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Andrew Kirksey

Andrew Kirksey

Graphic Design

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When I Think About Diving Into Winter // #FlickrFridays

2017-11-10 by Kirksey Leave a Comment

Six months ago, I restored the side-yard garden that had spent the last decade slowly re-wild-ing itself against our next door neighbor’s privacy fence. It took about two weeks to break and till the earth with the tools I had on hand. Two garden hoes and a season and a half later I would discover how inexpensive renting a rototiller would have otherwise been.

Between the Zinnia’s that thrived and the Brussels Sprouts that never quite took, I began a process that helped root me to the space I occupy in more meaningful ways than dodgy community calendars or electric-light-dream-rectangles allow. Instead, I began to feel myself embedded into something far older, and wiser, and kinder. I began to experience a procession of seasons and what they require of someone in minerature.

This is new.

Normally, we understand this procession and our connectivity to it a ritualistic observance… a sort of stations-of-the-cross where we muddle through from point to point to point until we arrive at our pre-determined destination: seasonal affective disorder—and then—St. Patricks Day.

But to live it in real time, and to commune with it at this magnitude makes the processional, musty leather bound, sort of almanacking we sometimes do seem discordant to it’s more vibrant and saturated capacities. I’m sure given the collective experience of our past two or more decades that I cannot be the only one who noticed that experiencing time passing only feels like a chore when you’re disengaged from it and are embroiled in computers or business or some other such contrived and exclusively human constructs.

If anything, gardening is less of a chore and more of a collaboration. With the seasons, with a destination yet unknown. But most of all, most importantly, my presence became noted by each shoot of green that burst out of the crumbly dirt and began doing unspeakable things with the residents of our street’s neighborhood beehives. If that privacy fence had eyes let me tell you.

I came away thinking that to garden must mean more about the arranging of the plants than the actual growing itself. The plants, they’re more than happy to do that for you. You’re just there to encourage it and to pluck a weed or twenty.

But this week my garden and I began parting ways. Things have begun to wither and wilt and a frustrating few afternoons one late March ago seem much closer today than they did a week ago. A light blanket of snow has started gathering at the feet of the life I’d haphazardly dashed into the earth just across from the dish-TV receiver and the air conditioning unit.

With the garden’s twilight comes morning for the hearth. Ciders are warmed on stoves, cinnamon brooms are sold in bulk, and fresh breads and rolls are leavened and drizzled with icing. Who really cares if it came from the cardboard Pillsbury roll. Sometimes, I still jump when I press the spoon into the spiral crease of the cardboard and the dough puffs to life. the fragrances of autumn lurch into the room with a musky heavy presence to dispel the cold’s grip on our collective confidence.

Soon we’ll be scrambling to throw on our heavier jackets, shielding us from the world outside our doors in a way we hadn’t needed earlier. We’ll watch as mornings grow dimmer, the snow snap across our whole world making chores out of otherwise benign commutes.

But for now we can stay with the roses and the zinnias who slowly nod off to sleep while sepia tones fill the sky.

Tomorrow seems ready to remind me of all the things I had learned to forget this year. Maybe in 2018, I’ll learn how to tend to my plants with greater skill and leave the unkept spaces that would only sputter green will then grow with greater determination.

Or maybe, I’ll just forget the whole damn thing.

Maybe.

Flickr Updates here.

Filed Under: Gardening, Life, South Bend

#FlickrFriday – Metaphor Mixologist

2017-11-03 by Kirksey Leave a Comment

It’s that time again.

I’m not sure what kind of week you’ve had, but mine’s been chaotic to say the least. On the plus side, I should have a new portfolio entry here in the next week or two. On the downside, a glut of incoming projects both in-house and freelance have definitely impeded my schedule. This friday update was trickier than it should have been, but that’s okay. We’re here. Made it. Swish.

Check it out here.

In other news:

It’s too bad that I’ve been so busy. There’s been a lot lately I’ve wanted to think and/or write about. As my Uncle is inclined to rant, “Writing is thinking on paper.” so perhaps that last sentence is a bit poorly worded. A bare bones basic breakdown of my thoughts.

