Design pulp. It's better with a little haute sauce.

After *coughtwoyearscough* of blogging I thought it was about time I got out from behind the dashboard and give the Sauce's site some much-needed zhushing.  This IS the epicenter for fabulosity and it's time it looks that way!  


Well, it'll look that way later when I have more time (read: money) - for now just a little botox...  new pair of shoes...  a little lipstick on a pig.  We'll turn that pork into a legitimate powerhouse of the interwebs one day soon though!


However, I happen to suck at site design and graphics.  I'm excellent a gesturing wildly about what I want something to look like or writing a rambling stream-of-consciousness dissertation about the scale and color of my avatar as it pertains to the cycles of the moon but can't execute shit.  That's okay - you don't have to know how to do everything when you're a madame, only where to find someone who can.  So I turned to Susie Q of Eye Spy which you might remember from last week's MINTY glory.


Oh you can't see me gesturing wildly through email, Susie?  Well I guess I'll have to consult my TJMaxx shaman to find the answers to questions like What does the Sauce really look like? and What is the essence of my style? and How can we use the Franzia logo without copyright infringement? and then make eleventeen moodboards which you will then need to interpret into a 400 pixel masterpiece of a new banner depicting my SOUL!!!  But no pressure...


So here's a peek into the evolution of one of the moodboards as we find out what it is someone really does with the thousands of images they've hoarded.


Moodboard option #834837492374893729374:

here

I started by just turning my brain off and pulling things that I my inner design cavewoman responded to viscerally at that time.  It depends on the moon cycle of course.  Designer cavewomen are fickle as shit.

from my inspiration files - photographer??

HORSIES!! 

here

Vintage-y sunset over industrial complex?  *grunt*

*smart grunt*

here

*I'm not a lesbian but I like purple tights and gingers grunt*

Ann Woo

This is probably where my designer cavewoman lives.  Are you starting to sense a color theme yet?  I hadn't yet - my cavewoman brain is slow to pick up on such things.  Evolution and all...

Sam Weber

Uggggg.  Me like fire.

Brock Lefferts

Me like pretty kaleidoscope art better.

via Whorange

*double grunt* for retro futuristic cavewoman crashpad

here

Apparently designer cavewoman covets some Latisse.

Best movie ever.

AND has excellent taste in movies.


As well as music.  I had a mild obsession with this song and the video seems quite appropriate for this color story I didn't even know I was creating yet.  Until I took a step back and realized that FUCKING PURPLE was up in my grill yet AGAIN!  This time with her jazzy friends black and gold.  


I'm on to you purple.  Don't think I don't see what you're trying to do to me!!


I know purple and gold are big right now but I didn't know this two months ago.  Apparently my inner cavewoman did and is trying to tell me something about purple.  I ain't listening to any of her bullshit because me and purple have a dicey relationship.


To escape grape overload I had to bring in some things to tone this red-hat lady bitch down.

Dethjunkie maybe...?!  Sorry.

Laura Bell

I don't really have a direction in mind (unless I'm escaping the wrath of plum) which is the fun part of moodboards.  They don't really reveal their true intention until the very end.  Delightfully mysterious fuckers.

Emily Carroll

I blog because I like to document things that make me squee in hopes that other people might enjoy a squee sometimes too.  Within that process, I get to uncover and refine what it is that really lights my cavewoman's fire.  Other than glitter of course.  Sometimes it's green ladies dry humping snakes.  Whatever...  

I would highly recommend making moodboards for yourself.  It is enlightening and fun and what they hell else are you going to do with those thousands of pins I know you have too?!

Just turn your brain off and Olioboard ON!

here

I don't know - I like circles.

Leif Podhajsky via But Does It Float

Nope - I like this.  A LOT.

Christine Tillman for sale on Little Paper Planes

Ok but for reals, circles.  Remind me to buy this.  For my cavewoman...

Julie Evans and Ajay Sharma

When I felt I had exhausted every corner of my inspiration folders and the interweb, I sent this to Susie:

Click to make it larger or see it better here.

Behold the power of the moodboard!  It's nothing fancy but it made a big ole hot mess of random shit I like into a clear and cohesive board of pulp.  Well, as clear and cohesive as all this crazy shit can be.  [MS sidebar: I should have named my blog Design Pulp.  Dammit.]  Part of the accompanying dissertation included something like the "shallow depth of hyper-saturated reality" and "How much kitsch could a Lo-Pan kitsch if a Lo-Pan could kitsch pulp?" and "Me like round!"  You know, helpful common sense things a designer really likes to hear from a client.  

But in the end I said do what feels good because I just wanted a fun new banner for a while.  My shaman and cavewoman had a pow wow and they said to trust in the powers of real graphic designers and so I gave my pulp over to the master and let the magic take over.  

Susie was a pro when confronted with this (and even more moodboard ridonkulousness) and she did some peyote magic with the shaman (allegedly) and now I have a new banner.  It looks like this: 

In real life I would fill this with glitternaise.

Zing!  Unbeknownst to me, Susie crafted this saucy little number just for fun and it was too damn silly not to use even for just a little bit.  I'll have to get used to staring at my mug every day because it is rather odd.  Awesomely odd in that I know get to be an honorary member of the Little Debbie/Aunt Jemima/Cap'n Crunch club but still, rather odd.  STOP LOOKING AT ME!  

I can save 'over-saturated reality orgasmisplosion of what-the-fuckery' for later but for now an experiment with some haute sauce.  I think this is a lesson in not over-analyzing because really?  Pictures of mountains and forests and shit?!  Oy.  I punch myself in the face.  I think we understand 'moody,' Madame.  Christ.

But it was still a super fun lesson.  Making a moodboard (or eleventeen) for yourself is like making a 2D movie of all the best scenes from all your favoritest movies.  Everybody wins!  Especially shitty movies from the eighties. 

It'll go live tomorrow - I really didn't want to ruin the surprise of this post.  Which, instead of a surprise bottle of madame sauce, might be that I'm the best/worst moodboard creator/client there ever was.  You're welcome, Susie!  But thanks for being such a badass about this process, anyway.

I'm still copyrighting design pulp, by the way.