Blurb for the Multi-Media Collection Above:
Wild West Commercial Fishing Graphic Design Multi-Media Package. Wild West Commercial Fishing Logos / Graphic Design Package. Graphic Design Packets Can Include: (1) logo(s) "brands" and (2) other associated logo elements (3) personalized fonts (4) letterheads (5) banners (6) optimized website graphics (7) business cards (8) cartoons (9) posters (10) bumper stickers (11) t-shirts (12) posters (13) gamut of products from the "cafepress / zazzle / printfection" portal (14) complete website design (15) short film.... Logo features Rocky the Rockfish with his cowboy hat and gun in a holster, hitching a ride from Mr. SeaHorse. Jules requests wordings as this: "locally caught seafood" and "Mission Bay, San Diego, CA" accompanied with simple images of SPINY lobster (NO CLAWS like the east coast lobster!), fish, and crab (rock crab of course, continuing the "rock theme" here).
I don't believe in "love," but I am aware in being "addicted" to someone--a person--at multiple levels and multiple scales--and that is most certainly a truthy-ism. From visceral to emotional to super-conscious, over various disparate landscapes, over short and long periods of time. From two little fuzzy reptiles under the bed sheets to the adventures of cavefolk in the boonies of Mexico to the satirical commentary of everyday life of science and fishing and politics "culture of the masses" of America. And for such compatibility to occur over all these complex layers of strings enables a complex, growing, symphonic relationship, I would perceive it to be a whole symphony of inner and outer instruments that would enable the stability and growth of such a relationship.
(Though it has taken me a couple of days too long) Being heathily addicted to someone has driven me to produce beautiful things. For example, this near-complete graphic design multi-media package for Jules (except a film at the moment)... as an act of reciprocation for housing and good food and friendship and a few fancy dinners at Cass Street and Emerald Bay (fine seafood! the most expensive restaurant I've been to) and the least I can do when Jules swept me away to the Bahia de Los Angeles after a hideous Winter Quarter 2010 that destroyed my health and morale and nearly overall outlook to life. I literally was "frozen" after that barbaric quarter and the best possible thing anyone could have done for me was TAKE ME AWAY FROM MY LIFE and ALL FAMILIAR LANDSCAPES. Implant me in a novel environment and play with me exploring the world like a little kid all over again.... Anyhoo, the best part about this graphic design multi-media package is that it's a first professional package I have done, and I can showcase this to others who need this done (except next time I get paid and probably no bartering).
There was quite a bit of frustrating "trial and error" that was involved with the design of the Wild West Commercial Fishing Logo. To start me off, Jules suggested that I watch Blazing Saddles (with Mel Brooks, 1969) which seems to be a cult film among the fishing community. I held onto that film for about a year; it was sitting in the car. And finally I returned the film to Jules in February of 2010 and said I can't watch the film alone. I will have to watch the film with you. Ironically, I never watched that film until AFTER I finished the final designs of logos. And I can see how Jules and several fishermen can relate to this film: a humorous wild west comedy film about the interactions with the wild west characters, and African-American "slaves" at the time with the boundaries of "uncivilized civilization."
Blazing Saddles was refreshingly absurd. I began to notice that since Hollywood had no access to special effects, the quality of acting from the characters was refreshingly superb (and parly improvisational, you could tell!) and I walked away from the film thinking that I could EASILY make a film like that today, in 2010 (with digital film and final cut pro). But I have to transport myself back in time and think about how film technology has evolved through time. Back then, people had to manually cut and paste slides and strips, which was fairly messy... so given the time and technology, the film was of course, great quality. I walked away from the film also feeling like any form of moral attachment to a film about the insanity of interactions between the Wild West and Civilization was a very sophisticated person. And so yes, I have Jules by my side, eh? Yay, Jules Citizen Scientist. Lucky me.
