Figure 34, Exhibit A

Before & After: StillPoint MFR homepage

noreply@blogger.com (arielle walrath) — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 21:33:00 +0000

I have been doing a ton of web design work lately for MEDSEEK, an Alabama company offering project, web and content management solutions for the healthcare industry. As a nice side-effect of working with their content strategists, I've learned a lot about what can make a homepage design great, including well-thought-out use of contrast and repetition to differentiate and group various types of elements; well-thought-out information hierarchy; clear (and scalable) grid layouts; and obvious calls to action. I've brought this knowledge to my other freelance projects as well; I recently tackled a website homepage redesign for one of my long-time clients, StillPoint Myofascial Release, who is, this month, growing into a beautiful new space in Yarmouth, ME. Along with the new location, StillPoint MFR now has new signs, new business cards, and a stepped-up, more professional and more engaging homepage design:

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Inspiration | Guatemalan Signage

noreply@blogger.com (arielle walrath) — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 14:40:00 +0000

Each time I travel to a foreign land, I find myself fascinated by the ways in which other societies visually communicate information. I just spent a week in Guatemala and upon arriving, I immediately noticed that a huge majority of the signage, advertising, even traffic signs, are hand-painted. Almost every tienda is "sponsored" by one of the 3 large mobile phone companies, the entirety of their facades washed in bright blue, neon green, or white with red accents, the mobile company's logos and advertising messages emblazoned across the bright ground in enormous and near-perfect hand-brushed lettering. In a society where literacy is relatively low, many shops embellish their storefronts with hand-painted renderings of their popular offerings; in Monjas, a small town, the local hardware store has a large image of a wheelbarrow, concrete blocks and bags of cement—the building materials used to construct, by hand, nearly every home and shop. Real estate agents' and car dealers' storefronts feature carefully painted versions of the logos of world-class airlines and auto brands. Upon close inspection, one can see the rough pencil lines that were first transcribed onto the rough concrete surfaces, the imperfections in the letters where a painter has run out of room and squeezed the letters just a bit, simplified a detailed logo just a touch, or missed a letter or two. One can be sure that the painters are unlikely to have visited the places or spoken the languages whose words and icons they so dutifully reproduce again and again. These small flaws, the texture, the artists' hands, and the weathering, chipping and fading of the surface, make each sign or storefront one-of-a-kind, a permanent and unique piece of the visual landscape of the place, and so much richer than our vinyl banners and rotating billboards and light-up signs, changed each week to highlight the newest sale or the latest company rebrand.

For more images, see here.

For more images, see here.

Just for Fun | Parcheesi!

noreply@blogger.com (arielle walrath) — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 12:31:00 +0000

Found paper, vinyl letters and vintage game box on hardboard panel. Each 6" square.

... and now I'm thinking about acquiring more old board game boxes...

Projects | Portland Greendrinks Posters

noreply@blogger.com (arielle walrath) — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 19:58:00 +0000

Portland Greendrinks is part of the international Greendrinks network -- an informal, volunteer-managed social networking group built around a common interest in the natural environment. It occurs on the second Tuesday of every month, starting around 5:30 pm. The goal of Greendrinks is pretty simple: good times shared among people working in, or interested in, environmental and sustainability issues.

I've been attending off and on for a little over a year now and have seen it grow from 50 people on a patio to several hundred. It attracts all sorts of people for all sorts of reasons—professional, personal, and social.

Each month's event is marketed in part via posters on bulletin boards and in shop windows around town. The posters are always produced pretty quickly and cheaply using donated designs. Last June, local Greendrinks organizer, Elliott May, and that month's host, Lora Winslow of O'Naturals, approached me to create that month's poster. One year later, one of my long-time clients (as a freelancer for Tugboat Creative), Portland Trails is hosting this month's event at Gorham Bike and Ski and I had another opportunity to toss together the month's poster image.

These are quick, fun projects with lots of creative control. It's been great to see what different artists and designers have done with them— two that stand out are the ones done last summer by the SOAP group (who also did the GreenDrinks Web site) and by Big Room Studios. They've all been fun to see around town leading up to each event, and I thought I'd share the two I designed here:

Process | Portland Buy Local Directory Covers

noreply@blogger.com (arielle walrath) — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 12:43:00 +0000

Background

Portland Buy Local is a campaign of the Portland Independent Business & Community Alliance. When my friend and oftimes employer, Steve at Tugboat Creative, took on the job of art directing and layout for their first annual printed directory of local businesses, he approached me to design or illustrate an eye-catching cover to bring to life the title, "Find Your Independents." The job was totally open-ended—I could choose the concept and execute it any way I'd like. The only restriction was that the final design be confined to 2-color, cyan and black, for affordable printing to match the organization's logo.

