La Mala Educacion

Numero Magazine, Bad Education pictures shot by Greg Kadel.

Can you guess the model?

Miranda Kerr.

I thought it was odd too, but maybe that's because I'm so accustomed to seeing her Victoria's Secret work.

I do love this editorial though. Great theme and title, powerful colors, and the things I would do for her shoes... Sigh.

As a sidenote- I am slightly, kinda extremely jealous of her boy toy Mr. Orlando Bloom. Though not as jealous as I am of his ex's Kate Bosworth's new man Mr. Alexander Skarsgard, aka Eric Northman in True Blood. Oh, Hollywood.

♥ Lini.

Questioning My Faith

I read once Taylor Swift said if someone enters her life, and affects her in someway, they might end up in one of her songs. Though there aren't exactly any teardrops on my MacBook, if I meet someone, even if only once, they may inspire an idea in my head for later... for a blogpost, in this instance. So now you, dear audience, have been alerted. Also be warned, I'm about to blog about design again.

I believe in design. I suppose that's an odd thing to say, but I simply believe the way things look and work matter. Really, really matter. In an increasingly global world, people give increasingly more value to something or someone's initial appearance because appearances speak without words. You can communicate with anyone visually whether or not they speak your language or you theirs. As Ursula said in the timeless film The Little Mermaid, "Don't underestimate the importance of body language." People have always used their eyes to understand the world around them, assuming what they see to be true. Seeing is believing isn't an overused phrase for no reason.

Here's where I have a confession to make. The other day I took a trip to Orlando with some friends to go to an Electrorave-type thing a club. Awesome music is playing, everyone has 32 ounce Old English's in hand, and all are wearing skimpy neon tops paired with absurdly tight pants accessorized accordingly. I assumed everyone was a student of some sort- most likely from University of Central Florida or Valencia, and due to the genre of the event, studying some type of liberal art, visual art, or something of the sort. I had also just had a discussion with my friend about how hard it is to enjoy easy-paced music once you get really into electronic stuff. So, I assumed those in attendance felt the same way. A few minutes into this thing, I'm dancing away and I meet a pack of people. Dreds, bleach, piercings, and American Apparel getups included. More time goes by. I get to know one of these kids a little better, and after an extensive conversation I learned he was on his way to law school and had lived in Orlando his whole life [read: not one of those 50,000+ undergrad kids who moved there mostly to party]. We then talked about how Modest Mouse was the Bob Dylan of our generation. Mind you, this boy had the bottom half of his hair buzzed down, and what remained bleached to an icy shade of blonde and combed over in the most scene way possible. And he was at this rave. I found this all really out of character. A scene kid getting his Master's? An electro junkie digging Modest Mouse and dropping Dylan references? I guess it's not too far fetched, but I wouldn't have thought any of this would have come out of his mouth just from looking at him. So, my pleasantly surprised self stumbled off, proven wrong by first appearances.

So, though I'm not converting from Designism anytime soon, I do like being reminded to not judge to quickly. So there's my confession, how quickly I judged though I claim to be so liberal and open minded.

Voici mon secret. Il est tres simple: It is only with the heart with one can see rightly, what is essential is invisible to the eye.

Antoine de Saint Exupery

♥ Lini.

Design Matters

I have spent more time than I would like to admit watching TV shows on DVD's. Personally, I have never bought a season myself, but thanks to my sister, there's about $200 worth of Lost, and a handful of other programs scattered about our house. Yesterday, I watched a few episodes of True Blood and I could help wondering how people feel okay spending so much money to watch or rewatch something they've either already seen or could see online for free.

I feel this way about a lot of things. I find people blow money on, and pardon my French, really dumb shit. Usually I find this really annoying. Maybe I inherited the cheap gene from my father? I just can't help thinking why does anyone want or need that? Why does advertising and mass media convince us we need all of this bullshit? My room is literally overflowing with things I don't even need, but at one point time I firmly believed every single item in there was a must-have.

The other day, specifically the day of my sister's high school graduation, I went out to dinner with my family at an Italian restaurant. A beautiful Italian restaurant. Gorgeous windows stretching up to the ceiling, perfectly placed table settings, and just overall harmony and balance with space, color, furniture, lighting, etc. I was hynotized. Then my food arrived.

I really don't enjoy Italian food, I find it bland. I do however, know how to tell if it's good thanks to having lived there for some time and thanks to having unfortunately awesome tastebuds. The food at this place was not that good. It was alright, don't get me wrong. But believe me, the reason this place will remain popular is because it beautifully deceives people into thinking it's great, authentic, and Italian. I thought it was good for about 90% of my dining experience. Why? Because seeing is believing, and this place appeared to be super nice.

