Hemostat

Guess what? ALSO made in 3ds Max. le sigh, Max, le sigh.

Syringe

Also made in 3ds Max.

blooooooooooood

Made in 3ds Max.

some package designs

We had to redesign a package. I found this really hard, as I like lots of textures and patterns, but had to be simple with packages, since you need to convey lots of information in a tight spot. The first one is the winning one, which I will be printing at Kinko's tomorrow... wish me luck.

oooo fun

made in 3ds Max.

ta da!

For Illustration class we had to copy one of Brodel's pieces. I'm not confident enough to put Brodel's original next to mine, but this is my version! One more thing crossed of the list! I really enjoyed doing this one. I used photoshop. Good times.

im being a lazy blogger while i work on my projects due before the end of the semseter

longest. blog. title. ever.
this may or may not be from the roof of the anatomy building. I cannot confirm or deny this.
it may be the same anatomy building where I took a 2 hour lab exam worth 65% of my grade today. and it went well enough. Cranio is a fun class, I am sad to see it end. I really liked it. Well, like it. We have one more exam worth the rest of our grade, next Wednesday. whoohoo!

a corner of Chicago that I had to share

some more Stereotaxis

We had to do a brochure awhile back, that accompanied the billboard and ad that I already posted. Here are the results of that labor:Please note the ridiculous reference to a popular song by the Go-Gos, and the use of dots, my favorite design element.

Still working on the rest of the project that I posted the start of below, not to mention a Brodel copy, a business plan, a package design, and two cranio tests. I can't wait until this semester is over!! 19 credits in grad school... never again.

PS. Wouldn't it be nice if we could hyperlink to definitions or whatever when we talk, so we wouldn't have to explain things?

just the start...

stay tuned.

RAGE!!

This was a design assignment about RAGE. We were given an article to read about rage, and then asked to design three different concepts for critique based on the article. I liked the article, and the last few paragraphs really hit home:

"In The Enigma of Anger, Keizer writes about Abbot Ammonas, who lived in the fourth century as a hermit in a remote and desolate region of Egypt. Keizer points out that Ammonas, while doing his monkly spiritual exercise, never ceased praying to be delivered from his anger. Which raises the quesion: What exactly does a hermit have to get angry about?

Ammonas, whatever hardships he had to endure in the desert, was spared "Dixie" ringtones, telemarketers, and traffic jams. He was spared Bill O'Reilly. Yet he continued to struggle with his anger.

Maybe Ammonas' problem was that he was left, in the end, with the one thing that not even you- well-meaning and kindhearted as you are- can escape.

Your own angry self."

[Utne Reader, Nov.-Dec. 2007, Andrew Santella]

I really liked this assignment; we were instructed to "go crazy" which always makes me happy. I designed the three concepts above, and still had a lot more ideas floating around. After discussing them with a friend, I realized each design appealed to a different personality type- the first was very visual and evokes lots of emotions and senses of calm being distrupted. It appeals to a Feeler. The last is a math equation- reducing something abstract, like rage, to something logical that can be added and divided, like math. It appeals to Sensing types. The second is very practical and somewhat in the middle of both Feelers and Sensers- it isn't overwhelming on emotions, but still gets the emotion across, but using conventional means- words, instead of images, which tend to be more Sensing inclined. Fascinating.

Yes, I buy into the Meyers-Briggs personality theory to an extent, the psychology degree part of me is fascinated by this sort of thing. Jung was always a favorite of mine, many papers written about his theories, and my senior research was based on right-left brain preferences- logical vs. abstract. I think it can tell us a lot, of course as long as we are aware of the danger in it- saying one person can and will only act one way. Which is silly. Most of us have two sides of a brain and most of us use both sides all the time.

Anyway, this was my final version, based on critique and my own Feeler type perhaps, emerging in design!! Which version do you like best and do you think the Feeler/Sensing theory upholds based on which version you like best?

ABLATION!

My brother tuned me in to this new music site. For free, it lets you add 50 songs that you can listen to at any time, and you can follow other people and see what they are listening too. You can also listen to any song once, completely through. It also allows you to give gifts of songs to other members, or people you follow. I've been listening to Decyfer Down and Imogen Heap nonstop. Good stuff. Incidentally Imogen Heap's mother is an art therapist which was my first career choice and for the first three years in college my main focus of study.

The above images are my submissions for our design assignment that is due tomorrow. We have been working with a medical process or topic most of the semester, designing an ad, a billboard, and a brochure for this one topic. Mine is Stereotaxis, a procedure that is now being used to treat cardiac arrhythmias, usually in ablation surgery. It's a catheter system that is controlled by a physician remotely, and allows for greater flexibilty in the catheter so it doesn't distort the heart as much. The top design is my ad, the bottom, my billboard.

I chose stereotaxis because my dad has atrial fibrillation, and is always sending me new procedures and findings on AF. He is a nerd like me (or rather I am a nerd like him) and likes to learn all about his diseases. His AF is controlled by medication right now but in the future he will probably need ablation surgery. He tells me he is waiting for this relatively new surgery to become more mainstream before he gets it. He puts it this way "Heidi, I'll let those doctors practice a bit more before I let them practice on me." ok, dad.

Incidentally we all have to print these off at Kinko's, and all have our share of Kinko-gone-awry stories. I will share some soon, along with more of my graphic work this semester. Right now I need to go rework my JohnScott et al., 2009 concepts, and if you too have the same assignment, I think you know what I mean.

Medical things!

This website was sent to us from our program director as an interesting thing to play with. You can look at videos of the human skull, alligator skulls, ostrich skulls, and dinosaur skulls, all in 3d. I played around with a few- it's pretty cool to see the differences and similarities in the skulls. The people at Ohio University have a pretty cool collection going on.

Another fun thing for people who like to invent and design is this Diabetes Design contest, where you can submit new designs for diabetes equipment. Prizes are pretty cool- grand prize is $10,000!!! And, you could potentially transform the way people deal with diabetes. Hurry, submissions are due May 1st.

So many favorite things to share, guys!! Stay tuned.

apartment things

So some more of my favorite things I have found while searching for an apartment...

Crucial to living in a city without a car is the proximity of certain things like grocery stores, post offices, public transportation, coffee shops, bars, pharmacies, and whatever else you might need to walk to. At WalkScore.com you can find the "walkability" of your address: you just punch in your address and it will give you a score out of 100 based on how many stores and whatnot are nearby.

Living in the Murder Capitol of the US it is important to live in a safe neighborhood- Chicago has one of the most interesting development histories, resulting in a city where one moment you are safe and the next, on the same street, you are not. This never ceases to amaze me as I search for a safe place to live. Anyway there was another apartment website that I used when I first moved out here that was good- showed you safe areas to live on a map, but I can't find it. Does anyone know of a website like that? I'll keep searching.

The picture is of an old church converted to a ballet studio where I used to take ballet in Boston. Anyone know of any good ballet studios in Chicago?

*update: thanks Josy for the website. I also found this one that seems helpful: http://chicago.everyblock.com/(also displays filmings, etc in the area)