discrepancy

lately there has been quite a lot of discrepancy between who i am right now and who i want to become. that is why i felt out of blog entries to post. i hope you are not too pissed off. but it was necessary for me to figure this out. was i forever going to float in the air, not knowing what to do? maybe you think: what the? wasn't it already obvious what you want; which is to become a good designer? yeah, but sometimes you look around and realize: well, you simply are not there!

as i was talking to a dear friend several weeks ago, i realized: you can be anything you want, anything; if you put your mind to something and give yourself, say, 5 years. in five years' time from now you can become your dream. yep. even if you start from the point of absolute zero. it is not a matter of 'too late' and 'oh i can't do it anymore'. it is really imporant to set your goals straight, though. otherwise...

hey, is this a pep talk? a pep blog? hmmm. too serious stuff... but tell me, were there times in your life when you felt that discrepancy? any problems with regard to your dreams? am i the only one?

and somebody please do something about this blog design!!! aggg! 

more stuff and odd tutorials will be coming soon. here, bit of a teaser:

does this blog make me look old?

i'm not sure i am crazy about the new blogger interface. the 'in your face' attitude with the pageview counts etc. is kind of driving me nuts. and why can't i see the blog itself in a separate window? grrr.

buuut i hope you will like my new blog interface! yep, finalmente! i have already set up an under construction page at www.merictaylan.com. i simply wasn't ready to do these changes all this time. but you know what? i think i'll never be ready. there will always be 'other' stuff to take care of. so this will be quite a real-time blog and website makeover combo for me :) hehe. i think i could even turn this into kind of a game. some things won't work for a while, my portfolio will be lacking a lot of stuff. awkward buttons will pop up and disappear.

i hope you will not get frustrated with the constant format changes in the process. i have a private test blog to test the new design, but i think i will put it up before it is finished. raw. crude. squeaky.

as always, any feedback is good feedback for me, so please do comment :)

sketchy reality

i can't believe how fashionable it is to design without drawing anything these days. i have seen it in various parts of the world and have been mildly shocked. i have seen people finishing complete design projects without drawing a single line on paper, and i mean they don't use tablets to sketch digitally either. people don't sketch. of course, everyone has their own method but come on! don't you need to visualize your ideas even a little bit beforehand? how do they evolve into that 'mature' state if you don't let them? yeah, i know, the deadlines are tight, but how can you afford the costs resulting from an ill-designed and rushed project? sketching saves you a lot of time, headaches, resentment, fights and bitten nails. i don't know, maybe i am old fashioned.

do you skip sketching when you design something or do you see it as vital? what methods do you prefer if you do sketch? and what does a crab have to do with all this?

attention please: odd tutorials take over the web!!

in the coming weeks, i will be starting a new type of section. or a new type of entry. arrg, whatever! all for you design folks! it is called 'the odd tutorials'. this has been a project that i have been thinking about for a long time. the tutorials won't be super long or super detailed, and they sure won't be solving typical/basic problems-hence the name :)

over the years, there have been some odd problems i needed to solve while using programs or doing things, most for which i couldn't find any sufficient tutorial on the internet or nobody i asked could answer my questions. so i needed to come up with my very own ways. i will be talking about those ways for the tiny teeny little questions that nag you when you are trying to sleep in your bed...

well, of course every problem gives birth to its own weird solution, and not all of my solutions will make sense to all of you, but still... i hope you can make use of them and i hope you enjoy :) i'll try to be as simple as possible. oh, and even if they inspire you a little bit, that will make me happy as well! feedback will always be more than welcome... let it all begin!

carnation

yes, yet another little pattern right here. how littler can it get? can you see anything? hehe. well, don't be afraid. i won't be turning this into the little flower blog. would you like me to change the color scheme to pink as well? i could have a light pink background, write in dark pink and have a pink header. yummy!

i must say i am missing finland these days. hmm. although i'm pretty sure these flowers would be frowned upon in the land of the midnight sun. finnish design loves simplicity!

hatai

continuing with the little patterns. this is another reinterpretation of another ottoman pattern. see how crappy i cropped the image? (hehe that kind of rhymes!) bad, bad, bad... this is again, a small part of the bigger project i mentioned before.

you see i like flowers pretty much! many other people must be liking them too, because i need to make use of flowers quite often in designs.

what do you think? are flowers gateways to 'kitsch'-bad and cheap taste? or do you find them visually useful?

every rose has its thorn

assos was, as usual, fantastic. the sea was, again, very cold. and wonderful. swimming there is such a blast! although i must sadly warn that we have seen the tiniest beginnings of sea pollution. a little bit of foamy discharge here, some unnatural and dirty-looking moss on the rocks there. hmm. what a surprise... i will truly be mourning if the assos sea dies just like many others.

but hey, just look at this girl courtesy of assos nature. isn't she inspiring? the golden color, those layers, that ordered randomness, that surface just right and effective for the dry and hot weather. one wants to biomimic :) is that even a verb?

are there instances when you just want to use nature's solutions?

