i'm a crook.

life.

MY INSPIRATION is the fact that life is too short.

My world view changes every day. I have major commitment issues—with everything. But I am completely committed to living my life by doing what makes me happy at the moment. If I want to go home to have dinner with my parents when I have a project due the next day, I'll do it. I've realized over the semester that a good personality, good interactions with people, determination, and the need/want to learn everything you possibly can is what will get me a job. I know that I'm not going to get a job related to my major, (no matter what my major ends up being) I just know it. I do know, however, that the right opportunity will come along and I will take it, whether it be a teaching position, or a man to marry that will take care of me. Family and best friends and learning everything you can while you are where you are is what is important, not grades. I know how to respect people and be responsible. I have acquired great organization, saving money, and people skills over the years, which, to me, is all that matters in life.

Smile.
—J

Though I have an amazing angel watching over me, I still wish Bird could be here to experience college.
I love you, Bird. You are my inspiration.

5.1.11

the worst rough sketch known in after effects history:

LARRY LESSIG

Larry Lessig on laws that choke creativity.

I couldn't even make it through this one because of his voice. It reminds me of Emily Austin's type speech on questions at the end of sentences. That's all I could think about while watching... I just kept thinking of her motion. From what I heard, he did make some good points, though.

hillman curtis artist series films

Milton Glaser is the man.

"I've always believed that the life of the designer is of two sensibilities— one of a businessman and one of a designer."

Art can bring people together across cultures. Milton Glaser's work is appreciated across the world. Artists work to sell their product and to make a point. Designers are essentially the same, so why the divide? Milton teaches because it makes him feel good. He finds it exciting to see somebody change and improve from something he has said or done to help them. When I was little, I made my dad buy me an overhead projector, because I wanted to be a teacher when I grew up. I had a classroom set up in the basement, with school supplies and real desks, and would spend day in and day out talking to myself (students) and grading papers (ones I had done). I love to learn. I love to learn about life and to help others put life into perspective. I think I should get in touch with that principle again. I want to help others learn from the mistakes that I've made and push them into something better.

Social commentary is part of the graphic design practice because we have the ability to transfer ideas. These ideas should cause no harm. You want to do something that relates to where you are, your city, your home, your world.

"If you can sustain your interest in what you're doing, you're an extremely fortunate person. You get tired, and indifferent, and sometimes defensive, and you kind of lose your capacity for astonishment. And that's a great loss—because the world is a very astonishing place. Things still amaze me."

To speak on this quote, I feel like my design potential is hindered by the fact that I'm in school and cannot time manage everything that I want to accomplish. Though time management is a stronger quality of mine, it feels like it's never enough. My ability to come up with concepts and ideas, and to be inspired by anything and everything will soon pay off, and I won't have to be on the side of actually making the design.

"your life needs to be balanced between home and space."

Debbie Millman is the president of the AIGA. Her podcast show is called "Design Matters" and has been around since 2005. I listened to her interview with Natalia Ilyin. Natalia Ilyin is a design critic, teacher, author, and practitioner. She takes a personal look at the philosophy of modernism and its effects on our culture, most defiantly some icons of our culture.

"I have no interest in looking bizarre, because I'm bizarre in the inside."
"

Refugeeism and place are very important to her. She thinks it fits into her perfectionism. "If you don't know where you're from, you don't know who you are." —Stigner. Ilyin thinks that's very important, not just for every people, but also for designers. I like that Ilyin connects design with concepts of life and the lessons of life that should be learned—such as the importance of home or the realization of self.

for people who give a damn.

www.good.is

GOOD is a new kind of agency—a nonprofit organization that integrates all forms of media to help others via design. The website and quarterly magazine cover a variety of topics of current events in the food, politics, health, culture, and urban planning realm. I believe that doing work for others is more beneficial than anything, and especially in a design sense. Life is too short to be concerned with yourself. The people that you meet and learn from are what will help you to succeed.

I'm not a crook.

Who is speaking? Former President Richard Nixon.