People want things that look super nice. Or things they are told work super well. Or things they are told will make them look super nice, and work super well.

I apologize for anyone who read this post unknowingly, but I will say it again and again. Design owns you. While I get mad at people for buying dumb shit, I am also infinitely grateful because I hope one day they will buy my dumb shit. And, while I am rather rudely calling it dumb shit, I don't really mean it. It might seem dumb, but obviously something about it set it apart enough for people to shell out money and pay for it. The pizza I ordered for dinner at the aforementioned graduation dinner tasted no better, if not worse than, any I could have gotten at some hole-in-the wall family run Italian place in New Jersey for a third of the price. I assumed it would be amazing because when I walked in, the design of the restaurant was beautiful. How many women buy designer brand makeup because the packaging looks nicer, and how many men are religious about their beer, burgers, and cars? I can promise you, somewhere along the line, someone made choices, design choices, which have made you love and buy the dumb shit you worship.

This is why when people tell me they don't care about fashion, or they know nothing about art, I just roll my eyes. I had a writing teacher who told me she never realized how really significant design is until she started teaching at my school. [I go to design school, sidenote.] People who aren't in design don't realize how much of their lives it affects. I guess that can be said about anything, which is why I try and respect all displines. [Though admittedly, I sometimes fail.]

Wouldn't you rather see a movie in a theater with those seats?

Or wash your hair in a salon with those sinks?

And you know you want those two C's.

PS: I ♥ that. Someone should make a book of street shots with awesome things people have done with the Chanel logo.

Ti voglio, Space Invader Mini Cooper.

You'd rather fly if your plane looked this cool.

And, you'd overpay for water if it looked this good.

Lastly, some illustrations by Dan Stafford.

♥ this.

Ne croit pas le hype.

♥ Lini.

All of these pictures are from the cool hunter.

I love it more than Hype Beast, but both are awesome.

Feeling Patriotic

Maybe it's because I miss Brasil, maybe it's because it's a cup year, or maybe it's because I hung out with my particularly outrageous Carioca friend the other night... Here's a few Brazilian things which have caught my eye:

Brazilian models will always be so, so much better in every possible way.
Isabelli Fontanta x2 & Alice Dellal.

Os Gemeos.

Brazilian Street artists, "The Twins". They convinced me to go to the Tate Modern when they showed at the Street Art exhibit there a few years back. [Any museum with work this cool is worth a visit.] Recently, I took that off my bucket list, and you can see some Gemeos work in Miami up in my last post.

This show, "Pra quem mora la, o ceu e la." is being shown in Lisbon, Portugal.
I love what they did with the speakers, and their style, characters, and colors are so Brazilian.

Dazed & Confused "Plastic Fantastic" Editorial
Reasons why this is beyond awesome:
1. The magazine is named Dazed & Confused.
2. I love fashion editorials.
3. I love opacities. 4. I love Brasil. I love the World Cup. I love when everything I love gets together creatively, for example: CBF players. In a fashion editorial. Layered in various opacites. In Dazed & Confused.
5. All the uniforms, made by Nike, are crafted from recycled plastic bottles.
Upcycling dream ♥
Basically: perfection.

♥ Lini.

Sourpuss.

No pictures today, sorry.

I am tired and in a foul mood.
Plus I despise this computer.

But, I had something to share.

I love upcycling. I love the word first of all, it's clever and trendy in a way that doesn't make me hate trendy things. Aside from it's linguistic prowess, it's a great concept. It's like recycling, only juiced up on fashionable steroids.

Today I went to Swap Miami for the first time. I think clothing swaps, especially ones this high end, are a great example of upcycling. What if all fashionistas got together and created a swapping network of some sort? We could spend less money, buy better, nicer things, and never wear the same thing twice.

Back to reality though, I had a chat with a lovely lady at this event. We talked about why no one knows why these things go on in Miami. I feel I've had this conversation 100 times in the past week.

Why does no one know these things, aka art, design, cultural things, go on in Miami? Breaking news, everyone. We can take time from doing Shots, Shots, Shots, on Calle Ocho and do something with our lives occasionally. I can't say I'm innocent either, I didn't even know we had a design district until a few months ago. As far as I was concerned, Art Basel was pracitcally all there was worth seeing in this city all year.

Swap Miami in my opinion is a trading clothing event for hipsters, well-preserved middle aged Hispanic women, and older men clad in those patterned shirts you thought only clueless tourists wore. [They rocked it though, surprisingly enough. I saw homeboy with a parrot embroidered on the back of one, stretching across his entire back and I kind of liked it. There, you caught me being tacky again.] You drop off clothes, in exchange you get tokens to trade in for others. Each is color coordinated and has a different value. Though most of the stuff is regular clothing, I saw a decent amount of home goods, shoes, and accessories. Also, Ecoist was selling today for their first time at Swap, and their stuff looked cute as always.

