A lot of pressure rides on a book cover. It has to interest you, it must speak to you, it must reflect its insides, all in the hopes of getting you to pick it up, or, if you’re an online book shopper, get you to click the “read more” button. There are millions of book covers out there, how is anyone supposed to make one cover stand out from the others? How does one convey the themes of the story through the front cover of a book? Continue reading
Designing a Book Cover
Posted in graphic design
Tagged book cover, book cover design, designing a thriller book cover, jaden baker
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Form and Functional Beauty in a Marine Stove
There’s something about a rich red that has me salivating. I’m currently wearing my red sweatshirt, drinking coffee from my favorite red mug, and wishing I had this gorgeous red wood burning stove aboard my boat:
Red is a warm color, sure, but something about it cast in ceramic really tugs at me. Here’s hoping I may one day have this “Sardine” model of Navigator stove aboard the S/V Libby.
Read a similar post on courtneykirchoff.com.
Posted in Beautiful, Cool Stuff
Tagged beautiful stove, form and function, marine stove, northwest
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A Virtual Interview with a Graphic & Web Designer
Last night (December 19th) and this morning (the 20th), I applied for some graphic and web design jobs being offered in the greater Seattle area. If you’re here because I listed this website as a reference point for my portfolio, then hello to you. I’m a time-valuer, so I thought I’d save you some time by giving a virtual interview. In this post I’ll explain why I’d be a great fit as your designer, answer some common interview questions, and talk a little bit about who I am. If at the end of this post you think “Hey, she’s kinda cool,” and would like to consider me for a real interview, then please contact me. If you think, “Meh, she’s no big deal,” then I’ve saved you some time of having to actually talk to me about my strengths and weaknesses, allowing you to interview someone better-suited for your team.
So let’s get cracking.
What’s the Deal with Coffee Mugs?
Sometimes I feel like I’m taking crazy pills. Even though I live in a small space and only have so much room to dedicate to all things coffee, I can’t seem to lose the mugs. Why? When I lived in my apartment I hoarded them, like some caffeine-addled dragon in her lair. Something about coffee mugs, the larger ones (not those pansy little ones) just have me hooked. I agonized about parting with many of them when I moved aboard my boat. I had to give them to my mother, so I knew they’d go to a safe home. Seriously. I’m such a freak.
Posted in Beautiful, Cool Stuff
Tagged coffee mugs, colorful coffee mugs, interesting mugs, mug addiction
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Inspiration where you live
We all like pretty things. We may have different definitions of what we find pretty, but the fact remains: we like beauty. Dustin Hoffman’s character Raymond in Rain Man sums this up rather well: “Very sparkly. Very twinkly.”
A cob house is a small piece of beauty, carefully crafted out of clay, straw, and sand, sometimes taking a year or more of construction, but finishing off into a residential gem. What does cob house have to do with design? Imagine being able to come home or even work in such a cozy and inspiring place. What kinds of ideas would you have if you got to live in such a home? Think about how fun the mundane would become, if you could just sit and sip coffee in a living room with designs carved into the wall.
Go on, have a look:
The Value of Talent & Skill
Just this past summer I was requested to be an editor for a non-profit client’s new high school curriculum. Since I supported the organization’s work, and needed the money, I said I’d take a stab at a couple of pages to see a.) how long it would take for me to edit, and b.) if the organization was pleased with my work.
When I was done editing a page and a half, I checked the clock–I’d spent more than an hour on the tiny project. The client was pleased with the work I’d done, and then told me how many more pages there were to be edited, and what their budget was for the project. I crunched the numbers: to edit the body of work would average me $8 an hour. I was stunned, and told the client I couldn’t possibly work for that wage. My editing and writing skills were (and still are) worth more than such a paltry amount.
We tried negotiating for a while, but I came to the conclusion that the client didn’t understand the real value of my skill. It hadn’t just take me an hour to edit, it had taken me years to learn how to write, how words work together, and how to craft and weave stories together.
