Click here to see the beginning of my piece, 'Reverie' 

Still a work in progress. Much more typography to come, but the structure is there. 

Comments are, as always, appreciated!

Type Assignment (from top to bottom: Engravers, Trade Gothic Condensed, Avant Garde, Edwardian Script, Bickham Script Pro, Adobe Caslon Pro, Cochin, Bodoni, Didot, Futura)

I became inspired to redesign my business cards & resume based off this latest project. I fell so in love with these kaleidescope-looking stills from the blended animated gifs, I wanted to make them individual prints on my cards and alluded to on my resume. They're not quite finished or finessed yet, but the idea is there.

Here is another video that will be embedded between gifs and imagery - signifying a moment of tension and the feeling of anxiousness within a dream.

This video will be embedded towards the beginning of the project, in between the animated gifs & photography. The video is simple in its visual effects, and instead focuses on light & movement. It is to illustrate that final moment of when we have finally drifted off into sleep, and have entered a new world.

Original music composed by my lovely boyfriend, Dan Teicher.

Since my typography didn't work last time overlayed onto the images - I decided to incorporate the text in between imagery. I used Trade Gothic & Helvetica Neue for the fonts. These are writings of mine that I have scribbled down after my dreams, the pictures act as the illustrations. Would love to know people's feedback on these as I move forward.

Here are some more animated gifs. Please click on the image to animate them in full resolution! Thanks :)

Here is a small screen capture of a very WIP / rough cut of a storyboard for my dream project. Following the template that was shown in our first class (orbasquara.com) my dream project is essentially an abstract, poetic dreamscape, a hyper-real experience and journey that exists on the web. It's a series of manipulated images, videos/motion, typography and song strung together that creates the piece as a whole. I am still gathering information and imagery, so there is not a narrative or really a flow as of yet, but I am starting to see it take shape with what I have collected so far.

I was absent last class, but I made my best attempt at a general storyboard for my design portfolio. I have worked on it since creating a rough outline, reshot some of my old projects, and will bring in the PDF I have thus far.

Here is another image edited with some typography. The staircase is alluding to the steps towards your dream world, where you can release your mind and let it run wild and free. I want to make sure these are spaced out relatively evenly within the project, these would almost act as the opening slide to each next set--but they all have a similar aesthetic.

Movement/light again illustrated here as a theme. Traffic lights in combination with bold movements and expressions as well as illusions/reflections that are also going to be explored further. 

These were my favorite shots from the shoot (click to see animation) Movement is something that is always so strange in dreams. Often times you're moving and don't know how, flying even though you're not capable, transporting through time and defying gravity in every way possible. We were lucky to find an outdoor elevator during our photoshoot and captured that free immersive feeling of feeling totally invisible during your dreams and in your movements. The first one is the original color, the second was stylized and edited, and my favorite is the last, the black and white. 

These I am still looking to fit together. I have a few different surrealistic ideas for them but I'm not sure how I feel about them yet. I am a big light/sun person and it is a theme that is often present throughout my dreams as well as the darkness to contrast. I have a few videos of the wheat/sun flares that I could make work with this set but just not quite sure how to move forward with it and how to involve typography.

Animated gif for the dream project (click the image above to see the animation) I researched the idea of spinning dreams as it is something that occurs in my own. Most dream interpreters say that spinning dreams often mean something in your life is out of control, that your anxieties are taking over and you are feeling overwhelmed and that spinning feeling is representative of that in your dreams. However, I find that when I have spinning dreams that my life actually seems to be moving along just fine, perhaps a lot may be happening all at once--but things are actually becoming clearer as I go. And so I chose to illustrate the flower coming into focus, to represent that feeling of finding clarity in contrast with the endless spinning.

So I have been sick with the flu this last week and am FINALLY feeling better. Here is the opening shot of my my series of edited images that I am starting :) that will be juxtaposed with my  video clips.


This was one of the images I actually brought into class. These are four different images combined together to create one here. This is the kind of color scheme I would like for my typography throughout the project, and the three different fonts I plan on using consistently throughout. "Allow me to release my mind" is a saying I often say to myself if ever I need to try to relax myself towards sleep. I find it is soothing and it is a way to help me to drift into sleep, and for my dreams to begin.


Comments appreciated, more to come! 


xo lo

This is a dream sequence I put together with the clips I shot last week. I put placeholder music in for now (Philip Glass) and will have my boyfriend compose something similar later on, that will help create a flow for the video. I would like to do several of these for the project - mixed in with some manipulated/edited photography with added type that has the same aesthetic. This video doesn't try to make a linear sequence, but a story emerges out of the clips that are sandwiched together, and it essentially becomes a string of thoughts. When you wake from a dream, sometimes, you don't remember all of it--just the bits you like or the parts that stuck out to you the most. That is what I am aiming to create here. 


Comments are appreciated! Thanks

The footage below are some clips I would like to use in my project. Obviously, the clips will be cut down, muted, edited, and manipulated so that they fit together to create a dream-like sequence of events. I aimed to film very natural elements, things that I am able to distort so that they aren't quite what they seem, things that are just out of focus and then become clear, and vice versa. I want to gather more material like this, as this is just the beginning, and I also have images to go with these video sequences.


