Quandry

I'm a graphic designer, a lover and connoisseur of all pretty, colroful things. However, if you walk into my house, you would never know. My walls are bare, only a few decorative items up anywhere. I am a minimalist, but I don't WANT my house to appear minimal. I am always torn between what I want and how I want it to look. If I do something that's trendy, I'm afraid of it going out of style too soon. I love one paint color one day, and hate it the next. And I never act on making these things happen anyway, so I just don't even start. Oh, and money to start home projects... don't even go there! I have a TON of photos from our wedding, Liam as an infant, and other happy family moments, but they are all in a box somewhere, waiting for frames to be purchased... I need to sign up for one of those home makeover shows.

Infographics Love

Infographics!! 

What's not to love about them? 

They are easy to read, nice to look at, and you learn something from them - whether useful or not!

My Infographics Collection on Pinterest

I totally want to add this to my Graphic Design "Bucket List" of things I want to design! 

But what should my infographic be about?

Spreading myself too thin

So there's a sketch of Liam I did last week while on vacay. My first sketch of him in, like, ever... and it only took me 2 years and almost 8 months. His dad found an awesome new racing game app on the iPhone and of course Liam was all over that. It was the perfect time to do it because he was actually still for more than 2 minutes! But that is a topic for another blog...

Anyway, so in the past few weeks, no - months, I've been busy as ever with freelance projects. I'm working on one this week and it's draining the energy out of me. Little sleep from late nights of working and early morning waking so I can run when it's not blazing hot. I'm sure if I keep this up, I will burn out. My freelance is already suffering as I haven't even gotten a chance to work on ideas for another client. I feel terrible. And then when I get little sleep, my creative juices stop flowing... so it's not a very ideal situation to be in. Why do I do this to myself!? My body has not shut down yet... but I am afraid it might if I keep this up. I just want to sleep.

Bad Example #1

I'm going to try something new here and try to incorporate some graphic design-isms on this blog, since I hardly update it with any new work (I actually have a few things to post soon). I want to keep it active and maybe just post some random sign photos which I think are either pretty awesome or just pretty bad.

This first sign is a pretty bad example of graphic design:

Is it "Acts III Thrift Store" or "Tacts III Thrift Store"??
I'm sure it is the former, but the way the cross is placed makes it seem like it could be part of the name.

A few other no-no's include use of multiple fonts (general rule is that 2 contrasting fonts are great! but no more than that) and use of all caps (makes it harder to read).

This was actually not the WORST sign in that shopping center... there were some with tiny hard-to-read script fonts where you couldn't even read it even if you were up close. Others had hardly any contrast between background color and color of the words on the sign - so those were nearly impossible to read.

If you have a business with a storefront, It's important that you make sure your sign words/logo are large enough to easily read from the road, not use skinny script lettering for your logo, and use contrasting colors for legibility.

Business Card, Logo Designs and Tattoo Ideas

 

I've done a few freelance projects since the last time I posted. A couple logos and a business card for a good friend's candle business (check her out here: https://sweetmamas.scentsy.us/Scentsy/Home). She has the most awesome curly hair! :) I painted her and her husband that one year I gifted paintings to my friends and family for Christmas!

The logos were for friends/coworkers. I also did a couple other small projects that aren't really fun to look at - booklet layout, coupon design.

On my plate currently are 2 more logo designs, one menu design (for my sister-in-law's new restaurant)... and I am sure there is something else that I just can't think of right now.

I recently received a late Christmas/bday present from a friend - a new sketchbook! I've been dying to get back to sketching/drawing... or trying to anyway. I have never tried to draw Liam, which is sad, so I'd like to make that one of my first drawings in that book. And I told my friend (who gifted me the book) that he'd be one of the first sketches int he book as well... now... all I have to do is find the time to do it!

I recently ordered a book called 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People (Voices That Matter) by Susan Weinschenk, who has a Ph.D. in Psychology, and a 30-year career in applying psychology to the design of technology. I am excited to get it (should come today -- thank you Amazon Prime!) and read it, as I think it will help me with my design process and also refresh my graphic design foundations. Amazon link: here

Source: http://linhchile.tumblr.com/

Speaking of graphic design, I have been toying around with the possibility of getting another tattoo.This time a tattoo that represents me, as a graphic designer. I want it to be something small, yet meaningful and something specific to my area of expertise. I came up with the idea of getting something along the lines of "CMYK", which is the acronym for the 4 standard colors of offest printing - Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black (K = key color). As much as print design is becoming more obsolete (so sad...) with the digital age, my roots are in print/paper design and I don't want to ever forget that. I was thinking to get it on the inside of my wrist, small enough to be hidden under a watch band (even though I hate wearing watches). Something along the lines of the image above, but my own design. I have to think about it more...

