Make It Work!

Next week is our Schedule of Classes drama. This is our most important project, not because it's interesting but because it's our largest print run, everyone sees it, and it absolutely has to be on time.

Hollywood Stan says we shouldn't laugh at our clients, but as you can see we're laughing alot, both at them and ourselves. Clearly this isn't the cover that will go to press next week, but wouldn't it be funny IF?

First in a series to cover my office walls.

Orange Line: Farragut West (Corcoran College of Art + Design)

posting this photo early in the hopes I can get over the hair and not be all distracted tonight when I listen to Stanley Hainsworth speak at the Corcoran.

... A friend of mine recently asked me if I prefer IFC film or Hollywood movies. My response, which unfortunately bordered on the dissertation length, said the following:

"Hollywood movies are just too formulaic, and exist just to feed the big hollywood machine ... they have to have the big set, the big costumes, the extra-special effects so everyone gets paid ... the music rises just at the right moment so everyone feels what they are supposed to feel and then they push us all out into the street and no one really thinks about what they were just told."

Insert the word SOLD for told and you have my summary of tonight's lecture. Stanley Hainsworth is the equivalent of Hollywood in the design world. Will it affect my emotional connection with Starbucks? Not one bit. What do I take back to the office tomorrow? I need to figure out this step in the process called a brief.

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Corcoran College of Art + Design

500 Seventeenth Street, NW

Washington, DC 20006

Within walking distance of the orange line's Farragut West stop.

Gladiator Sandals

Saving the planet, one spring sale after another. Posted in honor of allure and some of the other girls out there who manage to blog daily on one single subject.

Me

I have an orange armoire, a purple chair, and I used to have a white couch. It was a shabby chic style with a slipcover, in theory a good idea until you try and stretch that thing back into place after washing it.

When I moved to Adams Morgan, it became a nuisance. There's so much city dust and activity going on and it's necessary to sweep and mop and dust every single day. Even then you can't stay on top of it.

My two cats had started to use the couch as a scratching post and I didn't have the power to stop them. One day, I'd had enough. There was a "give away" spot in the basement and I resolved to leave it there for whomever wanted it. I tipped the couch up and pushed it out my apartment door. It was heavy. There was a metal frame inside. I pushed it down the hall and got as far as the elevator when I realized I didn't have the physical capacity to get it inside. And I didn't want to push it back into my apartment. I stood there. What to do? Who to call? The elevator suddenly opened and a young guy stepped out. Hey, do you want a couch? I joked.

Yes, actually. We pushed the couch two doors down. The burden was gone. Sometimes things just fall into place.

I woke up in the middle of the night and finally cried for all of us.

The Skyline Roof Top

Out of focus, but then so were we. Starting left: Cathy, Kim, Leslie, and Mickey.

Circa 1976 - just for Eric O.

Starting left: Katherine, Leslie, Polly, and Andi

Fashion Barbie

In celebration of Barbie's 50th birthday, here's a link to the fall 2009 fashion show held in her honor last month. The famous black and white bathing suit from 1959 leads the way.

Leslie in Adams Morgan

Side two of my new business cards.

In-House Design in Practice (2008)

This is the first book I will read this year in my attempt to better my professional status and future. I recommend In-House Design In Practice for anyone who works within a design department for a number of reasons. For me, it validates some of the practices I've learned throughout the years such as "have a point person for every project" and get a standards guide in place to support our decisions even if they're unofficial. If it's written down people believe it, just like if you write well, people buy it. It's a form of marketing and makes my life easier.

Cathy Fishel (the author) further validates my frustration in having a boss who can't see beyond using green and yellow and acknowledges the anxiety I feel when a project is finally nearing completion and that e-mail arrives with the subject line called "changes." She offers up advice I can learn to live by like maybe the pressure I feel isn't about me but about my clients and I shouldn't take it personally when I'm pressed and people don't get the amount of time it takes to deliver a good product. And finally, it allows me to be a little snarky. Whoever did the layout on this book got a little lazy at the end:

Page 166: extra space before "Fikile."

Page 173: missing text. "One designer working for a very large corporation tells the story of how ..."

And six pages later after a long case study ...

Page 180: "... his company ..."

This is a good book for me to use in my guard against burnout. It supports decisions I've made and gives me confirmation that my approach, understanding, and assessments are and continue to be correct even when I can't implement all of them at once or don't have the support I need to get them going. It gives me something to work toward.

Click on the link to find out more about this book.