The book Total Living by Maria Luisa Frisa completely excited me when I discovered its content. This is exactly the type of book I want to be making when I’m sufficiently older and experienced.

I’ve searched this book on Amazon and found it covers many aspects of art that I cover for my blog. This is a fairly recent book published in 2002 displaying and discussing lifestyles, fashion, industry and culture,

“A fabulously rich and interconnected iconographic passage visually narrates the various forms and ramifications of total living today and in the recent past through a succession of utopias, life-projects, urban visions, architecture, special homes, stores, art galleries, museums, and editorial pages and ads from fashion and lifestyle magazines.”

Since it’s 488 pages, I believe I would find endless material to write on or to choose a specific subject to focus on. What was interesting is that this was the single book that popped up when I searched “consumerism”. This is a perfect match for what I want to do. The book is a more detailed examination into the art and culture and influence of all things art and design. Unlike blogs, Total Living is more permanent and academic based that could aid me in researching a higher understanding of culture and art.

The illustrations remind me of Shakespeares’ A Midnight Summers Dream, with it’s fantastical characters falling in love with everything and anything. A few days ago, Prada premiered the “Trembled Blossoms” video in which James Jean designed the frames, characters and storyboard. In terms of collaborating mediums, we can see that this whole project involves illustration art, film and fashion. The influence of James Jean definitely takes a big shift in high-end fashion by exploring the aesthetics of different mediums to raise the bar in the fashion world.I am completely enamored with the juxtaposition of the photographed advertisements and the images that James Jean produced. Even though a starving college student can’t even afford a shoe from Prada, let alone an artwork of James Jean, the ingenious collaboration definitely raised the status for both artists in their field.

Source: Notcot, James Jean

X’s over O’x

B

Like Andrew Sullivan, Bobby S. has short entries in which you could sense his style and brevity. The short posts show his very casual personality and art enthusiasm but also keeping his writing professional. He also adds humor occasionally to display his interest in a certain product release or art piece. An example of this is through his USB-stylist Friends with You post.

In the beginning of the post, he introduces the collaboration of Mimobots with Friends With You! and then expresses how he thinks how this might not be useful to him. However, I like how he is sarcastic with his diction and phrases because it provides his blog with a personal voice,

“Sure they’re cute, but personally I don’t need to carry around a tiny action figure friend to keep my files on…But I’ve been in love with Friends With You forever it feels like, so I’d be much more inclined to buy one.”

He interrupts his sentences with “personally” and “feels like” to really personalize his posts.

In another post about China’s “Water Cube”, his layout of pictures are pleasing to the eye. He formats with a big picture on the top of the canvas, and fills the bottom with detailed pictures on the bottom. All his images are well touched and formatted. The layout is very clean and proportional, which makes it more pleasing to the eye. Like his other posts, he states the facts in the first paragraph. He introduces the who, what, when, why, and how of the post. He immediately follows the introductory paragraph with his opinion and own knowledge:

I think the soap bubble structure looks really great, but like article states, the bubbles need some scrubbing to get all of the construction grit and grime off it before it’ll shine…I just hope that they get the rest of the grounds in shape before August, because in the pictures above, it looks kind of gray and scary. Hopefully the next few months will give them all the time they need.

His sentences are short, dynamic, and to the point; something I’ve wanted to develop as a writer. Bobby S. also avoids using “I” too much in his blog and doesn’t start off many sentences with “I”. This shows his writing style to be creative and also personifying his character.

Since Bobby S. is from Los Angeles, he also incorporates his life into his posts. Many of them are about certain art or advertisements he comes across or stores he finds appealing to his blog. This keeps the blog at a personal level and creates a sense of identity for the art in L.A. An example of this is in his entry “Affinity Pursuit Bike”One thing admirable about this post is that he is very honest about his knowledge of bikes. Bobby doesn’t try too hard to act like he knows anything about bikes, but he inputs his knowledge about the design. This really depicts his complete persona: living in a L.A. and a great appreciator of good, clean design.

Continuing with the clean layout and structure, I also admire that he doesn’t link his entry to too many things. I’ve read blogs before in which the blogger links to almost everything they mention, and it starts to bother me after awhile because I feel like there is too much information. Like I said before, the layout of the site makes it easy to read and maneuver. His blogroll, which he labels “Daily Sites”, on the side has always been helpful and easy to use. It’s always convenient when bloggers put links that open a new window, rather than having the link pop up on the same window. The neutral colors really have a good ease on my eyes including the nice touch of purple on the blog headings and comments. Compared to nitrolicious blog, the colors are much more professional. One small thing I always found aesthetically pleasing is that he has a fixed background when you scroll through posts, this makes it easier to look through. Bobby S. also recently added tabs with “About, Contact, Advertise, RSS and search” that wasn’t there before. This makes it easy for any reader to find out what his blog is about before they get into the readings.

Ultimately, Kitsunenoir is a blog that contains knowledgeable content and aesthetically pleasing layouts that are very presentable to the art and culture enthusiast. His character and personalized post make the blog luminous amongst the many blogs I’ve cruised through.

If you’re questioning who Shepard Fairey is, you could sense that his design and style are very familiar to your eyes. Fairey is known to do the designs for Obey Giant and is a very socially awared artist for this generation. Through the elections, it has been evident that he supports Obama and expresses this by releasing these limited edition posters. The posters were on sale yesterday, but sold out in minutes. All the proceeds went to a large statewide poster campaign that he will be creating.

It is apparent that Obama has a leading appeal on the younger generation and art community.This is one of the first candidates that has a pop culture icon that is in support for his campaign. It has been an ongoing battle to make our generation more politically and socially aware and I believe Shepard Fairey has directed our interests in the right direction. Fairey is one of the best people from this generation to represent Obama because of his prominent reputation of political, social and environmental awareness. Many would characterize him as an art activist and through his vintage and loud style, he created a movement that makes the younger generation appeal to politics.

Fairey bases his work on the ideology of “Phenomenology” which is described as, “the process of letting things manifest themselves…Phenomenology attempts to enable people to see clearly something that is right before their eyes but obscured; things that are so taken for granted that they are muted by abstract observation.” Even before the election, this was Fairey’s motive for his art. Fairey actively and punctually created this work to coincide with his ultimate purpose of creating art, let alone educate the public about his passionate support for Barrack Obama.

X’s over O’s
B.N.