Year 1: 2008-2009 Directory

The concept that I presented in my rough sketch, and that the Buy Local board agreed to, was an illustrative image that would capture the essence of a whole area of town, but without favoring any specific building or business. I wanted to point out that local businesses are all around you—you simply have to look. I chose to render the Old Port area, which is known for its eclectic array of local restaurants, shops, and galleries, as well as for its historic 19th century architecture and cobblestone streets.

To prepare, I wandered the streets, taking lots of photos of architectural details. I wanted the image to feel true to this part of the city, but without being identifiable as a specific location, so in my drawing I combined and recombined details from different buildings and street corners in the area.

To execute the final image, I scanned my drawing and used Illustrator's Live Trace tool to convert it to a vector, black & white image. I then added simple, blocky color behind the drawn layer. I was hoping to achieve a style reminiscent of the limited-color children's books I remember reading as a child.

Here's the progression from sketch to drawing to final cover:

Much of the hatching and shading details of the pencil drawing are lost or distorted in the tracing process, but those that remain help to give the final image a richer character than if they'd been left out in the original drawing.

Year 2: 2009-2010 Directory

Since downtown and the Portland peninsula tend to be the most obvious hub of the city's economic activity, the many businesses located off the peninsula can sometimes feel as though they are unfairly overlooked in conversations about local economy. Portland Buy Local has tried to combat this by regularly talking about and featuring these businesses alongside their downtown neighbors.

With a great response to last year's directory cover, but a feeling of being "left out" resonating from the farther reaches of town, the goal this year was to keep the theme and style going, but highlight a drastically different part of the city. The board agreed upon showing a mixed-use area typical of Brighton, Forest and Washington Avenues.

For me, this presented an interesting challenge simply because the local businesses in those parts of town are much more spread out geographically; it was a struggle to fit in enough distinctive details to make the place feel authentic and vibrant, and to simultaneously avoid highlighting the non-local chain businesses that share these landscapes.

To speed up the drawing process, I began the initial drawing at full size and presented it in its rough form as a sketch. The board asked for only a few minor changes. The final, traced and colored image is now completed and in the approval proess. The new directory comes out next month—look for it at over 200 locally-owned businesses all over Portland.

Resources | Occasional Friday Reading List

noreply@blogger.com (arielle walrath) — Fri, 29 May 2009 16:05:00 +0000

A bit of a random list but here are 5 articles and resources I've been finding interesting/helpful/inspirational, business-wise lately:

1. New York Times Business—Corner Office: Can You Pass a C.E.O. Test?
Great advice and thoughts on business leadership from an interview with Greg Brenneman, chairman of CCMP Capital. An excerpt on business plans: "...quickly step back and say, “What are the two or three things that really matter?” And I find in the world that people don’t really do that often. They just dive into all this detail and start using acronyms and buzzwords ... if I can’t simply put what needs to be done on one page, I probably haven’t thought through it very well."

2. creattica.com
creattica.com offers a HUGE wealth of design inspiration, updated constantly. I've been poring over it every time I'm stuck on a design or just looking for ideas.

3. Eye Magazine 38—The Myth of Genius
Eye Magazine is full of thoughtful articles on design but this article particularly made me feel better about not always feeling inherently brilliant. An excerpt: "The myth of genius — which promotes the artist as a lone, pioneer – emerged when craftsmen first strove to become respected members of an elite. ... Michael Howe, in Genius Explained suggests genius is not natural, but the result of hard work, perseverance and the stubbornness to struggle on where others give up." Word.

4. The Maine SEO Blog: How to Write the Best, Most Clickable Title Tags
This blog on SEO and SEM (from Portland web design gurus Flyte New Media has tons of great info—but this article rang lots of bells for me since I find myself often pressing the point with clients that yes, page titles DO matter; they matter a LOT if you care about SEO. Now I'll just point them here.

