Balancing work and life has always been troublesome for me. I tend towards workaholicism on my best days, and it’s certainly not uncommon for me to put in a sixty-hour work week. I’ve gotten better: I almost always take most of the weekend off now, and I’m trying as much as possible to go out and about at least a little bit every day. I’ve realized that I’m simply not going to see as much of this continent as I’d like to while I’m here.

With all the shutters closed, you really get to see the lovely graffiti that covers the buildings here.

But I’ve got new projects coming in all the time, and work is (for the most part) going well. I wish I were doing more personal projects, but that isn’t anything new. I had signed up for the Sketchbook Project some time ago, and now the deadline’s looming. I’ve given up on getting mine done, in part because I totally lack art supplies and they’re on the expensive side here, and in part because I simply lack time. I’d rather spend my free time exploring this massive city or trying to pick back up on my Spanish, which is just terrible. (Porteños speak the most insane version of Spanish I’ve ever heard, complete with its own special pronoun and verb conjugation, strange pronounciations, and some kind of crazy pig-latin. I’m totally lost.)

I’ve put my snarky Valentine’s cards back on my Etsy site this year. Last year, I finished them too late to really get any sales, so I’m hoping they may fare better this year. Before I left Canada, I had a quick adventure in cut-paper cards as well. I made this intricate card for a friend’s birthday and remembered why I hated doing cut-paper work: it’s time-consuming and frustrating! But I was so pleased with the end result, now I’d like to start making more of them. When I return home, it might be time to build a laser cutter.

If you can read Spanish, you’ll recognize that the text is a little on the sappy side. And if you look closely, you can tell that I very badly needed a new knife blade, but didn’t have one.

That’s one major thing I miss about being home: having all my supplies and tools at the ready, whenever I need them. Art supplies are expensive here, and I simply can’t bring everything with me. (I also forgot a whole bunch of things, like my camera, and have lost other things, like my phone.) It’s always the little things that you miss. In Argentina, I miss my lovely friends, my art supplies, pepper mills (you’re lucky if you can get powdered pepper), good service at restaurants, and easy wireless access. I miss a variety of foods: Argentine menus are always about thirty pages long, but the selection is surprisingly limited: you can get thirty different kinds of steak, twenty variants of a ham and cheese sandwich, and meat empanadas. Spice is basically unheard of.

Of course, there’s so much to offset that. Buenos Aires is beautiful and vibrant. There aren’t any huge grocery stores, so to buy food you need to go to six different markets and bakeries, which are on every corner and open strange hours. The wine is ridiculously cheap and the produce is all fresh. I may be eating the same thing day in and day out, but it’s cheap and delicious, and rather unprocessed.

Linea A of the Subte is full of these old cars from the early 1900s. The interior is all wood and leather, and they creak like mad. It’s like stepping back in time to the golden days of underground mass transit.

There’s so much of this city—and the continent around it—for me to explore, and I’ve nearly been here a month already. I just need to stop working so much, and start seeing it!

Typographical arrangement for the NSLC’s annual report. I made up this fact. They tell me that the number is totally insane.

I’ve been wanting to get back into doing things like this, mostly as creative exercises to keep me interested in design. Of course, creative exercises in and of themselves are also something of a luxury; it seems like that pesky work keeps getting in the way.

Part of a newsletter for the Wicker Emporium

Lately I’ve found, however, that there’ve been some opportunities to incorporate some more interesting typographical arrangements into my work, and as a result I’ve been paying better attention to the shapes that letters form and how they fit together. It’s a bit more time and effort, but I’m enjoying it, and I think it lends a certainly liveliness to pieces that might otherwise be a little tame.

Butterfly tag for a line of jewelry

So, while I’m still hoping to get into doing more self-assigned creative exercises, it’s redeeming to be able to find opportunities in my work in which to pay more attention to type. I seem to be crazy-busy these days, which is great, but it means that if I’ve got some down-time, I’m not exactly in the mood to stare at my computer.

Part of a print ad, again for the Wicker Emporium. Their branding allows for three fonts, so I’m rather familiar with the peculiarities of each. Luckily, this one (Fontin) is a rather well-made typeface. I love its G.

Playing with type is a great way to indulge my more detail-oriented side (that would probably be all of my sides, actually). I’ve got a lot to learn, but the more I do it, the more I start noticing minute details—which, really, is what makes for good typographic arrangements.

Another piece from the NSLC’s annual report. We’re going for a magazine-style look, and the whole thing will have a heavy focus on typography in order to give it some visual interest.

