the pure interest

For those designers out there who’ve worked on logos with their clients, I might venture to say that it’s one of the most rewarding types of design projects available. Sometimes you are lucky, and you get a client who loves one of your first few ideas. But more than likely, and especially for me and the way my mind/creative brain works to come to the best solution, it takes at least three rounds. I’m working on one with my agency right now for a client, and sometimes as my hand is sketching, my mind is listing synonyms and visual words, and my fingers are clicking and piecing together unique shapes, something truly cool comes out.

This will never work for the current client, and I’m not even sure what it reminds me of… but either way, I hope I can use it or something similar one day for the perfect client. I love when cool things just sort of happen. Or maybe it’s no good at all. It’s interesting, that I’m sure of.

I am currently reading this book. It’s taking me a while to get through it, because… well it’s no Harry Potter, but it has some valuable information. I began reading it because I felt that after over three years in the advertising world, being forced to create ads with big ugly headlines, too much copy and a limited type selection, I had forgotten the essentials and beauty that is in a typeface. I wanted to get back to the basics, back to the reason why I love type. This book is definitely helping me appreciate and be more careful in my selections and layout.

The book definitely brings me back to my college years… learning about the x-height, baseline, cap height and the way that letterforms were carefully spaced when cast in lead years ago. It makes me realize just how much I still DON’T know about it. I really feel, as I’m sure most designers do, that this society takes typography completely for granted. We are so used to seeing words on a screen, in mass, scrolling through pages and pages in Arial, Courier, Geneva, Trebuchet, Comic Sans (blech) and Times New Roman that no one realizes the progress taken to get to this point and just how much exquisite typography is available today. I wish I could afford more of it!

I hope to find some fresh knowledge from this book, and would recommend it to any designer or student studying typography.

For the last few months, I’ve been noticing an annoying black mark or speck in the upper portion of my photographs. It’s always in the same spot… and tends to either fall in the sky if I am outside, or, as luck would have it - right on someone’s head or nose. It can be easily Photo-Shopped out, but it’s still quite annoying. For a while I thought it was on all of my pictures, but upon further investigation last night, it seemed to only be on the OUTdoor pictures - and not even all of those? Is it only when I have the camera on automatic? I’m not sure.

A professional photographer I am friends with told me that I have a piece of lint or dust on the sensor, and to get it off, I can use a simple vacuum cleaner! I tried it last night, and it seems to have worked, but I have yet to see when I take the camera outside. The technique was this.

Take off your lens, and set your shutter speed to a slow speed of about 4 seconds. Insert the hose attachment lightly into the hole (being careful not to touch any of the sensitive parts inside). Turn on your vacuum and suck before you depress the shutter button, then depress while continuing to hold the attachment at the hole. Once it is finished, it should have removed all the debris. Pretty easy peasy!

It is Friday. For this, I am joyful. I have website design and updates to do this weekend, but it should be good. I’m excited for the opportunity.

Here is my favorite picture taken in my office for my self-portrait session.

EDIT: Since it seems more people have been viewing this post, I wanted to update it a bit. I was told by a few that this method could be slightly dangerous, and I don’t deny that. It worked for me, and I was very careful. I didn’t ever touch the vacuum directly onto the sensor … and the whole process only took about 15 seconds. I did a bit of research and found some similar methods and warnings listed on a photographers site. Check it out if you want to know more.

Also, here is an example of what the dust spot was doing to my pictures. You can see it in the sky just to the left of the couple’s heads. Also, through looking through hundreds of my photos, I noticed it would only seem to put the mark on pictures taken out-doors! So either way, this method did work for me, but I am recommending it with the above warnings!

I was asked by one of my best friends yesterday to quickly create a little tag for shower invitations that would inform the attender that since the bride & groom were to be moving to Australia immediately following the wedding, financial gifts would be easier then large gifts. She needed it by the end of the day… so in a quick pinch, i got to do something cute, feminine, and pink. I made 2 versions.

This site was linked off of freelance switch, and it is great. I’m really excited to keep seeing newly updated and great design ideas. Check out faveup.com.

Self-portrait sessions are very revealing. I think I will post one tomorrow. Check back.

Do I have any readers out there? I wonder if you could leave me a comment if you are checking on this site regularly.

This weekend, we had some friends over for a BBQ, that we hadn’t seen in such a long time. (Almost a year) We had great conversation, and good food, and I threw together this fruit salad using layers of white grapes, frozen blueberries, strawberries, and strawberry cool whip. It was very yummy, and addictive. The only frozen fruit that really didn’t work for me was the strawberries; they just seem to get very mushy and not flavorful. So if I remake it, I will make sure to use fresh.

I love fruit and am always looking for ways to keep it fresh and use it in new ways. I thought this fruit salad made a beautiful presentation for our warm summers evening in Erie.

Well, I and my husband and friend Danielle went with the masses to Barnes & Noble to stand in line for the Deathly Hallows. There really was so many people there. It was exhilarating in some ways, annoying in others. Some scary “spoiler” moments did happen to us.

When we left the store, we were standing outside waiting for Brian who was still in line and watching people file out with their books. I had my iPod in my ears, and Danielle was holding her fingers there off and on and humming. I thought it was ridiculous that anyone would in fact, get their book, flip the end, and spoil it for all. But a crazy girl came out with her friend, promptly plopped herself on the sidewalk right outside the door and flipped to the back of the book. I rammed into Danielle with my head like a rhinoceros, and moved her out of the way. Crazy girl continued to flip through, exclaming, screaming, smacking her hand on the sidewalk, and otherwise giving away too much excitement to handle. I almost lost it, but I think crazy girl realized she was annoying others and she and her friend moved to another part of the sidewalk to keep reading. Still, we could hear yelps.

From this point on, Danielle had her fingers in her ears the entire time.

Then as we were walking down Peach street, I kid you not, I heard some young male’s voice call out of his car window…

“HARRY something something something!!” I screamed very loudly so I don’t know what he said. But I was in shock that it actually happened.

Anyway, I haven’t started reading yet, but Brian is halfway through. I’ll probably start at some point today.

I think I could REALLY use this. Instead of the TV tray I currently use. My hopefully-coming-soon-if-I-just-had-$3,000 new MacBook Pro would thank me, I think.