My Blog Has Moved!

My blog has moved to kayanotokuzato.com/blog.
I have talked about that I got myself own domain and web hosting company, and transferring my blog site from this to new one would make my life easier to manage.
I haven't mastered this blog site yet and moved to new one. I will have difficult time using new one for a bit and I am sorry if this cause you any troubles.

There won't be any new post updates here after this, but you will see more in my new blog site.

Please come visit my new blog site!
kayanotokuzato.com/blog

Art Auction Event: Tsunami Shoe Gala and Auction

I am planning to attend "Tsunami Shoe Gala and Auction on Thursday, June 16.
This is a fundraiser event for people who have affected by earth quake and tsunami in Japan. The admission to this event is a $5 donation, but I am pretty sure you are more than welcome to donate more than this only if you could :)
The Tsunami Shoe Project was done by different artists including students from The Art Institute of Seattle.

I haven't seen them yet, but thses shoes are on display in the Student Activities Center at The Art Institute of Seattle if any one like to see these designed shoes.

"The bidding will begin in the weeks before the auction and culminate at the Tsunami Shoe Concert and Silent Auction at Youngstown Cultural Arts Center (YCAC) on Thursday, June 16th at 7pm."
------ from Tsunami Shoe Gala and Auction Facebook page

"The Concert and Gala is sponsored by Utrecht and Blank Canvas. The Culinary Club is creating Japanese inspired appetizers. The sound for this event is being managed by The Audio Club."
------ from Tsunami Shoe Gala and Auction Facebook page

All donations will go to Japan Red Cross.
I am very exciting to see all those designed shoes by artists, and to help my home country, Japan.





One of the designed shoes photo I found in their facebook site. There are not too many photos yet, but I'll go ask if I could take more pictures of them at Student Activities Center and post here.

Microsite Project for Addiction ~part1~

I have posted some of my addiction series of photography in my blog (links are bottom of this post).
Today, I am finally starting to talk about my microsite project using those images. My client for this project is AddictionInfo.org and this micro site is suppose to link from their homepage. This microsite should help people to aware of addictions visually and specially trying to get attention from younger audience to think about them.

Top Image is screen shot of what I have for the first page now, but it will change some and I will be posting interactive version of the microsite here soon.


Some of my sketches and thoughts:

From Wikipedia:
"A microsite, also known as a minisite or weblet, is an Internet web design term referring to an individual web page or cluster of pages which are meant to function as an auxiliary supplement to a primary website. The microsite's main landing page most likely has its own domain name or subdomain."

Related blog post:
Photography for My Microsite Project ~part1~
Photography for My Microsite Project ~part2~

My First Web Hosting Company and Domain

Do you remember about my previous post "Web Hosting Services Shopping " I was talking about looking for my first Web hosting company?

I was telling myself "I am going to purchase one today!" for few days, and I finally got one this past Monday. My last three possible companies were DreamHost, BlueHost, and FatCow, and I decided to go for FatCow. It had best deal (cheapest cost) and had good review as other two. I also got response from web design club member saying he has been using FatCow for years and he really likes it.

I also got my very first own domain.
My portfolio website address will be: kayanotokuzato.com

This site is not ready yet, but will be up shortly. I am using Blogspot (this blog) right now, but soon everything will be transferred to kayanotokuzato.com/blog for good. You can already use my new blog site, but I'm still using here for now because I am not sure how to use new one quiet yet. I will let you know when I stop using here, and make sure to leave my new links here again.





If anyone is interested in the site:
FatCow
http://www.fatcow.com

Make sure that they have a deal!
FatCow is also eco-friendly company that hosted by 100% wind energy!

Visiting POP and Big Fish

Group of Web and Interactive students including myself visited design farm "POP" and game company "Big Fish" today.
It was really inspiring to see real work places and listing and communicating with people who are very much excited about what they do for their living. I really like to thank all of these people who made this opportunities today. Top photo is my group at POP.

www.bigfishgames.com

http://www.pop.us/

Photography: Food is art too 3 & 4

This is continuous posting from "Photography: Food is art too 1 & 2". They are part of food image gallery I am working on.