With an awesome track playing in the background- think perfect combo of trashy Top 40, totally unknown electro rock, and a healthy helping of remixed 90's dance- keeping the ambience enjoyable, it was definitely a good time. Also, cupcakes and acai martinis were for sale. Again, can we get any trendier? I loved it all though, perfection.

These events take place every two months, and the locations change throughout the design district. Today's was at Cafeina, the next is TBA. Check them out if you're around the 305, it is 100% worth it, I promise.

Ps: Does this trailer for Lagerfeld's Remember Now annoy anyone else?

I'm still so grumpy!

C'est la vie.

♥ Lini.

What I do In My Spare Time

Os Gemeos, Brazilian Street Artists.

Wall is part of The Wynwood Walls.

If you know me, you probably know how directionally handicapped I am. I had to go to the design district area in Miami yesterday, and of course I got lost. Luckily, I left an hour early and with the help of three lovely ladies, an iPhone, Mapquest, a Blackberry, and an extremely Cuban man, I eventually found where I was going.

With a few minutes to spare, I took some pictures of the street art in the area. If you're from down here, check out the NW 2nd Ave. streets, best place to snap street art shots if that's what you're into. Unfortunately I only had my cellphone to take pictures. Believe me, this thing looks like Fisher-Price created it [Read: I apologize they're such bad pictures.] I tried to get a variety of what was down there, but there's so much more. I'll go back eventually with proper equipment. More time. When it's not raining. And not reaching levels of approximately 1000% humidity outside.

As a last note, I would like to say the house I parked in front of had chickens walking around their driveway, laundry hang drying on their chainlink fence, and a cactus growing in the front lawn. A feral dog also seemed to patrol the perimeter, but I suspected he didn't have an owner. I certainly hoped he didn't have an owner because if he did, they were doing an awful job.

Miami amuses me almost as much as it annoys me, mostly because it's such a nightmare to drive there. Getting lost by the Motel Hialeah on the Okeechobee? Ay Caramba, spare me.

Enjoy, seeing these things was the only part of my day I smiled about yesterday.

Miami Streets, true story.

Super typical, Brazilian artist Romero Britto.

Semi-played out now thanks to the city of Miami, but I loved him still.

Ps: My finger makes an appearance a few times throughout, spot it if you can.

These buildings are all either galleries or brokers offices or banks, and you can't tel them apart unless you read the signs because they're all tagged up.

I love that.

I wanna rock right...

More Wynwood Walls, Shepard Fairey and Kenny Scharf.
The Fairey stuff looks so, so sick. Summer-to-do item definitely get closer shots.
[Cough, finger, cough.]


Random shit on fire hydrants, trash cans, street signs, etc. is often my favorite type of street art.
Happy accidents, as an old design professor of mine would often say?
Though I believe they're intentionally done, but there's little control over the outcome.
They're scattered throughout cities so finding them is a happy accident for the viewer, I think.


Color overdose, awesome lines. Old school, I like.


Don't be sad, you look so cool.

I apologize to my readers who may have been confused by my Miami references.
If it makes you feel any better, Okeechobee confuses me too.

♥ Lini.

Doing Too Much.

Sometimes, there's no other way to describe people's actions other than to simply say "They're doing too much." Generally when I say this, I mean it in a bad way. Throwing back fifteen shots of tequila before heading out on Cinco de Mayo? Doing too much. Thinking you can get away with wearing those dresses with the built in skirt-tank-combo that became overdone about a week after they became trendy? Doing too much. Expecting me to unpack my suitcases and organize my closet in any time frame shorter then a week after getting home for summer, Mom? Definitely doing too much.

In my opinion, for better of for worse, the below are clearly just doing too much.

North Face Purple Label.

Why, are they doing too much you may ask?

Well, first of all, North Face has zero business having a "Purple Label". If they insist on producing one, they could at least give us the courtesy of selling it here. Instead, it's only sold in Japan.

We are stuck buying typical North Face fleeces which perpetuate my belief of how absurd it is they have "labels". Please.

Donald Cummings x Ray Ban.

Because paying any amount of money for glasses you blatantly cannot see out of is doing too much, let alone sticking a $500 price tag on them. I don't care if they're made of gold or magical rainbows, you're clearly blind upon wearing them.

Definition of doing too much.

