July 2009
11 posts
The Week I Travelled
Atl. 56-59.
So last weekend, after a cool, relaxing weekend in AL with one of my roommates, I got back to Atlanta Sunday evening, grabbed a bite from Wendy’s (caesar salad + spicy chicken sandwich = happy Russell). I had quite a thoughtful adventure later at night when I went down to the corner store for a bit as well… It really challenged me to think about what it means to love...
If I Thought Last Week Was Busy...
Atl. 50-55.
This week was an intense amount of design output. Monday, I finished up two massive, retractable vinyl banner designs for the Sojourners’ Justice Revival event and Gisele picked them up from Sign-A-Rama and mailed them straight to Dallas. Justice Revival’s Twitter feed said that they received them and they looked great, so that was nice. I also started dialoguing with...
If you want to check out some of the designs I... →
Crazy Week
Atl. 45-49.
Another recap! This week has just been WAY too busy to even have time to tumblog!
Wednesday, we received a LOT of print materials. I picked up the new shirts and the reprint of the old shirts, we got the three huge banners for Gift Card Giver, and we got a bunch of signage for Plywood. I stayed up all night Tuesday designing a 2’x3’ sign for Plywood to have at its booth,...
RE-cap (design)
Atl. 40-44.
Friday, I started an account and relationship with a new online printer, PS Print. I’m usually pretty leery about giving expensive orders to online printers whom I haven’t worked with before, but PS Print looks like it can really deliver. They had really competitive prices, recyclable card stock options (important when printing business cards for an environmentally...
A Quick Summary
Atl. 38-39.
I made things.
And I think they came out looking pretty good.
A Day in the Park... Kinda
Atl. 37.
This evening after work, I heated up some leftover chicken for dinner to eat while Max sat at my feet drooling and The Postal Service sang a song about great heights. And when I had cleaned up and put everything away (i.e., dumped it in the sink and/or wrapped it back up in aluminum foil) I got in the car and headed downtown to the park behind Wachovia on State Street, where I mentioned,...
Productive Monday
Atl. 36.
Got a lot done Monday.
Organized/finalized three different t-shirt orders for Gift Card Giver, and hopefully those will be produced soon. Still working on getting the GCG banners printed (how many blog posts have I said that in now?). Hopefully getting samples of different tote bag materials soon to verify what we want to print on for those. Definitely have learned the ins-and-outs of...
Giving in the Old Fourth Ward
Atl. 33-34.
Yesterday was pretty normal. I worked at MetroMerge until mid-afternoon, and then worked at the house for a bit, and then had to go pick up some stuff downtown with Gisele for the rest of the afternoon. Design-wise, I worked a lot in Illustrator on the Green My Hood logos, and got some pretty solid, safe/modern logo sets done that I’m really pleased with. They are...
A Cupcake and Coffee
Atl. 32.
Tuesday morning I woke up really early to make the trek up to Cross Pointe church in the north suburbs of Atlanta, near the Catalyst offices and convention center, with Jeff, Gisele, Chris Torres and Matt Carson (full car!). We met in the student center of the church with around 45 other creatives, innovators, and Catalyst employees for the annual creative brainstorming meeting. I met a...
June 2009
15 posts
Back in Atlanta
Atl. 31.
Quick recap: So last Wednesday I finished the illustrations for the Flash invite and updated some of the Gift Card Giver blogs. Thursday I networked around with some different wholesalers and screen printers to get some of our new product lines ready for the tour. I have definitely developed some good screen printing relationships that are already starting to pay themselves off, so...
LONG Tuesday
Atl. 27.
This blog post may be incoherent. I have not slept in a very, very long time now.
So, Tuesday morning I rode with Jeff out to the burbs to hang out at the Catalyst offices for the day. It was a pretty sweet set-up. For such a huge conference, you’d think it’d be a lot more business-y, but it was just a really big, creative-feeling space with a bunch of goofy people hanging...
Thursday - Monday
Atl. 22-26.
Thursday I finalized the design for the 8’x4’ posters. Jeff had some new words to be added into the typographic composition of the logo, so I reworked the image all in Illustrator (note to self: it is infinitely easier to make huge documents in Illustrator than Photoshop). That took a long time, but came out looking great. Separate note, got the shirts designed and ordered...
Design Stuff
Atl. 21.
Today was a pretty simple day, nothing spectacular going on. Jeff and I had breakfast this morning at the Bluebird to catch up about stuff. Our conversation ranged from branding and designing, to ministry and social programs. It was a good talk; I explained some of the tension that I was discovering between wanting to start organizations and programs and ministries that helped people...
Wachovia Park
Atl. 20.
Tonight, after $2 sushi in the Village (praise), I went downtown to meet Dee, a friend I met at the Original Event over spring break who now attends Georgia Tech, for coffee at Octane. We had a really great conversation about faith, and church, and life ambitions; it was an encouraging discussion with someone who shares many passions for and goals about both ministry and missional...
