in 2015 I started my MFA in illustration
practice at mica Maryland Institute
College of Art in Bogor I was a
Fulbright student most of my um both of
the first semester my work was awful by
the end of the first semester we have
this assignment where we had to create
20-25 copies of an art piece and try to
sell them at Micah’s annual art market
typically the more art you sold the more
successful you were before I even had
the chance to think about what I want to
make my professor sat down with me and
told me you know what Adan I know you’ve
been working in advertising for 15 years
I know you can sell stuff I want you to
make something that does not sell the
reason behind this was that she wanted
me to try and work with new techniques
and new tools so that I get out of my
comfort zone I accepted the challenge of
course and here’s two things that you
need to know about me
one my entire career my art was digital
it was on screen and then second I’m an
Albanian man from Kosovo my peers used
to refer to me as the most straight guy
they’ve ever seen so I decided to design
and make a carousel toy with pink and
baby blue horses my peers found it
hilarious so did my professor we all
knew that I wasn’t going to make it but
the point of this assignment for me it
was not to sell art but more to just
experiment first weekend and I was so
obsessed designing this carousel and it
wasn’t just a regular carousel it was a
revolving carousel with the crank we had
a full month to design to create 25
pieces that we were going to sell at the
art market and I took a month and a half
within this month because I wasn’t
sleeping every other night my beard grew
out of control and when I don’t sleep my
face organs getting independent they
start walking separate ways I was
mistaken for a homeless person five
times doing that
Micah’s three days art market came and I
missed the deadline I was only able to
deliver these carousel toys on the third
day and they basically sold out in one
day I guess you can say that I failed
the assignment after this experience I
got so much into designing and creating
mechanical devices and toys also known
as automaton that everyone around knew
about it one of my friends approached me
and asked me if I had seen the movie
Hugo now if you haven’t seen the movie
Hugo you totally have to it’s a great
movie at won four Oscars and it features
this humanoid toy proto robot that
doesn’t work on electricity it’s all
mechanical I was amazed by it and when I
learned that it wasn’t just sigh I mean
this character was science fiction but
it was based on a true device these
devices used to exist in 17 and 1800’s
my carousel only had two gears that
interacted and this device had probably
over a thousand then the time came that
we had to present ten ideas that would
potentially become our thesis projects I
presented nine ideas and I didn’t have a
tenth idea I just brought in a poster of
the movie Hugo because I just wanted to
talk with my professor about it she
absolutely ignored my nine ideas and
told me you know what I think you should
build a writing automaton and it was the
same professor who told me to make
something that doesn’t sell at the art
market I had a feeling that she just
wanted to kick me out of the program so
I said challenge accepted
[Applause]
so because I was studying illustration
my automaton needed to have a background
story so being an O’Banion I thought I’m
gonna make this automaton an Albanian
automaton so it’s gonna write something
in Albanian and to make it more
authentic I was going to go back to the
Albanian literature 1800s and the first
thing that came to my mind was the first
ever alphabet book by nombre v avatar in
1844 so I thought here’s how the process
of me making this thesis project is
going to go I’m gonna go online search
for Everton pick a line from it and then
spend my entire year working designing
and making this machine that’s gonna
write that line here’s how it went I
went online and searched for avatar and
all that was popping up was were some
small scans low quality of these
strange-looking letters that I had never
seen before and this information that
now designed a unique alphabet to write
the first alphabet book ever in Albanian
kept recurring and I can’t getting more
intrigue so I reached out to some
linguists and said what’s the deal will
this unique alphabet and they said well
it’s actually true he did he did design
a unique alphabet that Albanian was
going to be written with but those
letters are long lost and don’t bother
if you just need a line from the book
there’s there’s a transcribed version of
it I was so disappointed that day a part
of my artistic soul died so I reached
out to the Museum of Education in quarto
Albania and I told him about my thesis
project and how I was interested in
Avatar and the director of the museum
replied to me and said I have a private
copy of Avatar do you want me to send
you a scan and I have a very good sense
