Week 19 . Meditate Project

See it larger here.

And ohmygod, have you seen these statistic tshirts? Totally freakin cool design, typography and innovative information design AND trying to help create solutions to some of the world’s problems. 20% of the sales of these shirts will go towards building an orphanage in Mozambique.

Two design related posts in a row! Wow!

So this is where I talk about the catalog project that rendered my weekend clinically dead, but after which I felt such a sense of relief, it was audible, and I thought I might blow people over with my dramatic exhales.

This was a group project. Blink. Blink. Up until now, almost every thing I have worked on, except for the calendar on which I asked my friend to collaborate with me, has been on my own. Solo. Me. I have developed a style and workflow, I’ve learned to tread within my own timeline and I’ve learned rules and then thrown those rules out the window. This was a complete departure from how I’ve been comfortably living my life for the past few years. In the last three weeks, my life has been a little bit turned on its head. But it’s been good.

First, everyone decided on a company, concepted a catalog, and created a rough comp by hand to present, laying out where type would go, what images would go where, and the basic design style of the piece. We were then assigned to various teams, and within those teams, we presented our roughs and then had to decide whose to continue with. The person whose catalog was decided on would act as the art director of the team. Of course, everyone wanted to be the art director, so it wasn’t much of an easy decision, but finally, we decided to go ahead with mine. I will say that my rough was the tightest of my team, so I was hoping it would be easy to work from. After that, we decided who of the other two people in my group would act as the graphic designer and the production artist. And then we got to work.

I concepted the logo, which went through a couple of different phases before it landed here. I originally wanted to use a hand altered version of Aristocrat, which was the original inspiration for using that font within the catalog, but it just wasn’t working. I was using solid letters combined with open letters that were losing readability at small sizes, and I had used some flouncy ribbon devices that were starting to make it look like the Coca Cola lettering. So finally, I ditched it and replaced the typography with the blocky sans serif here.

There was a teensy bit of a communication issue within my team at the beginning of this process, which made things a bit harder. I left work early one day to meet with the graphic designer to take a look at his progress, but he didn’t show. Which made me a little angry. And then for a couple of days I wasn’t sure if he was going to have anything done, or if he was alive, or what. He finally emailed me, and when we all got together in class things were on a reasonable track, and pretty much stayed there. For the most part, we all worked pretty well together.

It was definitely a little hard for me to let go of some of the control that I am used to having over every little piece of a project, and let someone else do a bunch of the work. He did alot of the design work, based on my original rough comp, and he came up with some graphic solutions that I probably would not have pursued on my own, which is pretty cool. I worked out the main header typography, the order form, and I put finishing touches on the whole piece with a few color choices and graphic shapes as well. In the future, I will probably adjust a few things, to make it work a little better, but overall, I think it’s a really good piece, and I’m proud of my team for all of the work they put in on it.

The final project for one of my classes was to concept and create a hang tag for Express jeans from a creative brief given to us today, and have it finished in two hours. It is meant to be fun, energetic, and hip, and also include a diecut, 2 colors, and at least one image that my instructor supplied. This is for men’s jeans, attached to the back pocket, with a half circle diecut in the middle that flips up when it is folded over, and shows the light green on the back of the tag. I mocked it up here on a “pocket” to show you how it would be used.

The purpose of this exercise was to give us some practice for when employers ask for projects with super tight deadlines, or for situations where a potential employer might test on a project within a very short timeframe. It was stressful, as not only did we need to concept and build this in a couple of hours, but we also had to print separations and hand in writeups for print production, and of course practically the whole group was having MAJOR issues with the printer. But, such is life.

And now, off to bed.

My polaroid arrived yesterday, exclamation point! And film came today, and of course I promptly went outside and made sure it worked. It does. And it has a “macro” setting, which is hilarious. I can’t wait to see how that works.

The Husband was “apprehensive” when I told him I was thinking of purchasing this clunky piece of plastic old school camera. And when I say “apprehensive” I mean he thought I was totally insane. But as we stood in the backyard and watched the image develop, he admitted that the pola is kinda cool, and he gave me an assignment to take the same frames with the digital camera as I take with the polaroid and see if I can process them to look as close to the original polaroid as possible. A good idea. I like it. I’ve not done it yet with this one though. Apparently he already has a second assignment for me. Ooh, the mystery.

I’m a little nervous about taking polaroids, I didn’t spend much on the camera, but the film’s expensive and I feel like I need somehow to make them count. I don’t have the safety net of digital to fall back on, where I can delete anything that doesn’t work out, and just snapsnapsnap as many as I want to in hopes that one is good. But on the other hand, that part excites me too. That sense of adventure, of unknowing, of discovering, and learning. You never know what you’re gonna get. That’s cool.

So I hope to spread the polaroid love around for awhile. For a long while.

Yesterday the landscapers we hired came and leveled half of our yard, and moved that shed from the middle of the yard to its current, more logical resting place in the corner. Where it used to stand, we’ll put in a couple of raised bed vegetable gardens, hooray!, and we’ve got 3000 pounds (!) of flagstone on the way for a patio. The wild tangle of weeds and things that was our backyard is now a clean slate for us to paint on. Unfortunately, a crabapple tree and this red bush had to leave us. But I couldn’t give up the lilac, which is also in the middle of the yard. I love lilacs. I can’t wait for those blooms to burst. Soon, I think.

Do you see it?