Of course, this isn’t likely to make me more enjoyable to be around in a social context. (“Look at that gap between those letters! Whoever kerned that ought to be shot!” doesn’t make for the most scintillating cocktail-party conversation. I think my friends are tired enough of my constant running commentary on menus, posters, and the like.)

But it’ll make me a better designer.

Thumbnail sketches. This is how things started. I hate showing people my sketchbook because things invariably look like they were drawn by a blind five-year-old. Basically, I’m just trying to get the composition right.

Of course, I forgot to factor in the fact that I’m a crazy workaholic perfectionist with an insomniac streak a mile wide whenever I get really passionate about a project. My little lark of a project kept me up late, made an utter warzone of my apartment, and still took far longer than I’d anticipated.

I made this card last year and still had the sketch in my book. I think that was done in pigment liner and watercolour, and was severely lacking in calligraphy and mass-production capabilities.

However, it did succeed in teaching me to use my digital camera more effectively, so I’m grateful for that. I took a lot of photos along the way, mostly because I became highly paranoid about committing to ink and mucking things up, and I thought it’d be interesting to share a bit of the process that’s involved.

Initial line drawings. I marked off an active “image area” space using my health card as a ruler so as to keep the illustrations roughly the same size.

I started by drawing “proper” versions of each illustration on this lovely smooth square bristol board. I’m anal-retentive, so I tend to prefer mechanical pencils (they’re also easier to find at the grocery store when you run out, although they typically stock a .7 lead and I like a .5 better).

Here’s my roommate modeling her best “hungry arms” for me. I had her do a few different positions. You can tell how impressed she is about it.

I’m always surprised when drawing things by what I don’t know. Like “what an astronaut breathes from”, for example. Or how long the optic nerve is. This was an awesome lesson in anatomy, although I’m still not quite sure I got everything right.

My calligraphy tests for the captions. I can’t do calligraphy without graph paper, so I ended up developing a style of lettering for each phrase, then re-inking it a few times on a clean sheet, scanning the sheet, and selecting the best one.

After developing line drawings I was quite happy with, I became paralyzed with fear that I’d screw them up in the inking process and would need to start all over again. I realized this was insane, but appeased myself temporarily by working on the calligraphy designs instead. My calligraphy’s still a little questionable, but I’m starting to get the hang of it, and it’s more interesting than my (slightly bizarre) handwriting.

No turning back now! Line drawings, all done in ink. I refused to use a ruler and was quite tired, so you can see where I screwed up, especially with the lines of the cage.

That dealt with, it was time to commit to the drawings, and start inking! I like using a proper dip pen, but that’d be too messy, so I used a 0.1 pigment liner instead. These are lovely creatures and I absolutely adore them–it took me a little time to find a good pen that wouldn’t smudge when erasing or inking over top. The inking process took FOREVER and gave me insane hand cramps.

Yep, I’m anal retentive enough to shade first in pencil. I might actually like them best at this stage.

Since I still was suffering a fear of commitment, I sketched out all the shading in pencil prior to inking the lines again. In some cases (the ball-shapes in particular) this actually helped quite a good deal, as cross-hatching in ink isn’t exactly the most forgiving method of shading.

More arduous work that took forever and nearly made me blind. I have strange depth perception issues anyway, so I typically work with my face about two inches from whatever I’m doing.

After that, I inked the lines with a pigment liner slightly smaller than the outline liner. I really wish I could find a liner smaller than .05, although I suspect that they don’t make one, and I should have just made these illustrations larger, then scaled down from a thicker primary pen.

Adding the red accents. I used pure red ink and it gave a lovely hue, especially when laid over the shaded lines. I’d originally planned to use a much lighter wash, and possibly use some other colours, but then I liked the red so much (surprise!) that I decided to keep it.

I think it was at about this point that I started saying “I’m nearly done!”, which probably went on for another two days until I actually WAS done. Even painting in the red was an arduous process, and I tried really hard to ensure that there was a good balance of colour in each. (This is why the little cannibal girl is a redhead, and not because I’m a raging narcissist.)

At this point, I thought I was done. Wrong.

Next, I scanned all the final illustrations and calligraphed captions into Photoshop at gigantic resolutions, in case I ever need to make a gorey billboard, I guess. I cleaned up major messes only, since I had doing tedious Photoshop masking work, pieced everything together, and printed it out. I also made a design for the back of the card involving a little calligraphy and a little handwriting.

