Happy Mother's Day!

For all the wonderful Mothers out there, thanks for putting up with us crazy children! xoxoxoxo

Website Design: Footprintz

Home Page

Website for a dance team website in Perth, Australia.

Classes

It's getting colder here! This morning was a chilly 70'F. And it's extremely bizarre going into "winter" in May. Mom told me she was sending me an Easter present (yay!) and I was like "Easter!? When the heck is Easter!? Isn't it Halloween soon!?" So as you can imagine, I'm going to be baking/cooking a lot.

Blog post page

For example, I made butternutsquash ravioli from scratch yesterday. Okay, mostly I was procrastinating laundry and dishes, but still. It's finally cool enough to turn the oven on, so all I need is a kitchenaid and I'll be baking up a figurative storm.

There will be some design changes, tweaking grids and borders and the like, but I'm happy with the progress so far. Happy weekend!

Water Color Wax

Layers of watercolor after splotching the paper with some candle wax. Relaxing... yet unsettling. I think it's because that white is so white.

Anzac Day is April 25th!

If it wasn't for the Camel Bar, I would never get around to updating this darned blog! This is the flyer I designed for their Anazac Day Quiz Night.

Yesterday I was really sick at work, and got ANOTHER email written in comic sans, from some spam advertiser. A full page (probably 150 words?) In emboldened comic sans. If I had been feeling better, I would've just trashed it like everything I get that's written in comic sans, but for whatever reason, I wrote back a rather rude memo saying "If this wasn't written in comic sans, I would think about reading this". Well, turns out it wasn't a spambot, and I received a reply, "Sorry Maren, but if we can't use everyone's favorite font, and since we're a fun company, Times New Roman and Arial just won't do!" I wanted to cry. Is that what people up here think are their options? Times New Roman, Arial, and Comic Sans?

I miss civilization.

How to Break Up With a Designer

I thought about whether or not to post this blog post, and I decided that I should, as a few other friends (both designers and clients) have run into this same issue, and it's something not many people know how to handle in the moment.

As the client, whatever you say goes. We know it, you know it, everybody who's been on this merry-go-round knows it. For things to go smoothly, a great deal of collaboration, patience, and understanding will develop. Your client will jump at opportunities to hire you, and your designer will bend over backward to please them. However, if the client is unhappy, the designer is just as unhappy, and it can turn into a big mess. So what do you do if things aren't going well?

Start Over

Pretend you'd never met, and explain your goals again, what you want the final product to be. The designer then should explain the concerns or challenges (s)he is confronted with. Discuss the options, think inside and outside of the box. No boundaries, just discuss options. Brain storm. Get excited about the project again.

Haggle

Italian street vendor-style. This is the hardest part, because the client or designer might have to let go or alter some of their goals. It's important that discussion doesn't stop in the middle of this, otherwise you'll have a very disgruntled designer or a very fed up client who'll want to jump ship. Trust your designer. You've hired them for a reason. Listen to the client, they've hired you for a reason.

Be Direct

If things aren't resolved, and you've tried new mockups, new inspiration, and the two just aren't seeing eye to eye, just be direct and say that your needs aren't being met in this relationship, and that it's time to part ways. Does this sound familiar? Yep, treat it like an amorous relationship. Be firm, kind, and part ways. This is one of the reasons a contract is so important for big projects, because sometimes things fall apart.

Whatever you do, for god's sake, DO NOT tell the designer in the middle of a project that they've hired someone else, and then send them the final result. You'll look like an asshole. Designers, DO NOT continue sending designs, you'll look desperate. Even if you come up with the answers and it's perfect; just keep it in your portfolio. 

Have you ever had to break up with a client or designer? What would you add to this list?  



 

The Debonair Owl

 I suddenly have been getting sales on Red Bubble for my dapper animal collection, so I made a Spatted Owl - heh, get it? Instead of spotted, it's spatted. heh heh.

You can see it (and the rest of the dapper animals) here.

Book Cover (unused)

I've been working on a few projects, but none of them are done yet! Yiiiiish. Like this one, it's still in the works, but since this is absolutely-positively not going to be used, I thought, what the heck. It's a survival book on how to live in your car. Depressing but useful.