of sarcasm so I thought you know what
I’ll give it a try and I said sure he
sent me a PDF I open it in burst into
it was this moment when I knew that my
thesis project has changed not that I
was going to ditch my automaton of
course I was going to work in some hyper
complex mechanism in one year but I was
also going to add this very challenging
typography project on top of it my idea
was to digitize the original letters of
now and also design 16 fonts that would
comply with today’s technology and that
people would be able to use them today
and also design and make an automaton
that will bright in this alphabet
I was working day and night I was so
tired that sleep and regular meals
became an abstract concept for me I went
from being Christian Bale Batman to
Christian Bale The Machinist by the time
that my thesis show came I wasn’t of
course I’ve met the deadline I wasn’t
prepared for it but I did have half of
the automaton and Anna wall with very
simplified version of noms letters while
keeping their identity one of the guests
that came to my show was the ambassador
cosa was ambassador to the US she posted
about it and her post was viewed by over
a hundred thousand people and that’s
when the news took off in the meantime
because I was so obsessed designing and
making automaton I was offered the job
to teach kinetic illustration and
prototyping at mica so in a faculty
picnic I approached the president of a
school and told him about my alphabet
project and he thought that more people
should hear about it in just a couple of
months the revival of the Albanian
alphabet of Avatar was featured by some
of the most famous design magazines in
thank you and Fulbright was posting
about it too and Kosovo and Albania it
became a very popular story in 2017 an
Irish alphabets expert reached out and
said I saw this article about your work
on a honest UK magazine and and and and
realise that you made a few mistakes but
luckily by that time no tattoos had any
mistakes on them and it’s and it’s
really incredible how everything played
out if you take one link from this
entire story if you take one link out or
one event out or one person out you’ll
realize that there’s a risk that the
alphabet of avatar which is a great
cultural gem that we have would still be
hibernating in silence and my life has
changed because 200 years ago this great
scholar and patron had this idea worth
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause] [Music]
practice at mica Maryland Institute
College of Art in Bogor I was a
Fulbright student most of my um both of
the first semester my work was awful by
the end of the first semester we have
this assignment where we had to create
20-25 copies of an art piece and try to
sell them at Micah’s annual art market
typically the more art you sold the more
successful you were before I even had
the chance to think about what I want to
make my professor sat down with me and
told me you know what Adan I know you’ve
been working in advertising for 15 years
I know you can sell stuff I want you to
make something that does not sell the
reason behind this was that she wanted
me to try and work with new techniques
and new tools so that I get out of my
comfort zone I accepted the challenge of
course and here’s two things that you
need to know about me
one my entire career my art was digital
it was on screen and then second I’m an
Albanian man from Kosovo my peers used
to refer to me as the most straight guy
they’ve ever seen so I decided to design
and make a carousel toy with pink and
baby blue horses my peers found it
hilarious so did my professor we all
knew that I wasn’t going to make it but
the point of this assignment for me it
was not to sell art but more to just
experiment first weekend and I was so
obsessed designing this carousel and it
wasn’t just a regular carousel it was a
revolving carousel with the crank we had
a full month to design to create 25
pieces that we were going to sell at the
art market and I took a month and a half
within this month because I wasn’t
sleeping every other night my beard grew
out of control and when I don’t sleep my
face organs getting independent they
start walking separate ways I was
mistaken for a homeless person five
times doing that
Micah’s three days art market came and I
missed the deadline I was only able to
deliver these carousel toys on the third
day and they basically sold out in one
day I guess you can say that I failed
the assignment after this experience I
got so much into designing and creating
mechanical devices and toys also known
as automaton that everyone around knew
about it one of my friends approached me
and asked me if I had seen the movie
Hugo now if you haven’t seen the movie
Hugo you totally have to it’s a great
movie at won four Oscars and it features
this humanoid toy proto robot that
doesn’t work on electricity it’s all
mechanical I was amazed by it and when I
learned that it wasn’t just sigh I mean