Source: http://blog.arbol.com.au/

Or another graphic designy tat idea would be a Pantone color chip. Pantone is the most popular universal color matching system for designers (graphic, interior, etc). Pantone colors are not made using the CMYK color model, but are actually their own mixed pigment. Companies use these colors to ensure color consistency throughout their logo placements. If I were to get a tattoo of this it would be something like what is shown above, but I'd have to find the Pantone color that matches my skintone and make it label it as such. (I'm sure the person in the photo changed the word "Pantone" due to copyright issues!) I think it's awesome!

Hope by my next post I will have some drawings to post! See you then!

Quickie

Been busy with a few logo and business card projects, along with the day job, and dealing with a toddler... life gets hectic. I am doing a few more things for myself (see my fitness blog for details), which I am very happy with, but in doing so, other areas of my life are lacking... mainly in the personal creative department.

I finally broke out the letterpress and it's awesome. But it's kind of cumbersome to do just one piece at a time because it's not economical for the ink usage and well, it's kind of a task to clean everything up. Other than that, I love it and want to make my own plates soon.

There are a few other things that I want to start doing again, such as sketching and drawing (very important to me) and getting back into guitar playing/learning. Ahh... so many things, so little time.

In other news I finally upgraded to a smartphone... an iPhone! I love it, BUT it is just one other thing to distract me from the things I want to do. Oh, technology!

We have a friend's wedding coming up and I didn't know what to get them for their shower gift. Both have already been married once before, so what do they need? I decided to go with a framed invitation - easy and sentimental. I bought an inexpensive frame from Wally World and basically made a new, decorative mat for the frame. I think it looks cool. If I didn't add the pattern to the mat, it would have looked pretty boring. What do you think? Not bad for an $8 gift!

Happy new year!

What a way to start off the new year... with nothing to post!

It's been a busy few weeks of the start of the year. I'm sick to boot. But I have had a couple freelance projects (logos) to work on, which I will post soon.

So, I have not even opened my letterpress. I had great big things planned for that baby. I am so disappointed in myself! Really, though, I have no room for crafting or projects that are not done on the computer. :( I need some space. My office is awesome now - which is our old guest bedroom (I have a window again!), but there is still a full size mattress and boxspring leaning against the wall and pretty much taking up a lot of the room. It needs to go (into the garage). But in order for that to happen, we need to clean out the garage. But in order for that to happen, we need to build a shed for our backyard to store some of the crap in the garage. But in order for that to happen, we need to purchase and buy the materials for the shed (probably a $900 investment - I hope no more than that). But in order for that to happen... I really could go on and on... you see how this works?

Anyway, I plan to break it out soon. I need to make thank you cards for Liam and my birthdays from LAST MONTH. They will happen by the end of the month. Mark my words!!!

I also just printed my most favorite photo of all time that I took - a gorgeous shot of the Pacific Coast Highway when we drove it back in 2008:

I printed it 20"x30" (I had a code for $20 credit for Shutterfly and only paid $9 for the print and shipping!) and want to frame it somehow. I was thinking of mounting it on a canvas (modpodge?) and painting the edges gold... but unfortunately they do not make a pre-stretched canvas that size. Now I have to think of another alternative. I don't want a matt. Not sure...maybe a thin frame if anything. Just not cheap-o looking.

Logos

This is a logo I did for a client who is in the custom cake business. I did this one a while ago, but only got a chance to upload it to my blog now.

Speaking of logos, I signed up on this site called LogoTournament.com. It's basically a site where you can win money if you design a logo the client likes. But you are up against other designers, so the client has many to choose from. Right now, I am just a Probational Designer, and I have to enter 20 contests, and from that point they get to decide whether or not you are deemed 'good enough' to keep on entering the logo contests. That's a long way to go, but I figure if I have a chance to win some money, then why not. It is also a chance to get my creative juices flowing. It's pretty neat to see what other designers have come up with for the same client. I just entered my first one tonight! My goal is to enter at LEAST one logo contest per week.

Lightroom: Before and After Shots

My Initial Review
I decided to try a photo editing software from Adobe called Photoshop Lightroom. I have heard many good things about it, so I wanted to see what it was all about. I downloaded the 30 day trial (which is a FULL version) a couple days ago. It seems easy enough to use "out of the box", but there were a few things that I got confused on regarding saving and publishing that were not as obvious to me.

After playing with it, I found it pretty fun. I *might* consider buying the full version (which is $300! eeek!). I can essentially do this stuff in Photoshop, but Lightroom has taken all the photo editing aspects and placed them in one program with a pretty bow on it! It makes editing so much easier than if I had just used Photoshop.

The only thing you can't do are detailed photo edits, such as taking out something from the background or taking a frown and turning it into a smile. The fun stuff I like to do. heehee But then again, I have not really explored deeper into the program other than the color edits. There's also the batch editing, that I have not played with yet, either. But I have a whole month to play and learn!

