life or something like it
thought i would take a sec to give a brief life update… and some random thoughts on the world [rather my world] of graphics
- i moved
- i am in the middle of about 5 huge projects, 21 not so big projects, and about 6 more huge projects on the horizon
- starting to thinking about what in world i am going to say in my breakout session at ministrycom
- oh and i forgot to mention…. I GOT ENGAGED! hooray! and i made a decision and we set a date! (but i haven’t told the whole fam or people at work yet…. so i will post more on that later)
- the soon to be husband is the youth director at our summerville campus so i have been helping plan their summer camp too
so i have been a little bit busy…
but have no fear, i have had time to think about graphics stuff too
- swirls are on the way out (this is old news)
- simplicity is in (new news…unless you work in my office)
- learn new systems while trying to get a million projects done is difficult but i think as soon as i figure out the in’s and out’s of our new project management system it will be the most amazing thing ever
- we are going some new directions as far as reaching new audiences with our marketing… so that should create some fun design challenges in the next few months
- i like children’s ministry because it has caused me to have a new love for illustrator
- i am starting to like fonts
- designing t-shirts is an art form
- as are logos…
- and there are great things on the horizon for the web… and i am way excited
- i love my mac
- and CS3 is pretty awesome too
- oh yes… and annual reports (need i say more)
okay i am going to take some of these design thoughts in blog in detail about some of them over the next week or so
so i promised some pictures
i know you have all been dying to see how beautiful australia is…
the opera house
manley beach
china town
view of city from darling harbor bridge and the cute one
the sydney bridge and oh…the cute one
view from the sky tower and of course the cute one
now on to the serious pictures….
the cute one + the brilliant one =
double trouble
okay so maybe we like to make faces
but seriously don’t tell anyone
and so after a fun filled day
i died
hillsong
yesterday i got to experience hillsong church… not only that my sister is friends with the graphic designer here so i got to meet him as well. it was pretty cool. awesome worship, good messages… (i actually went to church twice and there was two different speakers) joel houston has a striking resemblance to joel hamilton. my eyes were peeled doing research (i need to stop back by before i leave). the most interesting part was how they did there screens. this gave me thoughts on our evil center screen. will share when i get back. however it is probably one of those “brilliant ideas” i talk about in the “about me.”
also i have been brainstorming what the next big trend is going to be. i am currently stuck between two different ideas hopefully i will have this resolved in my head before i get home. i have also been thinking about what i want to talk about in the breakout session i am doing at ministrycom. more to follow on this.
san francisco
i am currently sitting in the san francisco airport trying to stay awake because my body thinks it is 12:30am and it is only 9:30pm and i still have another hour until i leave for sydney. i have made a few observations so far…
1. the san francisco airport needs to hire me to redo all of their signage. talk about not clear. seriously it is an airport, the signage should clearly let a passenger how to get from one terminal to another.
2. i can read a 400 page book in the time it takes to fly from charlotte to san francisco
3. being “the little one” majorly has benifits when flying
4. finally chris richardson got kicked off american idol and sadly i realize i am going to miss the american idol office discussion tomorrow
5. not responding to email is awesome
6. i have a new found appreciation for my bed (which i already thought was the most awesome bed in the world)
the great adventure
so i decided to go in search of the next trend in the graphics world. so no matter how far i need to go, i will search high and wide until i find it. well really i am going on vacation… to australia. HOORAY! i leave in a few hours and haven’t finished packing. my sister keeps emailing asking me to bring her more stuff. apparently in aussie they don’t have marshmellows… weird. and the problem is the getting them them… they don’t want you to bring food into the country.
so this is my first “real” vacation. actually the first time, I have had more than one day off of work at a time since i started [not counting days that everyone else had off too]. it took me an hour to update everyone else on the status of all of our projects. however, we set up a new project tracking system last week that should help with that in the future. hopefully then i can actually remember things unrelated to work. back to the point, i am way excited. a little nervous… but if “the cute one” aka. the little sis and make the trip back and forth… then i aka. “the brilliant one” (as we have so named ourselves in our house) will most definitely be fine. she is much more adventerous than i. really i just wish i had some company for the trip since it takes 24 hours to get there.
i will try to remember to post pictures.. and since i have lots of time traveling with myself, I am sure much brainstorming will be involved so I will post on the details of that.
expectations
Our entire staff was asked to read “The Starbucks Experience” a few months ago. I finally finished it last night. Great book, I highly recommend it… even though it took me a while to read. I am really more a fan of mystery books. So today in our monthly all staff meeting we were asked to define who our primary and secondary customers were based on the department we work in and explain how we saw their expectations.
My primary customer: our church staff
Their expectations: for their projects to be professional, FREE, cutting edge, and done yesterday (they all seemed to agree)
My response: is supposed to be yes
My “customers” have unrealistic expectations everyday and it is my job to meet them to the best of my ability. Sometimes I handle this well, sometimes not so much. More times then not I put unrealistic expectations on myself to get all of this done. This week I have come to realize that I will probably never clear our project board because for every one project I erase 4 more come in. Sad realization I must tell you.
swirls and circles
the week before easter, this mailer came to our house. i noticed it sitting on the counter on my way out the door and it caught my eye because it looked terribly familiar. it was a church in our area promoting their Easter service. it had the same circles and vector people on it that I had just recently used. it was right then that i realized that it was time to take it to the next level.
the trends in the graphics world seem to change about every 2-4 months from what i have noticed. and i am not the most observant of people. right now it seems that the trend is ornate floralish vector art and vector circles. vector art is big… and while it has helped me start to love illustrator. i think it is time to figure out what’s next. i think i am pretty good at staying at the beginning end of the curve. so when i figure out what the next trend is… i might be so inclined to let you know.
current projects i am brainstorming: annual report and welcome packet