I recall that my first drawings came about in April or May of 2009. I think at that time, our relationship was fresh and that I was experiencing hesitancies in my art. I drew the rockfish and the seahorse as Jules requested (independent from the Blazing Saddles movie), but the first iteration rock fish was a bit too chunky and the seahorse didn't exactly look like a seahorse (at least to Jules). Jules suggested that I move the mouth to the end of the snout, that the seahorse have "poofier hair" like a "mohawk" kind of look that I imposed, and that the little fins on the seahorse' back had little "motion lines" to make the fins look more like fins. I remember Jules pointing me in certain directions with images in local papers like the San Diego Ocean Magazine. I also remember negotiating with Jules about what information to place on a t-shirt and logo, and we settled with "Wild West Commercial Fishing" "Locally Caught Seafood" "Mission Bay San Diego CA." At one point we were thinking of words "fresh" and "sustainable" but I think those words have so much rhetoric and baggage (especially with the enviro community) that it might repulse certain people. But "local" is a very attractive word, and I think it will work just fine. After the second round iteration, which took me 2-3 days of cranking out variations of the logo into headers and banners and t-shirts and sticker and poster forms... Jules and I thought we had a winning logo. Jules showed my work to about 5-6 of his buddies around October of 2009 and two of them mistakened the cowboy hat as a "big nose," as Jules and I were both frustrated with TWO of these strange remarks that were not apparent to us. So, by that point, I was super frustrated and didn't want to look at the work for a while, though Jules proposed a simple solution. Placing a sea star (maybe with a smiley face) on cowboy hat. My interest in finishing the logo project re-sparked in April as I became addicted to drawing bazillions of Biologically Incorrect cartoons and was in the "Cartoon Mode." Jules lured me in and made me forget all my past work. He said over the phone, "It's so simple. All you have to do is add a starfish on the hat and a squiggly line to show the hat in motion." Ya ya, so simple at the core, but I would have to re-modify every variation of this logo such that it's suitable for headers and banners and stickers and t-shirts and pins, etcetera... Shxt!
But just this past Saturday, I woke up with a confident, blazing work ethic (largely derived from the epic trip to the Bahia de Los Angeles) and was able to unravel the tangled knot and modify all the parts and pieces and variations. And then on Sunday I went to Kinkos (FedexOffice) to print out about 15 sheets as color prints on regular size paper and, and I was lucky that two of the Kinkos employees had difficulties black-and-white poster printing the Wild West Logo, and they ended up giving me three posters (two correct and one mess up) for free (which was about a $17 value). It was super cool--just in the last two days having this Wild West artwork laying around, I attracted the attention of three different people--mostly commentary-based conversations, and one guy for "It's Clickable" was more like a salesman, and he ended up trying to recruit me to sell products, which is not very... enticing to me.... I told Jules that he was going to win over the girlz with his logo because they're going to "cooo all over you" about how cute your Rocky the Rockfish and Seahorse are....
Also on Sunday afternoon, I spent time decorating Jules house--living room and office--and ended up taking pictures of him and the Wild West Poster, which kind of looked like a movie poster (so cool!). Jules was all cross-bug eyed too, just like the rockfish and the seahorse! And finally of course, this prompted Jules' ultimate commentary: "I have lived this long--for fifty years--and my life has amounted to this: a bug-eyed fish, a bug-eyed sea horse, and a Chinese Bunny Rabbit." (referring to the great Mr. Bun, a stuffed bunny rabbit I rescued from Kmart a day before our trip to the Bahia de Los Angeles). "Well," I said. "You asked for it. You said you never wanted to grow up. You are 5.0 years old." And then Jules said, "Well then, that makes you 2.8 years old." We then established a new metric for age. I think it's nonlinear... or we just shift the decimal points....
To think of the insanity of scientific consensus... I just endured three or four rounds of artistic consensus with Jules. The most important issue is that I ENDURED... and that I FINISHED MY PROJECT (or finished a crucial phase of my project), as Michel Gondry greatly emphasizes, "to start... and to FINISH your project, no matter how much you like or don't like your project." Unfinished projects will eat your brain alive... as I know. Creativity and creative projects is a SYMBOL of on-going commitment--continuous renewal--to an evolving relationship. When people commit to "wedding rings," it's a sign of laziness. Rings are usually made of metal and they rust slowly. But mostly, you wear them every day and they are static, unchanging in the human lifespan. It takes much effort to evolve a relationship before the grand "wedding" event, but after that the only thing left that can happen is stagnancy. But when I am making a sincere effort to tell stories with cartoons, with artwork, with poetic words... I am working every single day to perceive change in myself, in others, in my environment, and grasp and document and harness this change, whether gradual or sudden. Creative storytellling is a renewed commitment to your relationships classified as "addictions" (whether familial or acquired) but also is a commitment of relationship with yourself and your interactions with all other elements within you, and around you. Hence, my wedding rings take in the form of stories and artwork. They take the form of my two kids--Terra the Biogeek and Buz the Geobum. Chronic evolutions, eh? Ya.
