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 from traditional charities in that it doesn’t rely on donations so much as it does people just giving some of their stuff up when they realize they don’t need it anymore. I like it from that perspective because it is “the rich” meeting “the poor,” “the rich” seeing that they have “enough” and so instead of just wasting whatever else they have, they can give it to someone who doesn’t have “enough.” GCG manifests that specifically by taking up people’s leftover gift cards (because billions of dollars of gift cards in the U.S. go unused every year) and using them as resources to bless the poor - from buying a homeless man some Starbucks to buying shoes for kids in Guatemala. It’s a new organization, but it’s already starting to get a lot of attention from other organizations. It’s pretty exciting to work on.
So, design work: I finished a design for the “tag” that will be attached to the old and new GCG shirts that we’ll be selling this summer. The tag displays info on the shirt as well as the “story” behind what GCG does (which I had to write myself). Jeff has really kind of opened my eyes to how telling a “story” in marketing - especially social marketing - is so valuable; it helps people better connect with the message you’re conveying. Once I had several design prototypes, I presented them to Jeff and he coached me through my presentation skills so that I can better know how to present to clients in the future. One thing he recommended was that if I had different designs, culminating the ones that I made first and didn’t like into the one that I felt was strong enough. This kind of shows my progression in dealing with problems from the first designs, I suppose. I also learned that a design has to be reworked - a LOT - to get it right, and sometimes you have to borrow from other design ideas that you have to make a finished product. The tag we agreed upon keeps within the color and design scheme of GCG’s pre-existing branding without being a direct copy of the “same old stuff.” Another interesting topic that we talked about was the role that the demographic that you’re designing for/marketing to plays into (some designs market to the punk rockers, others to the eco-friendlies). After the tag, I made a new Twitter page for the non-profit that corresponds with the new design theme of the tag, and an advertisement for their Web-site that advertises their Twitter page. All of these designs incorporated a few new techniques that I have learned: stroking a path to simulate brushstrokes in Photoshop, and half-tone effects. I used Photoshop and Illustrator to make the designs, and assembled them in InDesign to ready them as .PDFs for viewing.
Ok, now for the less boring stuff (because the above paragraph is for college credit, haha). We got home and decided to throw a few burgers on the grill, but realized we didn’t have burger stuff. So I ran to Publix (first time to try and navigate to something in the city myself, kinda cool) and picked up the food, came back, and had my first ever “Bubba Burger.” I must say, they’re pretty good! Jeff, Andre, and Meghan left to go to their community group but I stayed in because I needed to work on some stuff for my college’s yearbook (which we’re pretty behind on). Before I got too into the yearbook though, I took a walk down to the Village to get some coffee. Here’s a fact for you: Joe’s coffee shop is one of the coolest coffee shops I have ever been to. Rockers and homeless people hang out there together, there’s awesome artwork, and there’s a lounge set-up that looks straight out of a hipster/hippie movie. It was great. And their hazelnut iced latté (yes, as lame as that sounds) is pretty great too. At around 10:30 someone came by the house and rang the doorbell, but it was dark and I couldn’t see who it was so I just didn’t answer. Andre said it was probably Clarence, a homeless man that drops by to see them often. I hope that I get to meet Clarence sometime. Maybe we could even go to Joe’s together.
