Good girls, bad boys, and all the terrible writing in between

Actually...this originally was going to be a short update but at some point it turned to be more of a rant about YA fiction.

Recently, I complained to my friends about the poor quality of stories on Wattpad. If you don't know, Wattpad is where wannabe YA supernatural romance authors and One Direction fanfic writers post their stories. It's a smartphone app so it's easy to read when you're on the go or waiting for the bus. Unfortunately, there seems to be a lack of quality control in the writing of the major popular stories...which all feature obliviously beautiful 17 year olds girls equipped with smart remarks and snappy comebacks so they can bicker and fall in love with the neighborhood bad boy. Also, is there some unwritten rule saying that you must only use first person narrative?? Go on Wattpad, or, actually, any YA section of any bookstore/library, pick up a book with a faceless girl on the cover (they try not to show the face so you can imagine it yourself, I presume) and it will be narrated by the heroine. Which is understandable, given the primary audience of such books, but to me a lot of the time it seems like lazy self-insertion by the author.

Speaking of self-insertion...out of pure curiosity I looked up some Exo fanfiction on Wattpad. Never again will I make such a terrible, terrible mistake. All I can say is that no level of writing can save you from the likes of "...When I see _______'s face, I get nervous." *________ = YOUR NAME!*

I think part of the reason I'm so sore at YA fiction is that I feel robbed of all the cool literary experiences I thought I would have as a teenager. Because for some weird reason there are so many good children's literature out there, but so few YA ones. Which is also why I'm frustrated that my sister is choosing to read those summery chick lit books when she hasn't read any of the classic children's books.

While reminiscing about the books of my childhood, I found this blog which has reviews/commentary on each of the Animorphs books. The two people who make those posts are hilarious and insightful. They poke fun at the plot holes, discuss the tropes and themes and analyze the characters. I died laughing at this one joke about the deus ex machina whale that always shows up to save them. They dubbed him as Jesus Whale.

Ifi: Anyway, it saves Marco from bleeding to death. He morphs to human, almost drowns like Mommy supposedly did--
Adam: Jesus Whale saves him
Ifi: JESUS WHALE
Ifi: SAVIOR OF THE SEAS
Adam: Pretty soon, you have people going door to door and handing out pamphlets, asking if you'd like them to teach you about cetaceans. 

Ifi: HE MIGRATED FOR YOUR SINS 

... 

Ifi: Isn’t that what you learn in Andalite school?
Adam: He wasn't paying attention
Ifi: It’s okay I forgive him
Ifi: JUST AS JESUS WHALE FORGAVE US ALL
Adam: *cue Latin chanting*

Also, unpopular opinion: I can't say I care much for John Green. Catherine's obsessed with this guy and his brother Hank, so a few years ago I decided to give Looking For Alaska a go. I didn't like it enough to finish it. Then, The Fault in Our Stars was all the rage so I read that over winter break. And while it's different from the rest of the YA stuff that's out there, I still didn't like it. I shed no tears whatsoever. The characters were like living dictionaries. The dialogue is supposed to be funny and witty, but to me it just seemed very forced, as if John Green carefully stitched together each word and tried to make it seem natural. I really don't understand all the hype.

Lemon Tea

It was my friend's 20th birthday recently! Every time I ask if she wants any drinks or snacks she tells me to get her Pure Leaf Lemon Tea. So I drew her a card that seemed relevant to her interests. 

Type Tracing Exercise

For my communication design class today we did a typography exercise. Somehow I felt that it was the one of the most tedious but also anxiety-inducing activity I did this whole week. 

Yes, this tracing exercise was done quite painstakingly. Although it's not perfect, I did get to spend some quality time with my friends AMB and garn. We were supposed to pay special attention to the serifs and teh angle of the curves, the spacing between the letters, and such...

Typographic Voice

What does the word "organic" look like to you?

---

Myriad Pro

This is the default font for Adobe Illustrator, but I thought it fit the word quite well. Myriad is a humanist sans serif typeface. It’s a little plain, but it’s simple, classic, and down to earth.

Optima

Optima makes the word include a bit of a classy flair, with the tapered serifs and curvier letters. When I thought of organic, the first thing that came to mind was the organic foods section in Whole Foods, so this typeface was chosen with that in mind.

SignPainter-HouseScript

I decided to try a script typeface to see how it would go. Because it’s similar to someone’s handwriting, I thought it might make sense as relating to something animated and “living.” The connected letters definitely make the word seem more alive and less passive than the other typefaces.