Why was/is the speech important to society? It was a HUGE scandal at the time (1973) and this was Nixon's chance to defend himself to the American people to insist that he had not made any profit from his public service.

Why do you feel this is important or interesting? A lot of people during his time thought that Nixon was a fraud and a crook - hearing his side is a little ironic.

What is the emotion, mood, tone, personality, feeling of the speech? It was an hour-long televised question and answer session by the President. He seems tense and misspoken, but kept insisting his innocent standing on the Watergate scandal. He acknowledged he made a mistake in not supervising the campaign activities closer. It feels like a plead. There's a sense of guilt in his voice.

What is intonation, emphasis, what is loud, stressed, or soft. Where are there pauses...
What do you FEEL should be loud or soft, long pause or rushed? Loud="I have earned every cent. And in all of my years of public life I have never obstructed justice." "I've earned everything I've got." Soft= The parts about how he got the money to pay for the things he did. Paused= "So that's where the money came from." "I made my mistakes. But in all my years in public life... public service. I've earned every cent. I've never obstructed justice." "I'm not a crook."

Is there a call to action? When listening to it what are key/emphasized words? His call to action is to assure America he is not a crook.

How does it make you feel? It makes me feel a little uncomfortable. I feel like he is apologizing to me personally, when really I wasn't alive at the time.

How do you imagine that the audience felt? I bet some (Democrats, maybe?) were all for it, trying to convince everyone that he was a good President. I'm sure others just laughed at it the whole time.

Write/find a short bio, of the person giving the speech.

In the presidential election of 1972, Nixon and Agnew ran against Democrats George McGovern (1922–) and Sargent Shriver (1915–). The election was a landslide for Nixon, but no one was expecting what would happen next. During his last election campaign, what first appeared as a minor burglary was to become the beginning of the end of Nixon's political career. A break-in at Democratic national headquarters in the Watergate apartment complex in Washington, D.C., was linked to Republicans.

During the trial of six men charged in the crime, the existence of the cover-up began to emerge and government officials fell like dominos in its path. By October 1973, as the Watergate investigation continued, Nixon lost several top aides as well as his vice president. Agnew resigned before pleading no contest to federal charges of receiving bribes, failing to pay his taxes properly, and other crimes while serving as governor of Maryland.

Soon the U.S. Supreme Court forced Nixon to turn over tape recordings he made during the election. The tapes showed he obstructed, or blocked, justice in stopping a Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) probe of the Watergate burglary. On August 9, 1974, in national disgrace, he became the first president of the United States to choose to leave office before the end of his term. He boarded a plane with his wife and returned to his California home, ending his public career. A month later, in a controversial move, President Gerald Ford (1913–) issued an unconditional pardon for any offenses Nixon might have committed while president.

"what problem should design solve next?"

"I believe that people should not print things that they don't care about... if it's going to be some throw away item, it shouldn't exist anymore."

Amen, Jessica Hische. You my girl.

I think the couple that said the iphone inspires them most were dead on. The iphone is a powerful system.. what will come next?

"What single example of design inspires you most?"

The fact that it will only go up from here. Each project I design progresses from the last, and the evolution of my skills in design inspires me to keep getting better to progress from the last thing I did. It makes learning worth it.

"What problem should design solve next?"

I think design should be a part of everyone's lives, whether it be designing a kitchen pantry or their closet. Design is so versatile and can be spread amongst many different sorts.

journal 4 & hw.

What are the advantages of a multiple column grid? A multiple column grid allows for a greater number of layout possibilities when designing text on a page. It also allows the reader’s eyes rest while reading.

How many characters is optimal for a line length? words per line? 45 to 75 characters is optimal for a line length.

Why is the baseline grid used in design? Baseline grids help the words to look like they aren't floating. The curved parts of the letters dip a little bit below the baseline. Intro text and sub texts align and columns line up.

What is a typographic river? A river is gaps appearing to run down a paragraph of text caused by a coincidental alignment of spaces.

From the readings what does clothesline or flow line mean? It’s the horizontal line that appears on a layout within the text.

How can you incorporate white space into your designs? Don't fill the entire page with text or images creating a place for the eye to rest.

What is type color/texture mean? How the type size, weight and line kerning affect how the text reads either as dark or light, mono or multi-chromatic.

What is x-height, how does it affect type color? The height of a lowercase x of a given typeface

In justification or H&J terms what do the numbers: minimum, optimum, maximum mean? The specific amount of space between words, the minimum being at the least possible, the optimum just right.

What are some ways to indicate a new paragraph. Are there any rules? Indentation, but no indenting of the first paragraph. You can do a first-line indent, running indent, hanging indent, or on-a-point indent.

What are some things to look out for when hyphenating text. Hyphens are used strictly for hyphenating words or line breaks. En dashes are for amounts of time such as spans of hours, days or years. Em dashes are abrupt changes in thought or where a period is too strong and a comma too weak.

What is a ligature? A ligature occurs where two or more characters are joined as a single glyph.

What does CMYK and RGB mean? CYMK stands for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black while RGB stands for Red, Green, and Blue. They are both color models.

What does hanging punctuation mean? Hanging punctuation or exdentation is a way of typesetting punctuation marks and bullet points, most commonly quotation marks and hyphens, so that they do not disrupt the ‘flow’ of a body of text or ‘break’ the margin of alignment.

What is the difference between a foot mark and an apostrophe? What is the difference between an inch mark and a quote mark (smart quote)? Foot marks and inch marks are generic symbols that look like this ' (inch) " (foot). An apostrophe and quote mark have a small circle and curve that make it present the quote or word, such as “” ‘’. The default for a foot mark and inch mark is that on the computer keyboard. To make the apostrophes and smart quotes you hit option+[ (left bracket is quote, right bracket is apostrophe). To make them go the other direction add shift.

What is a hyphen, en dash and em dashes, what are the differences and when are they used. A hyphen (-) is used for hyphenating words or line breaks. _An en dash is used between words indicating a duration such as hourly time or months or years. It is used with a thin space before and after, but not a full space. It is made with option+hyphen. An em dash is twice as long as the en dash. It is used in a manner similar to colon or parentheses, or indicates an abrupt change in thought. It is made with option+shift+hyphen.

What are ligatures, why are they used, when are they not used, what are common ligatures? A ligature occurs where two or more characters are joined as a single glyph.

JONATHAN HARRIS:

He is a radical thinker and very focused. He religiously kept sketchbooks of mixed media and other assorted things and after being robbed at gunpoint, he realized the benefit of digital work that cannot be destroyed in a sense. I love that he digitalizes objects and combines all elements of design, including architect and other assorted things.

I enjoyed listening to Jonathan speak, as he had some interesting things to share. It did not bore me. He is fearless. He threw away two months of work to restart a concept. I felt like I was at an enhanced Hallmark symposium where I could clean my room while watching/listening... loved it. The speech, or letter that he wrote, was very touching. It hit a weird spot for me, something I had never thought about before. Computers are taking over our world, and Harris made a good point that people are very complex and when working with code a lot, you lose the sense of expression. Layers of abstraction gradually wear down your expression. Advertising companies come up with mediocre designs because someone comes up with the design, someone makes it, someone makes the code, and so on. Ideas are a way of getting to the goal, ideas are techniques. Designers must not get caught up in how conceptually appealing an object is, but rather how it can improve humans.

- J.

"now that we can do anything, what will we do?"

Noted as a world-leading innovator is pretty damn cool. Bruce Mau has studios in Chicago and Toronto (good man). He has written several books and created a studio-based postgrad program. Mau's Incomplete Manifesto is his world view, written in 1998, and surprisingly not outdated.

FOR THE WEEK:

"Stay up late. Strange things happen when you've gone too far, been up too long, worked too hard, and you're separated from the rest of the world."