Also, I tried the Facebook uploader through Lightroom. I noticed that when it uploads the images to Facebook, some colors look muddy and gross and some contrasts are not as high as I set them.  Oh well, that's FB for ya.

++++

BEFORE and AFTER

The pic on the left is the original UNEDITED photo, straight from my camera.
The one on the right is the Lightroom edit.

I posted these and some more of my edited photos to a public Facebook album here:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150886443725043.752712.823390042&type=1&l=a7aa4dbfef

This one was the first and my favorite so far. I love the B&W version A LOT! (P.S. the yellow text box was obviously not in my original... it was just on the screen when I did the screenshot! oops)



The white balance was off in my original, so the photo turned out too warm. Instead of trying to correct the color temperature, I decided to try to turn it into a B&W.

I didn't do too much to this one. I added some fill light and vibrancy to the overall color. I like all the textures in this photo... 
and of course the cute little guy too!

With this one, I decreased a little of the clarity to give it a bit of a "dreamy" feel.

I tried the high-contrast look on this one...

++++

My next post will be about another program that I have been playing with called Portrait Professional. I purchased it and it's really fun to see what it does to a face!! Insta-airbrush!!!

Running on reserves

Between my cousin's wedding, going on vacation, dealing with a "terrible" toddler and stressing about our upcoming move, I've been totally drained of all creative energy. I try not to stay up late to work on projects anymore - I don't want to risk weakening my immune system due to a certain health issue I have. Maybe one late night a week. But even so, most of the time I am so tired anyway, I just want to sleep.

The last creative thing I did was make a handmade wedding card for my cousin and her new hubby... I was inspired by South Park... one of my top 10 favorite shows. :)

In other news, I am REALLY EXCITED about my birthday gift I am getting from Joel. Yeah, I told him want I wanted, so what?! haha Well, there are a bunch of things I want but the one I dropped obvious hints on is the coolest thing on the list, in my opinion... it's also one of the most expensive... haha. Anyway, it will be something that I hope will be a new hobby for me and I plan to use it to make Christmas gifts this year! YES! Another year of handmade gifts! Woohoo!!! Last year's paintings were such an undertaking... I obviously don't want to spoil what it will be, but I will be sure to post pics of them in January 2012!

Rainbow

It was a drizzly, rainy day today. I had to run some errands after work as soon as Joel got home. On the way, I noticed the rain subsiding, but the clouds were still dark. Then the sunset started peeking through the clouds, which reflected into my rear view mirrors. The sun created a really nice glow on every thing in front of me - trees, road, cars, buildings. Now I know why they say that sunrise and sunset are the "magical times" for photography. I kept my eye out for any rainbows because I knew this was the perfect time for one. After driving some more, I saw the most beautiful, brightest rainbow I have ever seen. EVER. And as I drove even more, it got brighter and bigger and even more brighter!! Truly an eyegasm, if you will. There were at least 12 cars that I saw pulled over on the side of the road taking phone pics of this awesome natural color display. I, on the other hand, did not think to play it safe and pulled out my phone and started snapping pics as I was driving... haha.

Of course these photos do it no justice at all. It was so large that I couldn't get it in my cameras view finder. I saw the entire arch... breathtaking! This is one of the times I wish I had my new camera on me! The following are my phone pics... camera phone settings were on low resolution :(

Triple rainbow?

it was so bright!

The pot of gold = Wallyworld?

conte

I'm taking it back old school...

This is an old Life Drawing 1 figure drawing I did out of black and white conte on brown wrapping paper. I got a 95 on it with the professor's remarks: "Nice work, a little too dependent on line though." What can I say, maybe that is my style.

I recently saw the move Art School Confidential - very funny and satirical, and brought me back to my own art school days. I want to get back into drawing... I can't even remember the last thing drew. I want a new sktechbook/drawing pad and some charcoal or something.

If I post more old drawings, maybe I can motivate myself to draw more now...

Projects list, as of 8/30

Project images coming soon


- Family tree project (freelance project = $) COMPLETED and got paid
- Nursery paintings x 2 or 3 (friend project) Still TO-DO... They had the baby... paint is still in the bags...
- Couples portrait painting x 2 (friend projects - similar style to Christmas paintings) Also still TO-DO
- Wedding logo (cousin project) Figured out a simpler solution
- Business card design (friend project) TO-DO
- Website update (personal project... desperate need of an update) NEED TO-DO!!!
- Investment/Travel Guide layout (freelance) COMPLETED and got paid
- Website update for past client Still TO-DO, but I updated the important stuff and just need to update photos
- Logo Design for a new client (freelance) COMPLETED, pending payment
- Macaron Order (250) for a Christening Party In-progress, having challenges, but I'm going to try to make as many as I can before Sept 4
  

Cursive vs. typing: Which should schools teach? (Article from CNN.com)

http://www.cnn.com/2011/IREPORT/08/24/cursive.writing.irpt/index.html?hpt=hp_bn8

Seriously. Everyone NEEDS to learn how to write. Sometimes I hate technology.

