Before the Sunrises

Purple nooodle, Sketchbook2 project, Q. Cassetti, 2010, sharpies.Got some wrapping done. Not all finished but groupings are boxed and all they need are tags. Those that need to be fleshed out, are still on shelves. However, I am not feeling lost or disheartened about all of this…so I am feeling like goals could be met.

Now, for Holiday Decorating. I am going to need swags. Big question with that is to be a big girl and buy the real deal, or go for fauxpine, and have it around for later and not to worry about shedding etc? Other question, should I buy a few little lit trees for the front porch and that would be that? They would be sweet. I am also thinking luminaria for the Chorus event might be sweet too. Hmm. The shelf of nutcrackers need to come out. Big visual strokes. Not the usual “how bitty is bitty” thinking. And silver ornaments? How many zillion do I have. More zillions might be good. First, though, the Thanksgiving events need to happen. That is this week….

Finished Sketchbook 2 yesterday. Need to scan in and see what evolves. Had a nice hour last night making lines and loving my pen and paper. The last few images were valentines (only halfsies) so I cannot wait to see what happens when I flip them. I could cheat with a mirror, but the real fun is doing it in photoshop and seeing if what I hope/think will happen, does. Or, even better, a happy surprise! I am grooving on Sirin wings…and am putting them on all sorts of stuff. You will see as soon as they are scanned.

Rob is off to Albany early this a.m. for an interesting meeting. I have yearbook before 9…and then a quick drive to deliver cards to my pals at Cornell. There are the following things on the boards: work for the big client, Brochure and logotype for the Museum, Calendar to come for the Museum, a brochure for IC., and the two annuals for divisions of the Vet School. I need to nip at my printers as things are  not moving fast enough for me on the cards that are printing etc. I am using a small press that bumped my work for a job that their client screwed up and they needed to go of press for the second time. I am not thrilled about that. I have personal cards being printed and plan on sending out a business card and rack card for the Bakery as that need is there and the prices are good.

Alex has three days of school. Bruce is off on his holiday today. So, activity abounds and its not quite 6:30 in the morning.

Rob found my work here:  Crazy Chinese channels/ sites. I wish I could see what they like about the stuff. I find it fascinating. This Anina group literally lifted the entire bulk of work form  Chinese Padmag. Hmm. I also need to look into the address (web) that someone just plunked on one of my pieces. What does this mean?

Tony Hsieh, CEO, Zappos.com on Twitter

So first of all, what is Twitter? The best analogy I can think of is that it's like CB radio, but for text messaging. You basically answer the question "What are you doing right now?" at different times throughout the day, and the messages that you send have to be short -- 140 characters or less. So some examples of what you might say are:

Having drinks at the Horseshoe Bar with my co-workers.
zappos 2 minutes ago
or

Eating sushi.
zappos 1 minute ago
or

About to fly to New York from Vegas.
zappos less than a minute ago

You send an SMS text message to Twitter with your note, and your message will be automatically broadcast (like CB radio) to whoever is choosing to follow you (your friends). If people don't care what you're doing, they won't follow you, so don't worry about sending out trivial messages.

At first, it will seem really weird and unnatural for you to do this, but just trust me on this one. You will find that it's actually a really good way to stay in touch with all your friends and know what's going on in their lives.
___
Tony really explains what Twitter is...and how to go about doing it. Check it out here>>

yap yap yapping.

See what I mean about the wisteria(top)? I saw a pot of these surreal pansies and shot this picture. I think I may use this as reference to create a vector image...that could become a pattern, end papers or just plain scrap for the next vernal job that comes my way.

The boys went off to the LPGA. K watched movies and I spent 4 hours on my animal client and the annual report/ year in review that we do...amending images, retouching, cutting in new copy, reviewing the rags, seeing what works, what doesnt. It was pleasant, almost serene to have the time to putz away on this. The week gets so harried from one identity crisis to another, from one "whoopsie daisy"--rush to the next--that a little buffer of time with no expectation was vacation for me.

I am reading the Dummys book on Wordpress. Wordpress is a blogging environment that I think will be the next step for me. You can host with Wordpress or host at your own ISP. You can set up community sites, or single authored sites. There are a zillion free templates with all the coding all ready done...that a header can be stripped into--and with the right color and type manipulation done with CSS, a relatively fresh looking blog can be created, controlled and modified as we go. Plus, as a bonus, I can port my Blogspot blog from Blogspot to Wordpress and allow me to control my fate, how its saved etc.--essentially not feeling somehow burdened by the who what why and ownership related to the Blogspot empire. And, to reinforce this, I can put my own graphics on the top. Not someone elses. Somehow inheriting a grid with some masterpage stuff is fine as there are a ton of choices and its the content, isn't it? Plus, the other piece is adding widgets to allow the reader's interface to be smoother, more interesting, more responsive, is another component where there are a ton of them that you can strip into your blog and have it operable. I know a tiny bit of HTML, and I am good with looking for bits of code to amend with color binhex numbers, and the flow diagram on fonts--which doesn't in anyway make me any kind of pro--but I can limp along. Lesson from the Vertical Response time this week setting up an emailer, the tools are familiar, the grids simple and when the color wouldn't change to my liking, I went into the code, found the color and typed in what I wanted..and it worked...affirms my thinking.

My thinking on web communications and how one delivers content is...keep it clean, keep it changeable, keep it VERY current and leave it at that. No one is coming to see the most "bent pinky" approach to the typography or the most elegant and stylish treatment of the white space--they are coming for the rant, for the picture, for the link, for the opinion or joke. Good design can be for the less flexible, the website, that adores flash and elegance...and might be a tad lighter weight in the fresh content. They both have a role, the blog and the website--how does a good communicator have them work for and with each other? And then, throw in the emailer? Wow.

So, essentially, its a way to put together blogs in a way that allows the designer a lot more visual, functional and organizational choices that can be delivered via the WordPress site, your own internet service provider that is either for individual authors or communitities. And, oh by the way, did I mention that it's mostly free? Now, all I have to do is read the book and give it a try. Worth it, eh?