On Friday, after taking care of business in the studio, we headed over to CCA to check out some of the graduate thesis exhibitions. Here’s a taste. (Photos by Christopher and me.)
Last Tuesday post
Today is a Tuesday like any other Tuesday at MINE™. Nothing exceptional happened on my end. There was some file making, Wordpress tinkering, and package preparation. It’s strange to feel so comfortable with my routine, but at the same time know that I will be leaving soon.
I was helping Christopher prepare the Haiti Poster Project posters to be shipped out, and I totally felt like Ralph Macchio in the Karate Kid. In one scene Mr. Miyagi has instructed him to wax the car, and has a very particular way of doing it. “Wax on, wax off,” he chants. Ralph is a little peeved because he doesn’t understand what waxing a car has to do with karate. Finally he understands that there is a state of mind that he must achieve that will then permeate everything he does. That is totally what this internship has been about for me. Working at MINE™ has helped me reach a higher design sensibility that will then permeate everything I do. Preparing that package is my car to wax and Christopher and Tim have collectively been my Mr. Miyagi.
Deadlines and screen printing
Sorry for not blogging on Friday. We were out of the office to screen print posters. The good people of the CCA Oakland campus were kind enough to let us use their facilities.
We’re running a tight ship today. We have a deadline to meet for a client tomorrow, and it’s all banner ads. They are simple enough, but there are many to do. Flash can be a tedious program so it just takes some time to do these. Tim is a machine. I have built two in the same amount of time he has done approximately six to eight. Other than the Flash, I checked my first printer proof today. I didn’t ask if this is a common practice, but as I checked each letter to see if their were any errors, I placed a tiny red dot next to the letter. Tim also informed me that if you have a lightbox, you line up the crop marks from your files with the printer files and check for errors that way. I like learning little things like that, because it makes me like I’m a part of a profession that has it’s own secret codes and ways of doing things.
Tomorrow we might be back at CCA to finish screen printing posters, so it’s possible that there may be no Tuesday blog. Look out for pictures of our finished posters on Wednesday!
The Final Countdown
Things are picking up around here again. There are so many exciting and new projects on the horizon. I’m kind of sad that I won’t be here to see them all through. The countdown to my last day has begun.
I worked on the Stern Grove Festival poster with Christopher and Tim. We are finalizing the type and adding our own touch of craft to it to compliment Yulia’s cut paper illustration. So for the past few hours, I have been cutting out typography that we will put on the poster. It’s a tedious thing to do. Though if you think about how graphic design was done before the time of desktop publishing, the magnitude of my task wanes in comparison. The way I was doing things was fine, but talking to Tim I learned that there are best practices that I haven’t been aware of before this internship. Not just best practices on how to use cut paper in your design, but other things I wish I could remember at this moment. There are may be a of doing something that gives you better results.
Tomorrow the MINE™ team will be knee deep in ink and squeegees. We’re screenprinting! I am super excited. The posters we make tomorrow will be sold on the Haiti Poster Project website.
Civic duty
We are very patriotic around here today. Tim designed the most awesome logo ever. I think it would bring a Tea Party Patriot/dodge ball enthusiast to tears. I know I’ve piqued your interest, but I should wait until it goes live to show you.
MINE™ has done it again. Out of 34,000 logos submitted, the House of Air logo and the Humanity Plus logo were chosen to be in the next volume of Logo Lounge. Hooray!
Lastly, the second annual World’s Smallest Poster Show was a success. Libations, cheese, friends, and a stunning poster collection. What more could you want? To sweeten the deal, Shasta designed and gave away a poster to every guest. They are die cut and can be folded into little circus tents. Thanks for hosting, Shasta!
You can learn something from anything.
Everything is a learning experience, no matter how many times you have done it before. Every time I repeat a task I notice something that I didn’t notice before. For example, when I am typesetting I notice the curve of a bracket or a unique serif for the first time. It’s kind of like listening to music and noticing sounds that you had never heard before.
Today my main task was typesetting documents for The Engergy Project. The work isn’t the most exciting, but I was able to practice my ninja like type skills. Earlier this morning when Christopher was at CCA and I had nothing pressing to do, I reorganized all the paper samples. Like I said before, everything is a learning opportunity. My knowledge of paper increased, and the alphabetizing put me in a meditative state.
Besides the Energy Project, Tim has been working to finish up the Stern Grove Festival poster. I’m really excited to see what the response will be like when the poster debuts and they announce the line up on May 1.
