The End Is Only The Beginning

Hello everyone. First things first, let me catch you up. For the past month, I have been living in Europe and traveling from country to country, city to city with a cousin of mine. My cousin, who is 25, is a graphic designer. His work garnered a lot of attention when he moved to Paris in December of last year. Since then, he's been working nonstop on advertisements for companies all over Western Europe. The reason he's so sought after is obvious once you see his work. It incorporates art, design, and the local culture all into simple advertisements, hopefully enticing one of the hundreds of people walking by everyday. It might market a product, maybe a restaurant, or even a place.

So for quite some time now, I've had the privilege to stay with my cousin and see him in action. He took me with him as he travelled Western Europe on something called a review tour. What this means is that after he sends his advertisements to all the different places that he advertises from, he waits for a while, and then travels to those places to gauge the success of his work and brainstorm new ideas. This year, I got to experience what it means to be a designer firsthand, and I've learned a lot. Consider my cousin the artist, life as his muse, and Europe as the beautiful backdrop. You couldn't ask for a better combination.

Even though my trip is over, and I'm back home in the states, the journey is just beginning for you. I didn't just sit around while I travelled with my cousin, no. I journalled furiously, taking pictures and recording as much as I could about his work, about Western Europe, and about my adventures there. This blog is designed to tell you about what I learned, and I have the perfect way of doing just that. Each of my posts will begin with a paragraph or so of italicized writing. That italicized writing is a snippet from my journal entries, and it will talk about what I did in a particular city. Each post on this blog will be dedicated to a city, with five cities in all. As I said above, the post will open with a section from my journal, and below that I will talk about the meaning of what I wrote, and why it should matter at all in the first place. Basically, I will give you the story in italics, then the context in normal font. And all posts will include at least one photo so you can not only hear, but also see what I am talking about.

So sit down, buckle up, and enjoy the ride. The past three weeks have been a whirlwind for me, and you are about to head into that whirlwind head on. Good luck!