I graduated.

After being in college for five years, I have finally finished all of it a week ago. I am a free woman. After the years of stress, late nights and many fun memories of college life; all of it has come to an end. I finished my undergraduate career with a B.F.A. in Graphic Design, and graduated Cum Laude with a GPA of 3.60. Myself, my family and my partner have never been so proud.

I am unemployed.

Upon graduating, I had to say “Goodbye” to two jobs because they were student-based positions. Since I no longer have student status, I no longer have status as a student-employed graphic designer. As much as I appreciate the 50+ hours I have gained upon graduating, it is a little stressful to no longer have a constant income.

I am moving.

My partner of 1 1/2 years will be graduating this summer with a Masters in Geology and will be continuing her education to receive a PhD in southwestern Ohio. With myself done with school (until I decide to continue my education and get a Masters some years down the road from now) and how passionate I am to spend my life with my partner, I feel as if this has been a calling. With my partner continuing her education in southwestern Ohio and being passionate about spending her life with me as well, we have both decided to move in together in Ohio.

Moving hours away from where I grew up is frightening yet exciting to me. I will no longer be near family. I will be moving away from the majority of my friends.  I will be driving down numerous roads and highways I am unfamiliar with. Every morning I will be waking up to a scenery that is foreign to me, but… I will be experiencing all of this with my partner. Our bonds with our families will grow stronger as we realize how precious time is together. We will be making new friends that will be “our” friends and not originally “her” friends or “my” friends. We will be expanding our mental road maps that will make the foreign scenery no longer foreign. All-in-all, I love to experience new things, and I especially love to experience them with my partner. My partner is one of the most beautiful, passionate, loving, selfless, intelligent, people I have ever met. Everyday I feel very blessed to be with her, and everyday I am getting more and more excited to take the next step and live with her.

My entire life I have been living in Michigan, mostly in the southeastern area. With today’s economy, I continuously see my friends and family struggle to find career opportunities in this state. I have even watched my own parents struggle with employment for years. However, my parents have sacrificed their ability to be near their friends and family in order to be able to support myself, my brother and themselves. They moved out of state for employment. I have been convinced to do the same if I want to continue to be able to support myself, my partner, and one day my parents.

With being unemployed, I have been applying for graphic design positions in the Cincinnati, OH area. I have recently been accepted for an AIGA membership, and soon I will be transferring my status to the Cincinnati chapter. I am excited to start networking with other professionals, as a professional.

erinesullivan.com v2.0

Since I am applying for jobs, I felt the need to redesign my portfolio website to where I feel more confident about showing it to employers. The first version was done specifically for a class assignment. I am no longer a student and now consider myself to be a professional, so I need to represent myself as one. Hence, I give you erinesullivan.com v2.0.

The portfolio website is still no way near where I want it to be. I will eventually rebuild the entire website from scratch and fully integrate it into WordPress. Expect this for v3.0. There will also be a larger portfolio collection of my web design work, a “freebies” section of fonts and vectors I have designed, and the design of this blog will be integrated into the design of the website instead of no longer acting as two separate sites.

“Those 50+ hours of free time cannot entirely be taken up by applying for jobs!”

You are correct.

During the times I am not applying for jobs, I am doing freelance work to get some money in and to also build my portfolio. During other free time I have, I am spending it by teaching myself other things that could be of value since I no longer have professors to do this for me. I am teaching myself on how to customize WordPress layouts, JavaScript, PHP, Actionscript 3.0, HTML5, CSS3, etc. As a graphic designer, my strength is in print design. However, many of today’s jobs ask for web designers. Even though I do know valid web standards and bits and pieces of Flash and web development, I am not fully up-to-date with today’s new web design and development. I hope to incorporate all of this into v3.0 of my portfolio website.

Since I no longer have a boss or a professor to report to, I cannot allow myself to slack off in my skills. I am doing whatever I can to keep myself fresh and updated with today’s design, whether it is print or web. And on top of that, I hope to record my experiences through this blog and bring it back to a once-per-week update again!

How to Become a Design Genius: Take Time Off. Lots of It.

Original post on Fast Company

Every seven years, the graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister takes a one-year sabbatical. As he argues, that’s not so crazy.