And of course, this work is a symbol of attachment to Jules. As people would use the term "boyfriend," (which has horrible baggage in this country, it has more so a meaning of territorial ownership rather than mutual relationship) I describe Jules as "my rock" in a fragmented, ephemeral society of non-commital citizens. A rock of evolving stability in a universe of flakes. A rock rooted to himself and to the land, the ocean. And I'm lucky I found him... it's easy to root onto Jules. I'm his little epiphyte, yay! And since then... it's been nothing but TRANSFORMATION in my life!
In addition, back in April of 2009, I started designing a website for Jules through Blogger as well as a Picasaweb album of photographs of our ocean adventures--boat rides and the like. Both Picasaweb Albums and Websites are works of progress, but heck, I've got a solid start. I started the Picasaweb Album entitled "Whatever's Left of the Wild West" (I have a poem with such a title) at http://www.picasaweb.com/wildwestfishing and it contains a MATRIX of folders of with themes of specific elements of the ocean environment, which is evolving (Whatever's Left of the Wild West Profile Shots, Pieces of the Wild West AquaTechnological Puzzle, Mission Bay Catch of the Day, ByCatch: Because the Ocean is a Goodie Grab Bag, Bait: Because Everything Eats Everything Else, Physical Elements of the Pacific Coast Environment, Freeriders of the Wild West Commercial Fishing Boat, Biological Elements of the Pacific Ocean Environment, Human Elements of the Pacific Ocean Environment, Wild West Seafood Meals and Munchies, Graphic and Multi-Media Design, and a Couple of Hidden Folders). It's funny to think I look back at this folder and I'm frustrated that I shot everything in JPEG now that I know how to shoot and edit in RAW format. I have so much to work on in terms of PHOTOGRAPHY! I met a San Diegan photographer Art Wager (http://www.artwagerphoto.com) and showed him some of this portfolio. He was impressed by the originality of the photographs, but he was overall concerned with the quality since they were small images--the sizes of the photographs were not acceptable to be submitted for stock imagery. But nevertheless, what a confidence boost, and I'm about to resubmit a portfolio to Istockphoto in a few!
As for the website, I bought a domain http://www.wildwestfishing.net on April 28, 2009 and I guess we both forgot to renew it on time and now the dang domain is up for bid minimum $70 bucks. Just two days ago, I purchased http://www.wildwestfish.com and http://www.wildwestfish.net from Google Apps and GoDaddy / Enom ($10 bucks each) and they both point toward the Blogger Site... http://www.wild-west-fishing.blogspot.com. At first, Jules and I were irked at changing the domain name, but then we realized the value of shifting "fishing" to "fish" because most "wild west fishing" websites were sport fishing, and Jules is involved in commercial fishing. He provides "wild west fish" not "wild west fishing experiences." Plus "wild caught fish" and "wild fish" are buzz words in the food industries, scientific world, and especially the enviros.... so there are certain advantages to shortening the domain name. Over time, it became apparent on how to best organize such a website--see the sketch below:
Folders include: (1) Main Page with Mission / Summary Statement (eventual video?) (2) Longer Page on About Wild West Commercial Fishing (3) Ocean Products, local, sustainably caught seafood (4) Final Products, tips for seafood meals and munchies (5) Photoessays of Wild West Commercial Fishing (hence Picasaweb) (6) Quoteology and Short Stories of Ocean Adventures (7) Wild West T-shirts and Such, through Zazzle, most likely (8) Local Resources of San Diego, referred businesses (9) Jules in the News (news articles on fishing) (10) Contact Wild West Fishing. Quite a bit of information to include in a website! I completely recommend Google Apps and Blogger for websites because Google invented the search engine most people use, and so somehow Google products climb up in the rankings much faster than any of the other websites....Perhaps I completed a First Phase of a Milestone of Artwork affiliated with Jules.... I look at what I have completed and have come to realize that if anyone comes to me for the design of a boring corporate logo... that won't be possible. There's too much personality and sincerity in this neck of the ocean's woods.
To Do List of What Remains to Be Done
**Start an Istockphoto Collection of Wild West Fishing (shooting RAW images)
**Complete the "Matrix" of the http://www.wildwestfish.net Website
**Create a Google Docs Survey Request for Certain Fish, Certain Times of the Year
**Upload T-shirt Designs on Zazzle and/or Cafepress
**Print up a Run of T-shirts Locally
**Develop a small advertisement for Jules for the Ocean Magazine
**Vinyl or Laminated Print for Fisherman's Market or Farmer's Market Eventually?!
**Continue developing a script for World's Funniest Catch
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