My Mini Update For February 2013

You might have been surprised that I haven't been updating my blog as often as I did, say, a month ago? And this is why!

Well, between my two big trips to Germany and Argentina - with a day in between - in December and me starting the School of Visual Arts a week ago - I pretty much don't have time for anything nowadays, which IS very upsetting on one hand, on the other one - the time is flying by and it's soon Spring.

So, what's going on with me right now? Quite a few things:

1. I'm officially back to the Graphic Design and Advertising Continuing Education program at School of Visual Arts that I love, love, love! I've already completed a program at SVA - I got a Professional Certificate in Desktop Publishing in 2005.
2. I've officially become a Midtown West/Hell's Kitchen resident once again - no more Uptown Girl for  me, unless...unless we are talking about the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf - one of my favorite coffee places since the times I lived in Los Angeles, where this coffee shops started...Thank god for them opening another shop on the Upper West Side (86th Street and Amsterdam Ave.), because I absolutely can't completely give it up. At least, not yet!
3. The Mercedes Benz Fashion Week is back on - can't wait to see some of the Fall 2013 collections. Last year I happened to even catch a glimpse of the Fashion Week in Stockholm, and then I came back to NYC and caught up with the NY Fashion Week in September! Quite an interesting contrast! I got to see a rather interesting fashion show, featuring a Russian fashion designer, Alexey Sorokin. You can read about the show here. This Mercedes Benz Fashion Week starts for me with the Russian Fashion Industry Reception at the Russian Consulate that will showcase pieces from a canon of modern Russian designers: Pirosmani by Jenya Malygina, Serguei Teplov, Vardoui Nazarian, Dmitry Loginov/ARSENICUM, Tegin, BEssARION, Arngoldt, Irina Shaposhnikova, Sergey Polyakov, Viva Vox, Bezous, Izeta, and Aleksandr Khrisanfov. A renowned Moscow fashion stylist, Natalia Sych curated universal all-black pieces from each designer to unify the fashion presentation. [No worries, I'll talk about it more in the next post! You'll be able to see the videos and works of these designers to get you all pumped up for the Russian fashion designers who have been becoming quite prominent figures of the Fashion Week's shows around the world.]
4. My newly found appreciation for HBO's "Girls" and, in particular, Lena Dunham's smart ass texts and 'craft' of the characters - I absolutely salut her! Yes, I'm a late bloomer when it comes certain TV-based series and shows, but that's because I: 1) haven't had cable for almost year until just recently (thank god for my boyfriend's cable and movie channels!), 2) sometimes I like seeing the reaction of the audience towards the new show/film and read the reviews of the critics to make sure that it's worthy of my very limited time. Kudos to "Girls" and their Golden Globe award! And if you are like me, you can do as I did - buy the first season of the show on Amazon and catch up with it. It took me two days to watch the whole first season, because it's THAT good! (Or, you can buy it from me in a very good condition - watched only once, but cheaper!)
5. I now spend more time at the bookstores, like The Strand Bookstore - [my fav!] - and Amazon.com, looking through the graphic design books.
6. Whenever I can, I fit in my Bikram Yoga, which - by the way, if you don't know it already - does not really give you the time of the day, once you miss it at least one week, the very next time it feels like you haven't done it for a year!
7. Haven't done anything for my travel & leisure column on Examiner.com for a while, and I'm hiding from the editors, who've already sent me a few reminders that they "haven't seen me around the Publishing Tool for more than two weeks" - the message that makes me very nervous because: 1) I do have the content for the next, like - a lot of things I'd like to talk about in my column this month, but 2) you have NOOO time to do so. Sigh...
8. My birthday last month made me realize who were my true friends, and it's never too late to re-examine your relationship with the people surrounding you and see if it makes any sense at all to call certain people 'friends' vs. calling them just 'acquintances', because, truly, that's all they are - the acquintances.
9. This winter I finally made my own conclusion that I'm not longer a 'winter lover' person, but rather I'm a 'summer lover' person - I do not like winter! I'm now all about the summer, late spring and early fall, even, if I do like wearing the knee high boots. But, still, I'd rather be on the beach than fighting the winter winds on the streets of NYC!
10. My recent discovery - [again, going back to my obsession with the graphic design and everything creative] - from product packaging and print ads to websites and digital media - the art of the design never dies. Whatever was creativly powerful 50 years ago is as powerful - if not more - today. This observation came from having been reading and studying the works of the greatest in the industry and comparing the notes with both old and new books and magazines. Just as it happens, I've had the Russian version of the creative magazine-book "How" since the days I've studied graphic design - more than a decade ago, which I decided to go through to refresh my memory and see what's been graphically created back in the days and how it compares to today's design work. And, guess what? It's still all relevant!

These are just my Top 10 things that have had occupied my mind since last December, and I'll be talking about it quite often now - from fashion to graphic design. I might even start a new blog that would address my daily/weekly discoveries of the graphic design - this kind of the thing trains your brain AND might help some other people out there who are either already studying the graphic design and/or are thinking of studying it, or - like me - decided after years of working professionally in the same industry, side by side with the designers, but without physically doing the creative work finally realized that he/she can't live without the creative work, and it takes guts to make a professional cut (which means - a pay cut!) just to become and do what he/she always wanted to do. Believe me, it takes guts to do so!

Most importantly, I've been so consumed with my school that I don't have time for anything else, and the weather is not helping - it is much less pleasant to walk around the city and take mental and visual notes of how and what the New Yorkers wear, when it's -2-5C outside. I basically changed my walking to running, lately. Once I'm out of the taxi and/or subway - I run, not walk, so - forget the camera!

Ciao, my beloved readers. 

P.S. In the next few days, you'll see a bit of fashion, a bit of graphic design and a bit of... everything else.