MBW, Mister Brain Wash, "Film Maker" turned artist, suppossedly.

His last show ICONS was reopened this past Mother's Day.

Why?

Hype and reasons far beyond my understanding.

I hate this man.

I really did love you once Gaga.

I hope you happy, but by the looks of this get up, you are not.

You really shouldn't need to make a comeback if you've only been making it big for five minutes, just saying.

As a sidenote, I'm not trying to hate, but I would argue so much when people said "Oh, she won't last." I disagreed. But now all I hear is "Alejandro." Which is not good. And all I see is the above. Which is worse.

I'm sorry, Keds?

Who are you?

I don't know if this is doing too much because it does look good. They sort of began doing too much with the whole Mischa Barton thing in my opinion though, but then again I'm not a fan.


All I'm doing too much of is sleeping, and as of yesterday baking cupcakes. Summertime, mmmm.

♥ Lini.

I want ScaJo's Body in Iron Man II.

Title pretty much says it all. Home girl looked SO good, I am so jealous.

I have received several inquiries about whether or not I was involved in a piece of art seen in Iron Man 2. I’m friends with the Iron Man movie’s production designer Michael Riva who, along with his wife Wendy, was a big Obama supporter. He asked if I’d mind a HOPE poster spoof in Iron Man and I said “of course not”. I did not personally design the image, nor was I paid for it. All of the Obama HOPE spoofs, positive or negative, are a reminder of the power and importance of grassroots activism to affect things. Additionally, neither is it possible to copyright a style, nor would I want to restrict visual dialog by discouraging others from paying tribute to styles I have used.

Shepard Fairey.

Cool of him, but I guess since he steals things all the time. I still love him anyway, and talk about aging well. Has anyone seen this man? He looks literally half his age. As in my age. But he's really nearly 40. Young soul much?

And, back to body image, the May Free People Catalog looks so, so good. I love the models they chose. As usual, the clothes are adorable, unique, and overpriced. Love 'em any way. Thank you my friend Grace for mentioning it to me, and thanks to my dear mother Katia for being a magazine junkie and supplying me. Without fail, there's always a stack waiting on any given table in my house.

Miami summer begins today, I'm happy.

♥ Lini.

Word Vomit, but Nicer.

Love this logo, Nexcite energy drink.

I've never had it, but it looks cool.

It's so much hard to hate "cool" things than it seems. It hard not to just base your opinions of things on their appearances, but I guess that's why I'm a firm believer in good design.

But anyway.

Study break. My study partner just passed out from boredom, and I promised to wake her up soon. In the meantime, I leave you with a few words I found today.

All quotes from Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk, author of Fight Club.

Game shows are designed to make us feel better about the random, useless facts that are all we have left of our education.

When we don't know who to hate, we hate ourselves.

You have to keep recycling yourself.

The only way to find true happiness is to risk being completely cut open.

Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everybody I've ever known.

Almost all of the time, you tell yourself you're loving somebody when you're just using them. This only looks like love.

There isn't any real in you. Even in your physical body, all your cells will be replaced within eight years.

The world is your cradle and your trap.

Our real discoveries come from chaos.

Your birth is a mistake you'll spend your whole life trying to correct.

When you don't share your problems, you resent hearing the problems of other people.

All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring.

Go figure, but Texans seems to be a lot more comfortable around disastrous house fires than they are around anal sex.

You can only hold a smile for so long, after that it's just teeth.

Nothing of you is all-the-way yours. All of you is inherited.

Do the things that scare you most.

No matter how careful you are, there's going to be the sense you missed something, the collapsed feeling under your skin that you didn't experience it all. There's that fallen heart feeling that you rushed right through the moments where you should've been paying attention.

She'd wear shades of lipstick you'd expect to see around the base of a penis.

Don't you think that somehow television makes us God?

The future is just wasted on some people.

Only when we eat up this planet will God give us another.

We'll be be remembered more for what we destroy than what we create.

Beautiful, dark, and bitter. I love every word. I'm going to buy the book and read it.

I dedicate the one in bold to someone, I hope she knows who she is.

♥ Lini.

From the Ground Up

Last night I dreamt about shoes and popsicles. I can only infer this is a heavenly sign I should blog instead of studying.

... Don't say anything, I'll make it short and study in a minute. Or so.

I find myself oddly drawn to the simplicity of this pair. Not too many colors and the heel isn't too high, but I think they're really interesting anyway.

Need I say more? This is like outer space crystals had a love child with jelly sandals, talk about my dream shoe.

Love love love. Love the heel, love the colors, love the strap, love the peep toe, and I love the exact point where it curves around the ankle. Nothing wrong with this in my opinion. Except they don't look so comfy, but neither do most heels and we ladies all have callouses to prove it.

