Ripped off

When I worked at Indiana Wesleyan University, it was my task to come up with an infographic to explain the 4 page document about the financial aid calculator. It was a really hard task to condense that much information in just one graphic so it took several rounds of different designs. We ended up with this final design.

Now granted, I haven't worked at IWU for a solid year and half (which is sad!) but this week, my old coworker sent me an email about a neighboring college that had "borrowed" our graphic on their website.  Not sure how I feel about it since they didn't even try to make it their own… I mean, they could have at least attempted to make it a little more different, right?

Well, I guess it just means we did a good job coming up with our graphic ;)

Post- Thanksgiving Week

This last week was crazy and so fun! We traveled over 2200 miles and stayed in a different bed every night of the trip (I'm hoping we didn't leave anything at our various hosts' houses!). Still cleaning up and trying to get ready for a couple days in Wheaton so I'll post later about all our fun with the family. I'll leave you with this verse that I was working on for a project at work. Hope you guys had a lovely Thanksgiving! I feel like at this time of the year, we become more attuned to our blessings and helping out the less than fortunate. Therefore I leave you with this verse.

New Beginnings

via

Today is my last day at Kohl's. It was a hard decision but one that I have thought and prayed a lot about and then decided to give my notice a couple weeks ago. The thing is, I have nothing bad to say about the company or the people I work with and never would but it just isn't for me. I look around at people flourishing in their position and I go home a lot of days wondering if design is for me. Some of it could be because I developed carpal tunnel in both arms which really makes you consider your work because the pain reminds you that you are doing just that, working. The position is temporary and for the unforeseeable future will be. They have open positions but because of the hiring freeze they are unable to fill them and I as a freelancer am unable to do some of the jobs that deal directly with merchants/vendors. I therefore have decided to take a leap of faith and see what doors God will open for me. I don't have anything lined up at the moment (which is a really scary thought) but I need to be moving into something that is furthering my career and that enjoy and my current position will never be that. It's a bittersweet because I have made some really good friends here and I finally know what I'm doing at work but I know there will be other opportunities and other friends to be made. For now, all I can think of is I'll be unemployed after this day and I'm going on vacation. Two very different thoughts but exciting nonetheless.

Blogging

i had very good intentions on blogging but then I got dragged into this site about 2 designer friends who find themselves single at the same time and decide to date and work on their bad dating habits. She tends to jump right into relationships and fall hard, fast. He is afraid of commitment so he casual dates multiple girls at one time. It is stereotype after stereotype but it so interesting to read about their perspectives on the same experience. They call it their 40 days of dating experiment.  

I am a sucker for design (they have illustrations for every day done by themselves or their designer friends), relationships, and well blogs. i read it for at least 2 hours to catch up on all the drama... geez oh petes. I will blog tomorrow. This girl has to go to work!

7 quick lists

1. I realized the other day that I have a hidden prejudice against March. Every birthday that has come across my calendar, I have thought, "Oh I thought their birthday was in February or April." I guess subconsciously I refuse to believe anyone was born in March which a weird thing to think in the first place.

2. I have been very absent-minded lately.
 For example: 
 a. I missed my exit to work because I zoned out and just forgot to get over. I didn't realize until after I was passed my exit.
 b. I sent a package to my two nieces that do in fact have birthdays in March ( I did remember those) but after taping up the package, I found the card. (and you may notice, I forgot how to spell Autumn?)

c. Maybe the worst of the examples and maybe a little TMI but I got to church and realized I didn't have a bra on????? I am a girl- that's a numero uno of clothing items. Something I shouldn't have to think about. I have no idea how that happened.


3. Adam and I got to check in on this little cutie this past weekend for a friend of ours who was out of town. It was really fun ;) She was very playful and happy that we came over.

4. I've been doing little design projects lately for various people. Here is what I have been working on.

Early stages of a church logo (the idea is that the people of the church lead people to the cross-- hence the compass with the cross being central):

 a Fantasy Football logo (the guy's last name is giuffre (sounds like joe-free) so he took the golden gopher's name and logo and had me tweak it so he could be the golden giuffers (joe-fers)

My blog obviously.

and the Provost Report for IWU (where I used to work)- This was a report that had a lot of information but was still desired to look academic. I tried to make it clean, professional but still have a little fun factor.

Every since, I saw sites like Katie Daisy, I've been vibing on hand lettering-- fun types of handwriting. I want to get better but it's fun so far.


5. Yesterday was the first day of spring but up here in the North, Winter is clinging on for dear life. Remember back when, I told winter to bring it on? That was in soft oh so mild January. Well, I lied winter. I don't want you to bring it on. February brought snow showers and March is bringing on the low temperature. We're in the teens for the foreseeable future with wind chills dipping into the negatives. boo! I want Spring right about now. I'm not complaining... I just want to see things growing. Spring is my favorite part of the year and I could see that being mushed together with summer. Oh well!

6. Adam and I have been going for the newlywed nine (yes, it's a real thing but no, we're not doing it on purpose) so I pulled the trigger and order turbofire. It's expensive but this is a 20 wk workout schedule with 12 different workouts to spice it up. I have never felt so in shape. I did it last year with my roommate and loved it. They are hard workouts and you often feel stupid doing the moves but it's good. You're working hard and aren't bored sitting on a stationary bike, elliptical, or running on the treadmill (this is all our little apt workout room has and I am bored to death when I "workout"). It's supposed to come in soon and I am pumped!


7. Speaking of something coming in soon, our couch is being delivered in a few short weeks! Now we can have people sit on real things vs. soccer mom chairs. We're so excited, we're going to have a couch warming party hehe

Happy Thursday. Hope it's Spring where you live.

I sent them.

I sent my invitations a week ago ;) pumped for everyone to see what I worked on but also excited because that means the wedding is soon ;)

Our lobby

This lobby has been on our project list since before I started at IWU. We have talked and talked about what we wanted and who was going to do it and I finally did something about it.

Our lobby was seriously at it's worst right before everything came in that we ordered for the space. This is what everyone saw as soon as they entered our office.

The random tree in the corner is actually from when the women's bathroom got redone a few years back. Somehow it ended up in our office.

We ordered stuff from Ikea, Target, Crate & Barrel, and Pottery Barn and were so excited when it all came in!

We found a gumball machine in storage that isn't used very often and got to move it in to our space.

It took a few weeks for most of the stuff to come in. I had to go all the way to Ikea last time I was visiting Adam because Ikea shipping is ridiculous!

We needed to add dimension to the room so we put together a shelf today.

We still need to add the frames and shelfs over the couch but it's almost done ;) It's very exciting ;)

Projects

A frequent question I get is what a graphic designer does all day. Anything that is printed or put on the web has an origin. Whether it's the secretary creating it in Word or the designer using specific design programs, the facts are the same. Someone had to create it. Here is an example of a project our office worked on.

This is what a certain office wanted to make as gifts. Classy chocolate boxes like this.

They got this instead. 

(There was a little miscommunication between the printer and the client)

 So our office got to see if we could help for this time and then they would go to a different printer next time.  Kelly designed candy labels and we hand cut them all out. It was an experience. (Usually for these things, you get them printed somewhere and they have a die cut made. The die cut is the specific shape of the finished project.  It saves the work for someone having to hand cut them all out, makes the end product all the same, and is uniquely shaped.)

 For the box not being ideal, the chocolate looks pretty sweet.