Call off the bloodhounds

I know I've been missing, but not without good cause. I have been eyebrow deep in all things portfolio (as well as other school related whatchamacallits). I just finished putting together my portfolio. Tomorrow is the last look critique in class and then I have one more week until the portfolio show on campus. I'm not going to give everything away, but...she's pretty gorgeous. These are two of the photos featured within her pages.

Snappy new digs

I've always been pretty resourceful when finding places to do my work. The beauty of being a designer is that most of the time it doesn't really matter where I am or what my circumstances are just so long as I have my laptop. Just give me a power outlet and I'm happy...toss in WiFi and I'm downright ecstatic.

One place I can no longer effectively function is my bedroom. When I moved a couple years ago and lost space for a home office, my bedroom became my studio. As I've acquired more and more things (books, magazines, art supplies, light table, new printer) it's gotten to the point where it was either find a backup plan or start sleeping on the couch.

I was introduced to TENpod a couple months ago and have been enamored ever since. They are a creative services coop comprised of independently owned and operated businesses. They are architects and writers, engineers and designers, photographers and craftspeople. They have two locations and as of last week, I am a member of The Burnside Rocket location. They provide a workspace for each of us (sans a chair) and we share other office goodness like a conference room, kitchen, layout tables, and copier/fax/scanner/printer/robot. I'm told there are opportunities to collaborate on projects which I'm super stoked about (note to self: must network).

I have come to really enjoy the collaborative atmosphere that school has provided. Being in an environment where everyone "gets it" is amazing. Having that second set of eyes is invaluable. I'm still slowly moving in, but when I'm settled I will take a few photos and show you the snappy new digs. Now, let's have a meeting and test out that conference room!

New design terminology

I'm working on a couple t-shirt designs to add to my portfolio and decided to create designs inspired by my love of words and dictionaries. I'm feeling like I need a third, but haven't come up with the word yet.

Make it Sparkle

After my twelve hour day on campus yesterday, and heading home at 9pm, I stopped at Whole Foods Market. As I was walking through, I was enamored (as usual) by all the great packaging. I came upon Steaz Zero Calorie Sparkling Green Tea. The packaging appealed to my inner minimalist. White and clean with a lovely patterned flower. I wanted it. I wanted it bad. One problem. I hate sparkling water. There, I said it. I do, however, love green tea. So, there I stood, at a crossroads.

You might be able to resist it, but I? Cannot. Lovely packaging coupled with promises of zero calorie goodness is more than this girl can handle. Sustainably sourced, fair trade organic green tea? Sweetened with the leaves from the stevia plant? What choice did I have?

As if that's not enough, when you pop the top on the little gem you realize it comes with a side of wisdom on every cap. Today, apparently, "I am energy" (or so the cap says). I felt a little spunkier just having been told so. Why, yes, I am the girl that buys things just because they come in pretty packaging. I am a design(erd).

Infringed?

Quite a few years ago I started playing around on Cafepress. I made a few simple shirts and oddly, they've been selling. They were mostly typographic in nature and I didn't do anything particularly special to them, but people liked them nonetheless. Now that I have some education under my belt I was going to go back in and fix those that are there and make some new ones. Funny thing happened today, though.

Today someone was talking to me about getting a Bondiband to hold my hair back when working out. They showed me a picture of theirs knowing I'd been using a particular phrase as a title for my writing for years now.

I did not make this version. Oddly familiar, though, isn't it? At what point does copyright infringement happen? I can't stake claim on the saying. Maybe I said it first, maybe I didn't. Regardless, it's not some trademarked phrase. The font is ever so slightly different, but layout is the same. Is using the same style of font, layout and saying some odd coincidence? Based on the other designs I've seen on Bondibands website, it looks like they use all sorts of different artwork that I doubt they have any rights to use so, my guess would be they, too, peruse Cafepress and were quite fond of my very simple design. I just hope they were at least kind enough to buy one of my shirts before copying it.

I, too, am Portland

See that sassy chick in the upper left box? That's me. I am a Portland, uh...PRTLND, designer.

Spring (no) Break!

My workload looks a bit different the last few days. I took about a day and a half off for all things vegetative and then, despite not having any looming deadlines, started to feel guilty. I'm still trying to relax, but it looks more like someone cramming for a business class these days. I've been reading. A lot. I had planned to read books during this hiatus, but not business/design related books. You know...novels? The kind that don't involve learning anything? I started Eat, Pray, Love and Pride and Prejudice about a year ago and have only managed a few chapters before more "important" projects took over. Though I did manage to knock out about 9 magazines from the neglected stack, the other things I'm reading are shown here. I've also been catching up on design related blogs. I am, officially, a design nerd (and I kind of like it).