Well Mau, now that you put it that way, all-nighters don't seem so bad... It's true, though. There's something fun about being up until at least 3 every morning while my roommates sit around all day and do nothing and go to bed before 11, and then complain about 'needing the weekend' and 'being so tired'. Suck it up.

"Don't enter awards competitions. Just don't. It's not good for you."

Ok, CYA Dallas.

"Coffee breaks, cab rides, green rooms. Real growth often happens outside of where we intend it to, in the institial spaces - what Dr. Seuss calls "the waiting place." Hans Ulrich Obrist once organized a science and art conference with all of the infrastructure of a conference - the parties, chats, lunches, airport arrivals - but with no actual conference. Apparently it was hugely successful and spawned many ongoing collaborations.

My places this weekend...? Yacht club with my best friends, dairy queen, Noodles & Co., the Cave, and Fatso's.

- J.

stefan the man

The first thing I found interesting about the article is that it is from 2004. That being said, the principles brought up in the article stand true today, 7 years later. I love the quote that reads... "In persuading people to buy things they don't need, with money they don't have, in order to impress others that don't care, it is probably the phoniest field in existence today." Well said Victor Papanek, well said.

Design can unify, help us remember, simplify our lives, make someone feel better, make the world a safer place, can help people rally behind a cause, can inform and teach, can raise money, and can make us more tolerant. And this is why I am interested in design over other fields... it has substance.

The best part of the article, in my opinion, is the quote that says "Comercial Art makes you BUY things, graphic Design GIVES you ideas."

I love ideas. I love coming up with ideas. Maybe I should stick with design... hmm. Life.

cheers to another week closer to spring break!

- J.

to design students everywhere...

I'm all about freedom and no limitations, and that's why I chose an “Open Letter to Design Students Everywhere” by Jessica Helfand. Jessica is a Senior Critic at the Yale School of Art, and though I have a hard time accepting that Yale and Ivy League schools should have more credibility than others, I'll give her props for that.

I think it will be important to call out the quote at the beginning, or at least the part that says, "whatever diminishes constraint diminishes strength." And though the quote is from "The Poetics of Music," it applies to design, or any aspect of life. As a student, constraints are very frustrating. I know constraints are meant to prepare us for jobs we will eventually have, but most of the time creativity is completely eliminated when everything is too strict. Jessica emphasizes the importance of getting your name out by putting your work online, because it's not so much about a physical portfolio anymore. Nearly everyone around the world can have access to your work through their computers, and it's easy, if they know how to find you.

Learn everything you can. Spend hours just being inspired, it will save you time in the long run. The last paragraph is where Jessica ties in the openness of the letter that describes the title; she says that "freedom, le'ts not forget, is what education is all about... Go out and make great things, things that help us, enlighten and change and impact the world in millions of meaningful and glorious ways." She also reiterates what a teacher of mine from last semester said like a broken record, "what you're doing is learning how to learn." It's very true. Having a world view will also help.

- J.

organized chaos.

my thoughts on february 23rd, 2011-

(screen print project and type project due back to back makes for one exhausted individual.

how do we do it?!)

i couldn't think of a better way to describe my life.

tEd carpenter? yep.

note to self: dont f up an artist's name because someone somewhere on the internet

will make fun of me. check.

- J.

valentines day sucks.

- J.

journal entry 2 & audience personas.

Dieter Rams:

GOOD DESIGN IS...

INNOVATIVE - These ideas are not exhausted; technology advancements help to offer new opportunities.

MAKES A PRODUCT USEFUL - It emphasizes the usefulness of a product (a bookcover)

AESTHETIC - It's integral to its usefulness.

MAKES A PRODUCT UNDERSTANDABLE - The design can make the product talk.

HONEST - It doesn't make promises it can't keep for the consumer.

LONG-LASTING - It avoids being "fashionable" or trendy.

THOROUGH, DOWN TO THE LAST DETAIL - Care and accuracy in the design are important.