Adobe Muse

http://muse.adobe.com/

Create websites as easily as you create layouts for print. You can design and publish original HTML pages to the latest web standards without writing code. Now in beta, Muse makes it a snap to produce unique, professional websites. (to be released in 2012)

______

If my dream program was ever to be made, it would be this. Coding makes my eyes and brain hurt. I need pretty pictures. How did I not know Adobe was coming up with this program? And it's so appropriately named...

I just downloaded the beta version... now I need to check out tutorials. :D

Happy EARLY 30th birthday to ME!!!

Happy happy joy joy... I did it!

I bought my camera - the Nikon D7000!!!!!

But my baby is not in my arms yet. :( They were out of stock all over the place, so I have to wait (hopefully) no longer than a week for it to come in.

I got a package deal with the 55-300mm lens, an 8GB memory card (which will fill in one of TWO memory card slots of the camera!), and an extra battery. All I am missing is the camera!!

Plus the camera comes with a kit lens that I do not own: the 18-105mm.

I'll have 6 lenses - the 18-55mm (kit lens with my D50), 50mm, 35mm, 55-200mm, 55-300mm and the 18-105mm. Yeehaw!!! I would like to add a fisheye lens to my collection... maybe as my 31st birthday present to myself next year. :)

hit a wall, then woke up

It's 4:45am. I am still up. I think I'm going to attempt sleep in an hour.

A few hours ago I placed my head on my desk and closed my eyes while waiting for a file to load. I could have easily fallen asleep if it was not for the danger of spilling my water cup on my keyboard. (I was too lazy to move it)

I'm working on some spreads for a freelance project - an investment booklet/guide (see above).

Just wanted to take a blog break.

G'nite!

I'm on the internet!

My arm is a work sample!

The lovely, talented Ms. Kimbery Reed graced my arm with her beautiful art.

I want her to do my other arm... someday. :)

source: Anonymous Tattoo Studio, Savannah, GA

photo by Kim Reed (this photo also appears on her website)

to-do list, updated

- Family tree project (freelance project = $) update: completed first draft, waiting on report of typos, but otherwise call it DONE
- Nursery paintings x 2 or 3 (friend project) Still TO-DO... I think they are having the baby this week, so I need to send soon!
- Couples portrait painting x 2 (friend projects - similar style to Christmas paintings) Also still TO-DO
- Wedding logo (cousin project) TO-DO, this logo is going on a wedding photo booth strip - waiting for dimensions
- Business card design (friend project) TO-DO
- Website update (personal project... desperate need of an update) NEED TO-DO!!!
- Investment/Travel Guide layout (freelance) new project!
- Website update for past client new (but not exciting because it is a favor)!

All that, in addition to the day job! What, me sleep?

Other non-design stuff (to keep me sane):

- I have been teaching myself guitar for the past few weeks. I have an acoustic to play on, but my hands are so small and the strings are so hard to press. Joel is bringing up his electric (easier to play) when he goes down to GA next month. I know A, C, D, E and G and have been playing some songs which only use those chords (ex. Green Day's "When I Come Around"). I am getting the hang of pressing the strings (I've got callused fingertips), but I still need to work on my transitions. It's pretty fun!

My first Macarons

- I've become mildly obsessed with making macarons. They require only 4 ingredients and are relatively easy to make... it's all about timing, though (of how long you let the egg whites sit, how long you beat the egg white, how long you bake, what time of day to make them, etc). I think I might have come upon the ideal times with my last run. My first batch was not a complete disaster, but could have been better. Looking forward to experiments with fillings soon!

a coffee morning

Last night, I stayed up until 4am working on the family tree layout project on my to-do list.

Take a look at that... I am working off a rough PDF (upper right background), pretty much just making it look a little better – refining it in InDesign. The client will eventually want to print this into a huge poster.

It may look boring, but I'm actually having fun with this. First of all, I think it's SO interesting that the client has his family history of NINETEEN GENERATIONS. I don't even know the names of my great-grandparents! The first person in his tree was born in 1485! Wow...

Secondly, as much as I bitch about being in front of a computer all day, sometimes simplified layout work is refreshing. I probably could have gotten all of this done in one sitting, but I made myself go to sleep. Plus, I love working at night when there aren't any distractions of the day to bother me. It's so easy to play some music and just get into the zone (my divine frenzy!).

I'm looking forward to completing this tonight (if I don't fall asleep). I made myself a strong cup of coffee this morning to stay awake. I am not a regular coffee drinker, I just drink it when I need to stay up at night or following a late night.