5. Design*Sponge Biz Ladies
The Design*Sponge Biz Ladies series was founded in 2006 in order to connect local women running their own art and design-based businesses. (But the advice offered certainly is helpful to non-ladies as well!) Biz Ladies is currently a regular Tuesday feature on Design*Sponge, and archives having to do with legal tips, wholesaling, PR, etc. are archived online.

Sketchbook | Digital Doodles

noreply@blogger.com (arielle walrath) — Wed, 27 May 2009 19:04:00 +0000

Tweeeeet Design aggregator

noreply@blogger.com (arielle walrath) — Mon, 11 May 2009 14:55:00 +0000

I use Twitter for design-related tidbits only, and I don't usually manage to spend more than a few minutes a day processing all the info that comes my way, so Tweeeeet Design (http://www.tweeeeet.com/) is a very welcome way to keep up with a huge array of well-known designers, all in one place.

Client Profile | Blush Imagery

noreply@blogger.com (arielle walrath) — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 16:20:00 +0000

Blush Imagery is a boutique New England wedding photography company specializing in a natural, photojournalistic style. Owner, award-winning photographer Beth Fitzgerald, has a fun and spontaneous approach to wedding events that leads to relaxed images full of personality and life.

Background
When Beth came to me she was looking to redesign her branding materials from the ground up. She had just moved to Maine and was looking to redefine and freshen her clean and crisp, but somewhat stale, company identity as she entered the competitive New England wedding market. As the face of the company, she hoped that the new identity would express her own fun, lively personality and her knack for capturing her subjects' lovable, if quirky, traits. At her price point, she also needed to exude enough professionalism and class to appeal to a relatively well-to-do clientele.

Evolution

LOGO
The Blush brand identity began with logo concepts. The final logo design came extremely quickly and easily. Beth wanted to avoid cliché wedding imagery, like cakes, presents, and dresses. She has a strong background in photojournalism, so I based many of the logo concepts on abstractions of camera shutters, which happen to look a lot like asterisks when simplified to this extent. Surprisingly, Beth seized onto the second concept she saw and has loved it ever since, even when I tried showing her additional variations—I just couldn't believe the final design could come about so easily! The somewhat muted color palette was chosen as a more sophisticated, modern twist on traditional pastel wedding colors.

STATIONERY
From the logo, we moved on to stationery, which was printed on bright white smooth stock with rounded corners for a touch of the different.
We also designed a series of promotional postcard mailers:

E-MARKETING
Beth has a great design sense and has been able to design and maintain her own website to match the brand collateral design. However, when she needed a PDF e-brochure almost two years after the launch of her new identity, she asked me to dive into it. This was a great opportunity to continue to refine and revise the brand and bring in some exciting new elements to keep it looking fresh. A new san-serif font and round-edged box elements were introduced to echo the logo and organize information, and the color palette was expanded slightly. Since this is a selling tool, Beth's best photos were prominently featured, and the final page is an editable PDF to make signing their contract super easy for potential clients.

MAINTAINING RELATIONSHIPS
Following the e-brochure came the design of two additional e-tools to help Beth maintain relationships with existing and prospective clients—a blog and e-mail newsletter. These echoed and expanded on the visual design elements of the e-brochure.

What's Next?
Blush is all booked up for the 2009 wedding season and 2010 bookings are going strong, thanks in part to the new e-brochure. Beth is committed to blogging fairly regularly and just signed on to Twitter (http://twitter.com/BlushImagery). She is constantly revising the way she presents her clients' photos, albums and account info online to optimize the experience for them. These digital and interactive tools let her propel and market a great brand both online and off. And of course, her personalized service and beautiful images continue to delight her clients and their guests at wedding events most every weekend, all spring, summer and fall.

Events | Compostmodern ME

noreply@blogger.com (arielle walrath) — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 16:37:00 +0000

Compostmodern ME is an interdisciplinary conference constructed to help designers of all stripes, manufacturers, business-people, and social and civic planners and leaders to explore the range of sustainable design thinking necessary to create a socially and ecologically responsible society.

This, the first local conference, is born out of the national Compostmodern event held in San Francisco each year. Content will include webcasts from the national event, live presentations from local experts, and interactive discussions about design thinking and sustainability.