GREEN - Environmentally friendly

AS LITTLE DESIGN AS POSSIBLE - Less, but better.

Don Norman's the man. I had to read his book "The Design of Everyday Things" for Human Factors last semester. Some ideas of his that I remember are visibility, mapping, affordances, and feedback. He comes from a psychological background and the psychological aspect of design is clear in his studies. Norman reminds me of Richard. They'd prob be besties. Actually, I think Richard already thinks they are.

"Pleasant things work better, and that never made any sense to me." - Don Norman

Behavioral design is all about being in control.

Dear Don, how do your principles apply to a user of the internet on a website? As designers, we are used to solving problems (even through life) but what about regular people just trying to find the contact section on the website of a company? Would their actions be subconscious?

The audience of Something Borrowed:

Jenny is a 24 year old from Denver and is studying to be an athletic trainer at the University of Kansas. She works as a bartender and was recently fired from her weekend bartending job. She loves Chicago and hanging out with her girlfriends and also her boyfriend of several years. Jenny would bend over backwards for any of her friends and loves to have a good time. She loves to sleep-in and stay in her bed all day, avoiding her obnoxious roommates by either reading or watching a movie such as The Notebook. Her low-rent college duplex stays filled with sorority girls that are 5th year seniors.

Alice is a 21 year old from a suburb of Philly, currently living in Lawrence, Kansas and a student at KU studying speech pathology. She enjoys spending money and eating and Love and Basketball. She frequents Urban Outfitters and Kieu's and loves her family and best friends more than anything. Alice drives an older model Toyota 4Runner and is a social butterfly. She loves having house parties and serving jello shots because she thinks it helps her make more friends. She is a waitress and loves to have a good time. When asked to describe her life, she would say, "my whole life is a weekend." She drinks Franzia (classy boxed-wine) every weekend from expensive William Sonoma wine glasses. If it weren't for her college student budget, her 4 bedroom house off campus would look as if it were straight from a Home and Garden magazine.

Shannon is a 28 year old with an aggressive attitude. Shannon enjoys bowling and playing with her puppy. She used to be a manager of a local tanning salon, and specialized in marketing the salon. She loves going out more than anything and until recently was single and ready to mingle. Shannon loves to shop and bend the rules to fit her needs, yet is very structured and professional. She now works as a bartender. Her weekends are filled with work, and once she gets home she relaxes and watches tv in her one bedroom poorly decorated duplex and lays with her puppy named Brady (after Tom Brady).

journal 1.

is anyone in design land watching the superbowl?

just wondering.

i love writing down my ideas, or writing anything down really. that's the only way i remember them. my planners and notebooks are filled with words, which made everything i read in writer's toolbox beneficial. i will continue to create mind maps and word lists throughout my career, no matter what it will be because that's how i stay organized. i want to try looping when i get the chance.

there's my overly organized OCD life

inspiration is boundless.

a (drunk) friend told me last night that he just wants to learn everything there is to learn about everything he can. i kept that in mind when searching for inspiration.

i found my new favorite designer.

her name is bri emery (pictured above) and this is her website: http://cargocollective.com/briemery

i have decided that she is the chelsea handler of design.

not only is her blog hilarious, (see image below) but her ads and freelance work is amazing.

here's my mind map for something borrowed...

the mind is a crazy thing.

"The brain is wider than the sky."

Emily Dickinson

- J.

the main playas in design.

stephen heller

maira kalman

the eames

alex steinweiss

alan fletcher

alvin lustig

alexander girard

paul rand

saul bass

- J.

BOOKJACKET 1

SIGNS have some physical pattern, like a sound or visible shape AND a meaning. Anything that represents something else. Something that stands for something to someone. The red "A" represents the Scarlet Letter, which is a representation itself.

An INDEX would indicate; they always point, reference, or suggest something else. "A clock indicates the time of day." You can't see sadness, but you can see the tears that indicate it. You may not see the fire, but you can see the smoke that indicates to you that a fire is burning.

