settling into my space

It’s been about 5 months since I stepped foot in Savannah, excited, scared, excited. Has it really only been 5 months? Where I am at now versus where I was at then feels pretty extreme.

I’ve met some really cool people here. That aspect of moving is what I look forward to the most. I think about the people I’ve met through my past moves and the majority of them have enhanced my life. I can’t imagine my life without some of the people I’ve met in Ohio, Alabama, Virginia and Hawaii. I now know Georgia will be no different.

Overall, the pace is really nice. Freelancing has kept me busy, but the lack of waterfalls to chase and clear water to swim in year round gives me more time to work on my personal artwork. I had such a hard time keeping myself inside in Hawaii as, I’m sure, you can imagine. But now, I’m taking pottery classes again and I’ve been playing more with watercolor. Most of my playing has turned into gifts for others, however, I do have plans to open a commerce page on this site by March 1.

Here are is some highlights of my recent design and illustration work:

This is one of my favorites. The idea to illustrated watercolor came when the design director of the publication sent the pages over with folios that looked like spilled wine. The style took off and I designed and illustrated all of the editorial content and really enjoyed the whole process.

The HCA medical advertorial was my first freelance project in Savannah. The client wanted a tech cover, but wanted the tagline to be on the front as well. After designing the tech cover, I decided to give another option - a “human” version. I treated the tagline like a headline and illustrated accordingly. They loved it. I was able to work in some illustrating while laying out some of the spreads as well.

I made a board game! And you can play it. This is the cover illustration and the inside illustration and layout I did for a national piece for ACBJ. The concept came after reading it four times a “how to” kept popping into my head. So, I tried to make that as fun for the reader to digest as possible. It was fun to write the steps. It was pretty much like writing a giant double edit - throwback to my Virginian-Pilot days.

The wedding invite made me feel good about what I do. The excitement for the final design that made her have even more excitement for a wedding was such a good feeling.

I was so excited to support my friend in her campaign to become alderman. In the end she was just 14 votes shy of pulling ahead of the incumbent. I’m so proud of her for fighting for change and it was a pleasure to work on her “fresh perspective” campaign.

I’ll end with this gem I did most recently. I wouldn’t call it my best design work but it is my funniest. It is an accordion style card I found through Nations Photo Lab and it front and back. The story: The rescue swimmer shop wanted to do an “A Christmas Story” themed Christmas card that they send out to all of the swimmer shops around the country. The guys were going to play different characters and create different scenes, so naturally I wanted to make Donnie the Leg Lamp costume. After gathering materials from Ross, Hobby Lobby, Lowes and a naughty store - I made a master piece. Of course, after seeing how ridiculous my creation was, everyone wanted to be the Leg Lamp. So, everyone was.