Related posts:
1. Photography: Food is art too 1 & 2
2. Photography: Food is art too 3 & 4
.....more to come

Website for Non-profit Organization

http://lifelongbreakfast.org

I made website for non-profit organization call Lifelong AIDS Alliance that is located in Capital Hill area of Seattle Washington. It is great organization that is "committed to preventing the spread of HIV, and to providing practical support services and advocating for those whose lives are affected by HIV and AIDS."

This was Annual Benefit Breakfast event they started last year and I am so glad I could help them create this website for the event. 2011 event was in past April, so some of buttons on the website may not function right now (I took some links out, so people cannot fill some of forms), but this site is still available if you are interested in visiting there. This was done a little while ago and it is my very first website I worked start to finish, so I know there are so many parts need to be fixed in the site. I am still learning:)

Web Hosting Services Shopping

I have finally started looking for my Web hosting service company. I have never bought one for myself, but I really should have one as web designer. I have mentioned few times in my blog postings that I'm taking portfolio class right now. I have to create, code, and publish my own website with my own domain name onto my own server. It is one of many requirement to pass this class. I have started creating my site, and will be up withing next 5 weeks or so. I'll post the project and website here soon.

I don't know much about Web hosting companies, but I am thinking about getting one from one of these companies:

• HostMonster
• BlueHost
• DreamHost
• FatCow
  

These are some of the sites where you can find ranking of good and cheap Web hosts:
www.findmyhosting.com
www.webhostingmasters.com

If you have some suggestions and recommendations, please let me know!

Photography for My Microsite Project ~part2~

I have posted three images of my addiction series. I used Barbie dolls to show how addictions could become large issue, and affect on human life. Huge addictions are taking over these small dolls as human who are powerless.

AND my new project using these images (I probably not using the last image of this page) to create microsite/minisite. I am working on coding the site right now, and will be posting the project soon.

From Wikipedia:
"A microsite, also known as a minisite or weblet, is an Internet web design term referring to an individual web page or cluster of pages which are meant to function as an auxiliary supplement to a primary website. The microsite's main landing page most likely has its own domain name or subdomain."

Related blog post:
Photography for My Microsite Project ~part1~
Photography for My Microsite Project ~part2~
Microsite Project for Addiction ~part1~

Photography for My Microsite Project ~part1~

Today I am posting the photos I have taken. Theme is "Addictions". These three images are part of the series and I was trying to post them last night, but there was some technical issue with the blogspot, so I couldn't finish the post. I have 4 more images for this series, and I will post them tonight with better explanations for this project and coming project using them.

Alcohol

Plastic Surgery

Sex

Related blog post:
Photography for My Microsite Project ~part1~
Photography for My Microsite Project ~part2~

Microsite Project for Addiction ~part1~

Photography: Food is art too 1 & 2

Something had been wrong with blogspot. I lost two posting from past a couple days when I woke up today! I don't know if I remember everything I wrote for this post, but I will try to write same:)

I think photography is one of my favorite type of art. I really enjoy looking at them and I would love to be better at taking them. I also believe food is art, and we enjoy looking at good food and eating them as well, of course.
I have a image gallery project with theme, and I decided to take photos of food I create. I am not professional on either one of them, but this combination would make my project fun. I have to start taking some photos to get better at it too:)



Related posts:
1. Photography: Food is art too 1 & 2
2. Photography: Food is art too 3 & 4
.....more to come

Magazine Layout: Jojoba Oil

This is the magazine layout I have done as my project few month ago. All the images are from stock photos, and information about jojoba oil is from internet. I have designed all the logos, titles and all other layout of this two page spread.



This was done in Adobe InDesign that is very good software to use when you are working on something like magazine layout and other typographic related work.

I wanted to post this layout as work I have done, but I also wanted to share the jojoba oil because I use this for my skins everyday and I would highly recommend to others:)

Photography: Absolut Vodka Advertise

Some of you are familiar with Absolut Vodka advertise campaigns (if not, you could visit their website and check it out).
This was done in one of my classes I have taken 2-3 years ago. Everyone had to come up with one concept something to do with the year 2009 when I took the class.
I decided to do "Absolut Analog" because all the analog would be gone in that year.

These are the images I used to create this in Adobe Photoshop:


Well, real reason why I posted this old project was that I decided to use one the image I used here in my new project:) I'll post the new project near future!