South Bend  Schools (Again)

Last weekend I found myself thinking about the schools again. It’s probably the one social problem I can speak with some depth about and a post may be forthcoming.  The focus is on how we tend to define the goalposts of success and to compare the present relative to a shaky poorly remembered past. A past who’s successes cannot be empirically verified due to the methods we evaluate the present.

Also, there’s a lot I didn’t say two years ago, and some of it’s worth revisiting on account of there not being a enormous flaming dumpster fire of a controversy at the moment.

The internet’s meta has seemingly become self aware, and has had a Harvey Dent epiphany about itself: “You either die a hero or live long enough to become a villain”. Perhaps the internet has lived too long. Perhaps it’s a bit too ubiquitous.

We’re going to talk about why I keep sites I develop ad-free at some point in the future. And no it’s just not because I’m lazy (…kinda).

In a nutshell: being beholden to advertising systems propagated by tech giants like Google or Yahoo is a net loss for anyone running a website and a loss for their users. If you’ve been following the new YouTube copyright AI you should have some idea, but the best breakdown of the problem and the scope of its consequence is posted below.

What’s happening on YouTube had seemed to be contained there, and only affecting content creators. And as wide sweeping and catastrophic this has been to people who’s livelihoods depend on YouTube’s ad monetization, I’ve seen very little said about it outside of YouTube. However, this week an article about Google’s odd AI practices was written, and strangely Youtube didn’t enter the picture. So this isn’t self contained. It’s a new practice from the Goog, and it’s spreading. And while I can hear people already screaming “it’s the cloud, what do you think would happen?”  let me stop you, I’m pretty sure no one thought an automated AI bot would be digging through documents that haven’t been shared publicly for potential copyright infringement.

Docs isn’t a mass distribution platform. Nor is it monetized in anyway. YouTube seemed to be reacting to advertisers upset that their brands were becoming associated with increasingly radicalized and often socially unacceptable videos on the channel. This could range from a YouTube content creator vouching for the Klan, or someone doing Retro Video Gaming ‘Let’s Plays’ saying the word ‘shit’ while bricking Mario against a Koopa Troopa.

While I say ‘copyright’ is the issue for docs it’s an inferrence. While that is the case on YouTube, Google Docs has a bit of a different loci driving the tech’s implementation: the Google Terms of Service.

Has anyone had @googledocs lock you out of a doc before? My draft of a story about wildlife crime was just frozen for violating their TOS.

— Rachael Bale (@Rachael_Bale) October 31, 2017

What happened to Rachael is weird. And should give us pause.

I wish we had won the open web. Maybe we’d be able to decipher what exactly this bot was programed to accomplish. If an article about environmental crime raises this bot’s hackles I’d be nervous about whatever is written into its algorithms to search out and squash. And while @GoogleDocs on twitter was overly apologetic and accommodating the implications are frightening. If only because in two cases Google has unleashed an untrained AI on its users that have had serious real world ramifications for them, and very little recourse for the affected.

Whatever nefarious or benign thing is happening behind closed doors one thing certain: this AI changes the gameboard of the internet quite a bit.

The largest most frequently used search-engine… (dare I 1996 this and call it a ‘web portal’) whether by design or through its shakedown testing is directly at odds with users beholden to these services.

That’s just one reason why we shouldn’t risk using Google for monetization anymore. Hell, we should probably begin evacuating businesses specializing in SEO. Your small business’ best bet in the next ten years is hyperlocality and the analog. Splice in a pinch of Facebook since it barely propagates subscribed page updates anymore and a little chunk of legit web real-estate to call your own that sans any third party tracking software or ad revenue. Let people who want to find you know you value them more than the six bucks per month you might have earned assuming your web traffic is moderate for a local business. But more about that later, when I have stats and more time.

I predict that 2019 is going to be the year of the resurrected newsletter.

Anyway, if you’re jonesing for some nostalgia feels and want to feel self-righteous about the changing face of the Internet, scope this excellent piece and Ortega taco shell yourself both.

Anyways they’re kicking me out of my office. Till next week.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Musings on Flicker, and Autumn Photos #FlickrFriday

2017-10-27 by Kirksey Leave a Comment

Over the last several weeks I’ve been pulling photos out of my backlog in order to perhaps develop some sort of routine habit of social media engagement.  Well, this week, I’ve finally posted some photography that’s contextually appropriate for this time of year.

