Melody Hirsch :: An interview with Seattle artist, fashion designer, and graphic designer.
Melody Hirsch's parents were hippies; she doesn't want me to tell you her middle name because she thinks it's too girly and frilly and makes her sound like a made up character [it does]. She grew up in Seattle, in the poorer part of Magnolia, literally on the wrong side of the tracks, where the neighborhood families had open doors and let neighborhood children wander around, which is pretty cool if the drummer from Pearl Jam is one of your least-cool neighbors.
The neighborhood weirdoes and artists made a profound impression on Melody; she spent time with the painter who lived near by and the paraplegic who evangelized the future of fabrics come to present day in the form of Lycra and nylon. She was born with the heart of an inventor and explorer, her scientist’s mind tried on the hobbies and passions of her older brother, including sports and video games, before judiciously rejecting them in favor of the arts. She and her childhood best friend, Harmony [yup, Melody and Harmony] still cherish their ever-expanding dream to build a house out of recycled glass bottles and to create an ultrasonic device that will summon all the cats of Seattle to do their bidding, mostly chores.
Melody began apprenticing with her mom who made clothing and costumes. She initially thought she’d like to design and make clothing for film and theater until she realized that the clothes used in entertainment didn’t meet her standards for quality and durability. Melody later enrolled in the New York Fashion Academy in Ballard. Her feelings about fashion began to evolve as she saw the less-beautiful sides of the industry. She became fascinated with the human-element, she wanted to design clothes to be worn by real people—you might call it a passion for user experience. She wanted to change the fashion industry from the inside out by creating clothes that were cool, durable and lasting, with enduring style; start a revolution by politicizing fashion for social impact. She fell in love with the independent designers and shops and dug deeper into her education, even teaching some of the classes herself. All of this culminated in Melody showing three of her pieces at the Seattle Art Museum’s Future Beauty Community Night Out Runway Show.
Concurrent with her fashion design courses, she enrolled in a Graphic Design class at the New York Fashion Academy – she had a natural instinct for it and with encouragement from her professor, she began to reach deeper into the possibilities of Graphic Design, the potential to create thought-provoking original work and of reaching a broader audience. She set her sights on Seattle Central where she’s going to start changing the world as she learns more about packaging, branding, way-finding and, tentatively, UX.
Melody was traveling in Rome when she was locked out of her walk-up during a torrential downpour. She and her friend rang every apartment to get out of the storm without luck when they were rescued by a local no-nonsense woman in amazing Italian stilettos – she managed to call all the apartments until she found the correct one and got them out of the pouring rain. Later, Melody found out that the woman was actually a radical politician in the midst of highly politicized election.
While touring with a choir in Germany after the 2006 World Cup, she stayed at a hotel where the first thing she noticed were rabbits and peacocks who roamed free in the lobby, the second was the Brazil Soccer team who had missed their flight or something, but she thinks the politician is a cooler story.
Last but not least, Melody has the coolest bucket-list of anyone I know and I hope she let’s me tag along on her adventures:
1) Live outside Seattle
2) Create something to promote social change
3) Own a potbelly pig
4) Live on a houseboat
5) Learn to fly a plane
More about Melody at her website: Melody Hirsch Designs: Seattle Fashion Designer
Once In A Lifetime
My once-in-a-lifetime adventure began in February… this was me ----> (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻
Rumors were circulating at work that the company would be downsizing. I began to realize that I was secretly hoping to be let go; this would be the catalyst I needed to change careers...
Through the magic of positive visualization (and a quick chat with my VP), I was laid off. I was lucky to recieve a great severance package and unemployment benefits. I immediately went to Austin, one of the great movie-loving towns, to celebrate my newfound freedom with old friends.
When I returned to Seattle, I took a 10-week typography class at the School of Visual Concepts where (unknown to me at the time) I met two future-classmates.
I worked on creating my SCCA admissions portfolio and taking the necessary tests to apply. I took a History of Pornography class and spent time bumming around in Portland. I finally finished reading Voices of Freedom: An Oral History of the Civil Rights Movement by Henry Hampton and Steve Foyer and then read Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison – I became obsessed with the graphic design of the cover. (Feel free to buy me one of these. I'll need a small.)
I went to Canada for the first time and liked it so much that I ended up going back twice in the next month. I voraciously consumed spy novels by John Le Carré (Call for the Dead, A Murder of Quality, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, The Looking Glass War) and again, was transfixed by the different layouts and cover designs depending on when each book had been published. I fell in love with the Penguin covers so much, I even found a mockup PSD file so that I could make my own.
