Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Thanks!


I wanted to make sure I did a quick shout-out to all the people who've been treating me amazing lately! I have some amazing friends, family, and almost-family (especially considering they've mostly been completely ignored in the last year). I've had cards and gifts and surprise parties and shopping trips! Sooo much more-so than I deserve.So I'm so appreciative of the congrats, even though I still don't feel like it's ended - its just on to the next project!
The monkey card is especially accurate - it says "If you can swing it... take some time to celebrate!" Well, it's been busy. After getting a job the day before the last day of school, I had 4 days to soak up doing nothing, before getting completely back into the swing of things...in real life this time. It's been almost a month now I think... and I'm finally starting to realise how lucky I am. I have an amazing job designing for a very well respected design/build firm in downtown Vancouver. I've been involved with some awesome projects, and (crazily enough) got introduced as "Ayla, a designer at our office" over and over today. (It was client meetings all day! Fun!) And can I just say - totally surreal! The amount of power I have over designs is also awesome (not just a cad monkey after all!) and I'm feeling very needed and appreciated at work (there were small fights over me :P) BUT I don't want to brag at all - this was all big fat plain LUCK! Sooo I'm not going to complain about the workload or the pressure or the fact that client's don't understand space planning when their 'space' is a box drawn on a napkin at a scale of their choosing - I am just going to enjoy and do my absolute best! Oh, and smile lots! Smile and nod. : D

Thanks again for all the support all ya'll - you know who you are! Love you!

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Tuesday Inspiration

Found Here
Happy Tuesday Friends!
Hope you have a cheery one :)

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Grad Show Display...

Since I never took pictures at my grad show, I knew I wanted to do a little mock-up of what I displayed and take pictures... mom still hasn't seen it!
So I finally did that tonight. In reality, the grad show was in an open-office workstation at the Herman Miller showroom downtown Vancouver. It wasn't such a blank canvas, but anywho, here's what I did:

Portfolio stand on the right made by Ron, the tray held my business card and some take-home notebooks with my card clipped onto the front. And of course them there succulents (fake!)

The portfolio stand worked great for viewing at standing height, and got lots of comments! :)

The card design... on a tile of my favorite colour (I tried sooo hard to get my name to match the bright red/orange I wanted, but wasn't 100% happy.... I am not a graphic designer or photoshop officianado!)



So there's that - over a month later!

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Purses

Procrastinating and realising I need a woven basket purse for the summer! Etsy is full of vintage ones, I've discovered, and I am planning to pick one of the following:

SUNDAY DRIVE. Vintage 60s Basket Purse with Leather Trim.
Source

brown wicker and leather Vintage Purse
Source
BASKET, Woven black wicker leather handbag
Source
vintage natural straw woven bucket bag - As Is
Source
SALE Vintage 1950s Hand Made Picnic Basket Woven Purse
Source

Vintage Yellow Woven Plastic Purse by Lesco Lona
Source

Monday, May 16, 2011

Final Material Board

Finally remembered to bring this home from school today; a bunch of people's boards were stolen from the classroom this weekend so I was lucky it wasn't mine - I didn't even have a picture of it! So now I do. Phew.

Back at it with the construction drawings for this - its a luxury skybox for a record label of my own invention ("Moontide Records") which is a label for blues/roots/surfie type artists. Laid back, yet luxurious, with lots of green design thrown in (see recycled corrugated cardboard carved wall/ceiling feature).

Friday, May 13, 2011

Coming up on the final week...

I wanted to do a quick blog post .... seems like yesterday I was counting down at 3 weeks, and now its 1 week (plus a 5 day extension on the major project) until school is done.
I'd wanted to chronicle everything during this intense school process, and enlighten people as to what it is we do as interior designers/design students. I don't know how to do that still, and simply haven't had the time to show a whole lot of stuff.  When I have time I will upload the pages of my portfolio which was prepared for our grad show a week and a half ago... which went really well.... I officially decided I feel ready for the work world!

