I'm Still Fuctioning!

It’s been a while since I posted here, which wasn’t the intent. I actually wanted to at least post once a month.

Things have been busy. I’m waist-deep in planning the wedding with my fiancé and working on stuff for that. Save the dates will be the first designed thing, but I’ve been working on plenty of other creative stuff for the wedding in between like the bouquets for my bridesmaids and me.

The bridesmaids will have light bouquets with some dark accents.

My bouquet is dark with light accents.

I’ve also taken up nail art. I’m not a licensed technician, but I’ve been doing own nails again and creating sets to sell on Etsy.

My 2023 birthday nail set.

Medium coffin, color changing pearl and caviar deisgn

Neon marble set, medium, square

Medium blue coffin nails, elegant wedding style

Warm neon jawbreaker style, stiletto, medium

Winter penguin set sold to a regular client.

Royal blue queen set, short almond

Orchid/aqua tribal-inspired nail set.

 

Java swirl, medium coffin

XL Black and white coffin nail set

 

I also started dabbling in other crafts, like creating phone grips.

Moon crescent bow phone grip

Moon sceptre phone grip

Cute face phone grip

Multicolor dot phone grip

So I’m still around, just…not around.

Work is exhausting—mentally, emotionally, and even physically. While it doesn’t seem like it would be, sitting in front of a computer for eight hours a day, talking on the phone for the better part of those eight hours, reviewing insurance claims, benefits, calling doctors’ offices and hospitals, explaining to billers why they need to correct the claim or write off the bill for patients is really taxing.

I’m very much in the market for a new role. My job isn’t a bad one, it’s just not what I want to do and it’s staring to wear me down. It’s time to move on and I’m ready for my next challenge.

Design Quickie: Paper Donut

I joined two of my colleagues on this ridiculous journey dubbed “75HARD”.

Sparing you the boredom, 75HARD is 75 days of torture you inflict upon yourself via supposed health and wellness. And it’s HARD. You can immerse yourself in the details here. Parts of it are easy—I can read 10 pages of a book no problem. I love reading. (Currently taking in Debbie Millman’s How to Think Like a Great Graphic Designer.) Taking the progress pic? Sure, I can do that. But the things that get me are the gallon of water and the exercise 2x a day for 45 minutes each, with one being outside regardless of weather conditions. I’m good for once a day, but twice? You’re asking for a lot, timewise. While I can certainly make time for it, my body has other plans and bed time is 100% between 8-9pm, especially Mondays and Tuesdays when the following mornings beg me to get up at 5:30 am to be on the road an hour later to ensure I get to work at least on time. The outdoor part, in general, is easy to do because it’s getting warmer out, but it’s also been raining a lot. It even snowed the other day for a literal 3m45s. I’m not a stranger for jogging in the rain, either (just ask my clients from Stallion Marketing—I showed up to their house one time, drenched, because I decided I would go for a jog down the island)… I dunno. It seems to be a bit much to ask me to do Pilates out in a tornado.

Anyway, I told myself I should avoid traditional snacks during these 75 annoying days of Hell just to say I did it and can do it. What does my body do? It collaborates with my brain to make me think about donuts 24/7.

I needed to satiate the craving, so this morning I sat down and started playing with some of Illustrator’s 3D tools to build a donut.

I wanted a donut, so I made a donut. A paper donut—cardboard cake, paper frosting, and illustrated jimmies.

While I have a lot to learn with these tools, I found it interesting. Adobe has come a long way with the 3D tool feature in Illustrator. I remember when it was first introduced, it was BAD. Like…I would use it at work for quick signage renderings because they were small enough that I could get away with it and no one would know the difference. If anything, my non-designer colleagues would throw their hands up and shout, “Perfect!” and send it off to the client.

My favorite part of this is the integration of textures. The textures, from what I saw, are pre-set, but they’re actually really nice.

For the cake part of the donut, I wanted something donut-y. Sand was too rough, and the copper was too metallic. I saw a cardboard option and really liked the way it looked. For the frosting, I couldn’t figure out how to map the art onto the donut, so it became a die-cut piece of hand-made paper with too much Elmer’s School Glue (dries clear!) using some sort of paint or concrete texture. It looks a lot like papier maché, so it worked out.

The jimmies are a lost cause for now.

What I like about this look is it reminds me of crafts you would do as a kid with paper towel and toilet paper rolls. It’s got that same childish, school-made-project-for-some-dumb-holiday feel to it, but almost a little nicer. All it needs is my signature in a poorly sharpened, probably flat Crayola crayon that’s been broken and half and somehow melted on one side, covered in bits of snot and playground mulch from the kid who thinks washing his hands will peel off his skin.

It’s a red crayon, by the way.

I think I’m going to explore the 3D tool more. As for the frosting, I believe that is going to have to be a handmade venture using meshes, various steps of color for shadow and light, and a handful of artistic exaggeration somewhere in the process.•

New Hobby Alert: Casting Resin

Aside from working full-time again, I recently picked up a new hobby that I briefly touched on while in college many years ago: casting resin.

I’ve only been doing it for a month or two and I’ve already poured hundreds of dollars into it. The chemicals themselves are very expensive, then you have the inclusions (glitter, dried flowers, gems, etc.), and things to help color your resin (mica powder, alcohol inks, paints, etc.). By the time you’re done, including the time put into it, you better be selling your pieces for DOLLARS.

