Gamestallation

http://ettugamer.com/?p=266

My installation concept piece, with an explanation of my intentions for space usage.

October 2010

http://ettugamer.com/?p=234

Audialworks

http://ettugamer.com/?p=203

You can check out some of my other projects at the home page.
Enjoy!

Time in a Black Box

Anormality

Slip E

Time-Based Freakout - Foot Life

Photography: The Assignment: The Pants: They Stay On

Abstract, Landscape, and Street

Hope you enjoy!

edit: Did anyone else have real trouble with positioning the images?  Seems like blogspot REALLY likes to change the justification of images.  Bad blogspot!  Bad!

Design FUN-damentals

Hooray, my first ad!  For me!  Weird.

Pics Project 1

So, I'll call this set of photos:

Corruption of a Boy

The beginning of our story, as it were; an image of somebody coming up in the pleasing South Street Seaport, with its nice Helvetica font and unassuming, if only somewhat interesting imagery.

But the kid doesn't really accept that.  He challenges it, wants to be more.  He sees the contours of the plain door, and makes it stark.  Marking virtual territory in his mind, he seeks to stake a place in the unassuming space in which he exists.

There was something else there too though.  Aside from anger and fear, some degree of silly hope.  Less contorted choices go through his mind, beginning to want to change.  He begins to chase the playfulness he found in the games of his youth.

So he joins the empire.  He now sees himself much smaller in the world, and directed by a new fear.  One which dominates with the strength of iron.  What, against such magnates can he do?  Escape?  Flee?  But he is too far gone.

There's always hope though.  That imagination, springing forth from ether, will lead away from that empire of iron.

So, this is my first project of images.  Not sure how interesting this is, but I feel like it captures a sort of childish story I've run around in my head quite a few times.  Also, analysis follows.

In the first picture, I rather liked how "cool" the imagery used was, in terms of colors, but also the fact that the design is direct and to the point.  The visual information isn't really crowded or overbearing.

The second image is all about contrasting the first image.  The image is extremely busy, particularly at the center, where the graffiti lies.  But, the windows themselves are also made with a design that eschews a sort decentralization of just the frame.  The image itself has multiple points of interest, the door being the most striking.  As a note, I see graffiti as a form of advertisement in itself, mostly one that says what not to do as much as what to do.  These are contrasting messages as well, one inviting and dapper, the other off-putting, like that of a rabid dog.

The third image is a contrast of the first two images.  These image of the octopus and the hedgehog/Bubble Bobble critter have a symmetry between them, if only indirectly.  The Post No Bills that lay between them is not the actual focal point, though it is a point of interest.  The image itself spreads itself out rather nicely, due to the consistency of the Post No Bills on blue creating a widening effect, and black creating a focal effect.

The fourth image is contrast as well, but one of extreme symmetry.  It moves from a couple asymmetrical images to a building that is entirely symmetrical.  The result also gives the perception of looking upwards, due to the placement and the road sign that seems "bigger" due to it being a focal point, but still considerably smaller, as though one who obeys these signs, advertising what a person can and can't do, is small, the "empire" lumbering over those on the ground below it.

Finally, the last image is that of something that has structure and is also somewhat disjointed, that of a magazine.  A magazine is a place of personal interest, and seems to relate to the third picture, if one has a level of familiarity with videogames.  Made more obvious by the textual narration, the image is structure last to finish the story, but also because the image is more calm and less intimidating than many of the other images, despite using a contrast of black and white.  In a sense, it brings the image back to the first image, something that is structured without being overbearing.

Update: Additional stuff!
Pic 1:
Uses a sans-serif font, with a New York City element is normal, south street seaport and the website address elements use bold style
Uses a formal structure
Some contrast from the background due to it being white and the elements being blue, but the elements themselves are all virtually the same color - not a busy image
the image is symmetrical
a lot of literal white space in the image, mostly used to focus on the image itself, the background sort of creates a positive/negative effect where the text seems to "burst" out of the image

Pic 2:
Hard to tell, but the font here is likely sans-serif
Uses a radiation structure, focusing on the door
We see stark changes in terms of symmetry and asymmetry here, perhaps the most striking of which is the windows in the upper left corner and the door on which the graffiti lies - position plays an important part here

Pic 3:
Abyss is obviously sans-serif, as is POST NO BILLS, which is a bold font
the structure is formal, playing across the POST NO BILLS line, while the ground is the second line
the image seems to balance the symmetry of POST NO BILLS and the asymmetry of the grafitti, which provides a black/white contrast, yet is somewhat absorbed and softened by the blue background

Pic 4:
the font is sans-serif
the structure is concrete, where the buildings create the lines upon which the image is read
the image is highly symmetrical
there's a strong direction from top to bottom, and a definite sense of size in relation to how the image reads from top to bottom

Pic 5:
the font is, again, sans-serif
there's an implied concentric structure, yet it seems somewhat informal, taking into account the magazine's header
the image is symmetrical
the usage of circular objects and variations in size and font weight create the sense of a half-circle enveloping the viewfinder, creating a center balanced towards the left of the layout

Leaves

twirls sputtering, lovely greens
bleed earth, rehashed exception
crushed clans, devolution incest
world gliding, striding sounds

granulated sugar, somehow sweet
poisonous insects, crawling walls
birthing machinations, excepting inception
talentless liaisons, lest less

grounded electricity, spurting sputtering
helpless twining, cursing whining
dragged outwards, pulled contorted
mandate perfection, creationist time

branded naming, selfless resting
destruction distraction, cunnilingus figuratively
symbiont synthesis, actionable ingestion
tick tick, time leaves

Irony

Always interesting to notice certain smells.  Sitting at the computer, today I've smelled boiled eggs, something like a steamy yolk that welled up and proceeded to wake me up.  Later in the day, I smelled poorly cooked chili, probably because it came from the microwave.  To be honest, it didn't really smell bad, just like poorly cooked macaroni and cheese.  Chili shouldn't smell that way.  Now it's late, and the smells I've smelled remind me somewhat of my time as a child.  When I was receiving confirmation as a child, I remember the distinct incense smell.  Being marked like that is rather indicative of our time perhaps.  Here in the room I smell the stink of ritual everywhere, but we all come to adore them.  Or perhaps not adore, but accept.  We come to need them in order to process a social situation.  The ritual of marking territory with the smells of one's virtual self, with one's persona.  The blog is the world's virtual pissing post, and that's the irony of this post--and every other.

With that, good night, and good luck.

How T F r et.

There's something quite surreal about ending up at a site like Blogger.  I've been designing webpages for years independently, using various software and cheap "Google approved" fixes to problems I've encountered along the way.  But through it all I've found myself continually frustrated.  I write for more than five different sites, post to more than ten frequently, and yet lately I can't help but feel that it's largely been a waste of time.  I feel only slightly richer for spending so much time with the internet.  Years of my life passed, and yet I'm 24 and am only starting a MA program which is uncertain to add any value to my life.  A strange malaise has floated upon me as of late, a feeling not so much that I don't belong, but that nobody belongs.  Everyone spends their lives trying to either access or create a false feeling of circles around which a pedagogy of false ideals either embraces or is embraced by those who partake.  So instead, I am now trying to spend my time forgetting, so that life once again means something.  Trying to simplify and remove complications is all my life will likely amount to.

Wish me luck.