pp: bio.cover letter. resume.

As an interdisciplinary creative, Edwing Mendez brings a wealth of knowledge and interest to the field of design with a focus on branding, motion graphic, and information architecture. Being born and raised in Miami Edwing carries his culture with him proudly which gives him an advance with a Latino audience and has lead to great opportunities such as working with the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Greater Kansas City. Moreover a heavy interest in technology supplies Edwing has considerable skill in digital interaction such as web, user experience, and experimental projects. Edwing hopes to push the limits of design culturally and technologically.

PP: Branding

I guess you can say took some of Frank Chimero's advice on this one. 

"If you need an analogy, use an animal."

And that animal is the rooster. I could list tons of reasons why I decided to used this bird but I will try to keep this short. For one, its the "wing" in my name, thats the literal analogy but the rooster is also a strong ethnic cultural figure. For me it hold strong connection to Mexican culture and is often seem and a symbol of fortune and leadership.

As for color, I chose mostly vibrant hues, its a part of my style which is often described by others as colorful. The use of these colors will be more subtle with certain content such as portfolio and resume.

sx: Monument to the Synth

A Monument to the Synthesizer

One of the earliest electric musical instruments, musical telegraph was invented in 1876 by American electrical engineer Elisha Gray. He accidentally discovered the sound generation from a self-vibrating electromagnetic circuit, then he invented a basic single-note oscillator. This musical telegraph used steel reeds, whose oscillations were created by electromagnets, and transmitted over a telegraphy line. Gray also built a simple loudspeaker device into later models, consisting of a vibrating diaphragm in a magnetic field, to make the oscillator audible.

This instrument was a remote electromechanical musical instrument using telegraphy and electric buzzers which can generate fixed timbre sound. Though it lacked arbitrary sound-synthesis function, some have erroneously called it the first synthesizer.

The Monument

A dimensional space which allows for the user to physically interact with elements of a synthesizer in order to educate and commemorate its importance to music. The monument will offer the opportunity for collaboration of multiple users to depict the importance of all of the elements of a synthesizer and how they work together to create one sound. The overall focus is how influential the synthesizer has been on music over the years and honor the shift from analog to digital forms of making sound.

The Location

The exact location is still in the works. Considering the interactive aspect of the monument, obviously a well populated area is essential. The possibility of a setting like Union Station or some type of public space with lots of foot traffic would be ideal. Also, the monument would most likely be housed in doors in some type of environment which enhances the content. The electronic component would likely also need some sort of security and cover from the outdoors.

Mind Mapping and Resources

We began mindmapping for the monument on Mural.ly:

PP: Goals + jobs

Heres a list of my short/long term goal nothing is in a specific order.

Short term

Get more sleep this semester.

Find an excuse to do more motion, web, interactive work.

Develop a routine for effective work and play.

Make a strong portfolio.

Get my degree.

To stop parking cars(valet) and get a design job even if the income isn't amazing.

Make more art.

Long term

Make my parents proud they always worry about me and I don't want them to be worried.

Study more things because I like learning. I want to have a collection of cool knowledge even if I don't have any necessary use for that knowledge.

Travel more, even if I have to hitch rides and backpack it while sleeping on couches along the way. There's too much in this world to not want to see it all firsthand.

Be Successful. For myself but also for my parents they left their family, home, culture, and life for the "American Dream".

Job listings

Wordpress Web Designer / Developer [Jupiter Highway NYC]

Rich Media / Flash Developer [Grok NYC]

No idea what exactly the job is but I kinda want it [72andsunny LA]

Interactive Designer [Trigger LA]

Junior, UI/UX Designer [‹html› Fusion LA]

PP: What Advice Would You Give a Graphic Design Student?

*finishes reading article*

Okay. Well, that was weird...

I approached this reading expecting it to be like the usual academically written articles and excerpts we are assigned, but this was just the opposite. It was quite informal it was almost as if a mildly hungover (but in a good mood probably from having mixed drinks with friends the previous night) design professional was asked to give advice to students right now and in under two minutes.

I disagree with some stuff in here and I think Frank will be cool with it, he did tell me to be suspicious of advice. Nonetheless, there is still plenty of good advice in here:

"You will get conflicting information. It means that both are wrong. Or both are true. This never stops. Most decisions are gray, and everything lives on a spectrum of correctness and suitability."

There are so many time when I question whether the decision I made(design relevant or just life in general) was right or wrong. Its nice to know that its not wrong even though it isn't right either and thats okay because everything is subjective. Right? How can someone say that something is black or white, there is always some gray in there.

"I have no idea what I'm doing, and everyone is just making it up as they go along.

This about sums up everything I know."

 This can be interpreted in so many ways but for me Frank is just trying to say that everyone is different and his thoughts are no more valuable than the next person's thoughts. So all this advice can be useful for one but do nothing for another.

So, I am not sure if I should take any of Frank's advice or not; I will probably just take the stuff I want, keep it in my mind until that advice completely fails me, at which point I will dump it from my brain... or still keep it, who knows?

VA: Swap Shop reflection

With such a crazy semester I don't think any of us has had the time to really sit and absorb what he have all been doing at Manheim Park. For me none is it felt 100% real 'till the day of our presentations at the neighborhood association meeting as I was getting back in my car one neighbor walking by said "great job young man, thank you for all the help". It felt good that the people there actually took something from our ideas as my classmate were giving their presentations I was looking around the room and there were tons if smiles. That day seemed like a complete 180 of the usual treatment of their meeting, we didn't talk about crime rates, we didn't about slum lords, we talk about the future, a future many of the member could not envision. I proud of that, even if our ideas never become reality I still feel that we did something great we showed this community the potential of their neighborhood, a potential that most of them probably could not see.

Swap Shop is a big thing, me and my partners first brainstormed ideas that would not be impossibly costly and through that this really cool idea of repurposed crates came out. We thought "why can't something this trendy live in a space like this?". We didn't see an area known for high crime and dirty streets, we saw a cool new market space on a busy road in a historical part of town and thats the vision we wanted others to see.

VA: design for good

Design for good Ai Weiwei