I've seen several of the national webcasts and they are extremely informative, inspiring, and, in some cases, challenging. If you're interested in sustainable design, responsible business, or healthier, more balanced products, environment and society, join AIGA and fellow sustainability thinkers at Compostmodern ME; it takes place Saturday, May 9, 2009 at One Longfellow Square in Portland.

Learn more and register at http://maine.aiga.org.

"I need those."

noreply@blogger.com (arielle walrath) — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 15:50:00 +0000

Just wanted to share this conversation I recently heard between two forty-something business-women. I was at a marketing talk, and the presenter was mentioning social media, but kept referring to to it as "new media". One of the women turned to the other and said "I don't know what that is. What's he talking about?"

The other responded, "New medias. They're like ... blogging ... and face books ... and that sort of thing."

And the first: "Oh, yeah, I need those."

Business success, courtesy of the Stonyfield Institute

noreply@blogger.com (arielle walrath) — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 03:41:00 +0000

Last week I had the opportunity to attend the Stonyfield Farm Entrepreneurship Institute at the University of New Hampshire. For those who haven't heard of it, it's basically an interactive and collaborative small-business workshop, with a focus on marketing, management and finance and a bent toward socially and environmentally responsible models.

After an introduction and stories from Gary Hirshberg, CEO of Stonyfield (preceded, this year, by the President of Seventh Generation, Jeffrey Hollender) The Institute format is as follows: one at a time, a string of small business owners present their story, successes and failures to a panel of marketing or finance experts, in front of the conference-attending audience. The panel members respond with advice and possible solutions. The audience chips in. Repeat times 6 times, and add a good dose of networking plus all the yogurt you can possibly eat.

As I sat listening to the problems entrepreneurs were facing in marketing a huge range of businesses, from a farm incubator program, to a yoga-inspired back pillow, to a food additive that makes flour healthier for diabetics, I began to recognize the same questions asked and the same bits of advice given again and again.

And so, thanks to the insight of the expert panelists and the many audience members who volunteered their own stories and expertise, here follows the step-by-step formula for business success:

1. Clarify and simplify your goals. Know what kind of company you want to run, what you sell and who you sell it to, and be able to describe these things simply and cohesively.

2. Focus your efforts. Dig in deep in one arena. Do what it takes to prove you can succeed and make money on a small scale as quickly as possible.

3. Have the numbers to back up your claims. Be sure you can attach firm and tangible benefits (financial, environmental, etc.) to the thing you're selling and to your business model.

4. Cut start-up costs and establish credibility with strategic partnerships. In lieu of investment, find someone who will share their resources with you or let you leverage their name at minimal cost to them.

5. Look for new ways to engage. Sell directly to your most receptive audiences first and use the force of their opinions to reach others. Use testimonials, engage your clients' customers, etc..

6. Periodically reassess where the customers' needs are and what you could be doing to fill them.

7. Constantly challenge your own assumptions. Build an advisory board to challenge you. Seek out the points of resistance and face them head-on.

Vintage x-ray images

noreply@blogger.com (arielle walrath) — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 14:23:00 +0000

I love the shapes of the skeletons of things. And of course documentation of medical oddities is endlessly fascinating. I could spend days in the Mutter Museum.

So today, I wanted to post more images from the National Museum of Health and Medicine's public archive of US Army medical imagery. This time, vintage x-rays.

(Images shown subject to Creative Commons License)

_____________

The first two are beautiful images of things that are usually hidden on the insides of us (and a rattle snake).

This is, apparently, a grenade embedded in someone's forehead, taken during the Vietnam War:

And this, one of the more disturbing but visually interesting things I've seen lately, is the after-effects of self-mutilation with graphophone needles:

A bit of a nip and tuck for the website

noreply@blogger.com (arielle walrath) — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 20:05:00 +0000

I've been working on a new website for some time, but in the meantime, I took an hour or two today to give the old site a mini-facelift. I added links to this blog and my favorite networking sites to the nav, updated my "logo" to match what I'm using on new stationery, and added a visual (with rollovers) to the list of recent work that tops the page.

See the before and after below:

BEFORE:

and AFTER:

Smells like musty hay (WWII PSA Posters)

noreply@blogger.com (arielle walrath) — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 15:37:00 +0000

I'm always drawn to vintage images and design, and I have a special fondness for the tactics used in public service and propaganda posters, and how that imagery and messaging has changed over the years.

