Busy

Hello everyone,

I know it's been a few weeks since I've posted anything, sorry. I had a few moments at work to stop and breath, so I thought I'd pop on here and say hello. Work is going quite well, I've been employed as the lead designer at a print/sign shop for the last 3 months and I've really come to enjoy it. There are quite a few different things that we do: vehicle wraps, business cards, posters, flyers, booklets, prints, signs etc... it's a nice mix.

Can't say I'd want to do this for the rest of my life, but it's good to get the experience for the first couple of years out of College. I continue to work on freelance projects as well so that keeps me involved in other aspects of the Graphic Design industry that I don't do at work, such as Web design.

Well that's it for now, guess I better get back at it, those prints won't print themselves... oh wait, yes they do :)

TR.

Weekend Hi-jinx

This has been a great long weekend. I took Friday off so that I could go to my daughter's country singing competition. It was awesome. She did really well for her first year. She placed 10th out of 15, which in my book is great. She was in the 13-18 year old category. The contest took place at the North Bay Heritage Festival, over three days. It was great to take the kids there, it was the first time that they had ever been at a midway, they loved it. The rides freaked them out a bit, and the games were a ripoff of course, but we all still had a lot of fun. Finally something cool as a family this summer, it's been such a fast summer with lots of work, we just haven't done much together so it was a lot of fun. Work shall continue tomorrow, it's still a holiday but I have a website that is itching to get underway.

I leave you with a couple of Instagram photo's I took with my iPhone.

Approved

One week and one day ago, I had my semi-comp meeting with my clients for the freelance project I'm working on. I have to say it went amazingly well. They started off with some of the mundane priorities that they needed to cover for other things to do with the project and then I was given the floor. I showed them all the pieces that I had prepared and it was nice to hear some "wows" as we went through them all. I did up three versions for each piece and then we had a discussion of which ones they preferred, in the end there were only a few minor changes to be made and they were very happy. Now I need to get the website designed for proofing, and then code it and when they are finished with all the final copy I'll have to place it all in and then this project will be done. It has gone very smoothly so far and I am very happy with my clients, even thanked them for being such good clients, to which the chuckled and said "no, no, thank you for making this so easy". Have to thank all my professors at school for all the advice and training in how to prepare and deal with clients, it has certainly helped. I'll definitely be posting the pieces when the project is all over with... 

                             ...for now you'll just have to wait in anticipation :) 

TR

Firsts

Only six days until my second meeting with the committee in charge of the project I've been freelancing for. I was able to get all my semi-comps ready with time to spare for a little more tweaking. I'll be working on the design of the website for them this weekend, it wasn’t on the agenda to be done yet but I'm ahead of the game so why not. As our Prof's said in school, go into every project and over deliver, it doesn't hurt you any, makes a great impression and probably lands you repeat customers.

It is within my agreement with the committee that I can use everything that I've done for them for self-promotion, so I leave you with a snippet of one of the pieces I've put together, semi-comp of course... no idea if it will stay this way or go in another direction, I'll keep you posted.

On the Go

Well, as of yesterday, I am officially employed as a freelancer. I was approved as the designer for the FRHH (French River Health & Housing) media package and website. The first cheque should be in the mail.

I've realized that this project will involve a fair amount of research and copywriting on top of the design work, although I may not have quoted enough for that on my approved estimate, I will definitely remember to estimate more for that on future projects.

I will also have to break down the business plan that I was presented with in order to develop the copy for the brochure and website, focusing on the benefits and features to showcase for the target audience. I love that every process we, designers, undertake requires us to learn new things and create different solutions. It isn't about the skills we have with software, although that doesn't hurt, it's about the idea, the communication, of our client's service or product to their designated audience.

Many times, maybe even all the time, it's also about the bottom line; clients want to know how much this is going to cost them. Tony Jurgilas, A teacher I had in school, once said, "There is a big difference between Canadian and American clients, Canadian clients want to know how much something is going to cost them; American clients want to know how much they are going to make."

I was lucky, I think, on this project. I didn't have to haggle over the estimate, which intrigues me and scares me at the same time, perhaps I didn't charge enough. That being said however, I priced my estimate on how much time I figured this project would take... and charged accordingly, so my conscience is clear.

Sunshine

Well it's Monday again, that means the start to another glorious week, my seventh in my new career. I've noticed a trend, I suppose one that is prevalent in many industries, that of the highs and lows of projects. The first 3 - 4 weeks I was here we were very busy with projects, but the last 2 weeks slowed down quite a bit. It was nice in that I was able to work on advertorial pieces for ourselves... one of which I gave you a teaser of last week. Today I'll post the full version of it. A selfless plug for where I work at Printer's Paradise.  A big thank to Pamela Carls, for the use of her photo "Safe".

Enjoy,

Closeup

Another close up of an ad I'm putting together for work. Stay tuned for the full ad.