Excuse me while I pat myself on my back.

The outcome: some of the plants and landscapes hold a distinctly romantic fall flavor. What I wanted? Animals, doing things, in warm colors on cool days.

Hopefully, in the near future I’ll truly able to compile a photo album entitled: “birds with problems”. That day isn’t today. As the little lingering hints of this past spring and summer continue to fold themselves up and are put away for the cold part of the year, I can at least hope for soon.

Various critters doing seasonal things, like taking risks in the open, should become more common. With a little luck, I’ll catch those suckers.

I expect moving forward context will reign supreme. This does seem to play better within the flickr community itself. Anyway, I’ll attempt to keep pace. Or I’ll start digging back in the archives because I can’t be bothered to buy a decent set of boots once winter truly sets in.

But yes, the Flickr Community.

What even is the Flickr Community?

I’ve not yet been able to determine if the platform itself is just poorly integrated with social media, or if it’s incredibly insular. Perhaps it’s merely sparsely populated at this point, owing to the fallout of the collapse of it’s parent company, Yahoo.com.

Either way, the #FlickrFriday tag doesn’t seem to get used all that often on Twitter, my search results seeming to point to last August being when anyone used it, but then again I didn’t account for any strange filters or various presumptive relevancies the platform might imbue my searches with.

I’ll figure it out eventually. Have a great week everyone. My Flickr Photostream can be viewed here.

I should probably start adding watermarks to these things.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Updated Portfolio Entry – Vision 1 Music Albums

2017-10-20 by Kirksey Leave a Comment

Today Vision 1 Music gave me final approval on some new, and dare I say stunning, album artwork from their latest album, Sonic Box.

Sonic Box is a new collection of licensable music for film or television and can be previewed on Vision1Music’s SourceAudio page.

As for the design, I’ve tried to stick to the rivers and lakes that I’m used too, focusing on bold colors and playing matchmaker between form and abstraction. We always hope their union will give birth to some sort of structure. Which of course we can always plan for. With grid guides. Because that’s basic graphic design planning. My metaphor has gone off the rails. Now I’m mixing my metaphors. Like a DJ of cakes.

I’ll stop now.

You can visit Casey and Richard’s website, Vision 1 Music here.

To view other album artwork I’ve created for Vision 1 Music, you can check out the portfolio entry where I’ve dedicated space to all the album covers we’re most proud of.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Little and Big #FlickerFriday

2017-10-20 by Kirksey Leave a Comment

This week I’ve posted nine new images to my Flickr photostream.

This batch deals with little/big life moments. Whether spotting baby bunnies in my yard while mowing my lawn, the eruption of blossoms of zinnias in my garden this spring, or rare moments where my family comes together for the first time in years. While the family photos are a few years old now, I found myself thinking of them quite a bit following a somewhat spur of the moment trip down south to visit some of them this past weekend.

What strange revelation will our hero (that’s you) unearth on this week episode of Andrew Kirksey’s Flickr Friday Adventure Extravaganza Bonanza?!?

Perhaps: my potentially unhealthy preoccupation with macro photography?

Definitely: A reason or two not to invite me to your party. (I love candid shots.)

Anyway, click the link above to find out  more and… If you find yourself enjoying what you see, be sure to login to your flickr (if you have one) pop it a heart or a like or whatever flickr calls it. Have a great weekend, and if you see me at any parties and I’m rocking my DSLR, hide behind something.

Really.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Flickr Friday + Bonus Portfolio Entry

2017-10-13 by Kirksey Leave a Comment

It’s Friday. I’m using Flickr. You know what that means. Gratuitous alliteration leading to a marketing publication strategy. That’s right. Weekly Flickr updates. That’s when. Today.

Today’s an open invitation to crack open my photostream and show some love, see what’s changed since last week. Note, this is the first week doing this, so, what’s changed? Everything. But in the weeks to come we’ll see this library grow. Send me some feedback, feel free to comment here or there, or whatever trips your light fantastic.

Also, I published a new portfolio piece this morning. Feel free to give it a look.

 

 

Filed Under: Uncategorized

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