Everything changed when I learned I’d been accepted to Seattle Central. I finally relaxed. I visited friends in LA (THE movie-loving town) for a week – it was beautiful and sunny and filled with adventure. I got to explore the Warner Brothers back lot with a film school chum and have a generally debaucherous and wonderful time.
When I came back to Seattle, I rode in the Fremont Naked Bicycle Parade with SCCA alumna Janice Cruz. Don't worry, I won't share any photos from that unless you ask.
Plane tickets already bought for Maine in July, I decided to spend the last of my money on LASIK – terrifying, but money well spent.
In July, I visited my sister and mother in Maine. I was able to stay for two full weeks. My sister and I visited Salem and spent two days and nights in Boston, and I even got to see Harvard in Cambridge. We went to Camden and visited my brother-in-law’s brother on his Windjammer, Angelique.
I got to see the Desert of Maine, the Boothebay Botanical Gardens, and the York Wildlife Preserve. The best part of the whole trip was the visit Orgonon in Rangeley--if you're not familiar with Wilhelm Reich, please don your tinfoil hat and click that link.
I spent a weekend on Whidbey Island and read PD James’ The Children of Men, – it’s a decent book but belongs in the wee cannon of books whose film surpass them in quality. (See also: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.)
Suddenly it was August and I was almost completely out of money, I was able to do Portland on the cheap a couple times and go out to Winthrop to watch the Perseids Meteor shower. Inspired by my trip to Orgonon, I read The Book of Dreams by Peter Reich.
The rest is a blur of newfound friend dates with future classmates and generalized anxiety at being a student again. So many good-byes, to the late nights, the sleepovers, the mid-day matinee movie, and epic Netflix binges.
...and even at only one week in it is already So. Worth. It.
These are a few of my favorite things…
Art of the Title does post mortems on the title sequences of movies. It breaks down the composition, the typography, and interviews the graphic designers who built the kinetic compositions.
The article layouts, with quotes and stills, is sexy and engaging. The diversity of films selected for review is fascinating with easy choices like Hitchcock and surprising ones like The Simpsons.
Kinetic design is relevant to the future of the internet, like the Flash and HTML5 of yesteryear, increasingly the moving image and text will be relevant to communication and advertising.
There’s a thrill you get when you realize that several of your most favorite title sequences were made by the same individual or design house, to see the names behind an art form with nearly invisible artists.
For example, Richard Greenberg – please enjoy watching this quick retrospective; The Dead Zone and Altered States both took my breath away when I first saw them.
I bet you remember what you were thinking when you saw the title credits to Alien for the first time.
This is Colossal began as a personal art and design blog of Christopher Jobson. It broadly explores visual culture including Fine Art, Design, Photography, Illustration, and Craft.
It integrates art and design into the real-world where it merges with current and historical events and science and nature. The holistic vision is mesmerizing, much more dynamic and relatable than other blogs that may feature post after post of vector art straight out of a vacuum. Its this diversity and scale that make Colossal fresh and interesting every single day.
Most recently they blogged about the treasure trove of HD photos that NASA released from the Apollo Moon Missions.
I mean, just look at this:
Astronaut John L. Swigert, Jr., Apollo 13 Command Module Pilot, holds the “mailbox,” a makeshift device used to purge carbon dioxide from the Lunar Module that played a significant role in saving the doomed astronauts lives. Apollo 13 Hasselblad image from film magazine.
Women of Graphic Design began as a personal blog too, Tori Hinn who was at RISD at the time. her intention is to spark discussion through learning and sharing. the blog is comprised of many voices, they welcome submissions.
Their mission is to upset the lack of women’s representation in design history.
initially, they had a tagging system that forced contributors to classify their posts as #careerwithkids, #careerwithoutkids or #hasitall, a great art-school prank on gendered limitations.
Live from Seattle Central, it's Friday New Media!
Have you ever noticed the more someone says the word "blog" the weirder it starts to sound? BLAAAAAAAAAAAAAHG.
Oh look! Thanks Urban Dictionary, looks like you've anticipated my need before I knew I had it yet again:
Portfolio Exercise
Hello World, hello Wordpress, hello school!
We were tasked with creating a composition for our application to Seattle Central Creative Academy...
The assignment: Do a composition on an 8 ½ x 11 piece of paper using TWO squares, TWO circles and TWO triangles.
Process:
Final:
I had the luxury of brainstorming and experimenting over several days and learned that the more time you have to put into a project, the better it becomes.*