Inspiring Creativity in Atlanta

Immediately after class we decided to meet and figure out who was observing who. We went to eat at a nearby restaurant. Luckily, we all know each other pretty well already, or these projects might be awkward! I think our quarter is pretty great and all of us definitely mesh and get along well. There aren't many who stray away and we all get a chance to hang out pretty often. I think i'm pretty lucky in that regard. Anyways, the three of us played paper-rock-scissors to decide who would represent who. I got matheus, hunter got me and matheus got hunter. we decided to meet the next day at noon to spend the afternoon together. 

After we ate, i drove matheus home, and we ended up talking for a few hours about various things, but mostly on his adjustment from living in brazil to living in america. i wasnt even thinking about the assigment because everything he said was so fascinating to me! Thinking about america as a foreign place to others and finding out how we compare to other countries always boggles my mind. when you consider a place home, it is hard to think of it any other way. Anyways, i got a nice long chat with matheus, even if it wasnt supposed to be for the assignment!

alrighty, so we met the next day and spent around 4 or so hours together talking. we started at starbucks and ended eating at a greek restaurant close to school. 

It was good, but definitely more challenging than if we had only pairs i think. In a group of 2, you can take turns being the interviewer, but in a group of 3 you must ask questions and all answer. at least thats the best method we found. anyways, it was interesting to learn about each other but it was also somewhat awkward since it was forced questions. I think all of us would enjoy hanging out together, but making it part of an assignment makes it a little difficult to get comfortable together. However, i think i learned some interesting facts about my classmates and got good information for the project.

i took a cultural anthropologie class in college and loved it. Because I was a journalism major undergrad, I think i have always been drawn to observing people. I loved feature writing and profiles because i love to sit back as a wallflower and watch and describe others. I think that was one of my favorite parts of writing a story, so anthropology has always been fascinating to me. My favorite was reading books where people would immerse themselves completely in a culture in order to write about it. Kind of like under cover cops who weren't trying to bust anyone. I've always liked the idea of doing something like that on my own, that is probably why i enjoy traveling so much. it was interesting to think of anthropology in a way that would benefit a client. getting to know the unsaid things about a person to better adapt a designers work. I agree that clients probably send a lot of nonverbal clues that could key a designer in to what they would be happy with. In this industry, I have learned that it is important to give the client what they want, even if you disagree. You can sway them, but you cant ignore their requests completely. I think this is a good concept to think about in projects in the future

the other part of our assignment involved creating a piece of jewelry to represent ourselves. This part was somewhat challenging to me because I have a hard time analyzing myself. It is definitely something i need to work on. Like i said before, in journalism, i became comfortable with observing others and figuring them out, however, once the focus is turned on me, i get uncomfortable and my mind goes blank. I made a necklace and tried to include aspects to tell about myself, however, i do not know if it is what you wanted when you gave the assignment. I'll have to see tomorrow I guess!!

anyways, guess ive written enough, signing off for now

-Sam