I’ve been quietly and steadily working on some new print designs for a few weeks now. Today I pulled the first proof! I put it behind a black mat to get a better idea of what the finished print might look like.

The idea came from wanting to play with the quality of light linocuts create — how the black ink on white paper causes the light areas to almost glow. Somehow my brainstorming led me to the halos I see in the car at night when I’m being blinded by headlights, and so the whole series is based the patterns of line that appear when I squint directly into various sources of light. I’m not sure I’ve quite gotten what I wanted, but that’s why we do proofs first.

I pulled a two-color proof of the Oh Snap block I started months ago, which gave me the opportunity to test out the metallic ink I picked up recently. And then, well…

I suppose I could say I got bored and started playing with the leftover ink, but instead I’ll say I got creative and we’ll just leave it at that.

This week I’ve decided to dedicate I Misunderstand! to pursuing the art of invitation miscommunication.

I never thought I’d ever create anything this sugary sweet-looking willingly and for free.

Sarcastic, yes. Sugary, no. I continue to surprise myself, all in the name of academics.

The dot pattern was inspired by a J.Crew dress I bought last year. The script typeface is called Giddyup, and it uses a little star to dot each “i” (I added one to the exclamation point; it seemed fitting). So, naturally, it seemed like the perfect cutesy typeface to underscore the sweet color scheme.

There’s probably someone out there who’ll love the design. But me? I just about gag. And then I laugh at myself.

On the other hand, Gilda and William sure are cute, if I do say so myself.

While there’s not much happenin’ here on my side of the Internet — I take that back, there’s a lot happening, but not much of it’s fun. However, I took some time today to photograph a few finished projects that have been piling up and collecting dust since the summer.

Here is the wedding invitation I designed for my friend Jen‘s friend, Amy. It was a challenge, as they had a complicated list of dos and don’ts, a challenging color scheme, and other than that, no really clear idea of what they wanted (ack!). So it required pulling out the big mind-reading, type-selecting, color-balancing, layout-designing, invitation-wording guns. Incidentally, the design in the lower left corner is a modified version of the embroidery that was on her wedding gown. It’s simplified a bit, and I incorporated two figure-eight knots, one of their wedding motifs (the groom is one of those sailing-types). Puuuurdy.

She asked me to do the escort cards/favor box tags, thank you notes, and programs too. Altogether, the job was a challenge, to say the least. But everything turned out well — no rampaging groom or murderous bride. Most importantly, the guests seem to have understood the date and time, made their way to the wedding, followed the order of the ceremony, and found their tables just fine. It’s good to know that my work is helping make the world a better place.

THIS one was more of a collaboration with Jen, the production dynamo, who was struggling with designing an invitation for Amy’s Bridal Shower tea. In case you haven’t noticed, we make a good team: I like to design but dislike tedious production work; she dislikes design but likes tedious production work. The result is always something delightful.

Custom design is a good challenge, but it takes up a lot of time. I think most artists agree that commissions tend to take the fun out of the process. Even though you love the work, it becomes just that — work — and it gets tough to be excited about it when there’s half a dozen other projects you want to work on.

I once thought I might enjoy doing custom invitations, announcements, etc. full time. And although I think I would certainly prefer it over my current employment, could I handle it 24-7? I don’t know. One of the things I like least about design is the need — nay, the requirement to try to make everyone happy. This is despite the fact that I am naturally inclined to want to please people; I tend to gauge my self-worth based on my perception of others’ satisfaction with me. So, ironically, that problem-solving aspect of intuiting many points of view and making them all work is also the thing that draws me in. Mind reader + diplomat + magician. That’s me.

So we’ll see. I’d love to take time to build up a body of current work, enter some shows, get into some galleries. Unfortunately I don’t see any time for it in the near future: I’m working on A&R’s wedding through the end of August, marathon training through October, plus I’m hoping to start the last of my grad studies classes this fall and finish my master’s thesis project in the spring. I’ll then probably allow myself to be a bit lazy for, like, a month after that, which brings me until right about this time next year before I’ll be free to do whatever the heck I want with my spare time.

That said I’d rather design invitations until my mouse bleeds than be a bridesmaid. Un-bridesmaid? Anyway…

On the WAAAAY UP side I finished A&R’s invitations, as one of several accomplishments and/or significant strides achieved over the long weekend. We even saw WALL-E. I feel very productive.

So I’ll get to take a very short break from A&R’s wedding, after delivering 65 invitations — printed, trimmed, wrapped and tied — yesterday afternoon. Between cutouts, linoleum and crochet, I almost don’t know what to do. Really, I should just get working on a design for the programs.

This rare photo of me is brought to you courtesy of Keith, who was kind enough to visit my messy, messy studio and play with my camera while I was cutting lengths of cord. He is suffering from DSLR withdrawl while ours is being serviced. I should clean. I should also get to the gym. Look at that. Can’t even tell she’s training for a marathon. Yeesh.

