New Years Resolutions

It’s not even January first and I am already feeling overwhelmed by my New Years resolutions. There’s a list of things as a person I need to accomplish. Working out, getting fit, cooking more, blogging on all of my blogs more, updating my portfolio more, go to school, make more money. Those kinds of things. And then there are things as a person in a relationship I need to accomplish. For example, every wall in my boyfriends house needs a new paint job. He’s a contractor, so the last thing he wants to do when he gets home from working all day is more of the same. But I need progression. So for that list, we’ll see who wins.

For Silhouette Graphic - what's it mean? It means that I am going to try to post one new project a week. This is going to take a lot of diligence on my behalf. It will be one thing that I've made on the computer, not necessarily a paying job, just something I have completed.

I read a statistic though that says once you write your goals down you become more likely to achieve them.

Here’s to writing it down. I guess we’ll find out next week what comes of it.

My cats lovin the fan in my laptop

I can't believe its been almost a month since I last posted! October got the short end of the stick because it flew by without warning. It was a whirlwind of work and play. Im not even sure how November got here. But, seeing as I'm a Christmas person, and now its right around the corner (don't debate it, go to a store) the days will drag out forever as it gets closer and closer. Which is good, because I have a lot of work to do.

This month I am starting an email campaign for Blue Crab Grill, doing a holiday ad for a jewelry store and designing a new site for a comic and graphic design artist (and in my down time, I will be going nuts preparing for holiday ruckus).


I am also hosting a toy drive at Captain Blue Hen Comics for the children of Neumors/A.I. duPont hospital in the month of December. I made some posters and have handed them out as well as hung them up at the store. I am hoping we can bring in lots of toys. Our customers have been really awesome about donations in the past so I am optimistic for this one.

Breaking Ground

Its official - I have a new site in the works for a local restaurant. The project will consist of a new design fro their website, setting them up with a email application, and more. I'm excited. It's a place I have enjoyed going to for dinner several times. It fits my bill of privately owned, small, local business. Yippy!

Yesterday, I was in Baltimore, MD, for a retailer summit meeting for the comic book industry. I went to a presentation on building bigger better websites for retailers. A lot of time was spent discussing how to make sure you get what you pay for and don't get screwed out of what is yours. I couldn't believe how much was said. I was in a room of retailers looking to build websites - probably only 1 of 3 or 4 designers in the room. The whole talk made me kind of sad.
These people are in need of something that not everyone can do but have their guard up because of some bad stories.
I don't like fine print. I know it's their to cover somebodies behind. It just always seems kind of dirty to me. Give people hard honest work and you will get a lot farther in life then trying to be deceitful. Or maybe you can make millions lying, but I know which would let me sleep soundly at night.

Busy in Baltimore

I've been keeping busy enjoying fall, lining projects up, sewing, and cooking. :) Keeps me on my toes. I have two meetings next week and will be in Baltimore for the comic book day either two or three days for a retailer meeting and comic convention.
The Captain Blue Hen Comics is having an author signing in November. Three local and well established authors will be there from noon until 5ish. I put together some images for the stores website and facebook yesterday morning. For more information on the authors or the signing, or the store in general check out their site - I had a part in designing it too :P

Keeping Busy While Listening to a Nerd-off

Vent is hilarious.

I have been busy working with a college all day trying to get the paperwork in order so I may be able to go back to school. Yeah! Debt! Other then that it was a pretty mellow day (which was quite nice) in which I worked on two fun images in photoshop and made a few changes to a clients project.
I love tutorials online! They keep me on my toes seeing new things, or even things I know, but from a new perspective. I must look at 4 or 5 sights daily that just post tutorials, trying a few out here and there. Thank the internet gods and kind people for making Adobe and web tutorials of all kinds possible.
Lucky for me my boyfriend is a nerd in denial who plays WoW all night. This leaves me lots of free time to fiddle with previously mentioned tutorials -or, on some nights, be a nerd in my own right.
I have also been making aprons lately in my free time. I completed one last month with a cute cherry pattern on black and this month I started what I am envisioning to be an adorable one with black and pinks. The problem to this is I don't own my own sewing machine, so I have to use a friends. I feel like a bad friend when I ask to hang out so I can sew. :( So I am considering asking Santa for a very VERY inexpensive sewing machine.
I really think the aprons I am making, and the ones I have planned out are quite cute. People asked if I would be selling any. Who knows? Maybe I'll have the design business, school, comic book store and aprons. LoL. That's a portfolio you don't see every day. And yes, I play Final Fantasy too. ;)
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I have been making some new signs for around the shop. You know, the kind that direct people where to go. They aren't very exciting, but I loved this one, so I'm sharing it with you.

I have a new shiny external hard drive...

Here's to hoping I never really need it.

