A Tomboy Designs a Dress

This outfit that I made as a project for my Design Class is inspired by men's fashion. I like wearing less feministic clothes, and am often uncomfortable wearing dresses, so I wondered what it would look like if I took men's clothing and made them into a feministic dress. My initial idea was to make a suit into a dress, but I decided to go with a more casual dress shirt and jacket combination. The boots idea was inspired by a lady I saw on TV who always wore work boots with really big, baggy graphic T-shirts that doubled as dresses. I thought the dress/boot combination was interesting. (And yes, the buttons, collar, and shoelaces are all pink)

Below is a collection of actual clothing items that match my design the closest, so it's almost as if it's really made!

Masculine Femininity aka A Tomboy Dresses Up by dreamastory

A Sampling of Fashion Design

Trying My Hand at Car Design

For my college design class I had the chance to design a car! Introducing... *dramatic drum roll*
 

The X Flow

The idea for this car has actually been stowed away in my mind for a really long time. It's been slowly pieced together as I've sat in cars over the years and thought about aerodynamics as I look out the window and wonder how one could make them even more aerodynamic. This car (and a bicycle car) have been the two main designs that keep reoccurring in my thoughts. Finally, I've had an excuse to put the idea to paper!

The car has no windows. It seats only one person, who has to lay almost flat because the ceiling is so low (which is roughly modeled in the lower car of the color version of my sketches). The car is not automated however. The driver is able to view the outside road through virtual reality goggles that have live feeds from sensors placed all around the car. The effect is almost as if one is not in a car, but riding free on a motorcycle. The steering is controlled by two levers on other side of the person, while gas and break pedals are in their normal spots at the driver's feet. The slim body of the car itself tappers off into a razor, wind cutting edge along it's spine.

So, it's not perfect, and a lot of this stuff would probably not work outside of theory, but that wasn't the goal of the assignment. The goal was to come up with a design, which I have done. The coloring I added on top of the scan with a touch screen painting app I have on my new laptop, it's really cool, I think I'm going to like that app!

A Sampling of Automotive Design

Aventador

Infinity and Cirque du Soleil commissioned artist Heidi Taillefer to paint a celebratory G37 for their 20th and 25th year anniversaries.

Sketches from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California.

FORD BUG Concept by Jason Chen

From My Sketchbook: Portrait 14

A Sampling of Architectural Design

Guggenheim Museum by Frank Lloyd Wright

This is the house of Ruth Handler, the founder of Barbie

 

Photo by Dan and Lalza

Gateway Arch by Eero Saarinen

Shoreham Street by Project Orange

The World Trade Center

Photo by Toshio

What Really Sells

                Okay, here’s the age old mantra at Hollywood: “Sex and Violence Sells.” But what does that mean for the screenwriters who want to keep their scripts clean and uplifting? Are they out of a job just because they won’t bend their moral standards? If that mantra is true, then what about movie industries such as Pixar, how can they say that “sex and violence sells” when obviously Pixar movies have none of those things in them and yet almost every movie they crank out is a box office hit? 

                Perhaps what people mean when they repeat the over used saying is this; sexual content and violence are simply two different types of conflict. Good stories that sell, therefore, have conflict that drives the story forward and keeps the audience from being bored. Perhaps that’s what they really mean, whether they know it or not. This concept for understanding Hollywood’s obsession with these two things is in no way an original idea on my behalf. Skip Press, one of my very first screenwriting teachers, is the one who introduced this idea to me. He used the movies Gone with the Wind and High Noon as examples of the concepts of sexual content and violence being strong in each, consecutively, without the characters ever being together in the first, and not much physical violence being shown in the second (Press 83). Although I am sure these are good examples, I have never actually seen either of those movies, so instead I’m going to tell a different story I’ve heard that gives me perspective on what really sells in movies.

                Everyone knows Toy Story, right? Lovable sheriff toy that loyally protects the ones he loves and a strange, new astronaut toy that comes into the story and brings the conflict of change. The situations of a talking sheriff and astronaut toy at odds with each other are hilarious! Kids love it. Adults love it too. But the heartwarming story that everyone knows and loves didn’t start out so clean. Pixar wanted to bring a new generation of animation movies to the public; movies that would appeal to adults, not just to kids. So they kept pushing the script. It needed to be edgier, it needed to be dirtier, it needed to be more dangerous. Finally, one day, they sat back and took a look at what they were making. They realized that the road they were on would land them with an R rated movie. Woody was completely dislikable; smoking, drinking, swearing every ten minutes. The whole atmosphere of the movie was dirty and felt like eggshells in your mouth. Thankfully, they woke up and threw the whole thing out. Taking up a pen and a clean piece of paper they said “Okay, let’s just focus on telling a good story.” That’s exactly what they did and they’ve been telling good stories ever since.

                I’m not saying I completely buy into the idea that everyone who says that “sex and violence sells” really are just saying that a good story needs conflict driving it forward, because I don’t just take everything I read as gospel truth. There are people who think that movies are boring if they don’t have enough violence and sexual content in them. The more we watch that stuff, the more desensitized we become, so that next time it will take just a little bit more to shock us and make us squirm in our seats. I’m standing on the side lines watching the train of media hurtle at break neck speeds down an old train track with no brakes and it scares me – but that’s another topic. I will just say that I believe that sex and violence isn’t what movie audiences really want to see, at least, not the majority of them. What we all want are good stories that make us root for the hero and in the end have the satisfaction of seeing good triumph over evil and injustice. That’s what really sells.

FunnyJunk.com

Bibliography

Press, Skip. "Sex and Violence Sell: What That Really 

        Means." The Complete Idiot's Guide to Screenwriting. 

        3rd ed. Indianapolis, IN: Alpha, 2008. 83. Print.