We’re all attending the second annual World’s Smallest Poster Show tonight! Hopefully we’ll get some pictures to you tomorrow.
Off to the presses
We’re continuing to keep busy at MINE™. In one day we collectively worked on 5 different projects, checked in on one, and was referred for another by poster designer extraordinaire Jason Munn. It seems as though there is a steady flow of work. When we finish up projects, there are more on the horizon.
Today we are working to get this d.School project to press. Tim and I made production dummies for the printer. His was a smaller version with the art on it. The one I did was to actual size without art. Because I did things by hand, they were a little off. So Christopher went back and made notes throughout the piece with exact instructions on what to do. I rarely made production dummies during school, but I see the importance of them now. They are especially important when there is a client paying you. If something goes wrong and your instructions cannot be refuted, the blame cannot fall on you. To make a mistake at this stage would be an expensive one.
We just ate the cake I made. It wasn’t awful. Awesome!
Fresh
There are a lot of exciting things happening at MINE™ today. We are finishing up the project for the Stanford d.School, we received final art from Yulia Brodskaya for the Stern Grove Festival poster, and we continue to rock the House of Air branding.
I apparently need a tutorial in making shadows in Photoshop. Unfortunately for Tim, I looked at the tutorials after I gave him the files of some faked Post-it notes. Christopher made fun of me for how long it took me, but at this point in the internship I’ve got thicker skin. It’s very strange to think back to my first days and how nervous I felt about the tiny tasks they gave me to do. Now I am a more confident person than I was in January, but obviously have much to learn.
The illustration we received from Yulia is beautiful! If you have been anywhere near a design blog in the past year, you’ve probably seen her previous work. She uses the edges of cut paper to make intricate, well-crafted, gorgeous illustrations. We’ve have been back and forth with her for the past few months about layout, typography, and color. Everyone needed to be on the same page about the illustration, because once its made, the illustration cannot be changed. Our clients at Stern Grove have already seen the illustration are delighted. Next steps are to find a secondary typeface and put all the festival information on it. Be on the lookout for the poster within the next month.
Lastly, I got to make penguin feet today! These might be used to make impressions into the floor at House of Air in their so fresh, so clean new cement. It’s been super exciting working on House of Air. I’ve never had the experience of seeing something that I helped create that is “alive” in the world. Sadly, the end of my internship is nearing and I probably won’t be around when House of Air opens. I will definitely bug Christopher about going to the opening though.
How, how, how, now, now, now
Hooray MINE™! We’re in HOW Magazine’s 2010 Design Annual for the identity work for C+. The photo looks backwards to you because I took it with Photobooth. Imagine it flipped.
We have been working hard all day to finish up the Stanford d.School project. I did a ton of image searching while Tim did some hardcore designing. Then Tim and I trekked up to Martha & Bros. to create some images. Christopher asked me to look generic today so that I could be the subject of the shoot. To me that meant dressing in blue jeans, black Chuck Taylors, a grey sweater, and a black scarf. I was a waitress serving coffee while things on the street happened around me. The sun was a bit harsh, so we’re hoping that we don’t have to reshoot. The d.School project should be in the bag by next Wednesday.
I have something exciting to look forward to on Monday. I’m designing socks for House of Air!
Holy Tuesday, Batman!
I know. Today is Wednesday. So much happened on Tuesday that it is deserving of another post.
The day started out pretty crazy. As soon as I arrived, Christopher and Amelie were out the door so they could bring the little ones to school. A few minutes later, Christopher walked back in the house upset. Some guy had barreled over the hill on Putnam and almost took out the side of Amelie’s car while she was standing next to it. Luckily he just crunched her door (but with her standing behind it!) and took out his own was side view mirror. It could have been much worse.
I guess barreling forward was the theme of the day. On Tuesday, we had three deadlines and made all three. The Coalition for Essential Schools launched their email blasts thus starting their Fall Forum education reform campaign, which MINE™ designs every year. Then Christopher presented a redesign of PeachPit Press’ Visual Quickstart Guide series. When you see the new ones roll out soon, you’ll see an updated logo and new cover design a la MINE™. Lastly, we gave Wallet Project files to Grace, our client at the Stanford d.School., so that the d.School folks could do another round of user testing. In the middle of all of that, Christopher interviewed two people.
Just when we thought we caught a break, we hear the smoke alarm. Christopher and Tim ran upstairs to quell a small oven fire.
So Wednesday doesn’t feel left out, check out what we received in the mail today! We all received tickets to the World’s Smallest Poster Show! For those of you that don’t know, it’s a project that MINE™ started last year. The first exhibit was held in Christopher’s home. This year we’ve passed the torch to friends Shasta Garcia and Dave Muro.
Blank screen of death
Today could have been the first time I cried at an internship.
While Christopher was at CCA this morning(*), I was playing with the code for our blog to see if I could figure some things out. Then I just tinkered with the wrong template. I pressed the update button and then all I saw was a big white blank screen. I looked at the blog, and nothing was there. This was followed by a few short expletives and some minor hyperventilation. Tim started to ask me questions and I could barely answer him. Thankfully, he sent me an article about how to fix the problem and told me how it’s a common Wordpress glitch. I felt a little better. Then Christopher walked in. I didn’t know what to expect. I’d never seen him angry before, and I didn’t want to find out what that was like. I said, “I broke the blog.” He asked me to explain. So, I told him the problem and he walked me through the solution very calmly. There are not two better people to make a mistake around.
Then we all ate the pie I made from the Tartine cookbook. Viva Enitrat!
*Christopher’s blog for his GD2 class at CCA is part of How Magazine’s list Top Ten Websites for Designers! Woot!
Blue: A controversial color
Who would have thought?
We had a meeting with our House of Air clients and I’m pretty sure we spent as much time talking about the right color blue as we did talking about their web site. Color is a very subjective thing. People have different associations with them and feel different emotions. The conclusion was to keep it the same…I think.
Building an identity for a company is a funny thing. For example, we had the House of Air colors planned with a primary and secondary palette. But when we actually executed designs, we noticed that we didn’t ever use one of our primary colors which canceled out our two tier system. It seems that as the project evolves, so do the branding specifications. When you actually start using the elements of the identity, you begin to see a pattern where certain elements work better in certain situations. You end up assigning meaning to these elements and decide to limit the places you use it. We have a stripe pattern that we use in the signage and for super graphics. They can be over powering so we limited their use as super graphics in certain areas of the building. When the building opens and begins to have meaning to others, we might have to adjust the identity again. Then when the brand has been around long enough like Coke, I guess you have the identity down to a t.
The House of Air identity is moving along though. This week Christopher and Tim have been working on the business cards and web site. The concept for the web site and the cards are super rad and will be something to be proud of in the end. Tim taught me how to write printer specs to get a quote on the cards. It’s a totally mundane task, but I was happy to learn it. Each piece of knowledge gained will help me disguise my inadequacies at my next job. “But it’s not like I have that many,” she says as she grins.
Enitrat
Yesterday was my birthday. So today Christopher took the office to lunch to celebrate. He also gave me a really thoughtful present. So my tummy is not only full of goodness, but also full of warm fuzzies.
We went to a new place on 24th street called Local: Mission Eatery. We had tasty sandwiches and then eclairs from Knead, the bakery in the back that shares the same space. Since I am obsessed with Tartine, Christopher gave me the Tartine cookbook so I can stop throwing my money away and figure out how to make delicious things to stuff my face with on my own. We discussed starting “Enitrat,” which is the working title for my concept bakery that will undercut Tartine’s business.
Christopher and Tim are more than mentors. They are awesome human beings. I love coming to work. We have fun, but we get things done. For all you future MINE™ interns, you are very lucky. Be awesome to them (of course you will), or know that I will fight you to the death…or just give you the stink eye.
Photo found here.
60 seconds
It’s been an interesting few days at MINE™. I myself haven’t been terribly busy, but I feel like I’ve been learning a lot nonetheless. Whether or not I am directly involved in the things that are going on around me, I’ve been soaking it in. I have found that just knowing the possibilities is the first step to actually doing something. The more knowledge you have, the more you can participate in the conversation.
For example, Christopher invited Tim and I along for his GD2 class’ film viewing at CCA yesterday evening. We watched a lot of shorts done by students who produced video for the first time. If I had been given that assignment, I would have been in their exact same shoes. I remember how daunting it can be to dive into something that you’ve never done and have to go through the pains of learning tools before you can stylize just the way you want it. Just by viewing the videos and talking about them with Christopher and Tim, I learned about uses for software programs that I hadn’t considered before. Now if I’m ever in the position of producing a video, I at least know where to start and where to look for help. The other thing that I’m not doing, but am more familiar with now is creating email newsletters. Christopher has been working on one all morning and asked me to look up some code. Again, if I ever need to create an email for myself or a client, I’ll know where to begin.
Video after the jump [more]
I’m a Flash genius.