I've been slacking on the posts here, but I promise, I have been very busy in maintaining my other sites and getting new work together. Got some business cards out and into some new hands and I had a meeting with a new potential client last week and sent him comp images tonight. Since I can't show you that until I get a negative or positive feedback for it, I'll post some images of ad work I'm fiddling with. (Once I get a response from the new client, I'll fill you in >.<) On another note, outside of the creative aspect, I need to learn me some business skills, which is going to be the hard part of this whole package. I have to write kind of a makeshift business plan and start some other good business practices. Learning the business part is intimidatingng as the art part kind of comes naturally. This part I'm admittedly more clueless then I should be. I'm a fast learner though, so hopefully its not a big deal. I'm good with numbers, dealing with people, and the art part, but making it look good on paper (like real big girl businesses do) is a whole new world to me. Wish me luck - I'll be needing it.

P.S. If you don't see images on here frequently enough, check my portfolio page for newer items.

Zoom Zoom, and no, I don't mean Mozda.

I have recently been turned onto a British car show called Top Gear by my boyfriend. Its awesome. It brings out my love for zoom zooms, competition, and good wit. It definitely has me eying up cars again.
One of the cars they reviewed on an episode was the Audi R8, and man, is she pretty. I love an Audi to begin with. Sleek, smooth styling in a sophisticated way. The R8 is wicked. Just curvy and powerful. One can dream, right?
Here's what came of the Audi R8 review and a photoshop tutorial.

Public Enemies

I was killing time the the other afternoon before the weekly family get together and was feeling inspiration from propaganda war time posters (I had also dyed my hair a darker color and was feeling rather stealthy - so that may have something to do with my inspiration). There are have been a lot of comics being made into animated movies. With the upcoming fall 2009 release of one of my favorites, I combined inspirations.

Mix a little of column A with a little of column B and this is what you get in the mind of a Kita. Superman Batman Public Enemies. I really wanted to make them look even more menacing with something written about how anti whatever they are, but words were not on my side yesterday. I'll probably continue to tweak it in the future.

I have a meeting soon with to go over two prospective sites and finally line that all up. One I have a better feeling for now that I have a little more Wordpress designing under my belt. I think it will be the most convenient way for the client to update the information she needs to keep fresh. I am pretty sure I will be the one doing the updating still though.

The other site is pretty basic. Just something to showcase the clients work to prospective clients for himself and get a little more attention for his business. I expect to have both sites up and running in two weeks. Both projects wont take that long at all from the design and coding side. It's more the words that go on the site and the images on the site that will be taking up a large chunk of time. I try to be uber helpful with my clients as a lot of them really just want a website without the hassle of anything. Unfortunately, I often do not posses the knowledge needed to just write a stunning bio and info page for them. I will often times help flush things out though, once we have a basic outline of text.

For these sites, I will need to help get some photographs as well. The material isn't necessarily the easiest thing to photograph though. In one case it will be buildings, in which you want to highlight the craftsmanship, and the other is glass, which produces one heck of a glare. We'll figure it out and get it up and running as quick as possible though! :)

Can we fix it? Yes we can!

I have recently been assigned the project of creating a website for a commercial and residential building company. The individual had no preset ideas, no graphic, no logo, no color scheme, and doesn't even enjoy writing a bio page, leaving me, the designer and programmer, with a big blank slate.

Normally, the idea of a blank slate would excite me to no end as I could pretty much create anything and the client would love it. In this case, I really had to tame my normal flow, not use the feeling the individual gave me, and design a site built only for the individuals he would be sending to it and the opinion I wanted them to get when viewing it.

The person who the site is for has tons of character, is vocal, fun and entertaining. Immediately, I see a rugged grainy design with warm tones, even oranges and things to really make it pop. The business is commercial and residential contracting/building and design. I tend to think people don't want to associate rugged grunge design with who they pick when they are choosing someone for their new very expensive offices or custom home. Simple elegance comes to mind - which bores the heck out of me as an individual.

So I sat in my chair, staring at the blank framework trying to think of neutral colors and normal fonts, hoping for some for of inspiration to make this site personal again.

The final presentation for the client is simple (which is something I wanted from the get go) in a monochromatic color scheme of charcoals, that I feel gets the job done. I still feel it lacks the large amount of personal character that I love to include into all of my work for people, but maybe I'll get it there with some more tweaking. I promise, the Bob the Builder is just a placeholder. I wouldn't really post that.....
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Photoshop down time!

The other morning I had some time to kill so I went to my fav tutorial site that I like to use to keep myself on my toes and tweaked my way through an idea they had put out there. I love me some photoshop.

Ripping down and building up

In trying to pretty up some code that I had originally fooled with last year when I decided that building web spaces could be fun, I got annoyed, and ended up ripping the whole thing down. I run a very small cooking blog that I don't update nearly enough, called Pass the Sushi. It is supposed to be all about cooking, but the fact is, I haven't been doing much of that as I'm currently back at my parents place and I really don't like using their kitchen. Kitchen's are a personal space, and it's not that they have any problem with me using theirs, it just doesn't always feel right dirtying other peoples things.

