VOTE FOR HILLARY'S T-SHIRT

Now here's your chance to vote for Hillary's t-shirt. The designs aren't quite the edgey or "hope" feeling I was imagining. But it's a t-shirt my mom would probably wear in public with pride or as she waded in the family swimming pool on a hot summer day.

My favorite is the one with the woman's business suit on it--I think I'll make my husband wear a tuxedo shirt alongside me when I rawk the town in my Hillary t-shirt.

CS4 Already?

I'm two months behind the leaks on the web but it looks like the beta versions of Dreamweaver CS4 and the talk of 64 bit process speed for Photoshop are already in the works.

And STONEHENGE? Couldn't Adobe's marketing department come up with a better name?
That really sounds clumsy and bulky, not svelte and fast. It's an image based program not a tank.

We'll see come Oct08 or Early Spring09..

SPRING CLEANING-SORT OF

I did a strange thing this week, I cleaned my office at home. I actually organized the million paper samples or so and threw away countless remnants of my past (the items I had no sentimental attachement to ). I can see the floor of my office and I've begun shopping around for a sign to be welded and created to put in the grassy dirt of my front yard. I have to go back to free-lancing soon. I have to start planning for the emotional well-being of my soul. I don't think there is anything wrong with working for the man, but I just wish I could figure out a way to keep the man out of my work space so I can create some amazing work without him and all his sales guys hunched over my shoulder.

I'm listening to Baxter Dury's Floorshow and working at my desk which hasn't been cleaned off in about two years. It feels good. so I'll leave you with this:

NOT WORK SAFE--

HOW TO TREAT OTHERS...

I found this fan at Midland Antiques on Saturday. What attracted me to it was that first it was a fan and second, it was from a mortuary. I thought it was going to be something Pentecostal related (like fire, speaking in tongues and snakes).

As I looked closer, I realized it included tips on how to act around others and carry yourself in rude situations. If you haven't figured out by now I'm a nice person with a rather cantankerous personality. I could probably learn a thing or to about how to interact with others by putting these tips to memory. I plan on taking this to work and hanging next to my monitor--I can use it as my St. Francis/Serenity prayer when I am working with others.

I'll still have my moments when I say the wrong thing, like when the Menards Account manager sneaks up behind me and just stands there with me hearing only his mouth-breathing, I shouldn't respond to him with "what's up darth vader?" I'm trying to be good, but sometimes it's a lot more entertaining being bad. I need to follow rule number one "keep skid chains on my tongue."

Awww well, I've had a fantastic three day weekend. I should be able to spring back to work with a new attitude, I'm going to try my hardest to follow the "fan."

MONSTER MASH

The Pink Spiders are coming to town and if you want to know what they sound like check them out here.

They also have a great song called "My Tennessee" on the Denver Dalley, Intramural (This is a Landslide) project -released back in October of last year.

TALKING BOOK

I am in love again with the world because of this album. Stevie-Mother F#$%ing-Wonder has the songs that I want to hear all the time. If I was hit by a bus and died with any one of the songs of this album playing in my head, I would be at peace with the world.

This has been my saving grace the last five days, because it's hell working in a cube next to the break room/coffee room and everyone and their mother wants to chat me up while they are waiting for the microwave to finish warming up lunch or the next pot of coffee to finish brewing. With Stevie on my side, I can keep my back to the distraction and jam non-stop with the ear plugs knocking out the world---oh and my usually handmade sign that I tape on the back of my chair: PLEASE DO NOT DISTURB, SEND AN EMAIL. THANKS, THE MANAGEMENT.

So far it's worked...I'm going to go this weekend and buy a velvet afghan, some Indian beads and a bunch of corn rows--it worked for Alicia Keyes back in 05!

SOMETIMES BEING A TEACHER FEELS GOOD

I had a rough semester this past spring-I wasn't sure if I was getting through to any of my students (presently and in the past three semesters of my fledgeling teaching career). Then one of my students from last fall, Jeremy Weddle sent me an e-mail last week, giddy with pride--he'd been chosen as a semi-finalist in the Adobe Design Achievement Awards with the submission of the following photo:




Jeremy spent most of the time in my class surfing the net and playing around in Second Life, but in a huff of my wearied patience I told him to work on the following photo he had taken from a downtown, Indianapolis graffiti spot. I don't take any credit for this happening, I just couldn't get him to focus on my lectures in class unless I encouraged him to use the techniques in class on his own images/digital photos imported from his camera.

I'm happy for him, and after receiving his thank you e-mail it made feel real warm and fuzzy inside. Maybe this teaching thing isn't so bad.

HILLARY NEEDS A T-SHIRT

I'm glad Mrs. Clinton has finally asked for some assistance in the design area (regardless if it's for t-shirts). She's needed some help in the graphics department for a while. I've been confusing her promotional materials and logos with just about everyone else out there running for office-except for Barack Obama's materials (thank you Shepard Fairey and your beautiful posters). --READ EXCERPT BELOW for more info.

Hillary Clinton asks for D.I.Y. T-shirts

Unlike Barack Obama's campaign, which has inspired a ton of independent street art and t-shirts (just check out our Flickr pool of 2008 Election Graphics), Hillary Clinton's and John McCain's campaigns have had few grassroots graphics. The Clinton campaign's new project, Project T-Shirt (with a logo ripped off of Project Runway) is hoping to inspire designers, promising that the winning T-shirt design will be sold in the official campaign online store. As Tim Gunn would say, "Make it work."

I've always wondered how this phenomen got started-now here is PRINT Magazine to explain it. It's almost like being harassed by the 50ft woman from the b-movie of the same name.