While the act of casting the resin isn’t difficult, playing around with the inclusions and colors takes time and effort to learn. The first set of dominoes I cast were way too translucent, so they’re not playable unless I add paint or vinyl to the back.

All in all, though, it’s a healthy obsession. Eventually it’ll pitter out and I’ll find a new hobby. But for now, here’s a peek at what I’ve been making. All of these pieces at some point will be on my Etsy for purchase. (And yes, most of these are self-defense weapons.)

Short Blurb: Adobe MAX Day 1

I have never been to a design conference.

I’ve always wanted to go to one, but when you see how much they cost… <___<

Anyway, one COVID blessing, I guess, is Adobe MAX being FREE this year! Just need an Adobe ID, and the conference is your oyster!

I, so far, have watched the keynote. Conan O’Brian was hilarious (vice presidents of vice presidents), but the entire presentation was amazing and definitely got me yelling at my iMac the same way I did for one of the last PANTONE presentations I watched. (This is a positive.)

Some things to be aware of:

+ Illustrator for iPad

+ New Recolor Artwork panel

+ An improved way to create patterns

+ Photoshop updates including the Sky Replacement tool and Neuro Filters

I highly recommend watching the keynote, as it’s CHOCK full of information and excitement!

Also, Adobe understands the importance of coloring, so they put together a coloring book for all of us to enjoy.

So…enjoy!

Throwback Thursday: EGD Workshop @ Penn Museum

Who remembers how University of Pennsylvania’s Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology didn’t have a cohesive signage/wayfinding system? Anyone? Just me?

It’s funny how things come full circle. When I was a junior at UArts, we were split into groups for a mandatory week-long workshop with an industry professional who volunteered to come in and show us what they do. I was in the group that worked under Virginia Gehshan of Cloud Gehshan, an EGD design firm seated right in Old City, Philadelphia.

At the time of this workshop (2010?), conception and possibly even design finalization was going on at Cloud Gehshan for new wayfinding going up at UPenn’s famed museum. Since that was the hot topic at the firm, Virginia thought that’s what we could do, also. So, she scheduled for us to take a field trip to the museum (sort of, we had to all pile in cabs or ride the subway to get to our destination—all of which we had to figure out on our own) and reconvened in the courtyard before splitting up once more. Our group opted (by majority consensus…or maybe Virginia voted for it) for cab ($8 one way per person, about 21 blocks), although I very much voted for subway (roughly $2 for one way, I think, at the time). I thought the subway would be quicker (and cheaper), we’d just have to buy tokens.

I remember my group: Marty, Leandra, John (who literally showed up once) and I think Sophie. Marty was our group leader and instructed us to take as many photos as possible. We went around and took photographs of signage (shown above, pin letters on the brick wall of the museum’s perimeter) of all types whether or not it belonged to the museum (yup, SEPTA bus route signs, too), decorations, wall patterns, murals, vinyls, floor tiles, etc. You name it, we photographed it. The idea was to get as many different ideas of any motifs or schemes we could find. The problem was, there was no correlation between the exterior and interior wayfinding and signage.

When we were done, we headed back to our studio in Terra, the building we called home as GD students, and had a group discussion about what we saw at the museum as well as what our task would be for the rest of the week. We worked for a few hours before Virginia called time and we disbanded for the day.

The next day, we congregated into the studio, segregated in our assigned groups, and worked quietly. John, the member of our group who didn’t attend the first day of the workshop, showed up so I began going over with him what we were doing to get him up to speed.

Virginia thought I was being disruptive, so she looked over and told me to stop talking, that it’s not a social hour. I looked at her, slightly embarrassed as everyone stared at me, and said, “Virginia, this is John.” She goes, “Who is John? I don’t know who he is.” She’s clearly still annoyed. I responded with, “He’s in our group and was absent yesterday. I’m catching him up.” She felt bad, I could tell, and said, “Oh, okay.” She later apologized for calling me out when I wasn’t really doing anything wrong. I told her it was fine, and we moved on.

Despite that hiccup in our work time, our group spent the day sketching and discussing colors (sheet shown below provided by Virginia!), common shapes, potential schemes and how we were going to use everything.

After that day, John never came back. We knew this would happen, so when we divvied up the work, we gave him something non-critical, despite his promise to show up daily. We pushed through without him over the next three days, and our visions came to life.

By the end of the week, we had a full package ready to present. As instructed, we pinned up our process book showcasing our thought process throughout this workshop alongside the other groups.

It was interesting to see what everyone did, especially when color palettes and other ideas were similar but used and executed very differently.

Each group got to present their signage and wayfinding package, and at the end, we all clapped and celebrated with pizza. It was the last time I saw Virginia, but not the last time I worked with Cloud Gehshan.

Three years later, I was hired by Urban Sign and worked there for five years. One of the first projects I got to see go out the door was none other than the signage designed by Cloud Gehshan for the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.

So really, my experience with EGD begins when I was still in college. I never thought that’s where I’d end up, but alas, I spent the last six years immersed in signage, murals, wayfinding, ADA, interactive displays, etc. It’s an incredible field, and I’ve learned so much being in it.

Below are some of the things we finalized as part of our wayfinding package for the museum: