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Dec. 10th, 2004 11:29 am1) I'm taking a typography course this semester. The final project, due on Monday, is to design a logo for a commercial client. For the exercise, we each have to make up a business, and have someone else design the logo for it, so we get practice as both the designer and the client.
On Wednesday, my cow-orker Phil asked if I might be able to design a logo and business card for his jewelry business, for the Flea. I'm pretty busy now, but this is just too serendipitous to pass up, so I'll see what I can do. Next day, he's got a bunch of business card designs that wife Liz put together. That's fine, Liz is a better graphic designer than I am, and has much more Photoshop-fu, but is he still interested in a logo, or should I stop right now? He still wants the logo, so I spend an inordinate amount of time (at work, mind you) playing Theme and Variations in the Key of I and A. At the end of the day, I present him with thumbnails for 8 logos. He might have said thank you, but he didn't say anything else.
This is the thing that gets me. This is my creative output. It's freely given, and he can accept it, reject it, or break it down for parts. But it would have been nice to have some feedback, even if it was to let me know that I'd fundametally misunderstood what he was looking for. But no feedback is no feedback, and I feel kind of blown off.
And now the mirror reflects, and I realize I'm doing exactly the same to my classmate. She sent me 3 designs on (dare I say) Tuesday for my mythical southern restaurant Indigo Rose. I like them all, and ultimately it's her creative project (and her grade), not mine. And I haven't finished the logo for her actual soccer team, for my project and my grade. But I could have told her so. Payback's a bitch, isn't it?
2) Yesterday was my 15th anniversary with Vicka, so she took me out to a fabulous dinner at Radius. We got the 4-course tasting menu, with an additional fois gras course. We ordered a wine pairing for one, but they served both of us on several of the wines. The appetizer was scallops in a Japanese dressing over cucumber slices, with a stripe of sea urchin sauce on the side. Then seared halibut over a sauce, circled with another sauce. (I would so suck as a restaurant reviewer - no memory for details.) Then the fois gras, served over a little toast round, on top of a sauce, circled by another sauce. This was served with a wine that was a little lighter than a Sauternes - sweet and grapy, but not heavy enough to be a dessert wine, and a good match for the richness of the fois gras. Then a palate cleanser of red pepper and raspberry sorbet - not something I would have thought of, but tasty. Then slow-roasted New Zealand venison, bloody rare, over baby carrots, brussels sprouts, and greens with smoked bacon, with some kind of white vegetable puree, and probably another circle of sauce. This was paired a Willamette Valley Pinot Noir with a distinct smoky taste. Finally the dessert course. Vicka was given a goat cheese cheesecake with huckberry sauce, huckleberry sorbet, and huckleberry glass. I was given a tower of pastry sheets layered with orange sections and Meyer lemon curd. The dessert wines were light and lightly sparkling, not heavy and super-sweet. It was fabulously expensive, but it was all fabulously fabulous. Except the rolls - for some reason, they served ordinary bread rolls, albeit with triangles of butter topped with a single tiny piece of cilantro leaf.
My gifts to Vicka were nowhere near as extravagant - a fridge magnet with an Emerson quote (misattributed?), and a pottery bowl with a cracked-glass glazing. Not my creative output, I just picked it out and paid for it, but Vicka was suitably appreciative. And that made me feel good.
[1:30pm Update. Phil called to apologize. The crucial clue that I missed was that he hadn't expected anything on such short notice, was expecting to hack something himself, and Liz's Photoshop-fu allowed him more time to machine the actual merchandise. We talked a bit about what he actually wanted, and I will play around some more - after the final project, final exam, and first draft of the Arisia souvenir book.]
On Wednesday, my cow-orker Phil asked if I might be able to design a logo and business card for his jewelry business, for the Flea. I'm pretty busy now, but this is just too serendipitous to pass up, so I'll see what I can do. Next day, he's got a bunch of business card designs that wife Liz put together. That's fine, Liz is a better graphic designer than I am, and has much more Photoshop-fu, but is he still interested in a logo, or should I stop right now? He still wants the logo, so I spend an inordinate amount of time (at work, mind you) playing Theme and Variations in the Key of I and A. At the end of the day, I present him with thumbnails for 8 logos. He might have said thank you, but he didn't say anything else.
This is the thing that gets me. This is my creative output. It's freely given, and he can accept it, reject it, or break it down for parts. But it would have been nice to have some feedback, even if it was to let me know that I'd fundametally misunderstood what he was looking for. But no feedback is no feedback, and I feel kind of blown off.
And now the mirror reflects, and I realize I'm doing exactly the same to my classmate. She sent me 3 designs on (dare I say) Tuesday for my mythical southern restaurant Indigo Rose. I like them all, and ultimately it's her creative project (and her grade), not mine. And I haven't finished the logo for her actual soccer team, for my project and my grade. But I could have told her so. Payback's a bitch, isn't it?
2) Yesterday was my 15th anniversary with Vicka, so she took me out to a fabulous dinner at Radius. We got the 4-course tasting menu, with an additional fois gras course. We ordered a wine pairing for one, but they served both of us on several of the wines. The appetizer was scallops in a Japanese dressing over cucumber slices, with a stripe of sea urchin sauce on the side. Then seared halibut over a sauce, circled with another sauce. (I would so suck as a restaurant reviewer - no memory for details.) Then the fois gras, served over a little toast round, on top of a sauce, circled by another sauce. This was served with a wine that was a little lighter than a Sauternes - sweet and grapy, but not heavy enough to be a dessert wine, and a good match for the richness of the fois gras. Then a palate cleanser of red pepper and raspberry sorbet - not something I would have thought of, but tasty. Then slow-roasted New Zealand venison, bloody rare, over baby carrots, brussels sprouts, and greens with smoked bacon, with some kind of white vegetable puree, and probably another circle of sauce. This was paired a Willamette Valley Pinot Noir with a distinct smoky taste. Finally the dessert course. Vicka was given a goat cheese cheesecake with huckberry sauce, huckleberry sorbet, and huckleberry glass. I was given a tower of pastry sheets layered with orange sections and Meyer lemon curd. The dessert wines were light and lightly sparkling, not heavy and super-sweet. It was fabulously expensive, but it was all fabulously fabulous. Except the rolls - for some reason, they served ordinary bread rolls, albeit with triangles of butter topped with a single tiny piece of cilantro leaf.
My gifts to Vicka were nowhere near as extravagant - a fridge magnet with an Emerson quote (misattributed?), and a pottery bowl with a cracked-glass glazing. Not my creative output, I just picked it out and paid for it, but Vicka was suitably appreciative. And that made me feel good.
[1:30pm Update. Phil called to apologize. The crucial clue that I missed was that he hadn't expected anything on such short notice, was expecting to hack something himself, and Liz's Photoshop-fu allowed him more time to machine the actual merchandise. We talked a bit about what he actually wanted, and I will play around some more - after the final project, final exam, and first draft of the Arisia souvenir book.]
