Response: Cheers to you guys. You're brilliant.

We are designers. We are brilliant.

Every day for the past two weeks I've woken up and thought, "Oh thank God, I'm one day closer to being done with school."

Now that the culmination of our undergraduate studies is finally upon us, I'm not so sure I like it. Of course I won't miss the huge load of schoolwork and sleep deprivation that comes along with it, but I'm definitely a lot more hesitant about the part where everybody moves on to the next chapter of their lives. Separation anxiety is inevitable.

I know that we've all been really stressed lately what with finishing up our magazine prototypes, iPad apps, mini portfolios and websites, but I propose we all take a step back and try to enjoy the time we have left together, even if it does involve mag editing, haaaaa. I'm going to try really hard to fully appreciate the short time we have left together before graduation.

It can't be denied; our capstone class has become a creepy cult-like family over the past month. We do perfect impersonations of each another. Our jokes make little sense to anybody else. (Trust me, I've tried. People don't get design humor. Or, in many cases, design itself haaaa.) Shoot, half of us are in the design lab right now ordering Gumby's and laughing hysterically about something insignificant. IT CANNOT BE DENIED.

As a lot of you probably know by now, my immediate plans are to stay and work in Columbia, so if any of you will be in CoMo this summer, please let me know. I'd love to keep in touch and get together for "social outings."

I wish each of you the best of luck in your future endeavors, wherever they might take you. No matter where you're headed, remember this: "The best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time."

You can't miss: unique business cards

Now that I've finished my mini portfolio and have seen a proof of it, I'm really excited to begin doing freelance work so that I can start getting some professional experience and making a name for myself.

To start getting prepared, I finally ordered CS5 today. The first project I plan to tackle after graduation is creating fliers and business cards to promote my work. But more about that in my response post for the week.

Zazzle features some really interesting options for business cards. If you're looking to design your own, I'd check it out to see what some current business card trends are. For example, I learned that vertical business cards are apparently very in right now.

When I create my stuff, I'll probably keep working with my little bird fellows. I think they express my quirky personality in just the right way. As I mentioned in last week's blog, I've also been fond of the different lemon, black and gray color combinations that are happening right now, so I might try to work that color palette in somewhere, too. 

Trendy indie mustaches have even infiltrated the professional market of business cards. Especially the market of poorly designed business cards...

Vertical cards are everywhere.

 Retro birds are found on only the trendiest of business cards. OMG.

Not sure what you'd this one for. Maybe if you're promoting the Dresden Dolls?

Critique: Mini portfolio design

Except for my final round of copy editing, I just finished up my mini portfolio. Here's a preview of the little booklet I'll have to send to potential employers.

cover

I created these little bird fellows a while ago, and I knew I wanted to use them for one of my personal projects at some point. They represent my personal design style, which is very much still evolving.

table of contents

 

I organized my portfolio by type of work to help differentiate different design approaches. I found corresponding quotes to fit with each section divider to give whoever is looking at it an insight into how my mind works.

Vox intro

I designed an opener for each new section. I wrote a little blurb to explain the reason for the designs in each section, such as audience and the time frame, etc. Employers outside of Columbia might not know too much about Vox, the Missourian and, especially, our capstone projects. These little blurbs will give them some contextual understanding.

design work thumbnails

Although I originally wanted to format my spreads with a blurb on the left page and an example on the right, I eventually decided to put one piece with a blurb on each page. Each spread uses three corresponding colored dots that pull together the colors on both the pages. I stood by my decision to use black pages, but some of my darker colored designs got lost, so I added a .75 pt white border around each image to help them pop.

Can't wait to see everybody else's final portfolios next Wednesday :)