Another reason I haven’t been writing much here lately:

My office creates our college’s magazine for alumni, friends, & students. It’s a daunting job for a team of 4 people, but I am determined that as long as I have anything to do with how the pages look, our magazine will look crisp and fresh, and get better each issue.

I discovered the joys of print layout & design long ago. It started with a calligraphy class that I took in high school from a lady in our church. She taught us the basics of the Italic hand, and her husband showed us the wonders of a good balsa drafting board (better posture! better light! fewer neck cramps!)  I learned how to mix my own colors using gauche or watercolor inks, work with unusual colors of paper, and mix art and letterforms.

I followed my love for letters into college, where I jumped on an upper-level Calligraphy course during my freshman year.  I learned how to cut my own mat board properly, though it’s nearly impossible to cut a straight line without one of the big tabletop cutters IMO.

I wandered into the basics of digital page layout to fill a need of my job at the time, and that developed into doing programs for people’s weddings and recitals, posters, flyers, handouts.  By the time I’d moved into teaching and been forced into taking on the yearbook (very grudgingly), I was ready to step behind the wheel of InDesign.

Those early years were pretty rough, as far as design goes, but I improved with practice.  I’m pretty happy anytime I can be arranging words on a page, making them fit and flow, learning and growing the craft of artful design.

So yeah.  It’s been a busy few months.  Documentary film, museum exhibit, magazine issue, presidential transition, admissions projects, and major event planning on top of all the regular stuff.

I’ll be back though.  My brain is already bursting with lots of new ideas. Just waiting for a moment to break from its leash…. 🙂