Quote | Seth Godin

Bold, friendly and fun logo work I did this week:

These logos were created for a large medical diagnostic company's 2010 sales meeting. Their goal is to be all about the team this year. The two themes I was asked to execute were 'One' and 'Together Forward'. Some of the adjectives to be portrayed (besides bold, friendly and fun) were upbeat, optimistic, unified, simplistic.

For all brides and their maids...

My dear client Terri Spaeth-Merrick is offering a fantastic opportunity for all of you planning a wedding. Her online semi-custom dress design company, Olivia Luca, is having a sale! Read below for more information. Then, make haste and get yourself in that virtual design studio!

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Brides and Bridesmaids,
We are offering a 15% discount on dresses ordered from November 11th to December 21st, 2009 through our on-line Design Studio at Olivia Luca.

We want to give you a head start on your 2010 wedding planning by ordering your dress early and getting a 15% discount for being ahead of the crowd! It makes our work easier by getting orders in early before the rush starts so we are passing our savings on to you.
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How it works:
When you order you will pay full price through the website, but put the code words "Email Pre-season Sale" in the "Comments" section on the order form and as soon as we receive your order we will credit your card for 15% off the total purchase price (including shipping!). Keep in mind that we recommend ordering your dress at least 16 weeks before your event to allow time for alterations. (We normally ship 12 weeks from the date of order.) 

Olivia Luca™, LLC
Dress for the Occasion
info@OliviaLuca.com
OliviaLuca.com

Who Let The Girls Out!? Fall 2009

Lovely little Newport, WA hosted another fabulous Who Let The Girls Out!? event this past weekend. It's the third event in the last two years. The Seven Shoppes banded together yet again to throw a fun and festive progressive 'it's-still-autumn-but-we're-getting-ready-for-the-holidays' shopping party. I parked myself at Shanty for a majority of the day and happily re-entered the world of working retail. (My very first job was at Pier 1 Imports when I was 16. I loved it.)

My girlfriend Tiffany and I drove in from Spokane early Saturday morning and helped the Shanty staff tie ribbon, restock and rearrange. Meanwhile, I popped around documenting the event preparations and, admittedly, shopping along the way.

Maggie Christie, the marvelous owner and Shanty visionary, coordinated so many oh-so-perfect details for the day. Fresh fruit with mint and lemon juice, locally-baked pumpkin fudge and pumpkin maple cookies, pomegranate-speckled mimosas, hand-made cheese balls and that's not even touching on her mad merchandising skills. Of course, the first excited shopper showed up at 9 o'clock. On the dot. Let the day-long party begin!

When I did finally pull myself away from the wine-pouring and gift-wrapping at Shanty, I found more bustling foot traffic, laughing ladies, sales and shopping bags galore*. My Sister's Cottage was a classy Christmas wonderland. Just Because was any woman's dream: skin products, jewelry, handbags, champagne and chocolate. Floral Expressions was all a flutter with birdie decor and holiday trimmings. The Kitchen Shoppe was packed with people looking for the perfect wine to serve with all the holiday meals and utensils to make the meal preparation just a little easier. Oh, and we can't forget the cooking demonstrations...Mmmm...

After making the rounds I bounded back to Shanty where the ladies were still buzzing. With no end to the energy in sight, I might add. But who could blame them!? There were so many things I wanted to snatch up and bring home with me, too. I resisted many of the urges, but did end up with the below bag by Big Buddah called Tiny Dancer. It's anything but tiny and therefore a big hit in my book. I also picked up many holiday gift items, but of course I can't feature those here or I'd spoil the surprises.

Maggie, thanks for letting Tiffany and me be an honorary employees for the day! We really were honored. And thanks to all the Seven Shoppe ladies for having StudioM work with you on all of the event marketing. Cheers to another successful shopping affair. Now, bring on the holidays!

*Sadly, there were not enough hours in the day and I didn't get a chance to pop into two of the seven shops: Rivers' Edge Treasures and Into the Garden Up to the Lake. Next time! To read more about the previous Who Let The Girls Out!? event, visit this past post. If you want to be kept in the loop about upcoming events in Newport, follow the Shop Newport blog. A few of the shops have their own blogs, too.

University of Bridgetown | Paper 101

Paper is amazing. Look at a tree and think about how you would go about turning it into a super thin, smooth sheet of print material...is that really possible!? Yes, it is. Yesterday I attended a University of Bridgetown class on paper and I learned how the experts have perfected this process. Bridgetown Printing brought in a Mohawk paper rep to teach the class. He talked about the history of paper, the paper-making process (see diagram below) and what separates the good paper from the bad paper. I learned about formation, opacity, brightness, finish, side-to-side consistency, printability, environmental qualities and permanence. All in an hour and a half! Super interesting. I love paper more than ever.

University of Bridgetown at Bridgetown Printers hosts two classes a month. They're free and lunch is included. Register here. I'll planning on going to the Prepress Class in February. Join me!

Gigapan Epic 100 | Illustrations

The Gigapan System was developed by Carnegie Mellon University in collaboration with NASA Ames Intelligent Robotics Group, with support from Google. Yeah, they can do some serious name-dropping.

That's only because what they've created is seriously cool. It's a little robot that uses technology derived from the NASA Rovers*. You mount your camera on and it proceeds to capture monster-sized panoramic images. The images are up to 200 times larger than a standard shot. What makes this so amazing is that you can actually explore the panoramas and see things you'd never had seen otherwise. Most likely you have already encountered a Gigapan image since they've appeared in an AXE advertising campaign, on SportsIllustrated.com, in several write-ups and reviews on Wired**, Popular Science and CameraTown.com. They've also been integrated into Google Earth and even captured the Presidential Inauguration. If you haven't seen a Gigapan image yet, jump over to gigapan.org and explore. If you're really gung-ho (like me!), you can join the community, have conversations around the images and take, upload and geo-code your own. You won't be disappointed. You don't even have to have a fancy camera to use it. Haven't you always wanted a robot?

**This 'Gaget Lab' article was one of my favorite since it showed the process step-by-step.
*Speaking of NASA, you have to see this glamorous galaxy image! 

Gigapan is located in beautiful NW Portland, Ore. In their offices there, lots of good stuff is coming to fruition and the team needed some design and production support. StudioM prepared their User Guide to be published online; these illustrations are from that project.

Birthday turned Sickday.

Because I'm my own boss, I decided to give myself my birthday off. So Friday, October 30, I enabled my 'out of office' auto-reply email and took the day to read and relax....and be sick. Of course the very first day I determine to officially take off in over a year would end up being more of a sick day than a holiday. Regardless, I'm glad I did it. Even if it included more Kleenex than cake and more resting than partying.