Mistakes often create really lovely things, unexpected and impossible to reproduce.

My last step was to create a full set of cards, properly printed on my cardstock. This was, by far, the most arduous and painful task of the entire operation. (My laser printer is a beast. It weighs about as much as I do; people think it’s a high-tech humidifier, and it sounds like a jet plane taking off.) I ended up crying and yelling at my printer for about three hours, surrounded by an utter MESS of half-printed papers and falling-over cards. It wasn’t pretty, but I eventually (sort of) figured it out.

I’m excited to learn to screenprint instead of wrangling with this beast, but my workshop isn’t ’til early February, so the timing wasn’t quite right.

Finally! Finals.

And in the end–was all the effort worth it?

Of course it was! I ended up learning SO much, and, while I genuinely doubt I’ll make ANY money whatsoever selling them (the profit margins seem pretty low) the experience of selling them will give me an opportunity to learn a little about retail business, which I haven’t dealt much with since becoming a designer.

And now I can send out delightful cards to all my friends and enemies!

They come on white or ecru stock, with a blood-red envelope and a hand-painted heart sticker to close the whole she-bang. I am a sucker for pretty packaging.

(PS, if you like them, you can see more on my website here, or purchase them at my new Etsy store. I’ll also be selling them at the Harbourside Market in Dartmouth February 6th and 7th.)

I felt so refreshed the next day that I very nearly made it a whole weekend off work! After all, what are Sundays for if not catnaps and hot baths, and general relaxation? However, my photographically-inclined roommate was applying for a job, and her tumblr website was doing a terrible job of showcasing her skills.

So we sat down together, spent about half an hour combing through photographs of trees, and eventually pulled together this quick-and-dirty little website for her. It’s using the same image-display script I use for my own site, and there are still a few kinks I’ll need to work out, but it’s a good example of what can be pulled together in an evening if you’re motivated enough.

Do check out her website—she does some lovely work, and she’s looking to do more!

Anyway, new projects!

• WordPress theme for Jaye Wells
• menu design
• website for Marilyn Hicks
• and I’ve updated Marilyn’s identity page, finally

Jaye Wells

I’m working on a number more, too, that hopefully will see light soon. It is definitely time to rework this website, but of course that’s way on the bottom of my list. And I need business cards beforehand–I think I have less than ten left. It is seriously time to start buying myself a pair of new shoes every time I do work for myself.

Speaking of shoes, I wrote a guest post over at East Coast by Choice. So if you’re looking for tips on how to wear stilettos in crazy weather, you should go read it!

I have many stories and photographs, which are forthcoming. For now, two new projects: the holiday cards I mean to do every year, and a redesign and rearchitecturing of Fernwood Publishing.

I’ve been using WordPress for everything lately, and have totally fallen in love with it. I seem to always be a little behind the curve on web trends (as a side note, I’m now on Twitter, though I still don’t really understand the point entirely) due to my general distaste for trends (if everyone likes it, it can’t possibly be any good, right?). But I really wish I’d discovered the power and flexibility of WordPress earlier on—it’s brilliant and I’m beginning to use it for more and more of my client projects.

I was first introduced to it earlier in the summer when I did a website and serial novel page for Lilith Saintcrow. I used it for another Orbit Books author website, Brent Weeks. Most recently, I’ve used a highly customized version for a community website for Maplewood on the Lakes. I’m developing a few more sites using it, and have discovered that, generally speaking, it’s actually much faster, simpler, and more powerful that creating my own customized administration panel (though I’m still doing this for more complex database-driven websites).

In non-Wordpress related news, I’ve also added the design work I did for Sebastien’s Bistro, and the identity materials developed for the Walker Inn.

And that’s all the updates for now! I’m going to keep trying to make my updates happen on a regular basis, but I’m like the chef who comes home and eats frozen dinners (and I’ve met a few) in this case.

and a “new” website (that was completed months ago). I really don’t like updating my own website!

But I’m determined that it’s about time to do it, especially given that I’m about to move again, and that means that my address as listed on the website will be even more wrong than it is currently. (Sure, in theory it only takes two minutes to change it, but that’s not how I work…if I’m going to spend two minutes, I’m going to be there three hours trying to fix all the little things.) At any rate, all the little things have really added up, and it’s time for some major-ish rearranging.

