Poster Project

Design, Photography

Every month, I meet with a friend, and we go off on a photo adventure. Last month, we went to Moir Central Park. After getting home and looking at my images, I was trying to decide the best way to put them on the blog, and I thought that maybe I should make a poster. Then I was thinking that it might be fun to make a poster for every place that we visit. It will also be a photography and design challenge, since it would get boring really quickly if every poster looked exactly the same. So I am going to try to create a completely different layout for each place and try convey the feeling of each place.

As I said, last month was Moir Central Park in Bloomington. It was a warm and overcast day, and things were really just starting to grow. Compared to our previous photo trips, it was nice to actually have some green things to photograph. And even some flowers! The best part of the walk was finding all the strange, but fun things along the way. The three things that really stood out for me were the rocks that someone placed artistically on top of a large rock, the Christmas ornament that was hanging from a tree, and someone’s car key fob hanging from a tree. What is the story behind those? And I hope the person without the key fob is still able to get into their car!

New Design!

Miscellaneous

If you’ve been on the website at all lately, you may have noticed that I got a new WordPress theme. The old one wasn’t working the way that I wanted it to anymore, and it was looking a bit dated, so it was time for a change. I don’t have it 100% finished quite yet, so things will still continue to change here and there, but all the big stuff is done.

Changing this made me realize that I didn’t really understand how WordPress themes worked. This is my first theme change, and I was under the impression that if you want to change a theme, all you have to do is buy a new one and switch over to it. I didn’t realize that things are set up completely differently by different people, and it’s not necessarily that simple. It probably would have been easy if I bought a theme created by the same person, but since I didn’t, there was a lot more tweaking that had to happen than what I had expected. And since I didn’t realize this, I was working on everything directly on the website. I really should have had a dummy site set up to make all the changes on and then gone live when things were finished. Well, now I know, right?

I do really like this new theme though. It’s so clean and modern. And a lot of the back-end (or actually, the front-end of the back-end?) is really easy to use. There is a page builder that lets you quickly add parts to the site without having to code. And, since things like this don’t always work in the way you would like them to, it’s really easy to turn the page builder off to tweak some code. Turning it back on is also easy. I was really excited to realize this, since I had multiple portfolio pages that needed to be formatted in the same way, and it was 100 times faster to just copy and paste the code from page to page.

In case you are interested, the new theme is Yaga. The simplicity is what drew me to the theme, but I also liked all of the options that it offered. My favorite feature is that I can put text within my portfolio, along with multiple images. My previous theme just had a light box setup for the portfolio, and without text or multiple views, I don’t feel that some of my portfolio pieces worked well. There are pieces that I choose that are not my favorite, but they really showcase a specific skill. Without text to explain it, it just looks like a poor choice.

One thing that I’m still struggling with in this theme is my logo. My most recent logo is a square shape, and this theme really works better with a horizontal rectangle. I’ve been trying to redo it using calligraphy, instead of the font that I was previously using. But it looks so much better to me as a square. But I’ll figure something out eventually. In the meantime, at least my name is on there, right?

Derailed…

Photography

My last post was the first post of the New Year…and now it’s already April…I have been derailed. But the thing that is ok about being derailed, is that the track is still there, I just need to get back on it. And here I am! Yea!

So what has been going on since January? Not as much as I would have liked. Looking back, I think I made some really ambitious plans for the New Year. Not that I’ve given up on those plans completely, but I have dialed them back a bit and changed my focus a little. So this year may not be as action-packed as my January post had promised, but it’s still going to be good.

This past weekend, Kristin and I had another photo outing. This is the first one since January, due to me getting sick and scheduling conflicts. It has gotten nice outside, so we were able to go to a nearby park. Which worked well, since we had to sandwich this outing between my morning plans and her evening plans. Originally, we were going to go the the Japanese Garden at Normandale, but Kristin scouted it out the weekend before, and everything is still pretty dead there. We ended up going to Moir Central Park in Bloomington, and we found that things were pretty dead there still as well. But it was nice to be outside, and we did find newly growing things poking out of the ground here and there. So it’s only a matter of time before we can take some not-so-brown nature photos! I’m hoping we are able to align our schedules with the cherry blossoms at Normandale. Maybe we will have to plan an emergency mid-week photo shoot.

The photo I chose for this post was one of my favorites. I’m not sure why, since I took a lot of close-up photos of dead weeds, and also some photos that had more color in them. But there is something about the spiky texture of the plant and the blurry background that I really like.