Monday
Atlanta. 19.
I went to MetroMerge for the day. I had one customer from the community come in to consider renting the space occasionally to possibly host a community book club or something after school for kids, so that was a great thing. Independently, I worked the rest of the day on the tour poster designs. They are very frustrating to work on, even at 50% of normal size. They make my computer...
A Good Weekend
Atlanta. Day 17 and 18.
Saturday I cooked more cinnamon-vanilla pancakes and scrambled eggs, had some time to finally sit down and study some Scripture (been a while), and worked on designs. That night, Tim O’Mara came and picked me up and we went to a house party he was having at his home in Adair Park. Adair Park is one of the roughest spots in Atlanta, right next to the terrible...
Friday
Atlanta. Day 16.
Still no Internet yesterday morning, so I went down to Joe’s after breakfast to work remotely for a while. I stayed there for a few hours and got some design stuff done, and then I left and went home to grab my camera and headed downtown for the Latin American music performance at the Woodruff Piazza. I took some photos there, and then bought a ticket to the High Museum of...
And Catching Up Again
Atlanta. Day 13-15.
I have slacked a little bit in staying faithful to updating this, but today I’ll try and catch up one more time, and then stick with it after this (maybe…).
So, I summarized Tuesday in my last “Catch Up” post, but some more stuff happened that day that I thought was worth writing about. When the board for Essential 2 Life came to meet at MetroMerge,...
Catch Up
Atlanta. Days 9-13.
Friday, Jeff took me to the Matchstick Media house to meet some of the guys there. They were all really cool, and I loved being in such a creative space. I’d love to have a design house like that someday. Later, we had lunch with Nick, the publisher of Paste Magazine at Taqueria in Decatur (best tacos I have ever had), and the rest of the day he taught me about...
Work Day
Atlanta. Day 8.
Went with Jeff to MetroMerge for the morning where we met with Tim Omara (not sure if I have that name right) who is starting an awesome social innovation project in one of THE toughest territories in all of south Atlanta. It was great just to listen to his life story. He and his wife moved into the slums to form relationships with a bunch of the youth there, and they have broken...
Homeless + Hungry
Atlanta. Day 7.
This morning I was on my own to make it to MetroMerge. I now run MetroMerge on Mondays and Wednesdays, so I was there all day today. I got a lot of work done, and left for lunch around 12:30. I met a group of kids from the neighborhood outside from “Who Am I?”, a group of teenagers that mentor other teenagers from the community. We talked about their project, and then...
Back in ATL
Atlanta. Day 6.
I went home Saturday through Monday for Clay and Rebecca’s wedding in Starkville. Saturday night I, - accompanied by the lovely Katie Sneed as my date - went to the rehearsal dinner, and then back to the Sneed’s house to chat about corporate vs. organic churches and ministries with Tina and Katie for a while. Sunday was the rehearsal all afternoon and the bachelor...
May 2009
5 posts
Inspiration
Atlanta. Day 5.
Some people have said that my blog was kinda boring. Completely understandable. Some of it is a school project; feel free to skim over the marketing/designing stuff if you’re not interested in that. But today had nothing to do with either, really, so maybe you’ll find this entry more interesting.
Jeff had a meeting at the Catalyst office today, so I was on my own for...
Guru
Atlanta. Day 4.
Today was a huge learning experience.
Things started off like normal: we got to MetroMerge around 9 in the morning and got to work on some stuff for GCG. One of the projects that I worked on throughout the day was a design for the announcement on GCG’s blog about the upcoming tour. But I worked really hard on it because more than likely we will craft all of the later...
More MetroMerge
Atlanta. Day 3.
Today was pretty great - a simple day because Jeff and I just worked at MetroMerge for the entire day, but a busy one too because we got a lot of work done for GiftCardGiver. I guess this is as good an opportunity as any to explain GiftCardGiver a bit more in detail. GCG is a non-profit organization that markets itself as a “revolutionary new form of giving,” differing...
Diversity Day
Atlanta. Day 2.
Today was all over the place.
This morning Jeff took me to BigStuff Offices in Alpharetta, a northern suburb of Atlanta, for a pretty awesome treat: the chance to sit in on the first creative planning meeting for this year’s Catalyst. I can’t say too much about it (because they made me agree not to let out any details before the event), but it was great to be around...
Welcome to Atlanta
Atlanta. Day 1.
It’s kind of cool going into something that you know nothing about - being out of your element, slightly displaced, and a little unsure of what’s in store. That feeling definitely summarized my day today. It was about a five hour drive to Atlanta, and although I filled it with enough Beatles, Dave Matthews, and Sufjan to keep my mind from wandering too much, I...