Stefan Sagmeister is one of the most talented graphic designers working today, so he knows a little bit about keeping his creativity flowing. His trick? Taking really, really long vacations. In fact, every seven years, he takes an entire year off.

As Sagmeister describes it in his recent TED talk (which just made it to the Web), we spend our first 25 years learning, the next 40 years working, and the last 15 retired. “I thought it might be helpful to cut off five of those retirement years and intersperse them in between those working years,” Sagmeister says. And what’s more: “That’s clearly enjoyable for myself but probably even more important is that the work that comes out of those years flows back into the company and the society at larger rather than benefiting just a grandchild or two.”

You have to admit it’s a pretty great way of looking at things. And incidentally, it’s one that neoclassical economists such as Milton Friedman would endorse–those types are always rattling on “consumption smoothing“–the idea that consumers will spread their income or goods (such as leisure) over time, so that overall consumption is even. Sagmeister channeling Friedman? Who knew?!

Sagmeister notes that the first sabbatical wasn’t terribly useful because it wasn’t structured enough. But when he segmented his day into activities–from “storytelling” to “future thinking”–things started to pop. In fact, Sagmeister argues that all seven years of work after his time off sprung from ideas that were formed during the previous sabbatical. His proof is his own charming portfolio–including one example of a brilliantly flexible logo system he designed. Check the video for more.

Have you ever found yourself saying “I need a vacation… A really long vacation”? I know I have. The idea seems blissful, but then you start thinking about the biggest consequence to not working: no income. But, say that was not an issue (which is hard to believe in today’s economic situation). I know several times I have called off of work because I was becoming burnt out from the combination of my job, freelance work and classes. Then when I come back, I am refreshed and can work to an even higher capacity. Producing higher and higher qualities of work all thanks to these mini-breaks have given me several raises throughout the couple years of working as a graphic designer. When Stefan Sagmeister gets back from his vacations, he is able to create an even larger income because of the higher quality of pieces he develops all because of having a very long vacation. Now not everybody can take a year-long vacation after seven years and not regret about it, which is why I believe companies should enforce four-day work weeks. Instead of the Monday through Friday, eight-hour day, let’s change it to Monday through Thursday, ten-hour days.

As a designer, these are my personal reasons as to why I believe four-day work weeks are highly effective:

• Designers often find themselves get so involved in a project that we will not stop until we are completely satisfied with the results. When I get to that point, I find it very difficult to find the motivation to start back up again the next day, so an extra two hours in the work shift would not hurt.
• Let’s be honest, do we want to spend about 71% of our days of the week at work? Why not 57%? Imagine all of the extra projects we can do personally for ourselves but haven’t been able to get to them due to constantly being pushed back by other projects!

According to the Newser on a four-day work week experiment in Utah, there are even far more beneficial reasons in which help the economy, the environment, and even your health!

• Closed offices on Fridays have cut energy use by 13% and reduced the state’s carbon footprint by some 6,000 metric tons—and that doesn’t even count the gas saved through fewer commutes.
• There’s less traffic with people commuting at different times, or, on Fridays, not at all. That means less air pollution for drivers.
• After 9 months of the program, the state had saved $1.8 million in operational costs.
• A survey showed that 82% of workers like the new schedule more than the five-day scheme and “show decreased health complaints, less stress, and fewer sick days.” Meanwhile, “productivity and quality of service” are up, writes Ben Jervey.

So the next time you find yourself saying that you need a vacation, do not be afraid to listen to that voice. In the end, everyone benefits from it! Take a freakin’ break!