SYMBOLS are content words, like nouns, verbs, and adjectives, or sound patterns that get meaning, primarily from mental association with other symbols within our own personal schema, or from its correlation with environmental patterns. Symbols are IDEAS. An example of a symbol would be a peace sign. My pictures won't work for this, too big.

"This Means That" Notes:

-Signs are formed by the society that creates them. Truth.

-Societies form two basic sources of signing: natural and conventional. We wear clothes but the kind of clothes we wear is a matter of convention.

-Semiotics is confusing.

-The Adam and Eve apple story is overused and overrated.

-Some meanings we no longer take notice to...maybe that's my problem with the apple concept.

-With icons, there is a degree of resemblance between signifier and signified. Color photographs resemble the object being photographed.

-The woman in the photo reminds me of a Criminal Minds episode.

-The black eye reminds me of the girl on the Bachelor last night who magically woke up with a black eye.

-The photo helps to remind me that photos can stimulate the viewer and highlight what the photographer wants us to see, though there's always a deeper meaning.

-Handwriting (signifier) is caused by a person writing (signified).

-The word "symbol" in Greek means "to throw together." I have a Greek friend from Canada.

-Shaking hands (the signifier) is an arbitrary relationship of the signified (a greeting).

-The window of the soul is the mouth, not the eyes. Thanks ML (Mona Lisa).

-I must have a dirty mind, "I didn't eat Grandmother's chocolate cake" seemed dirty to me.

Oops.

-A message travels between a sender and a receiver in a specific context and through a specific object. The aim of the sender is to make sure the message has reached the right receiver without anything going wrong... BOOM. Design.

-A simile is a comparison between two different things. No way.

Book Design Review: http://nytimesbooks.blogspot.com/

I noted from the book covers I've looked at so far that the most successful were the ones that I could easily read the title and quick. When walking through Borders, (which I did over break because the one by my house was going out of business- 75% off yall!) if the book is facing the front, obviously I'll judge. But if the books are lined up, the name and color palette of the spine is what I respond to first. That will be important to my design - a color palette. I will put a lot of time in figuring the most girly, yet almost clashing colors to represent the betrayal in the book for all three of my designs. I will make the title easy to glance at. I feel the title on the cover is necessary, because to me, titles are almost as important as the design. Titles can make or break a book as far as I'm concerned, and without the title on the cover, I probably wouldn't turn the book to look at it.

"Something Borrowed" is a catchy title. Perfect. Simple book covers can be fun, ESPECIALLY with photography. My strong personal interest in photography will be playing a huge role in my project, and I'm glad we have the option to use it. This is too funny - I would read it just because it's funny.

Texture will get you far in life. Love.

The imagery with the skulls, stars, and hair is awesome. Not a fan of the type.

I dig the photo/drawn combo. Mixed media, ya dig.

Just simple enough.

For the DVD project, Tad showed us at least 28 covers of DVD's as examples with this idea.

The idea of drawing the important objects of the film (or book) or simple drawings that represent the characters. Then, almost everyone tried to replicate it with their movies, especially Badlands.

OVERRATED.

COME UP WITH YOUR OWN SHIT.

Cheers to second semester and honesty.

F.O.E

- J.

BOOKZz.

Who Moved My Blackberry? by Lucy Kellaway

Lucy Kellaway is the Financial Times's management columnist. For over ten years, her weekly column has poked fun at management fads and jargon with insight, wit and precision and celebrated the ups and downs of office life.

Her most recent book is The Real Office: All The Office Questions You Never Dared To Ask. Of this, the Sunday Times said; 'it dispenses water-cooler wisdom, not motivational gobbledygook. (It) gets to the heart of those tricky questions that employees, rather than employers, want answered'. In her distinctly tongue-in-cheek speech, Lucy touches on office life, the psychological deficiencies of all bosses, and the futility of change management.

Other books of hers include: In Office Hours, Depptop, and Sense and Nonsense in the Office.