In other news I have ringworm -- the mosquitoes and sandflies weren't enough, had to catch a fungus. Gross. At least it's not a real worm, that would be horrible. 

Website Update!

I forgot to put those Camel Bar murals on there, can you believe that?! But huzzah for productivity, the site was about 3 months behind, so tada! I still have some projects up my sleeves that I'm working on, nothing impressive to show case yet though.

Also, I noticed that on Internet Explorer (when I was showing a coworker my website) that on the Portfolio section when you click the different filters it just takes you back to the homepage. Lame. No issues with Chrome, Safari or Firefox (at least on my end), but it's frustrating. Most people around here have windows, which makes IE the default, so that's a bummer. Maybe I'll get around for a fix, but that's highly unlikely because a) super busydom and b) I don't really care about IE. Which probably makes me a browser snob, and I apologize for that. Heh, no I don't.
hehehehe

Water Color Cards

If there's one thing I will never grasp the concept of, it's gold pens. Caligraphy? Of course. Engraved? Sure, why not. But just a plain old ball point pen made of gold? I just can't understand it.

In other news, I did some water color cards. Unfortunately they've all been mailed, so I can't re-take the blurry photos. Case in point, right above.

Footy Tipping 2013!

Compared with 2012's:

Trying to balance a day job and freelancing is almost as difficult as trying to type and watch a TV show at the same time. And I don't have much of an update other than that, except for my awesome chili and cornbread dinner. It was awesome.

Yes, I Am Still Alive. And Spaghetti.

So I've been flat out (Australian expression for working really really ridiculously good looking hard) this month, and have not done ANYTHING on this blog. So disappointing, I am fully aware. So I'm going to just show you things that other people have drawn for me, and talk about myself. Because it's my blog, so there.

This is a drawing David drew for me when we first started dating. It's a golden goose. So awesome. Due to this towns serious lack of good clothing/any sort of fashion sense, I commissioned my sister to send me some clothes from Portland. Then I bought almost $500 worth of clothes off of modcloth. Which is well and good, but I do NOT like waiting, and I'm having a really hard time NOT checking the mail every hour. It only comes once in the morning (and 5 times a week if I'm lucky) (that's what she said) (bahahaha) (sorry) so hopefully I get lucky next week. (Innuendo intended.)

This painting is GORGEOUS and my work-desktop picture. My best/favoritist sister painted it for me. Speaking of work... no, lets not. Alright, since it's already been brought up, I LOVE it and I've already been promoted, and it's so awesome. Crazy busy, sometimes it feels like my head will explode, but it's the *good* kind of exploding. Reminds me of Stage Managing in the old days. Ahhh the old days. 

Happy weekend, party people. Give me comments about your thoughts on spaghetti: red sauce or white?

Kerry's Birthday

I can't even show you the whole thing because it's not my picture that I can use, isn't that LAME? So lame. It's a good invite though. Bottom of invite:

I've been hired on in an administration position in town, and even though it's only 8 hour days I am just pooped. Although today I did manage to do 2 loads of laundry, grocery shopping for the week, made dinner, and did the dishes. Also gave myself a mani-pedi; I somehow managed to mangle my finger in something and sliced up a nail, so protective layer of nail polish = applied.

I am literally falling asleep as I write this.
It's barely even 8:30pm.
Rocking it.
<3 br="br">

Footprintz Dance Academy

Logo for a dance company in Perth, which was looking for a logo re-design and some t-shirt designs. Everything will get printed on Red shirts, and possible black and white.

Merry New Years!

Dapper Tiger

For Christmas, I designed David a new addition for his Dapper Animal T-Shirt collection. I like to think that Dapper Tiger was at a function at the Met, when the waiter spilled caviar down his tuxedo, and Dapper Tiger is just about to maul him (in a sophisticated manner).

You can purchase your own Dapper Tiger at Red Bubble in an assortment of colors.

New Years at the Camel Bar

Typically David and I hang out at home with cigars and champagne. Or something, I don't really know what we do yet. There's a lot of pressure to make new traditions. Pressure from pinterest. I have got to stop looking at pinterest. Right, so, if you're in Geraldton, check out the Camel Bar for New Years! And the rest of you, what will you do to ring in 2013?