Road Work Big

I woke up yesterday when my cat jumped on the bed and sat on my chest. I looked at the clock. It said 8:28 am, a great deal faster than actual time. But I couldn't have been more confused. Was it Sunday morning? Did I need to get ready for practice? Wait, was it Monday? Why didn't the alarm go off? Oh no, it is Monday.

This was how the day started off and it stayed sort of foggy for most of the remainder. So when I saw one of those light-up construction signs that flash messages and it said, "Road Workbig 2/16. Expect Delals," I chalked it up to my addled brain.

"Work big? Well that doesn't make any sense," I thought.

But this morning, with a somewhat clearer sense of the world, I saw the sign again and it said the same thing. Which means two things. First, my imagination didn't make up words. Second, after 24 hours or more, no one thought they should correct the sign.

I can write good

Not only can I design stuff, I can write stuff, too.* For whatever reason, I'm sort of proud of the most recent issue of the Carolina Rollergirls' monthly e-newsletter, RinkRash. I think it has something to do with that amazing second-to-last sentence in the first paragraph.

Writing for RinkRash is so out of the norm of what I do day to day. It's fun, but it definitely a challenge. For example, RinkRash is bossy. It tells you, no demands you, to do stuff. Buy Tickets! Remember these dates!

I'm not sure what people "hear" when they read it or what other people think of when they write it, but I like to read it out loud as I go. And as I do so, I read it with a monster truck voice. SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY!

But the most recent one is a lot softer. It's more in my natural voice, I guess. I felt it was pretty important to explain to the fans the rather complicated way the league divides itself up to play games. A constant challenge.

*This claim has not be verified.

Such a helpful worker!

When a client sends an email questioning little design details, such as, "Now that I'm looking at this, do you think the white words get a bit lost?" it's really hard not to answer it with, "Will do!"

So next time you send an email and the person replies without actually answering any questions you posed...just think of this.

Illustration: Two Things

I love illustration. I love looking at it and sometimes I enjoy attempting it. Even though I do an illustration here and there, I don't think of myself as an illustrator, but I somewhat secretly aspire to be one.

This morning I stumbled across two things. The first is an article from waaay back in 2002, by Laurie Rosenwald. It starts out:

Admit it. Oh, come on. Everybody knows that illustration is nothing. Nothing compared to graphic design. Nothing compared to photography.

She had me at hello. Here was a perspective I had not explored. But I got what she was talking about. Why draw a line between different areas of creativity? Fortunately for me, my college had encouraged mixing illustration with design and design with illustration. But even outside of scholastic programs, there is a prejudice about illustration.

Somehow I've become the illustration ambassador at my job, constantly defending its merits in whatever shape it takes. No, illustration does not have to mean watercolor or color pencil. Yes, vector art is illustration. And no, computer illustrations do not always look flat and basic.

The second thing I found today is an amazing blog that combines two interests of mine: illustration and missed connections from Craigslist. Sophie Blackall takes those lonely shouts into the wilderness and translates them into whimsical images that take on poetic tones with her blog Missed Connections. Really beautiful. It adds visuals to those vulnerable human moments of magic that we all hope are an opening chapter to something else.

Evaluate This

If I owned my own company, employee evaluations would be based on a scale of 1-5.

1- You bombed, man

2- You failed to rock any socks

3- Some socks have been rocked

4- Rockin' the socks pretty hard

5- You rocked the socks off a mongoose!