Halloween is approaching, and there is talk of dressing up at work. Or, maybe I should say, there is actually the expectation to dress up for Halloween. Whatever I wear, I want to be comfortable, so I can eat all of the candy, cakes, and pies that we have been prompted to bring in. I also think that my costume will be interactive. The most fun I’ve had at Halloween has been because my costume came alive with  a little bit of acting. One costume I created was fairly camouflaged, until I held out my arm, which had golden strings attached to my ankle. When I started playing the strings with my other hand, it was clear I was a human harp. It wasn’t easy to commit to only singing all Halloween, but it was harder for my cohort, who was a monk taking a vow of silence.

Another Halloween I was a jellyfish, and my long shimmering bubblewrap tentacles were ready to twirl and sting at the slightest provocation, or do the jellyfish dance.

Websites and CD-ROMs can also be more fun with a little interactive action. A little interaction can be all it takes to give a website or CD-ROM sophisticated polish and interest. One reason I love making designs for CD-ROMs, is that I know when I hand if over to DDA’s animators, they will do something beautiful and unexpected to enhance it, like making a ball-shaped logo spin, or creating a cool rollover effect. Take a look at dda’s CD-ROM/DVD portfolio to see some examples, or check out DDA’s website flash portfolio.

This past weekend was a wonderful disaster. You may be asking how any disaster can be wonderful, but it can. It started the day I got back from CA; I was looking forward to a relaxing weekend when learned I had the opportunity to grab an open table at a convention in New York. I immediately spoke with a friend who said that I would be able to stay with her, so I claimed the table space right away. Late Wednesday night my friend emailed me back to say that it would not be possible to stay with her after all. With two days to an unplanned convention, no where to stay, half my merchandise an hour away, me needing to pick up my friend who was coming into the city to help me man my booth, and homework that needed to get finished, I was under a lot of stress.

Even under all the stress and time constraints I tried to maintain a level headed coolness. Freaking out about the total of 6 hours I had to complete everything I needed to do would not get me in a better place. When my friend arrived I updated her on everything and gave her the worst case scenario; which was that we would have to commute from philly to NYC every day of the convention. Well, Friday morning came and we were unable to secure a place to stay, which meant we spent 4 hours in the car each day. (Which was really ‘awesome’ with all the rain and morning mist.) We even had the pleasure of taking the wrong turn and driving over 120 miles out of the way. And these are only the highlights of some of the disasters.

However, while at the convention everything went very well. It was my first NY con and we received a lot of good feedback on some new projects that are underway. We were also able to hand out a good amount of flyers and other freebies. I got some good ideas on future table/booth set ups and made quite a few new contacts. My friend had a good time and was able to do some things that she had hoped to do. She even won a raffle, which made my weekend better knowing hat she was having fun.

Fortunately working at DDA has better prepared me for a bombardment of last minute tasks. In a single day we can have all of our ‘ongoing’ projects get approved and need them finished by the week’s end. Or a client can call in and need 4-5 projects done by the end of the day! I’m not exaggerating either.

After I got both kids in for naps this afternoon, I settled down to my computer with a giant mug of tea and, admittedly, continued with my work (a website design for a company that makes spectrometers) half-heartedly. The kids were wound up today and they just exhausted me… thank god they’re headed to grandma’s tomorrow. Grandma’s are the best. Anyway, after about 20 minutes of work I was called into a conference call with a new client to discuss what I thought would be another trifold brochure project. By the time David and Steve (project coordinator and writer for this project) got me on the phone, it had morphed into a trading card! A boisterous, enthusiastic group of clients were also there and ideas were flying all around the room. Suddenly, I became alive again… the enthusiasm in the room was just contagious (or was it the 2 fun size snickers I was eating?). All this enthusiasm is just what I needed and seeing that the project needs to be written, designed and proofed by Thursday is certainly going to be a challenge. But, it’s what I do and I think what I do best.

I discovered that trait somewhere around my 3rd year of college. I tried and tried to sit and work on illustrations slowly and perfectly, building layers of color and depth and after about 5 or 6 hours of this method I would get bored and frustrated. Finally, I learned that I needed to start and finish a piece in under 3 hours. My best work was done that way. A method of painting quickly with thin layers of oil paint and adding detail with colored pencil and an x-acto knife was fine-tuned. Granted some pieces did take longer than 3 hours, but if I was able to get the bulk of the work done in that amount of time, success was imminent. 

So, my game plan for tomorrow is to gather all my necessary bits of info - text from Steve, a logo, images and color choices. I’ll begin by taking a look at some trading cards for inspiration and get to work! This one will be a challenge, but it’s what DDA does best. Sure, a one-sided sale sheet would be a piece of cake and what the client originally requested, but DDA doesn’t work that way. Anyone can do a one-sided sale sheet, but it’s not what our clients really needed. And enthusiastically the best solution was agreed upon… a trading card targeted to high school athletes who desire to go to college. Brilliant!