A friend just sent me a link to a blog entry about a massive archive of US Army medical illustrations and photos that the National Museum of Health and Medicine is making available on Flickr for public use. The whole collection is amazing but my eye was immediately drawn to these World War II poison gas warning posters:

(Images shown subject to Creative Commons License)

Just for fun

noreply@blogger.com (arielle walrath) — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 17:51:00 +0000

Sometimes it's fun to pretend to be in Freshman 2D Design class again.

Assignment: composite whatever bits and pieces you have lying around. Create an effective, dynamic composition. No worries about making sense, actually communicating anything, or having to explain why you chose that color with this font — and, done!

On growing the business

noreply@blogger.com (arielle walrath) — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 20:40:00 +0000

Despite the economy being what it is, I'm finding myself poised for my most successful year yet. I know, it's only March and I really shouldn't be counting my chickens, blah blah ... but the fact is, except for a couple of scary weeks last month, I've managed to stay solidly busy since about last November or so, and it's not showing any sign of letting up. I'm excited to be making this increasingly a viable business and I want to keep an eye on what's working and why so that I can continue the momentum. So, why the growth?

On the surface I haven't done anything differently in the past couple of months. I think the growth I'm seeing is based on longer-term efforts that are slowly but steadily coming to fruition. Here's what I think is working:

1. Streamlined creative process.

In the early years of freelancing, I would put together 3 or 4 or 5 concepts for a client. I would labor over getting all of them just right so that I could feel pleased moving forward with any one of them. I would proudly present them to the client and await their response. But I soon learned that this method was just as likely to garner a "Hmmm... these aren't really what I was picturing..." as a "#2 is GREAT—let's print it!" I was always disappointed when the client didn't 'get' what I was going for or when I had to step back to square one, sacrificing all those billable hours rather than blow their budget and lose the job.

One of the most valuable things I'm working on is engaging the client in the creative process at an earlier phase. I have started to do this through the likes of creative brief documents, sharing and discussing lots of visual reference, creating inspiration boards and having informal brainstorming meetings, all before even touching the actual work. These tools don't cost nearly the time they save, and they help eliminate subjective decision-making later on. They really help to focus the design objectives at an early stage, and when I sit down to build the actual piece, I already know what colors, fonts, and aesthetic are going to work for the client and their audience. Many times I need only show one concept to nail it.

2. Evolving the portfolio.

At the end of each project, I decide whether it's the kind of work I want to do more of in the future or not. If it is, and it's an example of my best work, I'll put it in my online portfolio. Before I put it in, I take a look at the existing portfolio and decide if there's something in there that can be replaced with the new piece, either because it's old and doesn't show my current skills or because it's not something I want or need to do more of. This way, I'm constantly shaping my portfolio to show the kind of work I want to be doing. Like attracts like—slowly my client base shifts in the direction that allows my to do my best work.

3. Building a wide skillset and not being picky.

The work I love most will never make up 100% of the work I do, simply because there's not enough of it to go around. In my opinion, refusing to do work you're not passionate about will put you out of business faster than you can realize what's happened. Not every client can afford (or needs) a well-thought out total branding solution, but there are all sorts of jobs out there that can fill in the gaps and make up the billable hours. I'll never be a star programmer, but the passable display coding skills I've picked up can provide a good source of income in the downtime. So can those quick print design jobs without a budget, where the work is largely just picking nice colors and fonts so that the client looks a little better than their competition. The secret is to tailor the work to the budget, then, if you want to shine, give it just 10% more.

4. Careful tracking.

I keep a running spreadsheet that tallies my daily and weekly hours worked, percent billable, money brought in and effective hourly rate. I know where I should be to make a solid living. With this constant reference point, I am motivated to work that extra billable hour or take that quick programming job that I might not otherwise be thrilled about.

And where I've got room for improvement:

1. Be more responsive.

I HATE talking on the phone and there are lots of days that I get into the groove of working and don't stop to return or make calls or reply to emails. I tend to put off communicating where I wouldn't put off actual work, and there are inevitably opportunities that pass me by and small tasks that slip through the cracks as a result. I always feel like a huge jerk when a client has to remind me about some detail they asked me about 3 weeks ago. I need to be better about taking a chunk of my day to respond to and take care of those little things.

