Design for the Greater Good

So, a lot has been happening. I’ve been designing a bit, trying to score some freelance and whatnot. I’ve really been looking into designing for the greater good, working on some volunteer stuff. I was surfing volunteermatch.org today (they have TONS of volunteer design opportunities!) and I emailed an organization today and may be designing a logo for the Africa AIDS Fund. I’m particularly excited about it. It’s free for them and a potentially great piece for my portfolio not to mention a resumé booster! It's neat cause I was just thinking about my Teen Missions trip on my way in to work this morning, when Morgan and I helped build the orphanage for AIDS orphans.. I think it was the weather. It was cold and crisp with the smell of woodsmoke in the air. Reminded me of the mornings there. After we (by we I mean my sister and I and fellow team members) woke up at the crack of dawn, worked for a couple hours hauling/laying bricks or mixing cement, we would get breakfast, hot or cold cereal (occasionally baked oatmeal) with a tall mug of scalding hot tea, no sugar or milk, and we’d huddle with our bibles and wool blankets that the team leaders bought for us in a nearby town, and just sat with the blanket around us and the hot tea steaming in our faces, too hot to drink, just quiet and reading our bibles. That feels SO long ago. It was a really nice memory though. Very calming. The children we met there and the people in general were such wonderful human beings, and it’s so sad to see such a preventable disease cause so much destruction.. it will be good to do something to possibly help the cause. BUT ANYWAY. I’m excited to possibly work on this project. It will be nice to use my design powers for good. There’s an excellent article in STEP this month with Cheryl Heller which discusses the duty of designers to volunteer. It’s a great read. I highly reccommend it.

Also on the design scene, I am going to be designing menus for a friend of a friend who owns a restaurant and wants them as a gift for her mother. I guess the restaurant’s been open for ages but has never had an official menu. I’ll get to design the whole thing myself, total creative freedom, plus some spare change would be really nice. Also, Boyds is mailing out a check for some revisions I did which is sweet, but unfortunately due to various circumstances of which I know no details, the project is on hold. I REALLY hope it still goes into production. I'll be totally bummed if they can it.

Other than that, not too much else going on. Kris and Erik are coming up for the weekend and Kim and Karen are following suit tomorrow, which means there’s gonna be some mad fun going down around these parts!! I'm more excited than you could even know!

Take care kiddies. A Halloween post is soon to follow. October’s gone WAY too fast. I’m not ready for winter yet.