OTOTD (Old Thing Of The Day)

 Here's an old thing that I found today. I was waching my husband pull the old seat cover off the backseat frame of our VW Bug this afternoon and saw it was pressed into the sisal stuffing (the same agave-derived material used to make twine).

I thought it was cool so I made him pause while I pried it out from under the springs. Obviously it's been there for decades and didn't want to part from all the sisal, so some of it came along for the ride. I just love the 2-headed seahorse icon. The ink color and perforation's pretty great, too.

Type Trumps

 A card game! Of typefaces! Can it be?

Thanks to Rick Banks of Face37 over in the UK it absolutely is. My London-dwelling friend posted a link to Type Trumps on my facebook wall months ago, but I couldn't find anywhere they were available for purchase. Meanwhile, I shared the link with on of the design profs, David Kerr, at GFU. Lo and behold, when I got to class last Wednesday night to speak to a typography class, Dave handed me a Type Trumps card box. It's embarrassing how excited I got. Really. As I was wildly peeling the plastic off the box with a huge grin smeared on my face Dave said to the students, "Megan loves type more than she loves her husband!" to which I replied, "No...they're just different." (Chuckle, chuckle - I think it was funnier that night.)

Enough with the jokes. Back to the game: Fortunately the card deck is available online now. Here. Along with Type Trumps 2. Long live type! Anybody up for a game night?

Our Portland Story | The Official Launch Party

"Our Portland Story is Volume 1 is part yearbook, part insider’s travel guide, and part collected memoirs, but is all about Portland by Portlanders. This story project is an independent creative venture spearheaded by Portland designer, Melissa Delzio."

From the Our Portland Story website

I'm honored to have been involved with this project. Previously posted posted sneak peeks can be found here and here for the pages I designed (9 and 76). Tonight was the launch party in NE Portland at Mississippi Studios. The place was buzzing with excitement and fraught with end-of-the-year-yearbook-signing like activity. Authors meeting designers. Designers meeting authors. Everyone meeting each other. It turned out great! The event and the book that is. For your own copy, click! We heart you, Portland.

The Exceptional Creative, a presentation.

Last night I had the honor of speaking at George Fox University. I went through the design program there and really can't give back enough for everything I learned and experienced. I've shared with students there before, but this time was different. Instead of showing them a bunch of my work and talking about where I've been and what I've done, I presented an idea that's been brewing in my head for a while because A) They can find my work online and B) There more more important things to talk about. Like this: Success is found in being the exception to the rule. Getting, doing and keeping work well is ultimately about how you make your clients feel.

I'm on a new-found mission to make exceptional creatives using four practices based on this proposal that make clients feel valued, respected, confident and supported. If you'd like to see the entire presentation, you can find it here. Granted, it doesn't really explain itself well, so I may just have to share the voice-over one of these days, too.

All the Colors of a Roadtrip

Hit the highway.
On the road again.
Get outta Dodge.

Sometimes you just have to do it.

Fortunately, we had a good excuse to do so over the weekend. We went to Wyoming! For a wedding. We drove the seventeen hours to CM Ranch in Dubois, passing through Oregon, Idaho and the western side of Wyoming on the way.

The colors we encountered en route and on the ranch were stunning. So, I'm sharing some of them with you today. Some are natural, some are not. But all are amazing. Viva los colores!

Lichen | Snake River Plain Aquifer

Plant Life | Idaho Falls

 Playing Ranch Florist | Dubois, WY

Yellow Dumpsters | Idaho Falls

Primary Colors | Idaho Falls

Gem Rooms Under the Blue Sky | Idaho Falls

Lichen on Quartzite | Dubois, WY

Plant Life | Dubois, WY

Verdancy | CM Ranch

Incandescence | Wedding Reception

Speaking Engagement

Next week I'll be speaking at George Fox University. If you're in the area, join us! Details below.  (Poster designed by David Kerr, adjunct design professor)