2. Administrative efficiencies.

Most of my records are kept in various spreadsheets. I could probably gain a good chunk of time by further consolidating that info, and maybe starting to use some time tracking and bookkeeping software.

Professionally printing some items, like envelopes and letterheads, could save me from needless struggle with the printer as I relearn which way to feed things in, unjam it, run to the store for ink, etc.

My templates for estimates, contracts and invoices are ongoing project. I used to write them almost from scratch each time. I'm now getting close to some standard formats, so that I can just fill in the project-specific details and send them off. I'm also working on keeping them short and simple so that clients don't become overwhelmed (or scared) by unnecessary legalese.

3. More structure.

When I sit down to work, or when I'm between tasks, I tend to spend a good chunk of time reading design blogs, checking Facebook, doing my personal banking online, etc, etc.. My work day is not very structured. If I haven't got a lot of billable work, I'll get up and do laundry, go for a walk, clean the dishes. I love this flexibility and the integration of work and life, but it's not always the most efficient. I should probably be about 50% better about making working hours for work, so I don't lose time in the transitions. I'm thinking of maybe trying to focus on work and only work between 8-12 am, or 10-2, and leaving the rest of the hours open to a flexible work/life balance.

4. Marketing.

This one's a bit of a mystery to me. Most of my work comes from referrals or from people finding my website and calling me. I know that if I want to take it to the next level, I need to do more direct marketing. I've done some postcard mailings in the past and I always do a holiday card/mailing of some sort, but I know that's not enough. I've seen that often clients don't realize I do more than the one thing they've hired me for and that's an obvious marketing opportunity. I'm hoping to put together a solid promotional brochure to send to past clients that will highlight other things I might be able to do for them. And then I have to get over my phone-phobia and follow up with them!

Retro-/steampunk-influenced calling cards

noreply@blogger.com (arielle walrath) — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 22:02:00 +0000

I'm always excited when good friends ask me to design things for them. Usually they come to me not just because I'm a designer who is their friend and so might give them a deal (though I will), but because they share my design sensibilities and want to give me the chance to do my thing, my way, without any creative interference. That means I get to explore things I wouldn't for regular, full-paying clients.

I just wrapped up a quick little project like this for my friend Andy. He's transitioning out of ownership of a local coffee chain and not really sure what he wants to do with his career next. He was looking for a calling card that he could use to share his vital contact info with both personal and potential business connections. It needed to speak to his technical and mechanical aptitude and interests without implying that he was seeking any particular type of job position. He's a huge fan of steampunk design and collage art (a la Dave McKean), so I asked him to send me some stuff he'd seen that he liked the look of—an impromptu inspiration board of sorts. Here's what he sent over:

Comps

I leaned heavily on his inspirations for my first round of comps, scanning some mechanical bits from one of my favorite sources of copyright-free imagery, JG Heck's The Complete Encyclopedia of Illustration, and some ornate initial caps from an encyclopedia of general knowledge from the early 1900's. Here are the ideas I sent him:

We met and discussed the first round, deciding to avoid the overly feminine flourishes and veer toward more structure and solidity. We decided on a font and color palette and on generic gear imagery:

Final Design

Option 3 from the second set of designs was the unanimous favorite, and needed to evolve only slightly more. We decided to print the card both front and back, so I wrapped the background imagery seamlessly on all four edges and tweaked the placement of everything just a touch, and here's the final:

Color Palettes | Aqua, Teal, Black

noreply@blogger.com (arielle walrath) — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 20:32:00 +0000

Color Palettes | Chocolate, Citron, Lavender

noreply@blogger.com (arielle walrath) — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 16:24:00 +0000

This color palette popped into my head yesterday...

Sale on design books from HOW

noreply@blogger.com (arielle walrath) — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 14:33:00 +0000

The HOW Bookstore is running a great sale on design and business books right now. And until February 2, you can get another 20% off selected titles with this coupon code: HBSJAN09.

New workspace, new work

noreply@blogger.com (arielle walrath) — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 14:46:00 +0000

Last month my good friend Steve (of Tugboat Creative) recruited himself to fetch me a table and some adjustable-height legs from IKEA. I sprayed it with some leftover spar varnish, added a stool from Goodwill, hauled all my various supplies up from the basement, and now I've got a messy workspace adjacent to my office space. I christened it with some collage studies...