Once again, dream shoe much? I love zippers and I love layers. If they had thrown in a little asymmetry than this shoe just could have been my design aesthetic in footwear form. I like the grommets and laces too.

Why can't flats ever look this good?

If you saw my closet, you'd know I lust after a sick pair of high tops, but you can't exactly wear those anywhere proper.

♥ Lini.

Been There, Tapped That.

Photorealism is so sick. I love Modern Photorealism because it isn't just portraits of royalty. I secretly like to pretend I'm Chuck Close* sometimes, walking around with nonprescription frames and scraggly hair. Except I cannot paint this well considering my painting career really only grew from the finger variety to the acrylic point, line, and plane kind they feed you in design school.

*On a side note though, Chuck Close should probably hire someone better to work on his site since is seems he put his focus entirely on making super awesome paintings.

The one above and the one below are by Diego Gravinese. The last is Yigal Ozeri, who you might want to Google because he's awesome, but apparently also failed in the website making department. So did Diego honestly, is there something here I'm failing to see? Some I'm to artsy to be online thing? I have like five tabs open as we speak, so I missed that memo.

Being said, I have a final Tuesday.

The written kind.

The worst kind. I think I forgot how to take that kind a long time ago.

I never really believed people when they said "I don't study well" or "I don't test well". I certainly believe it now. I formerly thought everyone's brains were capable of doing the same things and people just made excuses not to. I don't know if I stopped using my cranium enough, or if the intended purpose of my mind finally kicked in, but "I don't study well". That's me saying it, and it is true. I just cannot recall facts, nor do I care to.

I want to be out of school immediately and in school forever simultaneously. Contrast has always attracted me I guess.

Lastly, I will just say, boys are confusing. Men are confusing. I hear things and I see things which only further prove this. Today my neighbor came over to eat some pie, and I just couldn't believe the things she was saying about a man in her life. I decided I don't believe in evolution, we are all in fact neanderthals. It doesn't matter if they're 16, 26, or, not that I know personally, 76, they're all just children. And to be fair, maybe all girls and women are crazy. I really hate games. I hate being benched, but when I get put in, I wonder why I ever complained about sitting on the sidelines at all.

I didn't know this game we were playing even had a set of rules.

-Modest Mouse

♥ Lini.

How I Love to Hate

This is why I am terminally in love with design.

If you're too lazy to follow the link, it's Samsung's Dual View TL220. I'm a little late in discovering this, but during my television marathon today a commercial for it caught my eye. Basically, there's a viewfinder on both sides. In case that great skill we've all developed from taking MySpace pics of ourselves hasn't evolved into a hereditary gene, our children can rely on this nifty device.

Maybe it's silly, but it's clever things like this that make me adore design. Some one took a need, a simple one, and resolved it. And then someone else put a price tag on it. And then someone advertised it with a celebrity in the commercial so people would see it and want it.

I am one of those customers, and shamelessly so. I think it's the smartest thing since this one.

And, while design as an entity doesn't let me down, people do.

This is why I shouldn't have idols.

I get so mad at her when she does this shit.

You look AWFUL GaGa. I'm allowed to look sloppy. You are not. Because I am your fan, and you are my idol. I look up to you. All you talk about is how you never step out of the house, even if it be to buy groceries, without looking fantastic. I found that the epitome of luxury. I worshipped you. Then you went outside in lumpy red cutoffs and what appears to be boots with built-in shin guards. You are also responsible for this God-awful music video XTina made and seems to have thought was a good idea. Clearly, you inspired it, and clearly she failed in executing anything but a wannabe postmodern wonky-pop disaster.

So now I hate you. Thanks.

Happy Zombie Awareness Month.

Also picked this fact up while watching T.V. today. It seems everything has a month, day, or week dedicated to it. Everyone has a birthday, so I guess that's really not so crazy. Zombies are pretty intense so they get an entire month.

While watching T.V. today I also saw car bomb attempts, hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil spilled, and streets flooded beyond recognition.

Yet everyone's Facebook statuses are about needing Red Bull to finish allllllll their endless work for finals.

In all honesty, I did just have a Red Bull. I also did freak out because I needed to mount some boards and I ran out of every possible type of adhesive simultaneously. I guess we all fight our own battles, but it's just sick to watch the immensity of other people's compared to how trivial mine are sometimes. The only thing ticking in my room right now is an unwanted horsefly, and last I checked my apartment building was still above sea level.

One of the few good things about modern times: If you die horribly on television, you have not died in vain. You will have entertained us.

-Vonnegut.

♥ Lini.