Other Creative Things!

Last month, I didn’t do much creating, but I was involved in some other forms of creativity:

My friend, Eve, set up a dance challenge for some of her family and friends. She sent us a link to a Youtube video of a Bollywood dance workout and asked us to learn it to perform at her house. She wanted all dance abilities to feel comfortable, so we didn’t perform the dance for each other. We all danced it simultaneously without facing each other. It was a lot of fun, and it was a great challenge. Afterwards, we informally talked about our experiences learning the dance and had a buffet of Indian food. It was really fun and inventive. I had a great time, and I can’t wait to see what her next challenge is!

Nick has been putting together a competition that he calls “The King of Gaming.” He has chosen a variety of video games for his friends to practice and compete against each other for the quickest time or largest point value. There is a qualifying round and the final competition. He is treating the competition as if we are applying to become agents. We get emails written as if we are applicants, had to fill out an application, had a photo taken, and the finalists are received a packet full of information about the final games they will be playing and information on the other agents. It’s really inventive, and it’s been fun to help him get the packets together and make sure everything is matching the theme (I helped him with the prepress and designing the logo). We are even competing for a trophy! I doubt I’ll win the competition, but I’m having a lot of fun!

I also went to a talk about the website mnartist.org that the Eagan Connect group hosted. It was both good and bad. Good, because it was very informative and seemed like a great website and great group. But bad because it made me wish I had more time to create art. I still haven’t decided if I’m going to join the group or website. I want to, but I’m not sure if it makes sense to have a profile that isn’t updated regularly. And the group seems fun, but I feel a bit like an imposter, since I don’t create regularly. Although, they did talk about creating a group that would get together and draw. That could be a good place to start and get some creating done!

On the Other Side of Prepress…

Design

I have been working in prepress for over 17 years, and, other than a few rare occasions, I’m usually in the same building as where the printing is taking place. Which is really helpful when printing pieces that I’ve designed, since I know the presses and machines, and I know how to fix something if it is not printing the way I expected it to. For End of the Line, I am finding myself on the other side prepress, and I am solely a designer. It’s a little odd, but it’s been a good experience for me.

I am happy to report that I am really good at designing for print! Not that you wouldn’t expect that after 17 years, but it’s nice to hear from another print shop that my files were easy to work with and made their job easier. And, that also means that I have successfully met one of my goals! I actually got into printing because I had an internship in a print shop, and everywhere in the shop, I kept hearing about how designers were wasting their company’s money by making a lot of prepress mistakes and choosing bad ink and paper for their jobs. My goal was to go into prepress so that I would not be one of those designer. Mission accomplished!

I am also learning a lot about what happens on the client side of things. Before this project, I didn’t understand why someone would send a file in to be printed before checking it carefully. After sending in my own files, I understand that there is more going on: you are rushing to meet deadlines, you are staring at the same pieces for hours on end, and you have spell checked so many times, that you forget that you didn’t do that one file one last time… On the prepress end, I’m looking at something with a fresh eye, and I’m sending it back to the customer to look at after they’ve had a break from it.

It’s not like I was oblivious to all of this, it’s just that it’s been so long since I’ve been on this side, that I’ve forgotten. And on my end, it seems like it’s happening more and more. Which I supposed it probably is, since technology has made things less expensive and move faster.

Overall, this has been a good experience, and I’m really excited to see the mocked-up proof! You can bet I’ll put pictures online when I have those. I can’t wait!

Art Day!

Artwork

A few weekends ago, I went to an art day at my friend’s house. She invited over some people, we drank, and created art. It’s a bit similar to those painting studios that were popular (and maybe still are?), but instead of everyone creating the same thing, we all do our own thing. It’s nice because it’s a dedicated day to just create art. I know I can just make a day like that for myself, but I seem to do everything else on my to-do list, and keep art as a treat for when I finally have everything I need to get done, completed. (Unfortunately, since my to-do list is every growing, this doesn’t tend to happen…)

My original plan was to create black and white watercolors in an “Asian” style to put in our upstairs bathroom. After starting the Buddha painting, I really didn’t think my style looked very “Asian,” and I wasn’t loving it without color. So I added some color and gave up on the idea of it going anywhere specific. I like the Buddha painting, but I don’t really like the other one (I was being lazy and didn’t want to create perspective lines, but it really needed them!). Oh well. Maybe next time I will get closer to what I’m looking for.

Jamaica!

Miscellaneous

Last week, we were in Jamaica! It was such a great vacation. The past few times that we went, it was just me and Nick. This time, we talked four other couples into joining us. It was such a different vacation from our past visits. This time, we stayed up way later, and went to many events that we normally would have skipped. We logged a lot of hours in the ocean and then moved to the hot tub when it got too cold. I got to go snorkeling, sailing, and tried paddle boarding. So much fun!

Since we’ve been to this resort twice before, I ended up only bringing my new prime lens. Which saved my shoulder when we were traveling, since the camera bag gets to be really heavy with all of the lenses and all my travel stuff for the plane. The new lens was more of a challenge, because I can’t just zoom in to get the shot that I may have wanted. I had to be more creative! Yea! It was also good because I only took my camera out one day. One of my friends and I wandered around the resort snapping shots, and I didn’t have to drag poor Nick around the resort…again. (I think he really appreciated that.)

The photos below are just a few of my favorites. The rest can be seen here.

Con of the North & Kickstarter

Miscellaneous

Such an exciting last couple of weeks! First off, I went to my first board gaming convention, Con of the North. I’ve been to Photoshop conferences and other day conferences, but never a convention. And never as a vendor. I was surprised to find out how tiring it was! I appreciate Seppy so much more now for his busy convention schedule, and the fact that he is usually running conventions on his own. So crazy! I’m not sure if I’d be able to do it.

I taught a lot of Squirrel or Die demos (a tile based memory game) and one End of the Line (a worker replacement game) demo. I messed up the rules a bit on End of the Line, but I think the people playing still had fun, so that’s good. For Squirrel or Die, I started out shaky, got much better, then got worse by Sunday, the more tired I got. It was nice to watch different people teach the game, so I could take bits and pieces of what they taught and make it my own. Definitely much better than the test teaching that Nick was so graciuos to set up for me. My Squirrel or Die demos went from a half an hour of teaching, down to around seven minutes, which is good, since the game is really only about seven minutes long.

Chris Lyons, who is working with Seppy to develop our new game, Conquest Princess Pew! Pew! Pew!, was at the convention for a bit with his wares. (You can find him on Etsy here.) The picture you see is a pair of earrings and a necklace that he made. So fun! He also makes signs, cross-stitch, and othe creative things. It’s always so much fun to hang out with him and see what he’s been up to creatively.

The next exciting thing is that the End of the Line Kickstarter has launched! Hooray! As I’m writing this, it’s half-funded, which I think is pretty amazing for only being up for a few days, and for our company being pretty much unknown. It seems plausible that it could fund! I was excited, but nervous for it to go live. I was also surprised to see how addictive it is to watch the Kickstarter numbers rise. The first day, I was checking it often, and was so excited when the numbers jumped up in the amount of time it took me to scroll down the screen and back up again. How amazing would it be if it funded?! (So amazing! in case you were wondering…)

Melonie Lavely

Designer | Production Artist | Maker of Things