petnames

> Back when my first niece was a baby, I created an alphabet with hand-drawn, hand-painted animals and drew her name, and gave it to her parents as a gift. I got an email last week from a friend asking me to do the name of her beautiful newly adopted son. 
> Over the past 20-something years, I've finessed and refined the drawings, and have probably painted over 100 names. Things have come full circle...that "baby" niece is expecting her first baby soon, and as I am with each request I get, if she wants me to do her baby's name, I will be flattered.

one thing at a time

>  Years ago, I was concerned about launching my first web site—I wanted everything to be "perfect". My background and expertise is primarily in print design, where you don't "finish" and distribute a job until there are no errors. However, I got some advice from a fellow designer. He told me, "Just get it out there. You can finesse and make changes as often as you want, but at least get it out there".  So I did. 

>  Since I'm the one doing everything: the design, production, accounting, sales, janitorial, etc., I'm not always able to take the time to finalize and finesse things for myself, like I do for my clients. My own projects take the back seat, but it doesn't mean I can't make things happen. I just have to do them a little differently. Like my blog. I knew I wanted and needed to get one going, but only took a minimal amount of time getting it started. I made sure it was green, (of course), but didn't play too much with the formatting at the time, knowing that as my brand continued to develop and expand in other areas, the graphics and style would be take less time if I applied it as I went along.

>  Yesterday, I finally took some time to update the header and style of my blog. Through my email newsletter and the overhaul to my web site, I had figured out the style elements I wanted to apply to my blog, so I was able to reduce the design time and just do a little production to make my blog a more cohesive piece of my entire brand.

>  Not necessarily the ideal, but it works. For myself, I've found that I can do everything, as long as I do one thing at a time.

visual messages

> In the text of my new (but not live yet) web site, I talk a lot about visual messages. What's a visual message? Just what it sounds like: a visual message is what any application of your brand (business cards, blog, web site, brochure, etc.) "tells" anyone who comes in contact with it.

> You can tell people all about your business, about how you are unique with skills that no one else can provide, and that you offer something better than any of your competition...but if your web site is built using a free downloadable template and clip art, your visual message isn't consistent with your verbal one.

> From your business card to your web site, and everything in between, make sure there is consistency beyond just slapping your logo on everything. If you didn't know there's more you should be doing, you're in luck, now you know, and mGraphicDesign can help!

little m...literally

> I've been tending my niece and nephews the last couple days. Before coming, I searched with my sister to find a fun activity to do with them, and we ran across a blast from the past...Shrinky-Dinks! We have fond memories of them from our childhoods. I didn't even know you could still find them! 

> The kids love to draw, so we had fun creating and coloring on the special plastic sheets, then the real fun began...we placed the cutout shapes in the oven and watched as they curled, shrunk to one-third their original size, thickened up, then finally lay flat.

> We all made lots of fun creations, and they have all talked about what they will draw next time I come and bring more of the special magic plastic.

me or we?

> I've been working on updating my web site. I wrote all the text, edited, and edited, asked others to edit, then finally decided it was "ready". But as I was placing it into the site's content management system, I ran across an inconsistency that needed fixing. The problem is that I'm not really sure where I "land" on this particular issue: Is mGraphicDesign a "me", or a "we"?

> mGraphicDesign is a one-person business. I'm okay with that, in fact I prefer it. But when I'm trying to get new business, sometimes there are reservations about hiring a "freelancer". I've been told it's better to appear larger, more experienced, and more substantial—that somehow size "proves" capability. One of my colleagues (also a sole proprietor) once pointed out to me that we don't literally work solo, so why not refer to the company as "we"? He's right. When I'm designing a web site, I hire skilled programmers who handle that part of the project. If I'm working on a brochure, the photos may come from the client, they may come from an online stock source, or I may hire a photographer to do custom work. Same goes for printing. In fact, there have been many times when my workload has been heavy enough that I hire freelancers to share my load. So in that sense, mGraphicDesign is a "we".

> So how will I handle the correct pronoun usage on my site? Good question! Right now I'm working on making sure the portfolio section of my web site is as impressive as it can be, showing a wide variety or projects, for a diverse clientele, and if I can get that right, maybe "we" and "me" will be okay either way.

spring cleaning

> I went to my parents' house a couple weeks ago. They've been spending a lot of time going through files, boxes and shelves, getting rid of things that they have decided they can't justify keeping anymore. I have to admit there is something very free-ing about going through and trashing stuff you just don't need anymore.

> I subscribe to a couple different trade publications. They're perfect-bound, content and image-rich, and are more like books than magazines, so it's easy to justify keeping them. For awhile, I kept them all, but before a move one time, I took the time to thumb through some of the older issues, and found that technology had changed so dramatically in the couple of years since the issue was published, that I was able to throw away several older copies.

> I can always tell when it's time to go through and decide what to keep and what to trash. I finished reading an issue I received in last week's mail and there is no more room on my shelf...that's a sure sign that something's gotta go.

love it? hate it? it's okay

> An unidentified woman recently gave my client an unsolicited "review" of his "Live in Art" logo. She told him that she didn't like it, that it was no good. She wasn't able to articulate what she thought was so bad about it, but somehow, she felt justified in sharing her opinion with him (we couldn't figure out how it was relevant, or why she was so emboldened as to approach a total stranger, in an attempt to insult something that he obviously liked).

> He called me to laugh about it with him. Yep, I designed it. I've been doing design work for him for over 15 yrs, and I'm pretty sure if he shared her opinion, we wouldn't have that history.

> I wasn't offended though. One person may like bright colors and a busy layout with lots going on. Another person may be attracted to muted, earthy colors, in a simple layout. There's nothing inherently "wrong" about either one—just a matter of taste, opinion, and knowing what's appropriate for the target audience.

> While I happen to like the design (yes, I'm biased), it's more important that my client likes the design. It's been working well for him for several years now, and he'll tell me when it's not working for him anymore. That's the opinion that matters to me.