New Year and New Projects

With the launch of SubalpineDesign.com a few new and exciting projects have crossed my path. One was for a friend, talented artist and cellist Mark Dudrow’s new CD with guitarist and fiddler Justin Dean. This was one of my first professionally printed pieces in a LONG time. They came to me with the overall design, but I had to tweak it to fit the template and got to make some additional design and typography suggestions. See you at the CD release party January 30th at the Taos Inn!

I also had the opportunity to offer design solutions for a new company starting here in Pagosa, Little Weedz. It’s a line of cute clothing tailored to grow with the child. Whenever I have a project, I strive to present at least three very different design concepts to my client. This stretches my imagination and allows for several options to recombine and modify. Click on an image below to see some of the suggestions that were offered to Little Weedz and a sneak peek at the final concept which should launch within the next month:

Inspired by the fabrics used to create Little Weedz dresses.

I also was asked to create the functioning menu I envisioned. I had to change up a few of my strategies for the rollover images and needed a suggestion on how to use PHP to change the bee’s position to correspond with your current page.

What great projects to kick off a New Year!

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.

November 28, 2010November 25, 2020

The Name

We had decided we wanted the company’s logo to use aspen trees or leaves as the base of the design, but we had to think of a name that possibly related to that as well. We also toyed with ideas that related to our location and realized we spent most of our summer outings in the Subalpine ecosystem.

Technically, the Subalpine zone of the Rocky Mountains is characterized by its lack of aspen trees as they typically grow at a slightly lower elevation. But as illustrated in the photo gallery below, we often pass through these aspen groves on the way to the Subalpine ecosystem.

I’ve had some people get confused by seeing the name written out. It’s one of those words that doesn’t quite look like it’s been spelled correctly, especially since it’s not hyphenated. We also like the way it sounds when paired with the word ‘design.’ Don’t let the prefix ‘sub’ make you think our work’s sub-standard or subordinate (less important). It’s just the Alpine ecosystem is a little too cold and desolate for our tastes.

Some of our favorite Subalpine Spots:

November 15, 2010October 17, 2020

The Logo

While working for Parelli Natural Horsemanship, I went out back one October afternoon to stage photos for our Christmas mailer. I’d brought in my tinsel and ornaments and planned on hanging them in the trees by the back porch. The aspen trees were in full fall splendor, and I couldn’t help but snapping some shots of their bright colors against the gray, weathered decking.

When we named the company Subalpine Design, I knew I wanted to use an aspen leaf for my imagery. This photo has still been the most striking and has morphed into its current use. To see how I used the ornament photos in the mailer check out the post ‘Evolution of a Designer.’