The things that you don't know that you don't know, until you know them

This week at work, I was struggling on a layout, and just making minor improvements here and there, but it wasn't coming together how I thought it should. So my creative director came over to my desk, and literally worked on it for about 2 minutes, and it looked a hell of a lot better. Some people could be reading this and think, "damn J, you slow as hell", but I don't think that's the case. I think people develop a trained eye, and can understand, as soon as they look at a layout, what's missing. Being around people that are better than you, make you better; and a lot of times they can show you things that you didn't know that you didn't know. Then you'll know, you know?

Swatches

These might be the colors that I use for my site, portfolio, and promotional tools. I'm working on a logo for myself and it's killing me. Once I have it done I'll post it.

Dreaming

Anyone who knows me, knows that I sleep a lot. I could have just went to sleep for 6 or 7 hours, and then feel like I need to go back to sleep. Sometimes I feel like I'm just running on pure adrenaline.

Because I sleep a lot, I have a lot of dreams, and I've always been curious to what dreams mean and why do they seem so random. What I've been doing for the last week or so is writing down my dreams as soon as I wake up. It's not easy, but I try as hard as I can to make sure I do it. The most dreams I've been able to record is 6 in one night. I still have yet to figure out exactly what the dreams mean, but I would definitely recommend writing your dreams down; You never know, something could be revealed to you that you may not have otherwise seen.

Interviews to come

I'm not sure how many people actually check out this blog, but the interview series that I've been doing haven't been up in a while; this is mostly because of how busy I've been with school and portfolio.

Anyhow, I have an idea of how I wanna do the next interview, which I'm going to post at the end of this week.

Stay tuned, it should be fun.

Playoff Time

The NBA Playoffs just started this weekend . This is probably the best playoffs since the good ol' days of Piston/Bulls scuffles, the Heat/Knicks battles (which you probably wont see for a while, because they were awful this year), and then later in the 90s, when the Bulls beating Utah two years straight. By the way, and I'm not a Utah fan, Jordan definitely pushed off Byron Russell on that "crossover".

This is playoff time too in an event very distant from sports: school...art school specifically. There are about 2 or 3 weeks left; which means it's time to get ready to overcome those "teachers that don't like me", the dogs that have eaten my homework numerous times, and that alarm clock that doesn't seem to wake me up in the morning. It's time to stop playing around and get the hell out of school. I do need to get a new alarm clock though.

More Goosebumps...

Daily Monsters

Jay-Z has a quote in his film Fade to Black that stuck out to me: "If inspiration doesn't find you, you have to go find it."

At this time in my senior year, I need inspiration more than ever. I usually have a bag or bookmark of goodies that I can look at that can give me a boost; and today I found a new piece of candy to add to the bag. Stefan G. Bucher has a book that's coming out called the 100 days of Monsters. On his blog, I saw video clips of some of his "Daily Monsters"; below are days 179, 180, and 181, and I believe Stefan is doing 200 days of Monsters, so stay tuned to the other 19 that he'll create.

Watch ESPN Radio

If ESPN replaces your FOX, CW, or NBC news, you might like these commercials.

DIRK

My boy Dirk has been showing up since coming off that ankle injury. I been a fan of Dirk and the Mavs for over 7 years now: through the first and second round knock-outs of the playoffs to Sacramento; the ridiculous loss to Miami in the Finals; and the first round upset to Golden State Warriors. Yes, me and the Mavs have been through some rough times. But when they eventually win, I can at least say I didn't hop on the bandwagon. I think I'm driving that wagon now.

Oh by the way, Dirk hit the game winner last night to clinch the playoffs. (I almost forgot to add that.)

My Site is on it's way

If you're curious about those icons on my site, you'll see them soon, and what they mean.
www.jelanicurtis.com

ONE x 2

On Friday, in the middle of my Introduction to Mathematics class, I brought out my laptop to check my email; the inbox subject read: One Show College Competition Finalist Announced. I opened up the email and downloaded the pdf that was attached, and I saw that I was selected as a finalist for both the Innovative Marketing category and the Design category. I almost jumped out of my desk. I'm very excited about this opportunity, and on May 8th we'll see if I win a pencil.

Word of the day

Today in my psychoanalysis class, we watched a tapping of a therapy session with Dr. R.D. Laing and a schizophrenic patient. The schizophrenic patient asked Dr.Laing if he was a Christian, and he replied:

"I'm not Christian in terms of Jesus being crucified in between two candles, but rather Jesus being crucified in between two thieves."

This speaks to the difference between religion and relationship.
.....
Something else that was very insightful and thought provoking was something the pastor said this past Sunday:

"If you walk down the street and see 8 pennies scattered, you may think that someone dropped them; but if you walk down the street and see 8 pennies stacked in two rows of 4, you'd think someone placed them there."