Downtown Minneapolis Skyways

Photography

This Sunday, Kristin and I had another photo excursion! We went to the Minneapolis skyways this time. I was expecting them to be bustling, since I am always hearing how much busier Minneapolis is than St. Paul. But it really seemed to depend on where you were. Some areas were pretty comparable to St. Paul, and we only occasionally ran into people. While in other areas, especially where some sporting event seemed to be starting, there were much more people. But the only time it really ever felt busy was in Macy’s. But I think that’s because the walkways are smaller and there are people shopping in there as well as skyway wandering. And, it probably doesn’t help that the store is closing, so everything is on sale.

Another difference was the lack of pigeons. It didn’t occur to me, until Kristin pointed it out, that they don’t have any pigeon spikes (at least not that we saw). Which makes sense, since they don’t really have ledges for the birds to roost on. In that way, it was much cleaner. At least outside the skyway. Inside, it really depended on where you were. Most areas in Minneapolis seemed well cleaned and like they were maintained often. There were some areas where there was garbage on the ground or random spots where food was left to sit, just like in St. Paul. To me, Minneapolis seemed more corporate (for the most part) and more modern. St. Paul was more quirky and antique-ish. But, the St. Paul skyways did seem smaller and more open, so you could see outside a little better. In Minneapolis, I was more distracted by the internal skyway architecture and design, so I didn’t notice what was outside as much.

Overall, it was a fun trip. We walked about 6.5 miles! The funniest part to me was that we were able to roam freely and take as many pictures as we wanted in the Government building, but one of the buildings (I think it was the Crowne Plaza) immediately told us that we couldn’t photograph in the building at all. You would think it would be the other way around. But they must have something really exciting there to photograph.

The first photo (the one with the skyway and the light coming through the edges, is dedicated to my friend, Jeff. Thanks for the inspiration before we started our day!

2017

Miscellaneous

Looking back through the blog, 2016 was a pretty eventful year. I got to experience being an exhibitor at two different events, helped create and complete a successful Kickstarter campaign, went to Jamaica with a group of great friends, created some artwork, took some classes, started a monthly photo outing with my friend, acted as a wedding photographer for a day, and have a printed board game with my name on it as the Graphic Designer. That’s a lot of stuff! Now how will I top that for 2017?…

This year so far has been chaotic! I always feel like things slow down in the winter, and I just hibernate in the house, but I don’t think that’s true, since my blog post from January of last year sounds like I was pretty busy as well. Maybe that’s just what I wish I was doing, since it’s been cold and I don’t want to go outside! On the good side, the chaos has been good chaos. A lot of time has been spent with good friends, having fun.

Our friend, Mindy Mejia, recently published her second book, Everything You Want Me To Be. Nick and I have gone to some of her signing events, and it’s been so fun to hear her speak about the book and hear about her inspiration for writing it. And it was also fun to read! I think she is an excellent writer (seriously, not only because she’s my friend), and she kept me guessing until the very end who the killer was. I had my ideas, but I kept changing them as I learned more. And at the end, I was surprised. I would like to say more, but I won’t, since I don’t want to ruin it for anyone else. If you are looking for a book, and you like mysteries, I would definitely recommend this one. I like her writing style so much, that I’m having a really difficult time getting into my next book.

Nick, myself, and two of our friends, have started playing Mechs vs. Minions. It’s a cooperative programming board game that has multiple missions to complete, so you move through it in a story-like fashion. It’s been really good so far. And the game is amazing! There are a ton of miniatures, boards, and even a voice component you can use if you choose to do so. After being a part of creating a game, it’s so crazy how much is crammed into the giant box, and how inexpensive the game is for everything you get. I would definitely recommend it, if you like cooperative board games that are legacy-like. If you don’t, it’s all good. You can just admire it online and marvel at the expansive amount of miniatures!

So what are my plans for 2017? Definitely blog more. Looking back at last year, there was a stint where there weren’t any posts for a few months. And then when I did post, I just crammed everything into one post. No good. (Although this post has taken me over a week to write…) I’m also planning to do more artwork. I have an idea for 2018. But to be able to pull it off, requires more artwork in 2017. You’ll have to wait a year to hear about the plan, but in the meantime, I’ll post what I’m working on, and I’ll try to remember to get concept and in-progress shots. There will also be a few sewing and around-the-house improvement plans. And a few things that I haven’t talked about on the blog are that I’ve been learning Japanese and JavaScript (apparently I wanted to learn languages that start with a J). And in case you were wondering…yes! They are difficult. But I am retaining at least some of it, so that’s a good sign. So it should be a busy year, which will hopefully equal a good year. Yea!

2017