In this moment, as I think about my final gruelling week of homework and studying, I am:
- amazed at what I've learned to execute and create
- excited to get finished with school forever
- not looking forward to NOT seeing my 20 peers everyday (and so thankful for the amazing friends I've made)
- extremely excited to soon be able to clean my house and trash a whole wack of old work, boards, drawings, etc.! That will be sooo fulfilling and liberating!
- can't wait for the freedom of no school and the lovely summer to play in!
- can't believe how much work I still have to do ... wow. anxiety.
- a little nervous

But anyways, since I really don't feel like I can capture the feelings I have right now, I'll wrap it up.

The REALLY exciting news is that I just got called for an official interview where I had my work week/internship next week! This is like .... my dream job for right now. It's a lot of office planning, some retail, some institutional.... simple basic stuff, but its a large design/build office which means there are lots of resources, learning opportunities, ecological design practices, and the people are amazing, down-to-earth and personable and exactly who I'd like to work with and for. SO let's hope this means I can start work as soon as I graduate - I did not expect to be able to do that AT ALL !!! (I'm cautiously hopeful, as the phone call contained the words "we think we've figured out where to put you...")

So I am celebrating by eating the whole $5 little bin of raspberries I bought the other day! (they really shouldn't be eaten without an occasion)


expensive raspberries, reflected ceiling plan on stand to get into autocad.... renderings from Seniors housing project

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

don't forget to...




Long time no blog (I miss it!) BUT - only 28 more days until school is finishetinado!
(pronounciation: fin-eesh-ee-na-ta-doh!)

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Modernism Week - shops and stuff!

There is such an amazing selection of vintage shops in Palm Springs. You can pick from thrift stores (every other block has one it seems) and vintage/designer shops. These photos start out from the day we walked the design district street and wandered in and out of shops... Some vintage, some not.



Charming Hilary and some outdoor furniture


The beautiful Kristie at Trina Turk's Residential store
  
Vintage shop window



Pretties inside said vintage shop


Another vintage furniture store. Stacks of classics - love the Danish mid century modern teak stuff


A booth in the modernism show called Urban Burp - could have stayed there for hours!


Vintage cowboy fabric...


Kristie looking through the stacks of amazing fabrics


Sarah and I took home a yard of this ship fabric. I'm in love with my 1/2 yard, not sure what it will become yet though!


Best L.B.D EVER! check out that lace! I know it's blurry, but the bottom hem shows it pretty good... just scrumptious


Old posters sporting the most beautiful colours...



More old Classic pieces

This place is amazing. I am going to find it really difficult not to go again next year, but this time do more of the home tours and seminars that our silly school was too lazy to sign up for until it was too late. I HIIIIIGHLY recommend it; both the Modernism Show that runs every February, and Palm Springs itself.
(plus, my aunt has a spectacular place there, good to sleep 6! Anyone else in?!)

Monday, March 21, 2011

Fresh is Best


This was my favorite thing I saw when first arriving in Palm Springs. Crispy fresh blue sky.

just another butterfly-style house taken drive-by-shooting style. Still lookin' fresh 50-some-odd years later.


The boys cooked one night. We had HUGE steaks and asparagus and potatoes. All Delicious. Mind you, that's Sarah, not a boy,  in the fluorescent jacket (thrift store find!), but she never really left the kitchen : P


We peeked into a lot of houses this way... At least these guys had the decency to have built-in step stools for us!


FRESH Grapefruit. Best thing in the world right there. Yes, we jumped at every tree we could and stuffed them in our purses.


The Kaufman house, designed by Richard Neutra in the 1940s. It is phenomenal. (and FRESH!)  If only we could have gone in...

Best ever fresh salsa! Hilary aces it!

More fresh lookin' architecture... haha like my theme yet?


The freshest Grapefruits ever .... an inside view... glorious!


More beautiful old and fresh architecture. Hurrah!

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Ace Hotel Lunch

It's about time I shared some goodness from my little trip to Palm Springs! (it was already a month ago!)