Today was awesome, because I did something that I didn’t even know I was capable of doing. Since Tim was out of the office day, Christopher let me take a stab at some Flash files and I rocked it with little trouble. Every time Christopher asked me if I could do any Flash, I told him no. I guess I was wrong. I’m proud of myself, but in reality it wasn’t rocket science. It was super simple animations, but I’m pretty excited about it anyway. It’s a good end to the week. Hello, weekend!
An Emotional Day
Who knew coding could make one feel so emotional. I’m not even doing anything really difficult, but my trials of the past few hours are weighing down on me a little bit.
As you can see our new blog is up and kicking. Christopher spent some time after hours coding things that he couldn’t stand to be left unfinished overnight. When I came in this morning, there were only some minor things left to do. Or so I thought. I changed some colors of things, but I also set us up with a Typekit account. If you aren’t aware of Typekit, check it out. I hadn’t heard of it until Tim sent me the link. Christopher said he wanted to embed a font into the blog some how and apparently this is how one might go about it. It’s magic! Well, not really. There is some coding and servers all over the world involved, but you can look it up on your own.
Earlier in the day, when I was figuring things out and making things happen I was on cloud nine. But for the past few hours, I haven’t been able to do anything exactly like I wanted to. I even went down the list of tags in the stylesheet and looked them all up. I gained a lot of knowledge about CSS, but nothing actually happened on the blog post lunch.
[MORE]: Why do you do that crazy jump thing when I click on you?!
GREY ABSCESS ON MY CATEGORY BAR: Which tag controls you?!
TITLES: How do I get you to not follow the style for all the links?!
STICKY POSTS: I will figure out how to customize you if I need to.
Happy weekend! Watch Puppycam!
Better than a 24 hour punk rock diner
I was just telling Christopher that working here is the only job I’ve ever had that has been more fun than my stint as a server. Oh, I guess teaching was pretty fun too. But I digress.
Have you noticed the blog? It’s new and improved! Now with more visuals! Today I spent the day adding images so it will look totally rad when we make the switch to the new format. It has been fun because with each picture, I get to choose the message I want to communicate for the day. So sometimes I had a picture that worked perfectly, and other times I had to make something up. They are just blog photos, but it was a design task. We make messages with words and images, and hopefully create new meaning and context. I can’t say that all my photos live up to that statement, but I enjoyed doing it nonetheless.
After my morning of bloggery (No, that word is not in the OED…yet.), Christopher, Tim and I brainstormed about signage and graphics for House of Air. I recorded notes on a giant notepad with a sharpie while trying to contribute to the conversation. We came up with some really cool ideas for the space in which we will pitch to our clients on Friday. So after the meeting and watching Puppycam (Thanks, Emily!) for a few minutes, we started adding our signage, color, and graphic ideas to the architectural renderings. They’re starting to look pretty sweet, or maybe it’s just the beer goggles.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day, friends!
Blogging and jumping
My big project of the day was to start rethinking and reformatting our current blog to prepare it for a theme change. To do this, I have been going back to older blogs and adding photographs. I wrote those blog entries only two months ago, but I sense a certain naivete in them that I don’t feel now. Reflection is an interesting feeling. As a teenager, I set fire to my old diaries so that younger person didn’t exist any more. But I can’t exactly burn the blog down, so it’s here to stay.
Where did the day go?
I know the time changed yesterday, but I feel like I lost track of an hour sometime today. We weren’t particularly busy, but I must have been busy enough to not look at the clock.
[more]
Wanna whole lotta mug
Porcelain Clink Clink
Cut Crinkle Crinkle Crinkle
Fold Bend Crease Fold Fold
Yes, my haiku is so esoteric. You’ll have to order the The World’s Greatest Mug to decode it’s meaning. As of today, they are ready to be shipped!
New Blingy Horizons
Everyday that I come to work is a surprise. I feel really lucky to be here. Not only because I am learning a lot from Christopher and Tim, but because MINE™ has amazing clients. Since I’ve been here MINE™ has worked on projects for a trampoline gym that will open this summer, an education movement called Private Schools with Public Purpose, Coalition of Essential Schools’ education conference, Levi’s and Opening Ceremony, The Stern Grove Festival, The Good Design Book, The Energy Project, C+, Verizon Wireless, Wells Fargo, The Nature Conservancy, The Haiti Poster Project, and the Stanford d.School. I am amazed by the breadth of clients and how awesome everyone is. I feel like I am going to get spoiled and think that this is the way every design office is run.
