communism & new friends

So, we have ventured to the new territory that the 2nd years occupy. Our principle, Urs says the 2nd years are no longer school children and truly care about design. Yeah, thats not intimidating at all. 

But it turns out they are all just as nice as the naive little freshman [but we do miss their silliness at times]. We are in the middle of a 6 day long typography workshop, yeah SIX days, we have school on saturday here in die schweiz. This workshop is focusing on the power or in german, macht of typography. We have to pick a theme and create a point of view about said theme using typography. This is a new concept for us UIC-ians, we are not thinking about the actual design, more about the message you are conveying with the design you choose. I like this new way of thinking a lot, but it was very difficult to wrap my brain around for the first few days. 

I choose political symbols for my theme and became interested in the ideal of marxist socialism [I mean hey I’m in europe and everyone here thinks Obama is a socialist anyways] from this research, I became interested in the idea of a utopian society like A Brave New World, etc, etc. My crazy French/German/Harry Potter professor advised I study the etymology of the word utopia - which really means no place in Latin. So how can we yearn for a utopian society if it cannot exist. 

LOOK AT THESE SWISS IDEAS PENETRATING MY BRAIN. The trouble is that I need to express my idea via typography and they want it to be a huge production - smoke/mirrors/projection - oh and its due in 2 days. Pressure is on, but I like it. 

We had dinner with our musical friend, Diego from the Spital, he also invited Fernado from Sao Palo, Brazil, Isa from Germany, and a girl from Italy whose name I cannot remember. They are all studying classical music in the Hoschule for Music here in Luzern and they are so worldly! It was a great dinner and experience. 

So many new ideas and new ways of thinking & I’m happy. 

Until later/