I’ve been trying all day to decide what to say here today. If I should tell you about the relaxing evening I spent on Friday, on my own while The Husband was off fishin’, watching Juno again and snuggling with a bottle of wine. Or maybe about the catalog that dominated my weekend, the one that I worked on for hours and hours, prepress, and printing, and making a kickass comp. Nah, I’m not quite ready to tell you about that. That’s a whole saga that deserves more than the time I have available to devote to it this night at 9:47 pm.

So I guess I’ll tell you about the rather large fowl I encountered in my rather urban landscape on Saturday morning.

I got up at the break of dawn to go to the Farmer’s Market, the third of the season!, and as I was opening my car door, blurry from sleep and in need of coffee, much to my surprise I see a big bird standing in the far corner of my backyard.

Now, I live in the middle of downtown Madison, just for the record. Although the arboretum is about 6 blocks south. But still. This bird was a little far from home, if you ask me.

I ran to get the camera, and she hunkered down in the lilies and I was all freaked out because she was backed into a corner and damned if I know how turkeys react to being cornered and approached with Nikon wielding humans in the middle of the city and so I didn’t get too close and all she did was poke her head up from her cozy little lily bed to look at me.

I had things to do, coffee to drink, tulips to buy, and a part of my design team to meet to hand off catalog files, so I reluctantly headed off, but when I came home 2 hours later, there she was, nestled snugly behind  my neighbor’s hostas.

We chilled for awhile, she and I. It doesn’t look like she nested any eggs in my lilies, but I sure do wonder if she was looking for a suitable place. It’s that time of year, after all. And I do hope she wandered back to wherever she came from.

Week 18 . Meditate Project

See it larger here.

I’m longing for a Polaroid camera today. I know they are discontinuing the film, but suddenly I am really wishing for the chance to use it, before we lose it. So I went ahead and purchased one on ebay. Hopefully it works. Now, on to getting me some film. I’m looking forward to playing. Should be interesting.

I’m also just smitten with those pebble shapes up there overlaying this weeks flower, which also gives me a little blue for Color Week, and I am moved to want to start cutting them out of all sorts of materials and pasting them on big sheets of paper. I think that may be one of my goals for the weekend.

Pink, for Color Week

After a satisfying evening talking about design and life over beers and burritos with a good friend, I’m feeling rather full right now. And optimistic. Which is a slight deviation from the norm for me. Still pretty quiet, though, and recuperating from the whirlwind that was mondaytuesdaywednesday this week.

Here’s some pink for Color Week. I’m really digging color week. I’ve been too busy to take many photos this week, but I’ve been digging in the two week old reservoir and it’s nice. I may have forgotten about those otherwise.

And I’ve still got tunes on the brain. My head seems to be in a musical frame of mind lately. Goonight Sweetheart.

Orange, for Color Week

What to say? Nothing’s coming to me. Swirls and flowers and vectors and bikes and paintbrushes and grass, some mown, some that soft unevenness that you only get before the first mow. After that it’s all sharp edges and squares and grassy smells, isn’t it? I’m still on green, I guess.

When I started this semester, I thought Monday was the hardest, longest day. Now, Monday is the easiest, because I get the most sleep before it happens, in its Mondayglory. The next days I get less and less, stretched thin with projects and responsibilities. Anxiety, some. Until the weekend comes and I can recharge a bit again. I’m really looking forward to a couple of weeks in my future, when school’s out for summer, and I can try to regain some semblance of speed again. First gear rather than fifth. Maybe. Maybe that will happen.

“Maybe” seems to be the word lately. Maybe this, maybe that. Maybe Baby.

In the meantime. Orange. We all know I like orange.

Yellow, for Color Week

Sighworking.

Trying to finish the catalog and the secretdesignproject.

Watching The Husband brew from a room away, through the doorway.

Or the breakfast bar, I haven’t decided.

Stacking words here.

Maybe having popcorn for dinner?

Nope. Cheese and crackers.

Don’t want to devote much time to cooking or eating.

Beer, though, definitely.

Homebrew.

Not much to show for this weekend, I didn’t really take any pictures, just lived it. So here is a green photo from a week ago for Leya’s week of color.

The farmer’s market was COLD, but I did find the green garlic and spinach I wanted to procure to try Molly’s Spinach and Green Garlic Soup. It was different from whatever I thought I was expecting it to be, but it was easy, and lovely, and sadly undocumented visually. It didn’t look nearly as pretty in our red bowls as it did in the pot, but it tasted GREEN. Which makes sense really. So, if you can find green garlic, I highly suggest you try making this soup. It’s like, soup for the end of soup season. Springy, not too heavy, but still warm and soupy.

We walked around the ‘hood with a couple of friends yesterday, and strolled through a couple of open houses with them. Not for us, certainly. We’re happy in our home and I couldn’t imagine moving. They are thinking of buying though. It would be so fun if they lived a few blocks away. This also gave us the opportunity to meet one of our neighbors, who will still be in the neighborhood after they move - down the block. Like, 3 houses down, they’re moving. Which I think is funny.

On the heels of Juno the other night, we also watched Once this weekend. And ohmygod, people. This movie is so moving. I loved it. I’m buying the soundtrack posthaste. The music is stunning.

What I didn’t do this weekend:
Sit on my porch, it was too cold
Put art in frames
Sew
Bake a new loaf of bread
Take pictures
Work on the catalog project that’s going on

Other than that, I’ve been quietly working on a little bit of something. A possibly very exciting opportunity has come up - maybe - but it’s certainly not set in stone, so I am trying not to be too excited about it. Just doing my best to stay calm and do good work and see what happens.

Onward.