bit by bit

the chromage is becoming acceptable. what to do about those leds? they look so dull. emit some light, already! grrr. i will also need to show the connection to this guy. let's not look static!

giornale

hihi i have found ways to eliminate the dirty greyness, partially. still not too happy, though. need some contrast. some shadows. some depth. and how can i not lose the led lights while still keeping it bright?

hmmm. a long way to go.

please keep watching:)

hurry hurry

i need to get going fast. but nevertheless, i would like to upload a new progress image. i despise these wordless posts.

fixed the proportions a bit. eliminated total greyness. still not happy about the dirt, though. do you know a good way to fix it? please tell:)

why is everything so grey?

a cannot say i am too crazy about the dirty greyness all over. and what about this angle? hm, maybe the angle is not too bad. i don't know. i'm hating the dirty middle part more right now i guess. but it's a progress image, isn't it?

still didn't refine the model as i promised. too dark for a lamp.

here, have a little incubus.

getting there

so, it seems that my model is forming albeit slowly. i will have to do some refinement refinement refinement. some proportions that i don't like need to change. i will also have to take different renders to show what is (hopefully) so special about this gal. rum ta dum! i am enjoying modeling it. hope to enjoy rendering it for a decent look and hope you enjoy seeing its progression as well!

i become horrified as i notice that it has been around 9 months since my announcement of a new look and feel and everything for my website! man, am i slow... i totally need a makeover. i hope to be able to put all the new stuff online -both designs and animations- asap. that means asap, self!

pending

does this look familiar? maybe you remember some old friend of ours from wayy back! that's right, the wire toy. wasn't he cute? and maybe you remember the lamp project i was working on, too? that's right. the two of them are back! they want to become -how to say- more real, more concrete, more... good looking:) hopefully!

hm, i think i'm coming slowly back, as well:D

it is 11:55 pm and i am literally melting. that is how hot and humid it is. in the middle of the night!!! scary.

edit: i revised the model a bit and changed the image- there were some problems with it. sorry!

so what was that all about?

yeah, as you may have noticed, the previous project was a reinterpretation of a finnish 'kuksa', a hand-carved wooden cup that finnish people love to carry around in the forest. the idea was to provide newcomers to helsinki a means (muksa) to discover the interesting cafés in the city through cheaper coffee for carrying your own cup!

this was also a group project, thanks to my groupmates and we had yet another exhibition in the halls of the lovely aalto university.

orange and brown

finally! i have finished my sample and i'm ready to go. maybe a few little tweaks here and there, but basically i am done (sorry about the watermarks, but you know). remember my rant about the fabrics and my last disappointment? it is all forgiven:) i'm quite happy about the color, too, don't you think? there is one more tiny detail i never mentioned here about this bag, but that will remain unmentioned because that is the point which will probably make or break my design.

i am fantastically happy! (dances, dances all around!) now proceed to the next step...

resume

some interesting emergencies come up. they always do. and interrupt life. i have just resumed normal activity, and there is a huge pile of... life waiting for me to take care of them!

the professional sample did not happen. mine was far more professional than the one i got from the tailor. it was a huge disappointment (sorry, so bad that i can't even upload photos). i didn't discuss the matter too much with them, took my sample home and decided to... do it by myself!!! as usual. actually, i was expecting things would turn out this way, but hoping i would prove wrong...

one note on the positive side: my dear friend brought me lots of samples of shopping bags. a biiig thank you! i think mine is still the cutest;)

so i guess this means even more sewing machine time for me!

fingers crossed!

i have left my own prototype of my shopping bag design to a tailor couple for a (hopefully) more professional sample. i'll hope for the best! i will be getting the results tomorrow by noon. i'm praying to the prototype gods...

paint myself into a corner

so meric, why are there no entries in the first ten days of november? well well well... have i been mysteriously erased off the surface of earth? was i lying in a coma at a rural hospital? hell, no. my absence has a valid reason. none other than... painting the house with my dear hubby, of course!

it was pianful, it was tiring and it was awkward. i had one thousand work-related urgencies to take care of at the same time. there was a lot of plaster-mixing and paint rolling. a lot of sanding and masking with masking tape (huh?). a lot of covering the defective parts and isolating with styrofoam. but i'm not regretful. it all reminded me a bit of the good ol' days when i was a newbie design student, breathing dust instead of oxygen. how much fun!

the rooms have an interesting acoustic while painting, by the way. you can drive your neighbors crazy just by singing;)

fabricado

a designer's work is never done. never. i find a hi-tech fabric with a fancy name that is super fine, with the best texture and all, and it is too expensive. i find this super cheap fabric with the most mundane name, in these (yuck) strange colors (no offense, dudes), and it feels oh-so-wrong. things are always solved in a slightly different way than i expect, which basically drives me crazy! there must be a way! i'm not quitting, though. grrr. oh, and here is why i need some fabric for you who have just arrived to my blog:)

if you happen to be in ankara...

if you are by any chance visiting ankara and go to metu...:) there is much to be learned! hi to eden:) hope you come to istanbul, too...