Alright kids — all of you aspiring graphic designers — it’s time for a dose of cold, hard reality, the ugly, dirty truth that nobody in art school speaks of except in hushed tones and Voldemortesque “That-Which-Must-Not-Be-Named” euphemistic language.

You really *do* need algebra.

Settle down! Don’t panic! The good news is that you don’t need all of algebra: none of the matrices or imaginary numbers or polynomials or anything much beyond solving for x really. Algebra 1 is plenty more than you’ll need to get you through life as a graphic designer.

But the bad news is that you’ll use it mainly to figure out proportions, say, for paper size and whatnot: so you’ll need to get cozy with fractions and converting fractions to decimals and decimals to percentages and percentages to measurements you can use. You’ll probably also need to know how to convert between units, feet to inches for example.

You’ll also need to know how to set up an equation from a question, see? Like a word problem. Allow me to illustrate.

Today, I started printing reply cards for A&R’s wedding invitations. However, Neville, being new and wanting to impress, was enlarging the cards, so that (a) they would not fit into the reply envelopes properly — bad — and (b) the cards were not being printed entirely, getting cut off at the very end — extra bad.

Hoping against all hope for a quick, easy fix, I selected the “fit to page” option, but then they printed too small. Oh bother, I sighed, where’s that measuring tape?

It turns out that left to his own devices, Neville printed the cards a full eighth-inch too big. I would have to calculate the percentage by which Neville was enlarging the cards, and figure the percentage by which to reduce the print size.

So I drank some coffee, and did some early-morning That-Which-Must-Not-Be-Named to figure out at what percentage of the original size I needed to tell Neville to print in order to compensate for his “bigger is better!” philosophy. I’ll spare you the gory details (unless you really *want* to know).

I know it’s not perfect, and it probably took me way longer than it should have, but I FIGURED IT OUT, and now the cards print at exactly the right size. Hooray! Algebra isn’t so useless after all.

And the really good news is that, aside from the basic critical thinking and arithmetic skills required, the most advanced stuff you’ll need should be covered in the unit on proportions/ratios, whatever those math people call them. So after that, you can go on doodling in your notebook margins.

Just don’t say it was me who told you.

I didn’t work (much) on any prints or designs or anything really this weekend. I was a little preoccupied with running my first 10K and all of the post-10K activity, in addition to getting not one, not two, not three, NOT EVEN FOUR, but FIVE (5!) lights installed at my house. My world is literally brighter and better-looking, thanks to the wonder team of Keith and Greg (my father-in-law).

Nevertheless, while they were busy hooking up wires, crawling through the attic, and cutting holes in wall and ceilings, I spent some time using the light box/macro studio I made (out of a cardboard box, packing tape and tissue paper) to photograph some of my previous invitation/announcement/greeting design work. I’m working on developing a Web site digifolio for myself, but in the meantime you can enjoy looking at what Oomphasis is all about.

This was my wedding invitation — the first invitation I designed. As always, when I look back on a project, there are a few things I might change, especially having learned a lot about good design and good invitation design in the last 4 years. Plus, I think I have a better sense of our personal styles. Maybe I’ll do a redesign when I have time or need some creative exercise.

That said, overall I think it’s still a good reflection of the philosophy that governs the mail I create (invitations in particular) and the unifying element of my design work, where a cohesive visual style is lacking: opening a letter, a card, an invitation, is a total experience — interactive, intimate — that should be a tactile treat, a visual respite, enveloping its recipient in visual-kinesthetic delight.

This was the invitation for my sister-in-law’s wedding. The floral design element (lower left photo) is used on each piece and is actually the embroidery pattern on her wedding gown.

I think this invitation for Christmas dinner at our house is my favorite so far. I only had to send out 5, so I was willing to do something a little more labor-intensive (and costly!). There’s just a single card, wrapped in a piece of lovely red paper — each had a different pattern or texture — and tied with a gold and red ribbon. They were mailed inside boxes made of the most beautiful red, red paper I have ever seen (from Paper Source). I especially like that the text sort of makes a Christmas tree shape. And because everyone inevitably calls to ask, “What can I bring?!” I included the line at the bottom (“Please bring your famous [blank]“) for both practicality and flattery.

You guessed it! This was for a poker party hosted by my friend, Jen A. Every now and then, she throws a little design challenge my way, and this was one of them. Each invitation set (invite and directions) was hand-delivered, so there was no need for envelopes, and — again — the quantity was small so tying the twine around the cards and the chips to the ends of the twine was no big deal (plus I had help from the production ace, Jen!).

Finally, here’s just a small group of three different items: a “feel better” greeting (another design challenge from Jen), the invitation to Kelly’s bridal shower, and the postcard I designed for my undergrad senior graphic design group show.

Ahh, and now I think I’m finally ready to start rewriting my artist statement. We’re moving right along.