VW Eye Candy

Just some delicious VW Bug paraphernalia for us this morning. My husband is working on cultivating my automobile sensitivities as of late, specifically for Volkswagens. I'm learning more than I ever wanted to imagined I would know about the differences between the Squareback and the Fastback, Type 1s, 2s and 3s, the split window and oval window...the list goes on and on. I secretly like this new family obsession for a few reasons: 1) Volkswagen has done some phenomenal things in the design and advertising realms. I can't get enough of that stuff. 2) VWs are much cheaper and/or safer than my hubby's other hobbies like dirt bikes and airplanes. 3) In my past life, I was a pack rat; Therefore, I love a collection (especially when it's one made up of old stuff). So, we're growing our little VW family one car at a time.

We now have a 1971 Yellow Squareback and a 1967 Blue Beetle, pictured above. The graphic scans are from a manual that came from some crevice in the Bug. (There are official, original paint color names, but finding out what they are is intense.*)

And, a few fun facts before I sign off**:

VW Fact #31: In 1950, a VW Bus cost 2 cents per mile to run.
VW Fact #76: 1964 Bus hubcaps did not have the VW symbol painted a contrasting color. (Allegedly to save paint)
VW Fact #335: About 500,000 imported cars were sold in the U.S. in 1964, 300,000 of those were Volkswagens.
VW Fact #421: Infants born in a VW were eligible for a $50 savings bond under the VWoA sponsored "Bonds for Babies" program during the 1960s.
VW Fact #426: #5 on the 1965 VW dealer service checklist was "Deliver the car when promised."
VW Fact #488: When VWoA started advertising in 1959, they appointed two different ad agencies, one for Bugs and one for Transporters.
VW Fact #754: In the early 1960s, VW's standard plan for dealerships called for modern furniture, bright colors, and use of natural grain wood in their sales offices.
VW Fact #851: One of the many VW innovations: Two-speed windshield wipers

*Check out this crazy complex color chart for the Bug...and this one for the Squareback.
**Fun Facts courtesy of TheSamba.com

Hello, I'm an Entrepreness.

Happy Friday! I'm so honored. CRAVEportland asked to interview me for their Entrepreness series, focusing on my online retail shop, www.hifrienddesign.com...and the interview dropped on their blog today. Read away and let me know if you have any other questions for the girls behind hi, friend.

StudioM | Day 730

It's really been 730 days (AKA Two Years) since StudioM became my full-time job (AKA Life)? Sheesh. I feel like I've worked somewhere around 729 of them. Though there have been some rough patches along the way and a K2-level steepness to my learning curve, I wouldn't change one single minute of it. I've had more than enough to keep me busy, great clients, fantastic free agent comrades and an every-loving office buddy in my Great Dane, Moozilla.

That said, I recently read a fellow entrepreneur label her second self-employed year "The Terrible Twos". Enter doom-filled music, right? I know. The interesting thing is, so far she is so right. I was born premature, so I guess it makes sense that my Terrible Twos began a few weeks early. In children, The Terrible Twos are a developmental period characterized by toddlers "being negative about most things and often saying 'no'. The terrible twos may also find your toddler having frequent mood changes and temper tantrums."*

StudioM is in a time of development which is cause for lots of growing pains and the practice of saying 'No.' The last few weeks have consisted of me diagnosing pains and flexing my just-say-no muscles. Five time to be exact. Pat on the back. (And if I must admit, the last few weeks have also included a pinch of negativity and maybe a temper tantrum. Or two. Retract pat on the back. Year Two is haaaaard.)

There's not a cure for every ailment and we're not entirely sure where the Clark & Company transition will take us, but boy oh boy are there some really cool things in the works. Saying 'no' to one thing is like saying 'yes' to another. Consequently, I really like what I'm saying 'yes' to, but there's lots of work to be done before I'll be honored enough to share it. In the meantime, let's celebrate the unknown in the future and the thankfulness that fills every day we are well enough, healthy enough and inspired enough to continue throwing tantrums...er, being creative.