Didot

I tried a lot of sans serif so it I wanted to see how a serif font would look. I kind of like how this turned out, actually. It’s a very structural font. The thin serifs really contrast against the thick, straight lines, but I think it somehow gives it a “natural” look. Or it might just be because there’s a lot of these types of fonts on vegetable packagings.

Avenir Next

Finally, I chose one of my favorite fonts, Avenir Next. I like how the letters are really spaced far apart, giving emphasis to each one and having an elegant and pure overall look.

In the end, I feel like Optima best represents the word. Avenir is a little too open, and Myriad is a little too bold. Optima seems like the best choice that encompasses the word “organic.”

Name Tag Madness

I'm the VP for an asian cultural club on campus, ARCC (Awareness of Roots in Chinese Culture). We had our first general body meeting today, and I was thinking of ways to spice up the regular boring ol' "Hello my name is..." name tags.

The result: 

View fullsize

Customized name tags with little doodles on them! Mostly doodles of pusheen, but also some Studio Ghibli and random facebook stickers thrown in. They were really well received, and a lot of people commented on how they were too cute to throw away. <3 I'm glad people liked them!

Squares! Thumbnail Sketches

For class we were assigned to create visual representations of certain words using only squares. Here are some of my preliminary sketches. 

Active vs. Passive

For active squares I wanted to show movement, so I did that by creating squares of different sizes and tilting them to create the illusion of motion. During critiques I got a lot of positive feedback for the last one on the left. For the second one I tried to show how gravity would affect the squares. Passive was definitely a lot less intuitive than active. I tried playing around with different compositions that I thought gave a more calming feeling.

Static vs. Rhythmic

Static made me think of large, unmoving squares. I drew a lot of them stacked on top of each other to show how stable they were. For rhythmic I focused on patterns.

Symmetry vs. Asymmetry

I used vertical, horizontal, and diagonal symmetry. For asymmetry someone commented that they liked the idea of having an odd one out.

Designers + Geeks

Last week I went to San Francisco for a design/tech talk at Yelp! It was hosted by Designers + Geeks. 

I finally got to visit the Yelp office! It gave off a really cozy atmosphere, with the brick walls and the retro lit-up Yelp sign. The floor we were on wasn't that big--I think it was mainly the cafeteria/gathering area? There were no office spaces at least. But I liked how there were booths and long tables for everyone to eat together. 

The speakers at the event were Bridget Lee (UX manager at Google[x]) and Alex Kauffmann (senior designer at Google). Bridget talked more about how understanding the background and culture of the people you work with will help foster better connections in a team, while Alex told us about his product developing methods that involved extreme rapid prototyping.

One thing I noticed was that there was definitely a gender divide for designers and "geeks." Almost all the girls I talked to were designers, either visual or UI/UX. For the guys, I think most of them were engineers who also had an interest in design. 

It was my first time going to an event like this, and I admit I was surprised to see that most of the attendees were in their mid 20s to early 30s. I guess I had expected it to be more of an intern event, but it was interesting to meet people that were out in the "real world" already. I ate dinner with another girl who had moved from Canada to create her own furniture start up here in San Francisco. 

After the talk it was pretty late, so I took a Lyft back to the Caltrain station. I tried Lyft Line for the first time, and it was really efficient! Both me and another girl got picked up and we were got to the Caltrain station together. It only took $5.00 to get back, and since I had a $5.00 Lyft credit I got back for free! 

Dropbox Summer Hack Day

I had an amazing experience at the Dropbox office in San Francisco this past weekend for their first girls only hackathon, Summer Hack Day!

The Dropbox office *0* The Tuck Shop is such a cozy, friendly place to eat and socialize. My favorite was the music studio! So nice that everyone is encouraged to follow their creative pursuits outside of work as well! 

Okay I lied. The scooters were my favorite. 

There was also a mini high school reunion that unexpectedly happened. LHS represent! My team, (The Mustard Alpacas) created a web application to organize Dropbox files. We dubbed it "Tinder for files," because you go through all your files and have to choose whether to delete it (swipe left) or keep it (swipe right). We had it working, but it bugged out on us during demo time...of course T.T 

Still, it was a great experience and I was able to meet so many fun, nice and incredibly talented people. One of the mentors was my TA for a programming class I took back in freshman year!