Closing Time

I created a new blog because I got a new email and can't use my school email after graduation. My new email is tew.graphics@gmail.com. And the new blog is www.keritew.blogspot.com, titled: Keri's Conundrum. I'll be posting to that one from now on. See you there!

This Picture

I thought I'd share my first project in my Advanced Visual Media class. I thought it turned out pretty good.

We had to create a self-portrait collage. The main picture had to be self-taken. Because of lack of a fancy camera and tripod, I took a Tiffany-shot ;P The quote is by Milton Glaser: "The real issue is not talent as an independent element, but talent in relationship to will, desire, and persistence. Talent without these things vanishes and even modest talent with those characteristics grows.”

My pile shakes as I hit 80 on the open road

So, Merrill and I got back from our week-long road trip. Sooooooo much driving! Here are the details of our little excursion:

We went down to Utah to tour Weber State's campus and drive around the U's campus. Merrill fell in love with Weber, so that is where he is going to transfer. We then stayed the night with Tiffany and watched Kung Fu Panda (Jack Black at his very best!).

The next day we drove all the way to California, stopping in Sandy, UT to pick up Merrill's niece.
We spent Easter with Monica and Shelby. Good times. I loved seeing them and Jacob and Ezra. We dyed eggs and had an Easter Egg hunt. Merrill was so excited when he finally won and got to hide the eggs next. Dinner was delicioso and to die for: Monica's homemade enchiladas. Mmmmmm!

Monday, Merrill and I took care of some bank business, and then went to an amazing Mexican restaurant: Los Tucanes. Merrill was in love. After that, we left to visit Merrill's sister in Fullerton.

Tuesday, I got my hair cut. We went to some Asian place, where an older Korean lady cut my hair and styled it into a pouf. We then went back to Merrill's sister's house where she chopped it up a little bit more and dyed it a slight red. It looked much better after that :)

Wednesday we went to brunch at an authentic Mexican restaurant. Merrill also enjoyed that, speaking spanish to the lady who served us and treated us really well. We strolled down Downtown Disney that afternoon, then headed back to Bakersfield to stay the night. We wanted to cut extra hours off of our trip the next day.

Thursday, we headed up to Roseburg, OR to stay the night with Merrill's family. After showering, we helped set up for his brother's reception.

Friday, we drove to Portland for Margaretha's (Margie's) endowment. The Portland temple is gorgeous, especially in the spring! There were so many tulips and lilies. After the session, everyone went to a Mexican grill (Merrill's niece was sick of Mexican food at this point--literally) and then we drove to Longview, WA to stay the night with Merrill's uncle.

The next day we rushed to Portland again, this time for the sealing. The sealer never got Margie's name right (she's Indonesian). Then we all went back to Roseburg for the reception, which turned out great.

On Sunday, Merrill and I drove to Ontario, OR. Monday we got back to Rexburg and I went to my second class.

Not much of a break, but we enjoyed seeing the family and eating all of that Mexican food!
Here are some of the wedding pictures:

Octave A'Capella

Merrill was in an a'capella group for our old singles ward's talent show. A friend of ours, Chris Shumate, asked him to be in his group. So, they practiced a lot before, and now have decided to stay together. Merrill is at practice with them right now. So here are a few clips of the songs they performed at the talent show:

In the Jungle

Viva La Vida

Sweet Dreams

Just for Fun

About a month ago, me and Merrill went to see a dance company from Portland, OR on campus. The company is "BodyVox," and they are something different. They team up with a short film artist named Mitchell Rose. If you have about 7 minutes, check out "Case Studies from the Groat Center for Sleep Disorders."

Merrill and I are devising a plan to get out of Idaho. We don't know exactly what we are doing yet, but the plan so far is to get a little further south than Idaho and northern Utah. Merrill is going to transfer to another school for his bachelors and MBA--he's not getting the education he wants from BYU-Idaho. As for me, I'm so close to graduating, that I'm going to finish here. This "sudden" desire to leave Idaho was brought on by Merrill's trip down to Utah to drop his brother off at the MTC. Merrill was surprised at how warm he found Utah. compared to the frozen snow and wind chill that sticks around the whole winter in Idaho, Utah had melting snow (if any) and no wind. So, Merrill came back from this trip determined to get out of Idaho and move where it is warmer during the winter.

Besides concocting a plan, we've been busy with school. Merrill's trying to survive in Accounting and Economics, while I've been working in group projects for every class. Design and color is fun--but I can't say that I'm a big fan of painting. It's not my favorite medium. Editing is quite fun. As a class, we edited a book Henry Eyring (President Eyring's son) wrote about what to expect in college. Then we made a couple of wellness newsletters for the school's health center. We got research from a health class, and then had to write articles based on their research. And one of my articles was chosen for the cover article :) Now we are making tour books for the Meso American Tour, a kind of 4-week study abroad. I love combining writing and design. It's my favorite ;)

For lack of words...

I thought I'd post some of my projects from Graphic Design.

This asignment was to make a poster for the Artery Portfoilio Day Event. The Artery is the like a graphic design club on campus. We had to take a previous shapes asignment and fill in the shapes and lines with text and images, and this is what I came up with. Four posters were actually used and posted up around campus, and mine happened to be one of them. I gusee you can call this my first successful design ;P
This is a logo I created for a company called "Skins". It's not real. The company sells protective yet stylish cover for ipods, computers, and cell phones. We had to make up an organization for an exhibit inspired by reptiles. This company is inspired by the snake and how it sheds its skin. The logo still needs work, but it was good enough to make it on the wall for everyone to see, lol.

This is the stationery I created for "Skins". It has business card, letterhead, envelope, and a few samples of the company's decorative skins for the ipod classic. This sample would be on the back of the business card, to peel off and stick onto your ipod. The tagline is: "Slip into a New Skin." Cool idea, but it could use some work.Our final project was to research an artist that had some kind of influence in the history of graphic design and create a poster announcing an exhibit of the artist's work. My artist was Alexander Rodchenko, mainly a photographer known for taking pictures at different angles to show life in action. Before he really picked up a camera, he used other artist's pictures to create photomontages. So, I created a photomontage using some of his photos.