This to me sounded completely boring. I had big plans to make a beautiful fold apart, crafty little number; complete with bottle shots, illustration etc, but as these things go, we didn’t have much of a budget. I was, however, able to sort of meet in the middle and create a spicier version of the traditional sales sheet. J&C’s brand and appeal is that they are a young, fresh approach to liquor distribution, they are more hands-on and do all of the foot work, rather than sitting behind a desk and barking into the phone. So a fresh approach to sales sheets and leave-behinds seems only necessary. First reactions so far are good. They will go out full force tomorrow and by the end of week will be left behind in most liquor stores from Whatcom County down to Pierce.

So! Here they are. Let me know what you think…They were printing super inexpensively, a bought all the paper at Paper Zone, a Neenah and the outer cover is 80lb cover stock in cardboard brown, recycled. I think they turned out quite well. Type skills are getting better and better, thanks to my intense freelancing with Hybrid 3!

The photos came out a little yellow, but they are indeed brown and cream…Yum.

Thoughts?

From what Chad has been saying they are getting good feedback. He apparently ran into the rep from Makers Mark, Jim Beam, etc at a liquor store here in Seattle and the guy asked about his displays. He showed him a picture and the guy was thoroughly impressed and asked Chad “who came up with THAT idea?” he loved it! Yaaay! And the Corsair people are really excited about it. They want some for there displays in Kentucky. Chad’s talking about putting a patent on idea….etc etc. We’ll see.

So I still have two to three more to do. I will upload pictures asap.
Yipppeeee!

This look would require me to make a ton of stencils. Which I’ve done. Holy moly! It took soooo long to cut out the discription paragraph. I first stenciled all the letters onto a poster board (which FYI I will never use poster board again, I will spring for the expensive Vellum. It was finger torture!) then after stenciling the whole paragraph I sat there for two days cutting all the wee letters out.

Body parts that tend to hurt after hours of exacto cutting:

Thumb
Pointer finger
Web between thumb and pointer
Elbow
Neck
Eyes
Whole right arm.

But they turned out nicely. I will start the process here:

Anyway it was a great experience. Saw an eight color press, a web press, learned the difference between UV ink and not UV ink.

T’was a blast and I hope there are many more to come!

When I need to wind down I mess around in my collage book. It’s the best thing, mindless and fun. I really love collaging, most of my paintings are based off collages I have made. I’m into this kind above lately. I’ve been playing with vertical lines and cutting pieces of the picture apart and just focusing on the colors. Fun fun. I’ve been needing some wind down work lately. Super tired and burnt out. But happy : )

This reminds me of Halloween, the line doesn’t relate to how I feel right now…..at all!

Work at Hybrid 3 is going great. I love it. Never want to leave. I’ve already learned sooooo much. After just a week, a weekend and a Friday of working I know so much more about InDesign, corporate mumbo-jumbo and how you deal with stuff. The process seems so much slower than what we were required to do at school. We got weeks to do things at school, but without a real client breathing down your neck its just not the same.

The most valuable thing I’ve learned so far I think is the process (my blog name!! hehehe) of breaking down the work and beginning to solve the problem. I realized that I have been in the habit of putting too much pressure on myself in the beginning and that’s not the way to do it. You have to ease into the solution. The hammering out of the solution, the massaging and funneling of the information and design is a major process and I should allow myself time to figure that all out without judging the crap I make in the process. Good stuff!

Another thing is just file management, and document management, especially InDesign multi-paged documents. Paragraph styles a big plus! I have definitely used these before but not to this caliber. There is a paragraph style for every situation and it makes revisions and adding to the document so much easier.

So rad, loving it, working 11 hour days, and not even minding it. I’ve been so exhausted when I get home that I’ve fallen asleep on the couch twice and slept there all night. I am totally prepared to bust my butt like this for anyone if it involves work like this though. I don’t mind it at all. It’s rewarding and feels great to actually do something that you went to school for….if it could only last a little longer….hopefully it will lead to bigger and better things. I’ll still be there Monday…keep you posted!

Oh ya and happy halloween!

I started helping out at design firm Hybrid 3 this last Friday. Wow! What an amazing experience for me. I walked in not having any idea what to expect, I was almost thinking I was going to a house….but…. I walked up to a perfect little studio in Queen Anne instead. Small, white, clean, organized, and the most comfortable chair I have ever sat in. One of my teachers recommended me to her friend, Michael Stearns, who owns and operates Hybrid 3. He needed some help with a current project (I’ll reveal later) and was looking for someone with some type skills and who knew InDesign well. ME!

It was an unbelievable day. I got to sit at my own desk, I was so nervious and excited I only ate a handful of cashews all day. It is great to finally be in an environment where I can speak the same language. I love that when Michael was explaining to me the process in which we were going to tackle this task that he painted such an elaborate and visual image. Filled with hand gestures and a story, I actually was seeing the Word document spinning and massaging down a tunnel into the finished fancy interactive PDF it was meant to become. It was perfect, exactly how I needed it to be explained. I love how designers and creative people think. Another example: when I was told we could use the huge white boards leaning against the wall to map out our thoughts to make it easier. He got them just for this project. Duh! Of course! That would make it so much easier and visual.

So this is a great opportunity and experience. I’m so excited to go back on Monday, and hope it turns into something more. I am determined to get all I can out of it, whether it be a recommendation, portfolio piece, job opportunity, knowledge, or all of the above.

The picture is my inspiration: I will get a little room like this when I feel like I have accomplished my goals. This will be my present to myself. Isn’t it lovely?