NIGHT OF THE COMET OR HOW I ACTUALLY COMPLETED MY WORK

Remember this movie?

Well the head honcho of my day job's sector is in town and everybody who has a sparkle of ambition to be the next manager or already is one is sitting in on corporate initiatives speech and eating donuts. With everyone gone it's a ghost town and I actually am able to complete my projects without an interjection/question or comment about why I get the "purty 27 inch monitor." I only hope no one comes back to the office looking like this:

I MISS NEW ORLEANS

I am very sad, I painted my hallway Nola Saint's gold. I miss my friend Gloria and the sweet brass sound of the city. I've begun a shameless love affair with a city I just can't quit.

I will return to the Big Easy, just you wait!

IT'S NOT A BIRD...IT'S NOT A PLANE...IT'S A FLOGO




Just when you thought it was safe to market your brand with cute little die-cut signs and matching paper napkins served on etched corning ware--flying soap/faux snow shaped logos are floating above you as you enjoy the clean air and soft green grass at your company's product launch or employee picnic.

Now to wait and see if the Eco-conscientious find any ozone or toxic side effects from Flogos.

SCHOOL'S OUT FOR SUMMER

I teach people Photoshop at a local community college. Yes, I'm that teacher that sets adults and teens off on the whimisical journey of making all your photos look stupendous or really bad (depending on how good the student is).

Today is the last day with my students, they survived, I survived and well some of them actually will become quite skilled and talented in the field of visual communications.

With exception of a couple of crazy moments, like the student who cracked under the reverse mask selection portion of his final practical and had to go out in the hall and hyperventilate into a paper bag for a few minutes--I assured him not knowing how to inverse his selection would not cause him to fail the course. Or the student that decided to turn the model for his retouch-face exercise into a dirty coal faced, Kentucky child bride.




As well as the crazy cousin of mine who found out where I was teaching and began crying in fits of hysteria at the doorway of my class room and he didn't seem to understand why his parents had changed the locks on him and kicked him out on his 23 year old keister the week before. He's got a history of drug addiction and well with the help of campus security he is gone to Chicago to live and hopefully rehabilitate with grand parents. Ah, family don't they just make your job so much more pleasant!

Anyway I am ready to hunker down to the nearest Mexican restuarant, order up a pitcher of margaritas and let the semester file away into the annals of the past.

Can't wait to see what is instore for me in the Fall.

BLOG-ERIFIC!

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/08/your-photos-here/


The New York Times chose my photo(see previous voting/polling station photo below from May 6,2008) to link their polling site photo example for the AIGA/NYT caucus blog.

If you click on the hyperlink for polling sites in the first paragraph, it takes you to the Fountain Square, Palmer Street Polling Site photo I took.

MAN BABIES!

Just when you thought it was safe to post your baby photos online....

Internal Dominant Personality

Yesterday, after realizing I had not marked on my calendar the four hour department meeting I was not prepared for yesterday, I was then asked by my favorite marketing account rep to add an "emergency" color correct/door knob image to the list of tasks for the day. This was on top of the full day's work load and deadlines I had scheduled for the day. Granted the task requested was not an overwhelming time-burden it just added kindling to an already burning fire of anxiety and stress.

Well, I'll be blunt, I was pissed. The first order of business from my department meeting was that all ten of us had to take a disc test. It's a personality test to see how you communicate, react and interact with others at your job. I would advise anyone taking this test, don't take it "angry."

Of course I did and and my answers all pointed to "dominant" personality category. Of course the rest of peers did not believe my answers could be pointing to a dominant personality, because normally I'm a ever-patient, over-accommodating graphic designer who uses her "MAC boom stick" and creates visual magic for their every need. Well, I blew a gasket (a lite, tiny gasket-cause I don't think I've ever gone completely bonkers on anyone before) and began explaining how I was an "internal dominant."

While I'm fulfilling all of the departments needs and graphic emergencies, inside I'm screaming at each person just to tell me exactly what they want, approve the design proof and let me move on to the next task. Then of course my wrath (internal dominant wrath that was being expressed with the fast jibberish to explain all of this) was directed to the earlier mentioned marketing account rep.

I went on to explain how I juggling a great deal of items and I can't prioritize them all efficiently if I have one individual constantly throwing a new item into the task list that has to get done right away. Anyway, I put internal dominant on the disc map--I'm sure passive aggressive designers of the world will rejoice that I have claimed a title that only those that have had to create the same damn logo over and over again and found that the only change the client gives you is to show it to them at a slightly different variation of an orange pms color or make the size of the sub brand logo being supported visually of course by the main brand logo "a little bigger," would understand. My list could go on and on...

My next concern is where in the corporate leadership chain will my internal dominant personality exist?

I've said my piece--so now I'm ready to let it go and move on.

Indiana, god, basketball and voting.

So I posted this on the polling place photo project. The polling place my husband and I visited was pretty dead in Fountain Square. They thought I was pretty weird for taking a photo of the place--but it fit the dead, dated feeling of the experience. I originally thought the experience of voting during this year's primary would be like having someone jump out of cake after you submited your optic/scanner vote--alas instead I had elderly people fearing my digital camera and where I was pointing it.

Now we wait and see who wins the Indiana democratic primary!

OBAMA-MANIA

So000, maybe it's the sugar from the cake I ate today but I'm bursting out of my body-cause tonight's the night for a major Obama appearance at the Indianapolis American Legion Mall. If you can make it, you should be there! A little bird has told me that Stevie Wonder may be throwing a few songs out there for the Obama love.

If you don't go tonight-please vote in the Indiana primary tomorrow (regardless who you support).