*Source

Good Jobs for Good Girls. Vintage Book Brilliance.

It's no secret I love an old book. You can imagine my excitement when a family just down the street had a garage sale that included boxes upon boxes upon boxes of fragile, old, aromatic books. Good Jobs for Good Girls is one that I found there and I can't help but share the sardonic writing, clever illustrations and overall bold statement the author makes through the publication with you all. Plus, it included a chapter on Advertising. And one on Accounting, which I think may be where Madonna found some of her signature inspiration. Look closely. Amazing.

Good Jobs for Good Girls was written by Harford Powel and published in 1945; it's a sharp and witty manual for how to find an interesting career....and then escape it. According to Jennifer Schiffner in her senior thesis for Boston College, "The farce of a title denoted the male-centered view of the work force and the commodification of women through the act of marriage." The book is a glimpse into the past, albeit a sarcastic one. I guess in some ways the sarcasm is even more telling of the times than a serious piece of literature might be.

Enough of my rambling. Read some of it for yourself:

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"'Suffering cats!' you may say. 'Is this another book about women's problems…?' No, dearest reader, this is not just another book. It is the first book that tells, in simple words, how you can find an interesting career and escape from it soon.

The following pages give you important facts, not commonly known, about the most popular kinds of work for women. Skip those which do not seem most interesting to you. Any man who gives you a job will think that you are primarily interested in the hours and the salary. Let him think so. Let him discover by gentle stages that you are far most intelligent an seductive than that. There will always be plenty of dumb bunnies who are willing to do all the dull drudgery in every office and factory. Don't you do it! See to it that you always bring your employer the charm of your personality, the maddening effect of your beauty, and the inspiration of a romance with you."

advertising
mad men and merry maidens

The advertising business seems like a bright girl's paradise, when you are on the outside looking in…
Perhaps you have wanted to write. Perhaps you think it would be fun to dash off slogans, and radio plays, and new things to put on television, and dashing pages for the fashion magazines, and clever ideas for electric signs, and…

sorrows of the woman copy writer
Man after man will dash up to you with whoops of glee, and say he is terribly busy, and will you go to bat right away and write seven overdue magazine advertisements, and two or three short newspaper pieces, and maybe a booklet, and, oh yes! - he has to take them all to Chicago on the Centry tonight but he knows how quick and clever you are!
You can do it for one man.
You might do it for two!
But can you do it for twelve strong men, all seeking last-minute copy?
Copy! That's what they call it - copy! But unluckily you can't copy all of it. You haven't time to get up from your typewriter and search for things you can copy.
Hour after hour, year after year, you sit glued to your chair, pounding out the praises of goods you have never seen, for readers who will never read, and radio listeners who will never listen…

Intelligent reader, advertising copy is not for you. Not even the Chairman himself looks at you with his weary eye and says: "Dearie, I am confident that you, and only you, can give our new candy-laxative account a compelling, modern sales twist." But mostly they just swear at you.


to sum it up
There is a higher career. There is one career in which you never get exhausted, never get out of bed one moment before you please, and never lack money to buy anything that strikes your fancy. This career is marriage.
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Unfortunately, the book has been out of print for ages. So if you'd like to read more, I'd recommend you get your rummage on and keep your eyes peeled for a bright blue cover radiating beams of sarcasm.

Stairway Media Logo Comps

Happy Wednesday! I've got some logo comps to share with you today. They were created for a media company called Stairway Media through a creative agency here in town: Mind Lightning. We had a good time trying to figure out if we could combine film with a stairway and tried lots of ideas including some that were very M.C. Escher-esque. The two executions shown below were those I was charged with digitizing. I've shown both a large, grayscale version as well as a smaller black and white version to illustration how each mark would scale and be readable at almost any size.

You'll just have to wait and see where Mind Lightning takes it from here....a full website revamp is on the schedule, too. Stairway Media, you've got lots of good design in your future. Cheers to that!