I didn’t get to update late last week, but I got quite a lot done.

I worked on some culture wall layouts and have some pretty solid items now.  They’re still in development, but I’m pleased.

I also spent a good amount of time working on RE:CONNECT.  There have been some last-minute changes (as always), but I’m hopeful to have that artwork finished up by Friday at the latest.

Speaking of the RE:WIND series, I got the first set of paper mock ups, and I’m rather pleased.  We do need to modify the dielines for the boxes to make them easier to handle, but I think we’re almost there.  Now, I just need to get my head around expanding the artwork to fit.

In WRC news, I had a great meeting with Jim Brant regarding dielines and paper mock ups for WRC collateral pieces.  I took that meeting on Friday morning and I’m looking to have some completed mock ups by Tuesday afternoon.

For my morning, I do have a meeting with the RE:WIND vendor.  We’re going over the box dielines and discussing changes.  I’ll also probably spend time on RE:CONNECT and finishing up concepting the RE:WIND boxes.  If I have time, I’ll try to touch WRC too.  I need to get some guts going for my presentation items.

It’s easy to spot a design geek.  Go to any paper store and look for the people asking about finishes, weights, colors, and sizes of unique papers.  Well, at least that’s me.

I went to Paper Plus this morning to look through some papers for some additional ideas for WRC books and recipe cards.  I have another meeting tomorrow morning at Premier to get some mock ups started.

I also received  some box mock ups this morning from CPC for the RE:WIND book series.  I should have mock up books in hand this afternoon or tomorrow morning.  It’s really exciting to see things coming together with those!

I also worked up a one-page reference sheet for SH this morning.

I’m probably going to spend this afternoon working on some culture wall mock ups.  I’ve already made some progress earlier this week, but I definitely have more to do.

So, I haven’t posted for the past week.  It originally started with an offsite meeting we had last Wednesday, and the downhill sleigh ride of no posting has continued until now.  I won’t recap everything that’s been going on for the last week, but I have been busy.  Here are just a couple of highlights:

• RE:WIND book series finally got its own contract in place and is moving forward
• WRC planning is in full swing

This morning, I have a WRC conference call in which the new logo I posted last week will be discussed.  Let’s home we just run with it.

Planning for WRC is ongoing.  The major thrust of my morning was a creative team meeting for WRC.  I think I surprised both myself and everyone else at the meeting when I mentioned that we only have three weeks until we present to the main WRC planning committee.

I’ll be working on budget items and further planning/assignments this afternoon between meetings I already have planned.

So, here is the new WRC logo.  I’d say that I like it an equal amount to the previous one.  I just changed the icons.  Even though it’s a seemingly small change, little things like that can take a while.  The crab was easy, but the other two changes (the chef and the stewing pot) were more difficult.

This afternoon saw an extended townhall regarding new structures and customer service issues within PBS.  It’s good to have that background information.  Though I’m not sure how much many of the issues covered actually affect me directly, being in the know certainly helps discharge one’s duties better.

I have a day full of meetings tomorrow.  We’ll see what I can squeeze in between those.

Actually, I was really hungry for Chicken Tikka Masala last night, so that’s why my lunch leftovers are today.  They’re gone already, in fact.  But this work post does have something to do with food.

It was decided last week by the WRC committee that I change up some of the icons on the WRC logo to better reflect the focus on food (instead of music) at the conference.  I’ve spent quite a bit of time this morning researching icons and trying to figure out what would work well.  I’ve got a chef down, and crab as well.  I’m struggling with the third.  Maybe a bowl or pot would work, but I’m not sure. I’ll be sure to post the final (maybe even a before and after) so you will be able to take a look at it.

This afternoon we have a big town hall meeting.  It it scheduled to last two hours, so it’s a good thing I ate a bit early today.  I’d hate to slip into my daily food coma during  a big group meeting.

Other than the town hall, I have the following lined up for this afternoon:

• WRC meeting planning for tomorrow
• Preliminary WRC budgets
• Preliminary WRC conference book concepts and consultations with vendors

I hope I’ll get at least two of those in.  I’ll only have an hour more of work after the big town hall.

This post is meant for folks who might not be familiar with some of the tools graphic designers utilize on a regular basic to accomplish our work.  This morning I’m going to focus on Adobe Illustrator.  It’s actually one of the oldest programs in Adobe’s roster and is best used for creating scalable vector graphics.

Don’t know what a “vector graphic” is?  Well, have no fear, because a fellow blogger puts it in this nutshell:

Illustrator is a vector drawing program. It is often used to draw illustrations, cartoons, diagrams, charts and logos. Unlike bitmap images that stores information in a grid of dots, Illustrator uses mathematical equations to draw out the shapes. This makes vector graphics scalable without the loss of resolution.

Here is the link to the entire post for you to read.  It’s really great at listing how Illustrator is best utilized.  However, leave it to me to write what it is not really suited to do:

• Multi-page layouts
• Raster image editing
• Large-scale typesetting with layouts that contain a ton of copy

I hope you enjoy the post and follow the link to the original.  It really does provide a lot of great information.

I didn’t manage to blog on Thursday or Friday last week. This was a result of a combination of a few things, but mostly, I spent a good portion of my time Thursday afternoon decompressing from a busy few days to start the week. I’m really glad I did, because it helped me regain an optimistic and upbeat attitude regarding my work.

So here’s to starting a new week off right….

The Transition presentation I’ve been working on finally got finished this afternoon.  There were several false starts with production, but I’ve been assured it’s on it’s way to DC on a FedEx plane tonight.  Special thanks to MS for taking the package to the FedEx center downtown to catch the last drop off of the night.

Even though the presentation took up most of my afternoon, I did manage to get most of what I needed to done.  I didn’t get to enter any projects into Traxx, but I should be able to address that on tomorrow.

For now, decompression is in order so as to continue with a productive day on tomorrow.

This morning was primarily filled with prepping for and attending a meeting.  I prepped for a WRC conference call scheduled for 9:30.  I consequently had to miss the Town Hall, but I’m hoping someone will fill me in before Monday.

The WRC Planning Committee meeting was good, but long.  I’m getting excited for our next planning meeting in August here in Denver.

I’ve spent the last part of the morning working on some additional changes to a Transition presentation.  That wil probably continue into this afternoon.

Also, this afternoon will probably contain:

• Printing a sample certificate for an internal client
• Additional edits to the Transition presentation
• A run to Kinko’s  to place an order for the Transition presentations
• Entering some projects into Traxx