So, poor Pass the Sushi has been rather neglected. Hopefully soon, with a small kick of inspiration I will be updating on it more. In general, I'd really like to update all the stuff I work on a little bit more.

The original idea for Pass the Sushi was a bright colorful scheme that never really made it past the drawing board. Then I started playing in wordpress, and it ended up as a semi vintage look in black with a dull teal text box and trim. The theme has never been about sushi (though someone gave me a great idea today for a sushi theme that I love and just need to figure out how to make happen).

Today's Pass the Sushi theme really has no background or reasoning, it was just a pretty concept and I ran with it. Hopefully, in the future I can work out that theme that someone mentioned to me today, and run with it. Pass the Sushi has always been kind of a test site any way....

Killing time while working on the DL

A few weeks ago my new business cards arrived in the mail. That is probably not exciting to many people but to me it is. It is not the first time my name has been on a business card, but it is the first time I designed the whole shebang.

Sticking with my usual colors, the Silhouette Graphic theme and my personality, they are bright red and black. I designed them in Photoshop, printed them with Uprinting.com. I am happy with the quality of the stock and the colors.

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I try to keep my photoshop skills tuned up by going through cool tutorials online several times a week, just to see if there is a new trick or technique I can learn. Plus, its quick, easy and fun. The other day I made a quick wallpaper. Nothing fancy. Hopefully soon I will have a gallery up on here to showcase more of the things I have put together. Until then, you can see most of my digital work at silhouettegraphic.com.

I'm still working on the major magazine project. It has pretty much been full time for me for the past two weeks. Problem is, I'm still not allowed to talk about it. It is nothing juicy for the government so don't get your hopes up. The people involved just want to keep it under wraps until they have all their bases covered. Until I can show you what I'm up to, I'll keep putting the fluff up here.

Recent Work.

In the past few weeks I have been uber busy between my full time job at the comic book store, side projects for Silhouette Graphic, and keeping up with the 22 year old social life. I was lucky to get a job designing a tri-fold brochure for a local salon.

In keeping with a ideal I consider very important, I took what I knew about the people at the salon, the feel I get when I am in there, and the overall quality of their work when I started laying out the concepts for the brochure. The salon is a nice salon, high-end products, professional employees who are young but bring their A game every day. The place always feels vibrant and sleek with a high natural energy. I also always try to research as much as I can about a client before taking on a project, so I hopped on Google and looked them up.

After compiling my initial ideas, I laid out the concept in Photoshop and uploaded it to my website where the client was able to review it. It is simple and clean, having just what information the salon needs to get across to the client. They have the prices, the brands they carry, and a listing of their stylists. We tweaked things here and there, and finally got the whole thing printed and out the door in less then two weeks from start to finish. The salon was able to hand out the brochure at Newark Night and will have plenty on their counters for future clients.

The best part about this job is that it was pure persistence on my part that got it. Nothing is going to fall into your lap (well, somethings do but usually that is after a few beers), you have to go after it. I was in the salon a few times and noticed there was no brochure to be handed to potential clients, or even for return clients to take home. I asked one of the owners about it and suggested that I put something together for them. The next day I had something ready to present, being active in soliciting of yourself shows enthusiasm and drive and a lot of people really like that, just don't be pushy.

It turned out there was already another design on the table that they were considering, but going back to how I take the clients personality into account for every project, they loved my design and that's the one they ended up going with. The brochure was a hit, and the client has already come back for future projects.

Yeah Me!

Project 1

I have currently been asked to help design a magazine. This is by far the largest project I have worked on yet and I am absolutely flattered that I was even involved. The magazine content is still on the 'down-low' until they get the name all taken care of with all the legalness that goes into such a thing, so I will fill you in on more details as they come to me.

I will be learning some Adobe Indesign and Illustrator for this project. The whole idea is a little overwhelming and I'm loving it. I work better when there is more pressure so I'm currently riding a work high like you wouldn't believe. I have a logo designed (which I can't show you...) and some mock pages already made up (same there >.>) . I am currently working with a genreal idea and feel of the clients and a few magazines pages they ripped out to show me what they want to see aesthetically.
The more I get, the more I'll show you. There will be a lot of late night googling for ideas and tutorials... >.<

No Pressure Like the First Time.

Hi and welcome to my blog. I am not a avid fan of the blogosphere quite yet however, I have been advised to start one. (It should be noted, that I love to read other peoples blogs, I am just not sure I can type on myself). Let me just tell you, trying to think of something witty, interesting, or even slightly odd to say to spark an interest to the individuals who may eventually read this is more difficult than I realized.
We'll start with the basics.
I am a 22 year old employee of a comic book store who is working towards an art education to become a graphic designer. More about my will be posted on my bio page.
This blog is going to be a journal of what I am working on and other random thoughts that I find appropriate for it.
We will see if my opinion to blogging changes over time. Here's to hoping you come back for more.