this character was science fiction but
it was based on a true device these
devices used to exist in 17 and 1800’s
my carousel only had two gears that
interacted and this device had probably
over a thousand then the time came that
we had to present ten ideas that would
potentially become our thesis projects I
presented nine ideas and I didn’t have a
tenth idea I just brought in a poster of
the movie Hugo because I just wanted to
talk with my professor about it she
absolutely ignored my nine ideas and
told me you know what I think you should
build a writing automaton and it was the
same professor who told me to make
something that doesn’t sell at the art
market I had a feeling that she just
wanted to kick me out of the program so
I said challenge accepted
[Applause]
so because I was studying illustration
my automaton needed to have a background
story so being an O’Banion I thought I’m
gonna make this automaton an Albanian
automaton so it’s gonna write something
in Albanian and to make it more
authentic I was going to go back to the
Albanian literature 1800s and the first
thing that came to my mind was the first
ever alphabet book by nombre v avatar in
1844 so I thought here’s how the process
of me making this thesis project is
going to go I’m gonna go online search
for Everton pick a line from it and then
spend my entire year working designing
and making this machine that’s gonna
write that line here’s how it went I
went online and searched for avatar and
all that was popping up was were some
small scans low quality of these
strange-looking letters that I had never
seen before and this information that
now designed a unique alphabet to write
the first alphabet book ever in Albanian
kept recurring and I can’t getting more
intrigue so I reached out to some
linguists and said what’s the deal will
this unique alphabet and they said well
it’s actually true he did he did design
a unique alphabet that Albanian was
going to be written with but those
letters are long lost and don’t bother
if you just need a line from the book
there’s there’s a transcribed version of
it I was so disappointed that day a part
of my artistic soul died so I reached
out to the Museum of Education in quarto
Albania and I told him about my thesis
project and how I was interested in
Avatar and the director of the museum
replied to me and said I have a private
copy of Avatar do you want me to send
you a scan and I have a very good sense
of sarcasm so I thought you know what
I’ll give it a try and I said sure he
sent me a PDF I open it in burst into
it was this moment when I knew that my
thesis project has changed not that I
was going to ditch my automaton of
course I was going to work in some hyper
complex mechanism in one year but I was
also going to add this very challenging
typography project on top of it my idea
was to digitize the original letters of
now and also design 16 fonts that would
comply with today’s technology and that
people would be able to use them today
and also design and make an automaton
that will bright in this alphabet
I was working day and night I was so
tired that sleep and regular meals
became an abstract concept for me I went
from being Christian Bale Batman to
Christian Bale The Machinist by the time
that my thesis show came I wasn’t of
course I’ve met the deadline I wasn’t
prepared for it but I did have half of
the automaton and Anna wall with very
simplified version of noms letters while
keeping their identity one of the guests
that came to my show was the ambassador
cosa was ambassador to the US she posted
about it and her post was viewed by over
a hundred thousand people and that’s
when the news took off in the meantime
because I was so obsessed designing and
making automaton I was offered the job
to teach kinetic illustration and
prototyping at mica so in a faculty
picnic I approached the president of a
school and told him about my alphabet
project and he thought that more people
should hear about it in just a couple of
months the revival of the Albanian
alphabet of Avatar was featured by some
of the most famous design magazines in
thank you and Fulbright was posting
about it too and Kosovo and Albania it
became a very popular story in 2017 an
Irish alphabets expert reached out and
said I saw this article about your work
on a honest UK magazine and and and and
realise that you made a few mistakes but
luckily by that time no tattoos had any
mistakes on them and it’s and it’s
really incredible how everything played
out if you take one link from this
entire story if you take one link out or
one event out or one person out you’ll
realize that there’s a risk that the
alphabet of avatar which is a great
cultural gem that we have would still be
hibernating in silence and my life has
changed because 200 years ago this great
scholar and patron had this idea worth
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause] [Music]
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