Rome Life, II

Yesterday, I:

wore a new shirt for the second time (third?)
painted book pages with Paige Behrens
had one of the best burgers I’ve ever had in my life
discussed the possibilities of bed bugs and Polio
learned about Caravaggio
experimented with watercolor
got pooped on by a bird (on my new shirt)
power walked home
made (kind of) carbonara rigatoni

booked a flight to Paris
wobbled
ate popcorn that Sara Diemer made for me


I love Rome.

Last weekend we went to Florence and Pisa. I am amazed every single day and I just love everything. I am so lucky! Can't wait to see what today brings.

NOW FOR A DOODLE ABOUT LANGUAGE BARRIERS

Rome Life

Since writing about such an experience is difficult to sum up, I thought I'd compile a list of sums from this trip so far.

plane rides 2
days lived in Rome 7
days I have sweated 7
graphic designers from ISU in Rome 33
approximate gelato stops 5
legitimate Italian coffees consumed 2
professors directly interacting with me so far 6
roommates not including me 7
bathrooms in apartment 2
flights of stairs to my apartment 6
number of elevators in my side of building 1
approximate average of miles walked daily 5.3
pizza slices eaten 8
total bottles of laundry detergent 0
total bottles of laundry softener 7
times I have felt threatened 0


Tomorrow we are going on an art history tour walk around the Pantheon and by studio with our entire group. I am pretty excited to see all the things that we have learned about in the flesh and to go more in depth about the pieces. Rome has a really rich history and I can't wait. We were assigned different neighborhoods in our graphic design identity studio, I am assigned the Celio neighborhood. It includes lots of parks and the landmark of it is the Colosseum. We tour our neighborhoods on Friday in the morning then we have the weekend free! Livin' the life.

now, a doodle about cheese cream

Heartbleed: What it is and how to combat it

What in the world is Heartbleed??

I'll let Bret Molina from USA Today explain:

"It's a major bug that affects the technology used to encrypt sensitive information. Ever log in to e-mail or your banking account and notice the "HTTPS" and green lock? That's SSL/TLS, and OpenSSL is among the most popular variants of it.

Heartbleed is a leak in that system that lets anyone read the memory of servers running OpenSSL. "This compromises the secret keys used to identify the service providers and to encrypt the traffic, the names and passwords of the users and the actual content," reads a statement from a Heartbleed website set up by Codenomicon to explain the bug. "This allows attackers to eavesdrop on communications, steal data directly from the services and users and to impersonate services and users."

Codenomicon says it's not clear whether the vulnerability has been abused, but since Heartbleed has been exploitable for a long time, it's difficult to determine whether any service is completely safe."

To read more of his advice (which I would advise), click through this article. He says to wait to change your passwords until the website lets you know that it has fixed the security breach and is safe again. To make sure that the website is safe and know that you should change your password, go through this tutorial from The Mac Observer. The end of this guide from SiteProNews tells you how to make a safe password.

Check your accounts and look through this website list from Mashable that has the affected services on it. Be careful with your information online!

Branding & Identity Systems

Logos that I made for a fictional identity system for the Iowa Sheep and Wool Festival's 10th anniversary. After having junior reviews, I'm thinking about going back to change it a bit to make it more like one of my sketches.

These are some of my earlier iterations:




I ended up getting rid of the sheep heads because I wanted to create a more sophisticated version, but now I think I want to go back, add the heads in, and make the type form the shape of the fluff ball of their bodies instead of an outline. It's funkier, more fun, and it shows the personality of knitters and the festival overall better.

Here are sketches that I did early on:



I definitely don't want to start all over with a super cartoony approach, but I do want to do this project over and edit it a bit. I enjoyed this project so much and am looking forward to working on it some more to make it better.

Cerulean

Color Wheel: Cerulean by kaitlinungs featuring modern lamps

Cerulean is a blue hue that covers the colors between blue and cyan. It's a dreamy color that is calming and steadfast, which is why we're showing you mostly bedding and bathroom items. Blues calm you, which is always nice in a bedroom or bathroom. The world cerulean actually comes from Latin word caelum, which means 'heaven, sky.' Sweet dreams.

Daylight Saving Time

"If I could turn back time, if I could find a way to take back those words that hurt you" - Cher ( listen here )

                                            

Unfortunately for Cher, the country is turning time FORWARD this weekend because of Daylight Saving Time.

DST begins Sunday, March 9th at 2:00 am. Don't forget to turn your clocks an hour ahead before you go to sleep Sunday night!

Still need to get ready for DST? Here are some things you can do.

                                         

Listen to a song that is somewhat reminiscent of time travel. Think techno. We are going forward in time, after all. I would recommend the new Digital Witness by quirky St. Vincent.

Pack all your things for Monday on Sunday night. Fail to prepare and prepare to fail!

Write notes to yourself to change the clocks if you haven't already.


Here's to springing forward with style & grace. Good luck, everybody!

Organization Made Easy

We adore chaos because we love to produce order. - M.C. Escher

I almost always have a hard time keeping my stuff organized, and like I said a couple weeks ago, my new years resolution is to keep my things more organized! I thought I'd put together some tips that I think will help me and hopefully YOU keep your place tidier!



Yup. Cans. Jars also! Anything that your food comes in *that can be cleaned*, consider it usable storage space! I happen to love Claussen pickles, and they come in a nice big glass jar. It holds my dishwasher wand thing right now next to the sink. So handy. I highly suggest this tip, and get creative with it! Decorate a soup can and it could be your new toothbrush holder. DIY projects, hello!

Another tip that I absolutely LOVE. I hang my keys up along with scarves, purses, hats, earbuds, towels, and literally anything else that would otherwise be laying in a pile somewhere else. Hooks are so handy and are completely underutilized, in my opinion.





Y'know, those things you hang on the back of the door and shove your shoes in? Well, surprise, they can be used for so much more than just shoes. Personally, I haven't invested in one of these yet but I may just have to. From what I hear, they save a lot of space and have a lot of holding power. What more could you want from an organizational piece? NOTHING. That's what.


Alright folks, I hope that you found this post thought provoking and helpful. If you have any more ideas for handy home organization, let me know at kaitlinungs@gmail.com! I would love to hear them.