The pastor was speaking about the order of the events that occur in our lives, and how they can't be mistaken as being random.

Great work gets noticed...bad work does too

In my first blog entry I spoke about change in regards to the progressive poster of Barack Obama, that was designed by Shepard Fairey. I was looking at FFFF! today and I saw that there was another poster that he did with Barack Obama in it. What was different about this one was that it was a direct request by Barack. Shepard spoke about this a little on his site.

I love seeing things like this happen, because it just reinforces the idea that art, design and creativity are relevant, and serve a purpose. Yesterday, I was listening to an interview with a CEO at a big ad agency, and he said the words, "it's just advertising". Those 3 words threw me off, and I actually rewound the interview to make sure those weren't the words that he said. I didn't understand why he said that. Advertising is very influential to how society is shaped and how people go about their every day lives. I've been wondering for a long time, why are there so many ads on tv that just strike, or attempt to strike, the emotion of humor? It's ridiculous to me because basically there are a lot of creatives who gamble with millions of the clients dollars and place a bet on how funny they think they can be. "It's just advertising?" I hate to say this, but those 3 words really do represent the work that's coming out of that agency, regardless of how many awards they've won.

Nike+ is a huge example of the effectiveness and relevance of advertising. R/GA and everyone who worked on the Nike+ account linked into the mindset and the life of a runner. And it didn't become "just advertising" to runners. It became apart of they're routine. They're are more examples of this, but Nike+ just sticks out to me the most right now, because I'm very impressed with it, and I've been talking about it ever since it came out.

Since the question "What makes you unique?" was posed to me back in early November, I've been picking my brain to figure out the answer. Even though that question is more deep than one may think, this is my answer, but in the form of a mission statement: I want to help save the thinking man's sport.

I'm not sure how good it is, but I know that it at least speaks to my love for baseball, which people don't like too much, and it comments on the advertising business that I hope to get into once I graduate. Baseball is something that I would love to help get people interested in. It's a great sport, and it really does involve a lot of situational thinking; and it's fun. And advertising, though in it's creative incline, is being somewhat abused right now because I don't think people realize the impact that it has on our world. But hey, maybe I'm wrong, maybe it is "just advertising".

Dirk, Ocho Cinco, and Agent 0 (I hate that name)

Good news: Dirk is back. I thought he was out for the rest of the season, but nah, HE'S BACK. I was in the city late today because I needed to go to the library, but when I got home and turned on ESPN, Dirk was back...and the Mavs were killing the Warriors. The score was 111-86, and Jason Kidd beat them in another category, 16 to 10, in assists. The played they're butts off. And as much as I would hate to see it happen again, I think Dirk spraining his ankle was good for them. Dallas looks like a whole new team. We'll see what happens because the Western Conference Playoffs is going to be tough.

Ocho Cinco is loco. Chad Johnson had one of the longest interviews on Sports Center that I have ever heard. He was just going on and on about his issues in Cincinnati. I think when you're dealing with team matters it should be kept in house, but I definitely understand what he was talking about. It's crazy (loco) that a 5-time Pro-Bowler and consistent lead leader in receptions has to be penalized for his team staying in trouble, and not making the proper adjustments to getting better. If you're curious what the interview was about check it out on espn.com. Regardless if Chad is on the Bengals or on another team, I'm still a fan...even though I think it would be better if he could win with Carson Palmer.

"Agent 0" might be one of the worse nicknames in sports, but the boy got game. Gilbert Arenas came back tonight from his season long knee injury, and even though he only had 17 points (he normally has about 30 or 40), it looks like he never left. Unfortunately for him, they lost to a buzzer beater shot by the Milwaukee Bucks. Oh well, they might still get in the playoffs, considering how terrible the Eastern Conference is right now.

It Has Begun...1 down, 161 to go

Miguel Cabrera, Dontrelle Willis, Edgar Renteria in Detroit Blue; Joe Torre in a different color blue, but with no pintstrpes; Glavine back in Atlanta; Torre Hunter in Angel red; Johan Santana in not just blue, but orange and white too; and give a warm welcome to Kosuke Fukudome being on the cubbies, especially with him going 3 for 3, and hitting a 3-run jack (3-run homerun) at the bottom of the 9th.

If that's not enough to get excited about baseball and this 2008 season, I don't know what to say. I'm very excited about this season, and I'm ready to see baseballs go over small fences and big monster fences; I'm ready to see webgems, and bases get stolen (don't worry it's legal); I'm ready to strap up my cleats and get on the field...I'm actually not physically ready yet. I have to get the Nike+ started and get back in shape. But I'll be on the field sometime soon.

Anyway, it has begun.