Gallery Opening Visit: CORE

This past Thursday (it was First Thursday Art Walk Day in Downtown Seattle).
I went to visit one of the Galleries in Pioneer Square call CORE for show opening of Scott Mansfield. He is mainly teaching Graphic Design Program student at the Art Institute of Seattle, and I enjoyed the show and I was very much inspired by his sculptures!

You can see his sculpture works from this page.









The show will go on until May 28.

http://coregallery.org/
Location:
CORE
117 Prefontaine Place South
Seattle WA 98104
Business Hours:
Wednesday – Saturday 12:00 – 6:00 P.M.



I hadn't gone to any gallery visit for a while specially on art walk day of First Thursday. I walked around a little bit to see some stuff on my way to the bus stop, but unfortunately weather wasn't so good. I may want to walk around the area another first Thursday in summer. I think there will be more people and more art works to see out there when weather is much nicer.

Search Engines for Visual People

These sites are search assistants with a highly intuitive visual interface.



1.
















http://www.oskope.com/
First, you choose search services from amazon, e-bay, flicker, fotolia, yahoo image, or youtube, and then you can type your search keyword. You can see each site with its preview images. There are several ways to display and you can even change size of image display.



2.















http://search.spacetime.com
This is another interesting site I just found. You can just type your keyword and it'll give you preview of the pages you are looking for. You may find pages you may interested in from their preview image without reading descriptions of each page. I think this site would be handy when I'm looking for some type of tutorial, cooking recipes, and more!
You can search by Google, Images, Wikipedia, and YouTube.



3.















http://www.visuwords.com/
This is definitely fun way to search online. This is graphic directionally!
It is quick to look up something you want to know. You have to try it find out:)

50 Free Fonts For Web Designers

I found the link I could download 50 fonts for free, and I thought I
should share with others. I founded this page on Splashnology. It was a little bit of boring work (click, click, click,click....) to download all these typefaces, but I sure feel I got a little bit richer when I have more fonts in my hard drive (Yes, I do know they were free!).
Check the link out. You may find some you want to have in your computer.

These are some of the example of typefaces you can find in the link:

InDesign: Playing with Type2 ~"Subtraction"~

I posted similar project I have done in Adobe InDesign using word "Transition" yesterday. This is with word "Subtraction" version. The visual has to support meaning of the word, and two images below here are what I came up with. I personally like first image a lot. It reminds me a little child plays with paper(origami to me) with scissors. Could it be from my childhood memory in Japan?

Definition from answer.com:
-noun.
1.The act or process of subtracting; deduction.

InDesign: Playing with Type1 ~"Transition"~

These were done in Adobe InDesign using word "transition." How design could support a word is very interesting. I had so much fun doing this project!

"Transition" by dictionary.com:
-noun.

movement, passage, or change from one position, state, stage, subject, concept, etc., to another; change: the transition from adolescence to adulthood.

from adolescence to adulthood.

The first image has "S" as its transition, and I also created color transition of white and black. Doesn't lying "S" look like a good transitional icon?


I did another one with "Transition" using letter sizes and color values. Letter size is getting smaller moving left to right, and letter color is getting lighter up to down.

Periodic Table of Typefaces

I found this great table of typefaces and I thought it is great infographic for anyone, but specially for designer. This one page could tell you common basic typefaces we should know!

These are considered as some of the well designed typefaces. It would be helpful to have one on my wall or somewhere:)
Go to this link for some options to own one for yourself!
http://www.squidspot.com/Periodic_Table_of_Typefaces.html

I think most of people don't really pay attention to typefaces surrounding us, but they are everywhere, I mean they are everywhere you go. There are overwhelming numbers of different typefaces, but these are pretty common and easier to find in you computer, I think.

Let's think more about typefaces:)

Creative Campaign: life is too short for the wrong job

I found this "jobsintown campaign" with slogan of "life is too short for the wrong job." I thought this is well done campaign and wanted to share this here. This campaign was for German employment website call jobsintown.de. I wish I could see some of these posters around me then I won't be so bored waiting at airport, for example.

Images below are the company's four-year print ad campaign, designed by scholz & friends berli.