Actually, the most dramatic upgrade has already happened, and that was my finally giving in to the whole “blog” phenomenon. It took years, but I finally buckled, and I’m sort of enjoying it. What sold me on WordPress is how monstrously simple it is—I actually started using it the place of a word processor, and I find it much smarter: it auto-saves constantly (good for those of us prone to data loss), it’s totally un-bloaty, it’s faster than typing out my own html, and it auto-formats my smart quotes. God, I love smart quotes. I actually spent an hour or so today formatting a client’s novel to get rid of all the dumb quotes, hyphens, and “period” ellipses. I don’t know why these tiny details are so important to me–but I suspect that there’s a place where the grammar-fascist in me meets the typophile, and proper typography is born. Or maybe it’s just that I, embarassingly enough, didn’t know about smart quotes and such for so long that I now consider them to be something of a litmus test for “quality” design?

Smart quotes aside, the news/blog section has all been redone, and I like it a lot, and may even get into the habit of using it more frequently. WordPress is really great and easy to develop themes for (once you figure out what you’re doing), which I’ve been doing of late for Lilith Saintcrow, who writes novels about girls who kick ass and take names (all told, the best kind of lady). I’ve got a couple more weblog-based websites in the works, so I’m learning a lot these days.

On a side note, why is there always an elephant (in the room) on my to-do list? I’m a notorious list-maker, and I’ll sometimes prioritize my lists in order of importance, not that I follow my own order religiously. For example, today I’m at #12, but #3 is still sitting there patiently, un-crossed, with three exclamation marks following it. It’s the most vital thing on my list, but I’m betting it’ll be the one thing that’ll end up being neglected. Is this some kind of subconscious self-mutilation wherein I’ll always sabotage myself for the work that is most important? How do I trick myself into thinking “eat three tubs of chocolate fudge icing” is the Elephant Task, instead? I’ve read a few productivity-type tips that recommend things like offering to wash a friend’s car, or pay them $50, if you don’t complete the Elephant by the end of the day (the theory being that we’re all inherently lazy, and the only way to make us do something is by threatening us with something more unpleasant), but I feel like that’s somehow compounding the pressure of the situation, thereby inflating the psychic block.

Anyone know how to take down an Elephant (or a run-on sentence)?

So a few weeks ago, I was crashing at the tail end of a work party, and ended up falling asleep next to my laptop, gigantic glass of water in hand. Yes, you know where this is headed. A few hours later, I woke up spilling said gigantic glass of water all over myself and my poor laptop. (Lovely way to wake up, might I add.) Naturally, I panicked. There was much cursing and wailing (me) and sparking and crackling (the machine) as I tried to figure out what on earth to do. It wouldn’t turn off, and it took my sleep-addled brain a good five minutes to figure out that removing the battery would do the trick. The poor thing was soaked, and ruined. I was in a similar state. That machine was, in effect, the entirety of my business assets, and the tool by which I can earn my living, and it had just crackled out and died on me.

Now, a few weeks later, I’m almost 100% back on my feet. I’m lucky, really. I’d been relatively good about maintaining my backups, so I didn’t lose anything too vital, data-wise. I keep my contact list synced remotely with Plaxo, which saved me a lot of legwork. (I’ve since upgraded and it syncs my calendar. I did have to rebuild my monster font collection (though I think it’s been quite nicely updated and it’s rather nice to start fresh), computer settings, and the like, which took some time. I use IMAP for my email, so all of my mail, both incoming and outgoing, was right there waiting for me, and since my estimates and invoices are sent out via mail, I could access all of those, too. My greatest losses were a few selected recent projects that hadn’t been backed up, my time logs, my calendar of hosting renewals, the $1800 I paid for a new machine, and about a week of my time.

All in all? Not the end of the world, and I’ve bounced back. (And I have a brand-new laptop that doesn’t sound like a jet engine taking off, which is helping my sanity levels.) I always thought that if my computer were to die, I’d be destroyed. It’s nice to realize that the obstacles you fear most are never as insurmountable as they seem–or maybe just that you’re better prepared and more resilient than you originally assumed.

And not to be too trite, but it’s been a great learning experience. For example, I’ve learned that machines and water do not mix, and that I ought to be drinking from a sippy cup when I’m tired. I’ve learned that there are things outside of my design folder that are important and should be backed up, and I’ve learned that I need a more reliable (and preferably automated) way of doing backups.

Any suggestions?

Process

1.Do you start with a rough comp or go straight into a “finished” design?

Usually when working for clients I’ll start with four different initial rough mockups. We then revise back and forth, and with each stage of revision I start pulling the pieces together into a more polished final, along with applying the client’s suggestions.

