The Original Ashley

A thousand curses!!! I missed international Pillow Fight Day!!!! What is International Pillow Fight Day you ask!? Well I didn’t know either a few months ago. I discovered this event through a school project. Determined to find a real Toronto event to make a poster for, and for an interesting subject, I started searching festivals like the winter solstice in Kensington Market or Subway Man Hunting. This search ultimately led me to a video of the IPF. Wikipedia Describes the IPF as such: A pillow fight flash mob is a social phenomenon of flash mobbing and shares many characteristics of a culture jam. The flash mob version of massive pillow fights is distinguished by the fact that nearly all of the promotion is Internet-based. These events occur around the world, some taking the name Pillow Fight Club, a reference to Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk in which anyone could join and fight as long as they fought by the rules. Both the London and Vancouver Pillow Fight Club's rules reflect th...

Ok, so work has been slow at placement, as there is only so much that an intern can do on a real project. So to help pass the time and still be productive, I've been working on my own business card design. What do you think?

I’ve recently found a new photography blog, and it seems that most of the posts are pictures of Toronto or the surrounding areas. It makes it more interesting because there are a lot of times I check to see what the daily picture is and I see something I’ve seen before, only, I’ve never looked at it that way before. For example. Last week there was a Tamil rally on Front St. I had to walk through some of it to get to my train so I saw some of the actual event. Then today, I saw this post on MUTE…. Its funny how the right lighting, a little black and white and zooming in can totally change how you see something. To see MUTE, here is the link ---> http://mute.rigent.com/index.php

This year, Earth Hour has been transformed into the world’s first global election, between Earth and global warming. For the first time in history, people of all ages, nationalities, race and background have the opportunity to use their light switch as their vote – Switching off your lights is a vote for Earth, or leaving them on is a vote for global warming. WWF are urging the world to VOTE EARTH and reach the target of 1 billion votes, which will be presented to world leaders at the Global Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen 2009. This meeting will determine official government policies to take action against global warming, which will replace the Kyoto Protocol. It is the chance for the people of the world to make their voice heard. Earth Hour began in Sydney in 2007, when 2.2 million homes and businesses switched off their lights for one hour. In 2008 the message had grown into a global sustainability movement, with 50 million people switching off their lights. Global landmarks...

An ongoing project of mine is the business card. Firstly, should I have one? For a while there my teachers said no. “You are a student. Don’t make a card until you are an actual Graphic Designer.” Well that title is getting closer and closer and all the little card ideas that spun around my brain before have all gone into hiding. Typical. You always have great ideas for a project you don’t need to work on or a project you have already handed in. So I do what I always do when I need inspiration. I search the web. (coincidentally, depending what I find, this can also leave me with feelings of insignificance) So I found an amazing site that deals with all kinds of design, and even had a section for business cards that stand out. Here are a few of them You can find the actual site here -------> http://www.fubiz.net/galleries/set/business-cards/

Last weekend I had my cousin over for a visit and we ended up spending most of Saturday at the Toronto Zoo. It had been a while since I’d been there, and with my camera in hand, it was a completely different experience. My friend and I were both armed with our long distance lens’ and suddenly every cage held a photo op! The animals were so much closer now, and all it took was a little patience. It didn’t matter how long it took, we were going to stand there until that damn lion turned around so we wouldn’t have a picture of his butt. We ended up with lots of amazing pictures and a lots of fun times.

Many years ago, I was shown a series of photos that were supposed to be the most amazing shots taken that year (the year is forgotten to me), and one of them was this picture here I held on to these photos and recently showed them to some classmates who then informed me that this shot was photoshoped. And like that, the picture was no longer amazing, just an amazing example of photoshop. Now, I don’t know if this is true. It could be a real shot, no touch ups at all, but the doubt remains. With all the wonders of photo editing out there, how do you look at a picture now without wondering? So in light of this topic, I found this small collection of photos that claim to look photoshopped but are not. Here are a few of those pictures. You can see all the pictures at this site: http://thechive.com/2008/12/they-look-photoshopped-but-theyre-not-22-photos/