Friday, August 13 was the last day of a summer-long internship at Design-Concepts Inc. I spent the summer there serving as a marketing assistant / graphic designer. It was my first real glimpse of the corporate design world, and I have to say…I’m digging it. For some reason, strict, clear guidelines, challenging assignments, and insane deadlines really get me going. Granted most of the work I did there was on relatively loose time-restrictions, but when one came around where somebody need something that required an insane amount of work, and they need it yesterday was when I feel I really thrived. It’s the kind of clutch performance that I’m hoping will really be huge asset when it comes to application time post-graduation.

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Allow me for a moment to go on a little mini-rant. So I consider myself a decent designer. I’m well liked, people like my work, I’ve won awards, yada yada. Some have even gone as far as to call me one of the best if not the best design student in the school. Whether or not they’re right is not up to me to decide, and even if they were, I’m not the kind of person who toots their own horn so to speak. I believe in humble strength. I always have. (more…)

So as mentioned in a previous post, I recently finished up a summer-long internship at Design Concepts. My the style of work I was required to do there was strictly corporate. Which, if you’ve seen my body of work pre-summer, is not necessarily my weapon of choice. Before hand I really focused on things with a lot of texture, paint splatters etc, and I did it well. My four student ADDY awards are testament to that. But after concluding my internship, and being exposed to this new style, I can’t help but find myself favoring it over my old style. Now all of the sudden I’m favoring clean, simple, yet still “well designed” designs. But I fear I may be neglecting the old style. What I really want to do is find a happy medium between the two. Looking at designers like Jeff Finley and Brian Hoff is something I really would like to shoot for.

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Before I get started, let me just say that I LOVE the Adobe programs, and will continue to use them whether or not they decided to make these changes somewhere down the pipe.

Anybody who has used more than one of the Adobe Creative Suite for any given amount of time, has to have noticed the little inconsistencies in the way the programs function. It’s clear that each program was developed by a different team, but there are some fundamental things that you would think would be the same in each program that aren’t, and haven’t been. (more…)

This past weekend I, along with my fiancé and her parents ventured out to quiet little Hatfield, Wisconsin for their annual flea market. Most people go there with the intent of picking up little trinkets or possibly the occasional large item for bottom dollar prices. I really have no need for those kind of items, and being a designer, I as always went in to the flea market with a completely different perspective. (more…)

Today I took part in day one of a two day long critique in one of my web design classes. An interesting question was posed to me by my professor. He asked, “I know you probably take this for granted, but for the rest of the class explain how do you feel about web presence? Why is it important?”. He was definitely correct in assuming that I took web presence for granted. For years I have been reading design blogs, keeping tabs on my favorite designers, and within the last six months or so tweeting with them. It surprised me to find out that a VERY small amount of my classmates do this kind of thing. With all of us within a year of graduation I decided to give them my opinion and urge them for their own sake, to try and develop a web presence. (more…)

So recently I think I’ve reached my facebook boiling point. I’ve had a facebook account for years. But I’ve reached the “resentment phase” of what I’ve dubbed the “Facebook Evolution”. What I mean by this is that when people sign up for facebook they’re usually really excited about finding and re-connecting with friends, playing games etc. Eventually the novelty wears off, the account begins to collect dust and is most of the time forgotten. I certainly wish I could forget about facebook. Don’t get me wrong it has its uses which is why my account still exists, but if it wasn’t for the people I’m friends with on facebook that I don’t have in my phone, I definitely wouldn’t have an account. (more…)