Ronin Wood, class of 2012

the project

The summer before my senior year, my best friend Matthew Thompson and I started a site called Time Spent (timespent.biz). On Time Spent, we feature hip hop music videos that we create with artists we respect. The videos are simple acapella raps, recorded in one shot on a VHS camera.

Once we had created a few videos and decided how we wanted to film the series, it was time for a rebrand of the whole project. Our signature aesthetic came from running every aspect of the design through a VCR to match the analog videos. This was especially tough; by relying on the VCR for the aesthetic, I had to let the VCR dictate the design. Learning to find control and reason took an entire semester of hitting VCRs until the design looked just right.

Lastly, I wanted to have something bigger to represent Time Spent than just the work in the Brown Center. Thanks to funds raised on Kickstarter, I rented a billboard on North Avenue in downtown Baltimore.

Hannah's Advice

1. Do something you would to do post-graduation. If you care about it that much it will never feel like a chore. There is also a chance you will keep working on it.

2. Do not go a week without designing. Showing up to the class with ideas is okay but it really will really hurt you in the end when you are rushing to finish things.

3. Be ambitious with your set-up but realistic!

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Ronin’s thesis project TimeSpent is still active. He is currently a designer at facebook in New York and has also worked at Sleep No More. Check out more of his work at roninwood.com.