Art is making something out of nothing and selling it. -Frank Zappa

At the first Women's Volleyball home game I went to this year (Thanks Ryan for letting me drag you out there!!, I caught up with Wayne, a really nice guy who's in charge of student-athlete development. I agreed to helping out LBSU and mostly, the athletic department by doing some promotional work for them, some projects paid and some pro bono. I figured, if they have an enormous audience and their mailing list alone reaches out to over 33,000 people, it definitely wouldn't hurt to keep my creative juices flowin' throughout the semester- if I have free time from school work and studying. And Wayne said I would always have the freedom to pass on a project if I was already busy.

So, the first project is done. I think. It's a handbill that will promote the upcoming basketball season for both the men's and women's teams. I had 2/3 of each side of the handbill to design as a coupon, designed by someone else, was to be attached on the bottom. I was given professional photos of the star players, which I simplified by cutting out all of the details of the gym and the court, leaving just their profiles and a clean, more dominant image of them as players. I've never really seen them play, but I think they look pretty dang good pictured like that. For side 2, athletics wanted to list as many of their home games as would fit, so I managed to get all of them on there. I hope people don't think it's too cluttered....

It was a busy week in the athletic offices and I haven't gotten the final FINAL approval, but here's what the end result will most likely be (or be a lot like):




This thing took me a LOT longer than I expected it to, like just about every other project I work on, but I'm pretty excited to see it printed and sent out to so many people. Ryan asked me if I thought doing this kind of work would really be worth it to me and I said definitely yes for a couple reasons. True, not many people ever take a thorough look at the design of something printed, and I'm willing to bet 99% of those people don't know what all it takes to design and develop something usually. I'm aware of this. But for me, an idea or a thought that's created is art in some form or another, and my art is my work. So as long as I'm working, I'm getting better at the thing I've happily let become my job. And most importantly for the business side of it, the longer I work at my job, the more I have to show for it-especially in my portfolio for anyone to see since it's on the web. So that's basically what it comes down to. Yeah, I truly hope more people show up for some basketball games this year because they felt inspired to by my designs. But what's more (and more selfish of me as a graphic designer, I realize), I hope that the people who see my work who also DO look at something and understand what all goes into it, ie other designers, marketing professionals, other digital or fine artists, recruiters, etc..... I hope they see a job well done. That's all it ever comes down to for me, really.

I hope for that now, but my goal is to become developed and skilled and talented enough to expect that from these types of people.