A day full of firsts
My firsts included using Keynote, dusting, and meeting Ann from Hemlock Printers.
Christopher informed me that I was the first person to dust the cabinets. For some reason, I feel a little proud about that fact. But as you can see, I was desperately seeking something to do at the moment. Today was a little slow around here. We’re waiting for client feedback on a few projects so that we can proceed with them. It’s just the normal ebb and flow of things.
I like feeling useful.
Yesterday I left work feeling a little bummed because, I didn’t come up with a logo concept that was presentable to our client. So bummed that I couldn’t shake it until I went home and created a moodboard for it. So I came to work prepared with that, and spoke to Christopher about yesterday’s attempts and the moodboard. (He laughed because it was full of references to beer and guns, and our client works in education). From all the useless stuff yesterday and Tim and Christopher’s suggestions, we were able to come up with a new direction for me to take. I worked on it all day, and ended up with something that will be thrown into the mix of logos that will be sent to the client today. It wasn’t world changing stuff, but it feels good to be able to contribute.
extra über super long names
The day went by pretty quickly. I had my regular intern duties to attend. One of them included finding paper samples for a comp due Wednesday for Standford’s d.School. It was kind of stressing me out. I called multiple paper stores and the company itself, and no one was calling me back. It finally worked out today, and we’ll hopefully be getting that paper in on Wednesday, just in time to make the comp. We’re using different color papers, so I’m really excited to see how it’s going to turn out.
Back to our regularly scheduled programming
Hello! We are back! Sorry about the blog hiatus, but it was out of our hands. Our server in Utah was having MAJOR hiccups. We couldn’t even receive email this week.
I promised you pictures of the party we went to last Friday. I took a bunch, but they are pictures of a lot of people you don’t know. So I will post pictures of our work and one photo found on the internet where you can see the MINE™ gang represent! You can see Tim, Emily and the back half of my head. I’m the one to whom they are speaking.
Super Secret Revealed
I know all of you have been at the edge of your seats waiting for the big reveal! Well the day has come. For the past few weeks MINE™ has been working with CITIZEN:Citizen on a campaign introducing Levi’s Cords by couture brand Opening Ceremony. We feel privileged to be listed among design luminaries such as Jennifer Morla and Stefan Sagmeister who have done work for Levi’s.
Fun with Vectors
I only did one thing today; I worked on a logo. Or actually, I worked on 5 options for one logo. They’re not all working yet, but it’s fun to see how a mark evolves after each round of feedback from Christopher. When we give these to the client on Thursday it will be round one.
I like working with someone when designing. When I feel like I have exhausted all options, Christopher will point out something that I didn’t try and a whole new set of options and challenges manifests.
Many people who are not designers do not know how much time it takes to make something concise, simple, and meaningful. I’ve been working on this logo for almost 8 hours now, and I know it’s possible to work on it so much more.
For the most part, the Good Design Book is designed. At the moment Tim is waiting for text and other minor-ish things. Since that has slowed down, other projects are starting to come through again. Tim has been working on this crazy booklet. I say crazy because the format is interesting and is posing a design challenge. It’s all coming together though.
Polyhedrons and Bucky Fuller
One of my favorite things about design is getting to learn about new things all the time. I did know who Buckminster Fuller was before today, but I had to delve a little bit deeper into the origins of the Geodesic dome. All of the research was for the logo that I started working on today with Christopher. I am totally stoked!
A Makeover
Makeovers are the theme of the day. The comp room got one, and Christopher talked to me about giving the blog a face lift.
The day started out slow. When Christopher noticed that I was lacking an activity, he asked me to create a list of projects to do in the office. Some he gave me, and others I came up with on my own. But until they were down on paper, I hadn’t realized that they needed to be done. Then the day was more or less non-stop and went by pretty quickly.
I organized the comp room. It’s on the small side, so things definitely need to be in order in there. I really enjoyed compartmentalizing the drawers. It was kind of like laying out a page. It’s also a satisfying feeling to know where everything is.
But the other project that I’m pretty excited about is enhancing and expanding the scope of the intern blog. I’ve never really done anything extensive in Word Press, and I’m excited to figure it all out. Maybe I’ll absorb some understanding of code in the process which seems to be a useful skill to have these days. Right now we’re in the process of finding a new theme. When we’ve decided, it will get underway.
Speaking of makeovers, Tim informed me that you could get one to look like KISS on Valentine’s Day in Dolores Park. Do that, and then go to the Pillow Fight!
Photos of the comp room were taken by Ethan Davis.