Celebrating 15 Years of Subalpine Design

Happy Birthday to us… it’s hard to believe that Subalpine Design is 15 years old this year!

GROWING
It has been an incredible and dynamic journey that continues to amaze me in its evolution. When I began this business in partnership with my husband, I was working only in print design, full time for a fairly large, international company. The president of the company asked the graphics dept who wanted a side-job? I raised my hand and began to learn what it means to be self-employed and maintain an LLC.

MEASURING
Over the years, the work has ebbed and flowed depending on the projects and many other factors including networking, the economic climate, skill sets, and availability. Because I like to actually work with people in person, opportunities often opened by Subalpine Design became priorities to work for local retailers, businesses and non-profits or volunteering while Subalpine sat more idle. My husband’s participation has changed from year to year as well, but it is his full time employment that has afforded us the opportunity to experiment with Subalpine Design.

FORKS IN THE TRAIL
We thought I needed to branch more into web design in 2007 when a fellow designer introduced me to WordPress and everyone who wanted a logo was looking for a website, too. That demand hasn’t changed much. It was a challenge to develop custom WordPress theme designs and broaden our clientele outside of the local community. It wasn’t until 2016 when I started to realize how far off track I’d gone. I haven’t taken on a new web project since.

SURVEY & REORIENTATE
The landscape of web management was always beyond my capacity or desire to maintain, and mobile development has taken the lead. In the world of tech, you so quickly lose it if you don’t use it and continue to upgrade it. Defining my recent role on a software team, reaffirmed strengths in the design, layout, mock-up, wire-frame, UX side and moved me further away from the technical, developer side.

RETRACING MY STEPS
I have been slowly turning the boat around, so to speak, changing course to re-examine Subalpine’s roots in a way. In retrospect, I’ve found some interesting areas to critique. Subalpine Design hasn’t lived up to its greatest potential. Not that we do a bad job. I think you’ll find our clients more than satisfied and if anything desiring for us to expand our services.

A large part of the problem seems to be that I’ve focused too much on adapting for them and not applying that knowledge to Subalpine Design. This company often doesn’t get the attention it deserves because we’re fulfilling client needs and balancing it with personal ones. It wasn’t until 2010 when we launched this website. It’s not hard to get stuck or distracted, unable to establish any goal.

I can wear a lot of hats and it’s taken some experience to know which ones I should wear for other people. There’s one client who might like it if I morphed into a React developer, another an SEO specialist, everybody needs sys admins…

THE PATH AHEAD
I used to think I could do it all, if I desired. These days I realize as long as I am working for myself, it’s best to identify my strengths and pursue that which fuels my passion, while tempering it with a dose of reality. Our mission has always been to help people through DESIGN.

I’ve been carving out some personal time to research ideas that could take the business in a more artistic direction, while continuing to support design clients. I’ve been afraid in the past to tread the path I’m exploring now, and am still trying to figure out why. I think I’ve been skeptical of standing out in the ‘global’ market of the web and figuring out how to leverage the right tools without compromising my values, deciding if it’s worth the effort without knowing the return. At times I’ve been uninspired. It seems when I get an idea I want to nurture, other projects and priorities begin to appear. The next step begins by showcasing and continuing to refine skills in illustration and photography. We’ll see where Subalpine leads us next.

April 19, 2013February 13, 2023

Oops, Did it Again

So I have this bad habit of neglecting my website. If you read through my posts, you’ll see the trend. I get a bit done during the winter, but once spring arrives any extra time in front of the computer goes out the window—replaced mostly by gardening and travel.

I started writing this post last fall with a great idea to re-vamp my WordPress theme. Now it’s spring again, the revamp is still on the list, and I’ve trashed the original concept and am going in another new direction. Here’s a sneak peek into what’s on the drawing board:

In the meantime there have been a few client projects that are definitely overdue to get mentioned. I plan to add them to the portfolio and talk more about the designs with the launch of the new theme. Below are screenshots of websites created by Subalpine Design.

Ziggy Marley Organics

Sonrisas Foreign Language

Cindy Raleigh Fine Art

January 16, 2012October 20, 2020

Technical or Creative

I’ve been meaning to write about this project for quite some time—seeing as how it was completed last Spring. But I think it’s taken this long to write it so I could have a few more experiences to reflect upon and tie into the story.

The Project: Hydrocarbons & Jet Engines

Out of the blue, last Spring, I got an email from a local gentleman, who wrote, “I need about half a dozen power points prepared of aviation turbine engines and chemical formulae.” I responded by letting him know, I’m not very experienced at PowerPoint and also wondered how he had heard about me. Turns out, when he was in our local print shop, Old West Press, he inquired about designers that could help him in this area and they referred me. I love a small town.

