was a furniture piece and it was in the process of designing it that I fell in love with furniture. A couple of key themes emerged this past year (eyewear, furniture and cars). I'd love design all three someday. But, I am happy just drawing. I love my time with pencil and paper. I feel fulfilled and at peace when I'm sketching.
Thanks for stopping by!

See you tomorrow!

-Park

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

New Beginnings

Hi everyone! Sorry for the delay this summer. If you didn't know already, I spent the summer interning at Quirky.com in New York city. That experience will require a whole post in of itself, so rather than get too in depth here, let me just say I have a very different perspective on design and life in general as a result of my time back East. It's funny what happens in a 12 short weeks, but it was such an intense (in a good way) experience that to not walk away different would be insane. Case in point, I've updated my website to be simplier, cleaner, and more minimalist. I also updated my logo (the process to arrive at my new one will be a featured post here soon). I've decided to separate my website and blog management to simplify the process of content management. I found on my last website that I was spending more time on content management than actual creative work. What does this change mean? More frequent updates on both! This blog will mostly be a sketch a day blog, but occasionally I might decide to feature a project from my site or share a favorite website, book, product, etc. Don't worry, though, it will all be design related.

Enough rambling. Enjoy today's sketch. (Sunglasses again, I know). I will be drawing furniture soon, along with cars and all sorts of products! It's good to be back and to be in a leaner, cleaner, and more efficient platform. Take a look around my website ( www.parkerbrowndesign.com) . Feel free to send me any comments or suggestions on it. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, but if you see any glaring uglies/nasties I want to hear about it.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

-Park