Finalized Synesthetic show card

I played around with my card design for a while and decided not to change it too much. I'm happy with the little changes made. I've been super busy lately, and should have some more time to work on the programming this weekend.

Vistaprint is teasing me with this:

Esente week 9, Weds

On Monday, we had an intern meeting basically as soon as I got in for the day. We discussed a few things about the importance of collecting leads and what our goals are for the foreseeable future. We have begun contacting venues for One Night Stand, and need to begin contacting bands from the venue areas. We were given sections to browse through of ReverbNation, and were told to listen to the bands on the list and research any of them that could be a potential fit for the show using a Google spreadsheet. I finished my first section and was given a second, though it was too far down the list & the bands no longer had contact information or music to listen to.

I was then asked to move on to my school list for Becca's school tour. I had finished my section the previous Wednesday, and was given a partially completed list from one of the interns that left. I spent the rest of my day getting as far as I could, since that's what was emphasized during the meeting.

- Ian Corrigan
Graphic Design Intern
Montserrat College of Art

Loop machine controls, show card

I did some work routing the controls of one of the Wiimotes to the first four loop control modules in my sampler in Max. It's a little confusing but coming along. I figured out how to add a master volume control that can still allow individual volumes to be manipulated using the Wiimote.

I'm experimenting with using the XYZ inputs to control things like volume and loop speed by holding a button and making a gesture. I also figured out how to encapsulate patchers (shown below) in order to avoid a huge mess of patch cords and obscure programming commands. Any box that starts with "p" is an encapsulated patcher - you have to open it to see its contents.

I worked on my card designs for a while. I think the back needs to be revisited, and have some ideas for adding a few more lines to the front.

Esente week 8, Weds.

On Monday, I spent about an hour and a half collecting leads for OnPoint Media, researching companies in Medford using Manta.com. Afterwards, I moved on to working on my school list for Becca Levy's school speaking tour. I finished up the Framingham and Groton sections, and began working on the last town I was assigned, Holliston. I spent more time than usual on the school list because it's expected to be done relatively soon.

I then moved on to working on my fan art for Jayna Lininger. I was having a tough time figuring out what to do for a while, since there's more material to riff off for Becca Levy. I looked through whatever I could find of Jayna, and watched/listened to whatever videos or audio I could find. I finally settled on a good direction and began putting a design together. I'm making an image that emphasizes her outdoorsy, country/folk style. At first I thought about using a photo of her in the image, but I'd rather try to make a design that communicates her style without actually including her picture in it. If anything, it will probably resemble the "sunflower" image I made for Becca Levy - something simple and bold that evokes the feeling you get while listening to her music without flat-out bashing you over the head with a direct statement. I should be able to show a draft version on the blog soon.

- Ian Corrigan
Graphic Design Intern
Montserrat College of Art

Esente week 8, Monday

Last week, I spent the first part of my day collecting leads for Onpoint Media's web design service, researching companies in Marblehead on Manta. I then switched over to my school list for Becca Levy's school speaking tour. I finished Everett's schools, police and fire departments, and moved on to Framingham. I spent what was left of the day finishing up my anti drunk driving posters and emailed them to Amanda. They're already posted on this blog under last week's Esente post.

I wasn't here on Wednesday - I spent the afternoon getting one of my molars pulled. It had broken a week or so ago, but couldn't be immediately removed due to an infection. The procedure went well and I didn't feel any pain, but it still sucks having a tooth pulled. I made myself feel better over the weekend by going snowboarding at Mount Sunapee. Snowboarding has been like crack for me this winter - I think it's the 8th time I've gone this season.

- Ian Corrigan
Graphic Design Intern
Montserrat College of Art

Esente week 7, Monday

On Wednesday last week, I spent the first part of my day conducting research on electrical companies in Lowell, and educational services, electrical, and e-commerce companies in Lynnfield for a lead list for OnPoint Media's web design service. Since I was finished with both of my media lists (PA and VT), I moved on to working on the school list for Becca Levy's middle and high school speaking tour. I made some good progress, but there's still a lot to be done - Everett has a lot of schools with lots of staff members.

Becca Levy was at Esente this week, so I had the pleasure of meeting her and seeing what she and Ron were working on. They were developing a few videos for her websites and social media, so we got to see the recording process and some of the editing process that goes into the making of these videos. Nobody was unfortunate enough to run into any ghosts or holes in the ground while upstairs, which is a plus.

For the rest of the afternoon, I did some work on my drunk driving posters and made some good progress. All 3 now have ideas taking shape and should be ready as drafts very soon.

