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 that’s a great tool for a designer. Also Thursday, I got a behind-the-scenes tour of a very reputable printing and communications facility here in Atlanta: Lawrence Ink (and its faith-based counterpart, Crimson Ink). Darren Phillips gave me the tour; he showed me everything from their massive off-set printer that prints at 7200dpi (and walked me through the process of how it works) to their old, 1950s letter-press machines. I also got to start a relationship with their company; I met all of their workers, and Darren said that I could feel free to print off proofs through them whenever I needed. If I work on any projects for Jeff that they produce, Darren even said that I could come and watch my project go from file to plate to paper. We went out for lunch after the tour, and wound up talking a lot about ministry and discipleship. Our backgrounds wound up being very, very similar, and so it was a really great conversation. This weekend, I went with my sister and brother-in-law from Chattanooga back to MS for a belated Father’s day celebration. It was great to spend a few days with the family.
Today was Gisele’s first day on Gift Card Giver staff, and we met with Jeff at MetroMerge to detail production stuff for the tour. We nailed down our orders, and are going to try and get those taken care of by the end of the week. I’ve also been contacting all of the tour locations and finalizing the tour schedule. Things really started coming together today, it felt like. I’ve got to start ordering the vinyl banners soon through a company in Decatur, GA, and then I’m going to make a composite poster of all of the illustrations I’ve done of the cities and hopefully get those printed as well for promo material. I also started making some vectors for the “Green My Hood” project logo. Jeff said they were off to a good start, one was ready for submission as a possibility, but talked about styling the final presentation with one logo that is “edgy” (saying that it would be fine, but may not be right for you), one that is “safe” (that is my recommendation of what the client should use), and finally one that is “creative and OUT there” (that I tell them I don’t think they’re ready for). He said that establishing a presentation like this shows my variety as a designer, and it also shows my clients that I am “down-grading” the crazy creative possibilities to fit a more conservative design standard; this effectively tells them that they have hired a designer that is more creative than they are. That doesn’t act as an insult to them, but as a selling point to me: even though they won’t pick the “Out There” design, they see that I am capable of thinking way outside of the box, and challenging them with a creativity that says, “Can you handle what I’m designing?” I thought this was a great approach, and will follow it as I finish the logo designs.
Tomorrow I will be at the annual creative brainstorming meeting for Catalyst all day. I think that will be a really great and creative break from sitting in front of Illustrator for too long!