After meeting with him, very little involved PowerPoint—except for making sure the images I provided would import and display correctly. The project was straight forward, he had several jpg images of turbine engines and chemical diagrams of Hydrocarbons that were very low-resolution and needed something of better quality to use in his presentations. I was ecstatic to tackle this project on several fronts: graphic design, science and Bezier curves.

As I mentioned in The Designer, I started my journey as a Graphic Designer after taking a class at the local Vo-Tech. The main thing I learned in the time I was there was how to draw and trace using Bezier curves in Adobe Illustrator. I’ll explain in a moment how I’ve used this valuable skill in my career.

The Story: Designer or Artist

So here’s the other half of the story. I typically refer to myself as a Designer, not an artist (not that I don’t aspire to be one).

If I look as far back as my High School career, I was on a path of mathematics and science. AP courses in Calculus, Physics and Biology. I was (am) a geek in many areas of interest. I continued along the track into college with a Biology degree. But at the same time I nurtured my artistic side with personal arts and crafts projects and a long tenure playing trombone in pep, concert and jazz bands. About the time I was learning about Bezier curves, I played in the Trojan Pep-Band at UALR.

When I was offered my first job as a Graphic Designer, it was with Sportsrug.com to place collegiate logos on rugs. We also designed rugs for High School fund-raisers. Often the artwork we received from the high schools was a very small jpg image. The software we used to RIP the files to the printer, preferred the vector graphic that we could scale up to exact proportions. I did a lot of tracing (using Bezier curves to produce simple and clean images) and looking at stock artwork images (clipart) to figure out either how to trace it or use the layers to change the coloring and shades.

Is she ‘right-brained’ or ‘left-brained?’

I’ve also talked before about my work at Parelli, and the Art Director’s comments when she hired me, about my portfolio being more technical than artistic. I believe this still applies today. People are baffled by ability to stretch my brain for tasks in either direction, like how I design layouts for websites and then build them from code—and enjoy each equally as much! While I continue to work as a freelancer, I did entertain a few interviews for in-house work last year. Interviewers commented about the very equal balance in my technical and creative skills.

I’ve obviously had some time to reflect on this Hydrocarbons & Jet Engines project that crossed my path. Here was a project that combined my skills as a Graphic Designer and my love of science. While not entirely a creative project, it was a good one that reminded me how much I depend on this skill; and it was a good chance to practice it. Not only was I very happy with the results, but so was the client, which is the most important part.

December 9, 2010October 17, 2020

Evolution of a Designer

I believe a designer’s portfolio should be reviewed and updated regularly to be sure it showcases their best work in the most succinct way possible. With the power of the web, a designer no longer has to tailor their portfolio in this fashion. I have still chosen to show my best and most relevant work in the portfolio section of my website, but in this blog section I can talk about ALL of my work. I think it’s a good way to reflect on how my skills have evolved.

I thought the first ‘project’ I should showcase in this fashion, should be some of my works from my time at Parelli. I worked for Parelli from 2002-2007. These designs end around 2005 when I took on more of a project manager role and did less designing. I do not include them in my current portfolio as there are few of the pieces that I feel are my best work; there was often so much content I wished we could have made the designs simpler; there were tons of projects with tight deadlines so not everything got the attention it deserved; and we worked collaboratively so there are few things I can take 100% credit for.

As I assembled these pieces to scan them, there were a few things I reflected upon:

I can see an evolution of my skills as well as the evolution of the company’s content/message/professionalism.
I remember now how ‘color-centric’ most of our designs were. We color coded everything.
There are a few designer tricks that I chuckled to myself about. I’ll point some of these out when I discuss the individual designs.
The real star–what made our designs stand out from the competitors–was the hundreds of photos we had at our fingertips from our talented photographer, Coco.

From VHS to DVD

I spent a lot of time at the beginning just learning what the company was all about and learning more about design in general. These VHS jackets, published in 2002, were some of the first projects I worked on. How they contrast against the DVD jacket that was part of the national ad campaign that we won an award for in 2005!

2003 Rocky Mountain Horse Expo

In 2003 Parelli supplied the headliners for this well known, regional horse expo held in Denver. Likewise, we designed the graphics for posters and tickets.

Newsletters

Until 2003, Parelli produced a quarterly newsletter for anyone on its mailing list. As we transitioned to a web-based newsletter, we prepared our subscribers by postcard. This transitioned to a weekly e-newsletter which was one of my first projects using html. Not knowing much code at the time, I relied on Dreamweaver to format E-News which was sent to our database as well as posted on our website.

On Tour

A large portion of our marketing was focused on promoting Pat & Linda’s tour around the US, mostly by using national and regional advertising and direct mail pieces. These are examples of some of the postcards we designed to promote the tour.