- Ian Corrigan

Graphic Design Intern

Montserrat College of Art

*Edit: Here are the draft versions of the posters -

Loop Machine/Sampler

After dissecting several existing patchers and watching countless tutorial videos without coming across exactly what I need, I decided to make my own sampler from the ground up. Using the sample~ and groove~ objects, I wound up making a loop machine that works with 8 different sound files simultaneously - 4 are meant to be loops, while the other 4 are meant to be samples (single hit fills), but all 8 slots can be set to loop. Next I need to tie the Wiimote to various control functions in the patch, and then develop a video patch.

Esente week 6, Weds

On Monday, I spent the first part of my day collecting leads from Manta for healthcare companies in Lawrence and electrical companies in Lowell. I had wrapped up my media list for PA and shared it with Laura over Google Drive.

I then moved on to the schools list for Becca Levy's school talk tour. I was assigned to Middlesex county, looking for all middle and high schools in Dunstable, Framingham, Everett, Groton and Holliston, as well as all of their respective fire and police departments & unions.

After working on the school list for an hour and a half, I moved on to my drunk driving posters. I've basically finished one and am well on my way with a second. Once they're all in a more complete draft state I'll post them here, and again once any final adjustments have been made.

- Ian Corrigan
Graphic Design Intern
Montserrat College of Art

CTRL Event

I'm going to be hosting an event at my school for a project in my Design Factory class. The "design" work is the organization of the event itself, including corresponding with outside organizations and designing promotional material for the event. For a topic, I chose to make the event about media reform. It's an issue that I feel strongly about - I think the media and our addiction to it fuels many bigger problems in our society, and we continually try to address individual problems instead of getting to the heart of the matter. I've been in contact with members of freepress.net, one of the country's most prominent media reform organizations whose headquarters is in Boston. They're helping by recommending prominent figures to invite to the school, and suggested the idea of a film screening to help draw people to the event.

I'll go into more detail about the event in the near future. For now, this is the first poster design I've come up with for the event. I've chosen to name the even CTRL, to emphasize the importance of what's being portrayed in the media and by whom.

Max objects title design

I spent some time thinking about a title for my project, and came across a phenomenon called synesthesia. Synesthesia is when more than one of a person's individual senses are connected. For example, some people who suffer from synesthesia read numbers, letters and words as having specific colors - "3" always appears green, "B" looks red, etc. Others may equate numbers or letters with specific places in 3 dimensional space or time. Since my project is shaping up to be a combination of sound, visuals and physical movement, Synesthetic seems like an appropriate (working) title.

I then went into Max and started placing objects and routing patch cords in order to create a visual design rather than anything functional in the program. I ended up designing the show title typographically by creating letterforms out of the Max elements. Some of them function in some way or another, but many are standalone and solely exist for the sake of creating the overall letterform.

Esente Internship week 6, Monday

Last week (Monday), I spent the first part of the day conducting internet research developing a lead list for Onpoint media concerning healthcare companies in the Lawrence, MA area. Ron held a short meeting in which he stressed the desire to get our media lists finished up for every state.

I had already finished my first media list (VT), and was assigned a second list (PA) that someone had already been working on. I whined a little last week about how sloppy and chaotic it was (the girl who was working on it left the company). I finished sorting out all of the newspapers and filled in the ones that she missed from USNPL. I then spent some time sorting through the college radio stations & newspapers that she had found, and again filled in the blanks she had left. Finally, I spent a bit of extra time on the list adding some of the local TV news stations to the list, independent stations in particular, but also including many corporate stations.

I felt pretty good about the list being finished, and moved on to my anti drunk driving posters. I made a little bit of progress on one of them, but the day was almost over when I started. Earlier in the day, Tim and I got to show the other interns our design work for the first time. We showed our anti bullying posters and I also showed my examples of Becca Levy's fan art. The other interns didn't have much to say, sort of what I expected. Critiques are hard even for art students, so I imagined not many people would be too willing to throw in their 2 cents. Amanda made up for the silence and offered some great & productive feedback, though. I think overall the work was well received, which could also be why there were crickets chirping after Tim and I briefly spoke about the projects.

I was out on Wednesday due to a dental emergency. I had broken a part of one of my upper molars a while back & have been avoiding taking care of it for the time being, hoping that I could handle it after I graduate since I don't have dental insurance. Unfortunately, another piece broke on Tuesday night while I was eating some cereal before bed. Teeth breaking are like a nightmare come true for me, so I freaked out and had to deal with it the next day, missing both school and work. I'm fine now, but have to go back next week to get the rest of the tooth pulled - not looking forward to that.

- Ian Corrigan
Graphic Design Intern
Montserrat College of Art