Materialism

I was thinking the other day about material objects. If you look all around your neighborhood, you will see fancy cars and people with nice clothing, but are material objects really necessary? Back in the day, people did not have cars, computers, or clothing and those people loved without them. I would like to pose this experiment to not use any technology and to just live a very simple lifestyle because I think that all of those materialistic objects clutter life to what is most important, people. I have learned that money is not important and not worth fighting over. My family, extended family, and friends are most important. Our culture has become a consumer culture, meaning that the objects we buy and consume are more important than the people in our lives. Try for just one day to live a simple life without clutter and see what is important in life, your Coach purse or your family. Who every said that the things we buy define us. Well the things we buy do define us.
A. Lee

Shopping Subconsciously

Do you ever wonder why you can not find your way out of a store. Well that is what the designers do to keep you looking and walking around the store for items. Well the other day I was at Target and this happened to me. I was lost and could not find my way out because everything looked the same and I am usually the one who remebers the way we come in a store especially a huge mall. This type of thing is made intionally to confuse the consumer. There was a study done in a grocery store. This study involved selling soup. The manager placed a sign on the soup, which said "SALE 79cents". Many shoppers did not pay any attention to this, buy when the manager added at the bottom limit 12 per person, there seemed to be a lot more activity at the stand of soup. Every time a shopper goes into the grocery store they are shopping subconsciously. I think that companies would do anything to get you to buy their product. For example, in advertising sometimes the product could have a minimual appearance in the ad.
A. Lee

Neuromarketing

The major I would like to get into is Psychology and minoring in marketing. Neuromarketing is something that I have studied and it goes straight to the consumers brains and answers the question why we buy because most of our buying decisions are made in our subconscious. For example, when you go into the grocery store, all the purchases that you make are noot conscious. I read about a study that was done by Martin Lindstrom scanning more than 2,000 brains spending 7 million dollars to find out why consumers buy. He wrote a book that told the results of the study. The results were suprising. What these neuroscientists did was flashed images and logos infront of 2,000 people. When they showed images of cigarette warning labels, the craving spot in the brain light up and most people craved cigarettes, which is very shocking because some of the European and Chinese warning labels include pictures of dead lungs and open heart surgeries.
A. Lee

Graduation

Graduation is coming in about two weeks and I am so excited for it. I am glad to be done with half of my education. The other half of my education will be at Kutztown University. The major that I have decided is Psychology and the minor is Marketing. Hopefully this is what I want to do for the rest of my life, but if not I can still can change my mind. I find psychology very interesting and it just occured to me the other day that I could possibly become a psychologist because it would be good to help people with problems. Well this is all for now...
A. Lee

Colored Pencils

Oil Pastels

Oil Pastels

Color Charcoal

Colored Pencil

Mixed Media

Deciding my Major

I am planning on attending KU in the Fall of 2009. I still have not really made up my mind of what major I want to go into. I have thought about majoring in psychology and minoring in marketing. I really think that I want to do market researching. At KU, I did not get into their graphic design major, so I think that I will go in the direction of psychology to research why the consumers buy what they buy. I guess I wont be creating the graphic designs, but I will be researching for a retailer to aid them in grabbing the consumer. There is psychology behind the consunmers desire to buy products. I once told someone that I wanted to be a graphic designer, and they told me, you want to tell women that they are ugly. That made me rethink the whole idea of becoming a graphic designer.
A. Lee

Mixed Media

Pen and ink design

Colored Pencils

Oil pastels

Charcoal self portrait

Charcoal still life

Pencil value study

Charcoal value study

Oil paint

Colored charcoal still life

Colored pencil design

Deciding my Major

What I want to do is something with graphic design or advertising. I am also into psychology. I think that I want to do a mix of both psychology and advertising, I think it is called business psychology. If you don't know what business psychology is, then I will tell you. Business psychology is basically product placement in a store. A business psychologist will go into a company or store and tell the company where to place products to get the best benefit from them. For example, in a grocery store the products that are placed at eye level are researched to be the most purchased because consumers do not look high and low, so stores know this and they put the most expensive products on the eye level shelfs. This seems very interesting to me because of the mixture of psychology and design. If not that then I may want to do product design because I want to learn what attracts consumers to buy products, especially consumers of all ages. For example, babies or toddlers like to see bright colors, so designers of products will make there toy as bright as possible to attract the children. I am really interested in why consumers buy things, if its product placement, or product design. I am taking a design class right now and I am learning how colors effects a persons emotions and also how lines can produce emotions as well.
A. Lee

Photography

Charcoal value study

Colored pencil value study

Mixed Media

Undecided Student

I am studying at RACC right now, but I am undecided. I have not decided a major because I have taken so many wonderful classes, I cannot decide. The classes I have taken are Cultural Anthropology, Mass Media, Biology, 2D Design, Drawing 1 and now 2, Sociology, Psychology, and Math. I have always enjoyed creating art and I like the idea of becoming a graphic designer. After taking Cultural Anthropology, it has opened my eyes to peoples ways of life. In Biology I have learned about living organisms. I have always been the type of person that likes a pair of pants one day and buy them, and then they will hang in my closet and then wonder why I ever bought them in the first place. Choosing my major is the same thing, I change my mind on things and I believe that I will get educated in a specific thing and then later down the road of life I will change my mind. That is why I have not decided a major at this time. I believe that soon I will decide what I want to do for the rest of my life, but I do think about it and that if I don't like it then I can always change it, so no problem.
A. Lee