1a. Do you mock up on paper or in photoshop?

A little bit of both, usually … though I usually don’t show the paper mockups to anyone!

2. How much time do you usually spend creating a home page design?

This tends to vary depending on the client and their budget. Most of my clients are small-budget so I keep things as quick as possible without sacrificing aesthetics too much. Usually, to take a design from mockups through to completed template (before any coding happens!) takes around 10 hours, including all the stages of revision.

3. How much time do you typically spend “polishing” a design?

I have been known to spend tens of hours, but generally, as I do try to keep an eye on the clock and not indulge my perfectionist side too much, it tends to average out at about 5–10 hours, depending of course on the complexity of the design!

4. Would you say you are more “get it done, get it out” focused or “get it perfect” focused?

I think I’m naturally more the latter … if I’m designing something for myself or for a client who doesn’t have time restrictions, I can spend a good deal of time poring over the minute details. But most of my clients want it done now, and don’t have a lot of money to spend indulging me, so I do quite effectively steer myself towards the “get it done” line of focus.

5. How do you manage design quality vs. time available?

I try to make it so that my process facilitates better quality, and obviously, as I get better, I find that I’m able to do better work in less time, and spend less time on work that goes nowhere. I try to really restrict the amount of time I put into rough comps, as a lot of this can be “wasted” time. I’ve got to the point where I can do comps far more quickly, and am then left with more time near to the end of a project to refine and polish. I also try to make myself focus on the things that people will actually notice, rather than the things that only matter to me, and this keeps my perspective in line a bit.

Style

1. How would you describe your artistic style?

I do tend to vary—one of the things I love about design is that you don’t really need to pigeonhole yourself into one aesthetic, as different projects require different styles. However, I find my style usually tends toward being rather clean & simple, with bold lines and colour. I like to offset this with the use of textures and typographic flourishes, so that things aren’t quite so stark.

2. Who would you say has influenced your design style?

That’s another thing that I love about design! Influences come from everywhere … I can be as inspired by a bottle of juice as I can be by a stunning website. I find my style is most influenced by beautiful things that I find around me—good recent examples of this are this gorgeous PaperBlanks day planner I bought, a book called “The Modern Gentleman”, and the shape of the tree outside my window.

3. What do you think should drive the visual style of a website?

The most important thing is that it reflects the message of its content, and is in line with its company’s marketing objectives. That comes first—some sites require a textured, elaborate look, while others demand something simpler or more professional-looking. I always try to ensure I have a good idea of what the design should be “saying” prior to even thinking about a design. Design can communicate so much before anyone reads even so much as a word on the page; it’s vital that your first impression be the right one!

4. What are some examples of sites (not yours) that you like?

butterlondon.com, alistapart.com, chicagomanualofstyle.org, giohalifax.com, walnutgrovespring.com, marketcircle.com, 37signals.com, klf.org, webdesignerwall.com

5. What are some examples of sites that you dislike?

MySpace! about.com … there are so many, it’s really hard to just name a few!
Misc

1. To what extent were you taught/receive formal training on design vs. learning by yourself?

I actually learned web design, and, by extension, the basics of PS, when I was about fourteen, so I’d been doing it relying on a “good eye” for some time before I went to school.  School gave me a decent understanding of the basics and of how to apply them, but I found that I’ve learned much more since being out of school! I read a lot: websites, magazines, books, and I’m always trying to learn new things. I feel constantly like a student.

2. What design websites do you read regularly?

A List Apart, Vitamin, Veer, design.Principles, Be a Design Group (since defunct), Graphic Define, FreelanceSwitch, The Book Design Review.

3. What is your a recent blog post or article on design you enjoyed?

There was a fantastic article in the last issue of Design Edge magazine about book cover design that I really enjoyed, and another one about this redesign of a honey manufacturer’s marketing materials. (I tend to enjoy reading magazines more than I do websites! I spend too much time staring into the screen.) I recently really enjoyed this History of the Ampersand.

4.What are your top three “must read” books on design?

Stop Stealing Sheep, The Elements of Typographic Style, Universal Principles of Design.

5. What are the latest trends in web design?

Gradients, things reflected in invisible mirrors (this usually is done without any logical consideration), that curly/flourishy vector look, extra whitespace to create a long long scrolling page, use of large icons and directing graphics, increased simplicity, grunge elements seem to be back again, but in more of a texture/background sort of a way…