Martin Lukes is a superstar at the office and at home -- just ask him. Blessed with an ego the size of Mount Everest and virtually no sense of self, he blusters through life with cheerful obliviousness. Who Moved My BlackBerry™? is the uproarious e-epistolary story of one spectacularly bad year in his life, during which Martin hires an executive coach to help him achieve "22.5 percent better than my bestest," only to inadvertently insult his new boss, watch his wife get a job that threatens to eclipse his own, and allow his BlackBerry™ -- complete with racy e-mails to his secretary/lover -- to fall into the hands of his juvenile delinquent son. This novel is set in an office so dysfunctional, it’s bound to strike a chord with any nine-to-fiver.

Description words: Striking, realistic, humble, humorous, long

Protagonist does the world a favor by giving us an insight into the office life of a British company.

Antagonist does a favor for Martin by helping him realize his large ego.

"Strive and Thrive!"

"Darling, thanks for the pearls of wisdom, but frankly you're getting a bit ahead of yourself."

"22.5 percent better than my best. -Martin"

"I'm smiling at you!"

The cover is hideous.

My Love, My Love: The Peasant Girl

Rosa Guy
Other books were The Friends and The Disappearance
A modern fable set on a Caribbean island that is inhabited by wealthy merchants and poor peasants and is subject to violent changes of nature at the whim of vain gods. Desiree Dieu Donne, a black peasant girl, saves the life of Daniel Beauxhomme, a wealthy mulatto whose family has renounced its black origins. Daniel is returned to his home, but Desiree, convinced that it is the will of the gods, sets out on an arduous quest to find the Palace Beauxhomme. The two fall in love. The peasant girl is not acceptable to the island aristocracy, however, and Daniel consents to wed a woman of his own class. This allegory abounds in vivid, sensual images and symbols, many of which parallel Hans Christian Andersen's Little Mermaid , on which it is based.
Sad, heart wrenching, yet cheery, island-like, God-like, beautiful, bright, luxurious
The message is similar to Romeo and Juliet - a rich boy and a poor peasant can be in love.
Protagonist is such a heart-felt character.
Antagonists are Daniel's parents who don't believe in the conjoining of races.
"Men" he grumbled. "Their greed will be the destruction of us."

"Another week without rain, and it might well be the end of us poor peasants."

"Ti Moune, there are many worse off than we."
The text on the cover needs help.

Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin

Emily Giffin was born in Baltimore, Maryland on March 20, 1972. She attended high school in Naperville, Illinois, where she was a member of a creative writing club and served as editor-in-chief for the school's newspaper. Giffin earned her undergraduate degree at Wake Forest University, where she also served as manager of the basketball team, the Demon Deacons. She then attended law school at the University of Virginia. After graduating in 1997, she moved to Manhattan and worked in the litigation department of Winston & Strawn. But Giffin soon determined to seriously pursue her writing.

In 2001, she moved to London and began writing full time. Her first young adult novel, Lily Holding True, was rejected by eight publishers. Giffin began a new novel, then titled Rolling the Dice, which became the bestselling novel Something Borrowed.

Her other novels include Something Blue, Baby Proof, Love the One You're With, and Heart of the Matter.

Something Borrowed is the story of Rachel White and Darcy Rhone, best friends since childhood. Rachel is used to being the good girl, the hard-worker who exists in the shadow of flashy—often selfish—Darcy. Until her thirtieth birthday that is, when a drink too many results in Rachel sleeping with Darcy's fiance, Dexter. The fling turns into an affair, and Rachel is forced to decide which is more important, friendship or true love.

"I am learning that perfection isn't what matters. In fact, it's the very thing that can destroy you if you let it."

"There is no better audience for someone in love than someone in love."

"This is why you should never, ever get your hopes up. This is why you should see the glass as half empty. So when the whole thing spills, you aren't as devastated."

"Peace and calm rush over me as I process the lack of any bad feelings: I'm not jealous, I'm not worried, I'm not scared, I'm not lonely."

I like the ring on the cover, but feel the typography could be improved.