It’s easy to get right back into the daily routine and not take the time to look back and reflect on the work that was done in the last year. Before the first month of 2020 flies by, let’s take a little peek at Subalpine Design’s projects from last year and where we spent our time.
Red Silk Essentials
For the fourth straight year in a row Red Silk Essentials, by far, kept us the busiest with a wide range of active projects that we manage for the brand from composing e-newsletters on mailchimp to updating Amazon content and a lot of the in between like photographing and packaging design. In 2019, Red Silk updated its essential oil product line to be exclusively organic and expanded its offering of pre-diluted roll-ons, diffusers and carrying case options. The gemstone water catalog grew with more products as well. This meant both the website and the Amazon store kept up a steady demand for new imagery.
Websites
In the last update about the business, it felt as if I’d gotten off track by focusing on website design. While Subalpine does continue to maintain and update a handful of websites for clients, no longer do I try to keep on top of all of the trends. Usually working within a theme, I have very little to do with css anymore. There have been no new web creations, only maintenance: product or blog posts, backups/updates, plug-in configuration, or even server migrations. Art & Framing Center of Pagosa Springs and the Weminuche Audubon Society were some of the websites supported in 2019. Personally, our website(s) moved into the cloud with AWS, and we added an SSL certificate.
Seasonal Educator
Since 2017, I’ve also volunteered with Audubon Rockies’ Four Mile Ranch Environmental Education Program and posted briefly about it. This fall they asked me to become a part of the seasonal staff; so from about August to October, I put in 100 hours as a Seasonal Educator, primarily visiting the second grade classrooms to prepare the students for their field trips where they learned about both terrestrial insects and aquatic macro-invertebrates. When I wasn’t leading with our talented team of volunteers, I was able to guide visits from Kinders and 4th Graders. To some degree, my skills as a designer were put to use, creating a poster for volunteer recruitment, photographing ranch visits, and re-formatting the Volunteer Training Manual, which is still a work in progress.
NOLS Wilderness First Aid
Moving into the staff position with Audubon required at least a certification in basic First Aid and CPR. It just so happened that a NOLS Wilderness First Aid/CPR class was offered in August in Pagosa! I’ve wanted to take this or the Wilderness First Responder course for over 20 years—since I was active on a Search & Rescue team back in 1998. You bet I took this class and certified. The goal now is to keep the certification up to date, especially if I continue to work with the Four Mile Program. Personally, it was good to have the refresher as most of our vacation and exploring time is spent in remote areas, far from medical support.
What’s Ahead in 2020?
It seems Amazon content will continue to be a focus. There are some new updates set to publish in a few days that I plan to write about in a separate post. I’m sure there will be websites that need some help.
In 2019, I started sharing illustrations on this website, and this year I introduced you to Lou. There’s currently a new Lou sketch in the works with a long list of more ideas and inspiration streaming from her. A goal last year was to draw more regularly, preferably daily. In some ways this is a personal goal, but it blurs into the business realm as soon as you start exploring Subalpine’s portfolio. With a lot of the businesses I’ve worked with, we’ve created logos by either drawing on the computer, a tablet or even on real paper. So I figure it’s a good skill to practice. With the new year, I found a new approach and have successfully drawn at least 14 out of 16 days, planning to post more about that soon. Also there are sketches in the works that will be the first forays into serious watercolor. I’ve invested in a nice, small kit. Now I need to create some paintings and play with technique.
And who knows? There’s a whole year ahead, plenty of possibility.