2004 Catalog

If there’s one piece of work I feel I can claim as my own and am most proud of from my time at Parelli, it is this catalog.

2005 Conference Program

The annual Conference at the Parelli ranch in Colorado was often the launching pad for new innovations and were well attended. The 2005 Conference was one of the first where the schedule was finalized enough in advance that we could play with the content and present it in a souvenir style program.

Happy Holidays

As mentioned in my post about The Logo, it was while taking photos for a Christmas mailer that I shot the picture for my logo. While I no longer have a copy of the artwork we used for the first mailer, I do have the ones from 2004 and 2005.

November 30, 2010November 25, 2020

The Designer

Find The Designer on LinkedIn.

The short version of how I became a Graphic Designer and the words that best summarize my credentials are ‘experience’ and ‘on-the-job-training.’ The longer story begins when I met my future husband and business partner our senior year of high school.

He followed me to Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois where we quickly realized we missed the Ozarks and Ouachita mountains that we’d grown up with in Arkansas. As aspiring biology majors, we decided to move back to Little Rock and enroll at UALR where we studied for about a year-and-a-half. A full course load plus working full time to pay for tuition was not a viable option.

I then attended Metropolitan Career Technical Center. Vocational courses were offered as part of the public school system to high school students, but adult students could pay tuition and attend the classes. After a few weeks in the Graphic Design course, my professor offered to find a job for me at a local print shop. I declined his offer as I’d recently married my high school sweetheart, and we had our hearts set on a move to Colorado.

Our love affair with the west begun, we looked for a new home. Friends suggested we visit Durango and Salida. We took a vacation and stayed in Pagosa Springs on our way to Durango. Like many who live here, we never made it to Durango and we barely made it back home. Soon after returning home, there was an ad in the Pagosa Sun for a business called Sportsrug.com. I applied as a graphic designer, was granted a phone interview and hired! The job was waiting for me when we sold our home in Little Rock.

After moving to Pagosa in July 2001, I quickly realized I would not be able to complete the tasks ahead of me alone. Sportsrug.com also needed manpower for production, accounting, shipping/receiving, etc. The company created designs (mostly collegiate) and printed them using sublimation ink and a heat transfer process. They were then shipped to schools and sporting good stores all over the country. My husband was still looking for work when we approached the owner to see if he would hire him as well. Together we operated the company for about nine months. During that time, I almost exclusively used Adobe Illustrator on a Windows platform. I learned a lot about creating vector graphics and printing–not to mention business in general. Trying to hit specific collegiate colors (like Florida Gator Orange) on a four color printer required a lot of research and the investment in a new printer. In 2002, the owner decided to turn his full attention to the rug company and would like to have his family run it. We were given a month with pay to find new work.

Within a few weeks, I was hired at a print-shop in Durango but would not start work for another two weeks. My husband interviewed with Parelli Natural Horsemanship for a web designer position and during his interview learned they were also looking for a graphic designer. I interviewed with the Art Director who commented that while my work at the time was not extremely creative, it was very clean and technical. I was offered the job, declined the position in Durango and began working for Parelli in February 2002.

I worked for Parelli for five years and was exposed to nearly every medium: newspaper & magazine advertising (nationally & internationally), catalogs, mailers, emails, web design, packaging, logo design, calendars, banners, etc. We had the newest software and the best Mac’s available. I believe my creativity and artistic skills also expanded with the vast amount of projects. By the time I left the company in 2007, I was the Senior Graphic Designer responsible for representing the Graphics Department (2-3 additional Designers) in the management team which included brainstorming and implementation of marketing strategies and corporate policies. As a project manager, I was also a liaison between the designers and printing vendors. Our team won the 2005 Western English Trade Association’s Bronze AIM Award for a National advertisement that we nicknamed the ‘sticky note ad.’ To learn more about my design work at Parelli, read the next post ‘Evolution of a Designer.’

My husband had also advanced to management of the IT Department at Parelli. In 2007, we were overwhelmed by our careers and decided to leave to focus on our relationship.

We had formed Subalpine Design, LLC in 2003. While working for Parelli, various people had approached me and asked for help with their graphics. In 2005, the Southwest Land Alliance asked me to re-design their ‘corporate identity,’ one of Subalpine’s first large jobs. You can see examples from this project and more of my best work in the portfolio section of this website. As I expand this ‘About’ blog, I’ll also showcase some of my works that aren’t quite portfolio-worthy, but developed my skills as a designer.

Today, I continue to expand my knowledge especially in the area of web design. I am also persistent in my quest to find another niche with a reputable company, but until then I enjoy growing Subalpine Design’s portfolio with various businesses and entrepreneurs that cross my path and share our philosophy.