I'll start with one of my favorite places we went, the Ace Hotel.
We went for lunch after a morning spent walking the street in the Palm Springs Design District, which was breathtakingly lovely, as you can imagine. But stepping into this hotel's restaurant actually made my heart beat a little faster...
and now I'm dying to go stay at The Ace Hotel in Portland!


The little foyer; loved the Navajo-esque rugs and yummy leather chairs... not to mention: Macrame!

Yes, lots and lots of Macrame! I love that Palm Springs doesn't for a second deny it's 1960s celebrity status!

The Lovely Hilary, with her favorite style of print :)

Simple lovely table linens = yum

Buttery leather soft seating, globe lights, natural stone ... all laid back but super sleek at the same time

I fell in love with that tile... it had a pearlescent glow to it and was just pretty in such a simple way.

See the Macrame elephant sculpture on the wall? Now there's a reason to learn macrame!

Big beautiful windows with - get this - SUN streaming in! Not so great for photos like this, but I would never complain!

Cute little menu. Can you see why I took a picture of this page? ;)
I can't explain enough how inspiring it was to be around good, timeless design. Everywhere you looked  there was something to look at and inspire. It just made me so happy.

Anyways, thats where a handful of us ate one day ... I'll try to share more this week as I'm doin' little to nothin' on Spring Break!

PS: 
Here is a facebook album if you want to see lots of photos!

Monday, March 7, 2011

The Glamorous Life of .... me

This is it for another 5 days.
Palm Springs suitcase still not unpacked.
Drawings splayed everywhere.
AutoCAD the only thing I've seen in a week.
But at least the morning sun looks good in here :D

Sidenote: I thought about moving the honeycomb cereal box, but let's be honest here ...
(at least my other 3 cups are out of the frame)

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Palm Springs


Modernism week in Palm Springs was amazing and beautiful and inspiring and oh-so-fun!
I want to share it bit by bit, but I don't really know where to start and I am really busy back at school now ...
So for now, a photo of us girls. Add 3 guys to it and you have our whole group. Loved it.

Friday, February 11, 2011

Happy Friday!

I had a pretty so-so day, and by so-so, I mean nothing about it went good. But oddly enough, I'm in a great mood and kinda talkative and hyper and happy!  Don't ask me how it hapenned.

Anyways, I got a mark back today that started with a 5 and ended with a 5 and then a %. yep. Beaut. But I had a good sit-down with the one who wrote those 5s down, and we decided it was a good learning experience! ha! In reality, my design was pretty, but it was also pretty complicated and hard to build, and therefore, with the nature of the drawings, I made it hard on myself. Such is the nature of Interior Design school. But what happenned next was, my good friend Sarah kindly tore the worst comment out of my mark sheet, chewed it up and will *poo it out later. And therefore, it never happenned.
* just kidding, she said she was going to poo it out but really she spat the pink wad into the garbage can.... just in case you wanted more clarity and specifics ...



 That's us at the IDS West show, back in October. That's super motivating and insiring Caitrina on the right, who I also thank for this photo stolen from Fbook. And we are relaxing on the most beautiful Montauk sofa (I want) in between hauling free design loot around. Tiring. note: good lighting for making sofa look pretty, bad lighting for making people look pretty!




Oh Sarah, how I love you. I cried of laughter slash real crying, because then a few other classmates got all sympathetic and made me realise how much I needed sympathy for such a crap mark which made me feel worse... but at least Sarah took the worste part away. I shall love her forever.

Paula, sitting in Sarah's beautiful and comfy denim palette chair. Sarah's awesome at stuff, and since I love her, I dedicate this post to all kinds of awesomeness she has up her sleaves.



So, the weekend is here, and one week from right now I will be sitting in the sunshine of Palm Springs... Oh boy, do I ever need a lil' vitamin D. (I mean, I bought the capsules, but it's just not the same!)

Thanks for listening, have a good weekend internet!