show & tell: a call to action

My show and tell this week was a postcard that my dad received in the mail reminding him of a tire rotation. With the pace life today, receiving something like this in the mail, along with the coupons on the back of the postcard, is a great reminder of the things that we often forget about but should really make time for. This particular piece is a type of 'integrated marketing' that I recently went to a seminar on. Companies can customize each piece to their clients -- all they need is a database with their customer names, addresses, year and make of car, and possibly even what maintenance the car is due for and the designed piece. They take it to a printer, and the printer is able to change the variables of the piece for each customer.

AIGA baltimore cs3 event tomorrow night!

So, I realize this is my 3rd post of the night, but I was just catching up on some AIGA e-mails and I thought this might be something of interest for W&I students considering it's being held on campus...

Adobe Creative Suite 3 Design Premium lets your ideas take flight in your choice of media -- from print to web to mobile.

At this workshop you will learn how to:

• Leverage a new and improved user interface. Incorporate vector graphics and images into print, web, interactive, and mobile projects. Use intuitive tools to help you stay true to your creative intent -- allowing you to express your ideas in virtually any medium.
• Jumpstart your web designs by exporting XHTML from InDesign® to Dreamweaver® Enjoy seamless integration between Photoshop® CS3 Extended, Illustrator® CS3, and Adobe Flash® CS3
• The value of services such as Adobe Stock Photos for royalty-free imagery and Acrobat Connect for web conferencing And much, much more!

Attendees will be entered to win Adobe Creative Suite 3 Design Premium, but you must be present to win.

Tuesday, September 25 2007
University of Baltimore
1420 N. Charles St.
Thumel Business Center
Time: 5pm to 8pm

Cost:

Student AIGA Members: Free with online registration (Have your student ID!); $5 at the door;

AIGA Members: $5 members online registration; $10 at the door

Non-Members: $15 non-members online registration; $20 at the door

Register Online

happy punctuation day!

While at work today, I got an e-mail from one of our advertisers who normally sends quirky little messages in her reminders about when our ads are due. I usually breeze over them quickly, but today's e-mail caught my eye.

Today is 'National Punctuation Day.' No, it really is. They even have a website about it.

I found it to be humorous and quite fitting for our class so I felt the need to share.

ugly throwback jersey

I was watching TV last night as they were recapping the NFL games of the day, when they got to the footage of the Eagles vs. Lions game, I couldn't help but notice how ugly the throwback Eagles jersey really was -- anyone else agree with me?

show & tell: a good example of description

When we got our daily last Saturday that said we had to bring in a good example of description for our next show & tell, I immediately began to think of things that I could bring in. I couldn't think of where I had seen a great description, but I knew I had seen one somewhere. So, I didn't dwell on it and I kept it in the back of my mind. So when I was at work looking at some real estate magazines, I stumbled across this ad and description of this house in Downtown Frederick. I read it quickly and I liked it a lot. Compared to a lot of the ones I have read, this one stood out to me. It's by no means the best description though.

hole punch portrait

i was just surfing the web for some information on printers, and i came across this, it's pretty impressive
(not to mention time consuming!)

to get more info and see more photos, go to this site

a small plug for AIGA...

I was reminded of an upcoming AIGA BlueRidge event when I received a postcard in the mail this afternoon. FLUX, the 2007 student design competition is accepting entries until Friday, October 5th for school, freelance or pro bono work created between August 2006 and October 2007. You don't even need to mount your pieces -- you submit unmounted work! It doesn't cost too much either -- single entries are $5 for AIGA members (any chapter!) or $10 for non-members. $20 for AIGA members submitting 4 or more entries, $25 for non-members. The categories are: poster, environmental/packaging design, identity, publications, websites/interactive, motion, miscellaneous. There will also be some pretty awesome prizes for the winners!

If you or anyone you know would be interested in submitting pieces and would like to save a bit on shipping, I'd be happy to bring them back to Frederick to deliver to the person in charge of the show for you. Of course, since our class is on Saturday, I'd need any entries by Saturday, September 29th. or, if you want to take a road trip to Frederick we could arrange to meet sometime the first week of October and i can deliver them before the deadline as well!

Visit the website to get more info and to download the entry form, or feel free to contact me and I'll get you in touch with the right folks!

my new favorite website...

I received an e-mail message earlier from flickr reminding me that my pro account expires soon. I was curious on the cost, so I clicked the link. When the site opened, something else caught my eye: "Ooh! and if you upgrade today, you'll get 10 free MOO cards!" I was intrigued. What's a MOO card? So, again, I clicked.

Five minutes later, I was hooked. They offer fun products (StickerBooks, MiniCards and NoteCards) at reasonable prices, you can even customize a box of 100 MiniCards, and have a different photo on each if you'd like! Or, if you prefer, you can use their awesome designs, including COLOURLovers schemes...another site I love which I forgot to mention in my previous post.

So, if you're looking to kill a little bit of time, check out their site: www.moo.com

show & tell: what inspires you?

One of my biggest inspirations is color. I'm amazed at some of the color schemes people come up with that actually work.

Here are some places to check out color schemes:

Color Burn Widgets: Whether you use a Mac or PC, you can download this 'widget' and get a new color scheme everyday!

Kuler: This is a pretty awesome site. Say you find a color scheme you like, but there's one color that just won't work -- you can go and edit it, and even save it as your own (if you have an account with Adobe.) Also if you register for an account, you have the ability to download your favorite schemes as an Adobe Swatch Exchange File. Illustrator CS3 users can use a new feature by going to 'Windows' > 'Adobe Labs' > 'Kuler' on your menu. With this Kuler RSS feed window open, you can upload new schemes and download the newest, highest rated and most popular schemes directly to your swatches palette.

Also on the topic of colors, I stumbled across an awesome website a while back - etsy.com - that is somewhat of a store for homemade things people around the world make. The site offers a few different ways to search for items for sale, including my favorite, color search. Ladies, this is a great resource for handmade jewelry, purses and other accessories in any color you can imagine! I get lost looking for new purses! :o)

what's in a name?

You may or may not be wondering what the title of my blog -- 'anitsirk' is. I find that the first question from most people when I present them with my self-promotional pieces is "what does 'ANTI-sirk' mean?"

So, here's the background on it...

Anitsirk is my name -- Kristina -- spelled backwards and it's pronounced [uh-nit-surk]. I don't really remember where I got the idea for it...but I started using it in a graphic design project as an undergrad at Shippensburg University. We were instructed to make a logo and I somehow decided to spell my name backward, and it stuck. Which is truly amazing, considering I change my mind on design for myself weekly.

The piece above is not the logo I originally created, that is actually my letterhead which I designed in Communications Graphics II at Frederick Community College in the Fall of 2006. This self-promotional design package included a letterhead, business card front and back, label, envelope front and back and cd label. I entered this piece into the Fall 2006 Visual Arts' Exhibition at FCC, where I won 2nd place.

One of the thoughts I had when I started to design this piece was that I wanted to be able to change the color scheme if I wanted to because, again, I change my mind on color schemes I like rather frequently. This design gives me that luxury, but, I have yet to change it.