I've done a rough sketch of the opening sequence that I want to be video. At the beginning of the piece, I want a long shot down a hallway looking into a room, slowly zooming in. As we get closer, there will be a girl getting ready for bed doing the usual things, brushing her teeth/getting into her pajamas/washing her face, all really short quick scenes. The room will be desaturated, grey looking, and she gets into bed at 11:11pm. My friends and I have always joked about how superstitious we are about 11:11, and so I wanted to include that specific time for when she shuts off the light, as it adds a personal element. When she shuts off the switch on her lamp, the next scene cuts immediately to her side portrait of her waking up into this new dreamworld. Her eyes will slowly open and her room will be saturated, colorful - things will look different, yet oddly the same - just so that you are not quite sure whether she is dreaming or awake. She will venture into the outside, and stumble across this hyper-real dreamscape world, almost as if it were an Alice in Wonderland adventure but not quite as surreal and unrealistic. She will wander through this dream world (photos & video sequences will illustrate this along the way, side scrolling) until her alarm wakes her, she returns to the real world - yet, there will be something left on her pillow that is a connection to her dream, so that you never really know if she is still dreaming, or back in her real world.


This is still a work in progress, so I would love to hear some feedback on the narrative!

irregular flow from ozan tekin on Vimeo.

more inspiration for the type of shots I want to compose for my project, in the process of gathering footage that will imitate this and have found a model (my best friend!) that will work with me! :)

More inspiration

Here is a collection of inspirational imagery for my dream project (work in progress title, but I am leaning towards: rêverie) I was shooting some footage in the west village and around the highline today and have a bunch of ideas, and am getting closer to a stronger narrative. Will upload some sketches tomorrow, but for now - here are some more images. 

Believe in the beauty of your dreams

The concept for this project is still a major work in progress. I have always wanted to do some kind of surrealistic impression or interpretation of my dreams. Salvador Dali is one of my favorite artists not only because he was completely eccentric, off the wall, and an out-of-the-box thinker, but I find that his paintings really challenge the viewer in such a unique way; they make you feel slightly uncomfortable, slightly in awe and slightly curious. You're not sure what you're supposed to feel when looking at them, nor are you sure of what it is exactly that you're looking at. I have always been one to probe to find a deeper meaning in things, to go beneath the surface, and that's exactly what you do when you look at a Dali painting. Surrealism is the rendering of dreams in literature, art or music, and that is what I want my project to rooted in.


Dreaming is fascinating. I often wake up after a dream to write down a few keywords I can remember from it, or even a sketch or a quick doodle. Every psychologist under the sun has their own explanation and interpretation of our dreams, but really, scientists say that they are just neurons in our brain firing back and forth while we sleep, creating these vivid images and scenarios. But what about when you dream and you see or meet a person that you've never seen before? Is it a compilation of all your favorite faces you've ever seen melded together? What about premonitions, when people dream things before they happen? What about lucid dreaming, where you are actually able to control what is happening because you are aware of the fact you are dreaming? Or dreaming about things that are totally impossible for humans to feel, like flying or transforming into another species. These are some ideas I would love to explore in this project. I want to create some kind of connection between the world of our dreams and the real world we live in, what influences us to have these dreams? Does the immersion into our dream worlds come with such a certain vividness and intensity, that we sometimes start to expect the real world to imitate it? James Cameron's completely immersive film "Avatar" may have been a little too real as many people experienced depression and even suicidal thoughts after seeing it, because they longed to enjoy the beauty of the alien world Pandora. Pandora is this pristine world and there is this synergy between all of the creatures of the planet, so perhaps it is that which strikes a deep chord within the viewers. James Cameron's dream is built out of the same things that other peoples' dreams are made of. It is pretty wild to think about, given that 'Avatar' is essentially a piece of art.


Now I am in no shape, way or form saying I am going to create anything remotely close to 'Avatar'. But in short,  I want to create a hyper-real experience that stimulates the senses, a virtual reality or dreamscape in New York City. I would love for the project to end up being an interactive scrolling series, of photo manipulation, video, and sound. It would encompass my photography, typography, composition / layout, video, photo manipulation, editing, sound design and hopefully, some user interactivity (the most daunting part) And all shot here in New York City. 

Dream Job

I believe every single person is born with a very specific talent or skill. I don't mean "she was born to be a singer" but rather, "she was born to move people through storytelling." Whether she becomes a singer, painter, writer, is actually somewhat irrelevant.  I also believe that these skills are very rarely realized, so most people spend their whole lives wedged into an incompatible system, trying desperately to make ends meet. In terms of money, people work to make money. But if we had a behavioral shift where people "contributed" their time for a cause, rather than "worked" for a boss, the long term effect would truly be rewarding. It seems as though anybody can make money doing anything these days. There are no limitations. I mean, really, when a fellow peer says to me, "I would LOVE to work in marketing for a large corporation," I almost want to reply, "Really? I mean, really?" If that's your dream, then go for it. But for some reason, the day-to-day work of non-stop phone calls, floods of emails, inter-office politics, outsourced HR, glass ceilings, computer meltdowns, backstabbing, difficult clients, unrealistic expectations, decreasing budgets, and the comical notion of a work-life balance is certainly not something that I dream about.

My personal dream job would be to bring happiness to a specific audience, who in turn could bring happiness to their own audience. This “dream job’ for me, is the creation of a product. An object. A piece of art. A piece of me? Something which I have made that will be loved and treasured by another - it spreads my happiness and reflects my love of my dream job. Also, my dream job should evolve with me - if my loves and interests take a new route, so does this dream job of mine - we adapt to one another. It's a creature of sorts, this dream job. I think this whole idea of people having to work 50 or 60 hours a week is bullshit --  I've done it. And we, as employees and consumers, have to figure out a way to reclaim the system for ourselves. It is already starting to happen with the boom of small startups and college graduates putting together their own business teams. Finally, and most importantly, I want to believe in what i have created. I want to do well, and do good. I want my work to have value and purpose, for it to be long lasting. It is the most important thing. I am still trying to figure out if a position exists for me out there that will encompass all of these qualities, and if it doesn't exist, well, I may just have to create it.

Typography Swipe