For you beer snobs out there, I know it’s sacrilege to drink out of cans instead of bottles. However, my favorite beer happens to be Boddingtons which is only sold in a can in the retail stores around here. Funny thing about that beer is that I first became attracted to it because of it’s simple design and coloring, and then I tasted it. I fell in love since. So anyway, here is where you start to make your holy beer coaster of awesomeness:

Supplies

• Beer can (or your favorite canned beverage if you’re not a fan of beer, or just simply don’t feel like using a beer can at all)
• Sharpie
• Pencil
• A good, strong pair of scissors
• Xacto knife (optional)
• Ruler
• Rubber cement
• Illustration board/matte board/cardboard/poster board
• Flat, heavy object of some sort

Step 1: Stab the can

First and foremost, you want to be able to get the can nice and flat so you need to somehow cut off the top and bottom portions of the can. Also please be sure that you washed out the can and let it dry before you do this to prevent from having a stale beer smell to your coaster. Now you want to make sure that the can stays in place before you stab it with your pair of scissors. Do NOT hold it in your hand while stabbing. What I did was I took my ruler and placed the can next to the ruler so it stayed in its position. Then what you need to do is figure out what part of the can you want to be used for the coaster. Next you roll the can over on its opposite end, take your scissors and then stab the can. Doing this prevents from damaging the area you want to show for your coaster.

Step 2: Cut the can

Stabbing the can helps create a hole which allows you to start cutting through the can. The directions you want to first start cutting is up and down. Once you do that, start cutting all the way around just before the top and bottom sections of the can start bending. Once the top and bottom sections are cut off, trim the edges of the rectangle you just made so the angles are nice and perpendicular (this makes future measuring and cutting easier if you are a perfectionist like I am).

Step 3: Flatten out your rectangle

Your rectangle will be in a bending position once the top and bottom sections are cut off due to constantly being shaped as a cylinder. To help flatten it out, you just simply do what you would to a wrinkled dollar bill that was rejected by a vending machine: grab both ends and start rubbing the opposite side of the bend up against a corner/edge. Be careful what you rub the rectangle up against because since it’s made of metal, you might possibly scratch or mark the surface of the edge or the rectangle itself.

Step 4: Measure twice, cut once

Many of us have heard that phrase before because, to be honest, I actually messed up on cutting out this coaster but it turned out to be fine in the end anyway.

A coaster measures to roughly a 3 1/2″ square. If you have a favorite beer mug where the bottom measures bigger than that, then you can measure a square that fits the size of the bottom of the mug. Just keep in mind that your basic 12oz. can has the measurements of 4.5″high x 2.375″ wide x 8″ circumference. Now what you want to do is eye out the area you want to show, and then start measuring the areas you want to cut off with your ruler. When you have the areas measured, take your ruler and your sharpie and start marking the back of the rectangle. This will create your guides.

After you create your guides, start cutting.

Next, grab your board. This can be poster board, matte board, cardboard, etc. The reason for this is so you can create a smooth base for your coaster, and also add thickness and durability to it too. As for me, I had scrap illustration board on hand so I decided to use it for my base. Now instead of recreating the square that you just measured out by measuring out again, you can simply trace around the square you just cut out with your can with a pencil. I made sure that I traced around the back end of the illustration board so markings will not show in the final product. And then because of the thickness of the illustration board, I took my ruler and my Xacto knife to cut it out.

Afterwards, cut!

Step 5: Paste it and put some weight on it

After you finally have your two squares, take your rubber cement and cover the entire surface of the back of your two squares, then put them together. The reason why I chose rubber cement and not your basic, everyday glue is because we are trying to attach metal to a surface so we want to make sure that it sticks. Rubber cement will definitely make things stick.

Since rubber cement takes a little while to dry, grab your flat, heavy object and put it on your coaster. This will make sure that your squares do stick together and will also make sure that your square cut from the can will not start to roll back up.

After about 30 minutes, your holy beer coaster of awesomeness is ready for use!

Typography, in a nut shell, is not just about fonts. The literal definition is “the study of type”. It is about creating, modifying, arranging, and using type. Today I made you an interactive flash piece on the anatomy of type so you can help understand the small details of typography and letterforms.

The anatomy of typefaces only cover a portion of what typography is all about. Of course, maybe one day I will cover the rest in another post or two.

For the creation of this Flash piece, credit goes to:

• Andrew Cornell Robinson Studio
• Todd Roeth
• Precision Intermedia Marketing Agency
• FontShop

I plan to dedicate this blog for graphic design related articles only. No more life updates, no more rants (unless it’s related to graphic design, of course), and no more nonsense. This blog shall reflect myself as a graphic designer and hopefully help teach and/or inspire those that will be reading this. So for those of you who are now my followers, I welcome you to my little corner of my nerdy life.