John Cade

My last post about Bonnaroo was very brief, so I thought I would share a couple of details about the design contest.  Anyone with an account on bonnaroo.com could enter by creating a design and uploading it to their personal profile.  The process was extremely easy for the designers and it allowed all bonnaroo.com users to rate each design, save them as favorites, or leave a comments on them.  In all the judges selected designs by five people.  Each design will be on Bonnaroo merchandise, available for purchase at the festival, and hopefully online at a later date as well.  The design contest was a great way to get Bonnaroo 2008 attendees invovled and encourage creativity.  This is actually one of my goals at LifeWay, so it was great to have this sort of user experience on the Bonnaroo website.

The prize for winning is two free tickets for the festival.  Because the tickets are free to us, and Meredith works for Creative Artists Agency (which got us BOTH in for free last year), we have had about 20 requests from people either to take them off of our hands at no cost or to purchase them from us.  We are not sure if Meredith will be getting a free pass from work or not this year, so we have not made any promises to anyone about whether or not the tickets will be available.  Thanks to those of you who sent a nice congrats rather than simply asking for a free ticket.  Your intentions and sincerity have been noted :).

Some of the artists I plan on seeing are Death Cab for Cute, My Morning Jacket, Pearl Jam, The Raconteurs, Ben Folds, OAR, De Novo Dahl, and Steel Train.  I will also peek in on the New Orleans Superjam with Johnny Vidacovich.  He is one of the greatest drummers from New Orleans and it would be a mistake pass it up.  I really haven’t had time to plan out my entire schedule, but I’m sure there will be others I will want to see as well.

The winners were officially announced on the Bonnaroo website yesterday - here is a screenshot!  Or view the live page.

For the first time in my life, I’ve won a design contest!  Granted, the last one I entered was probably when I was 13 years old.  The design itself is pretty simple.  However, I feel like I captured the Bonnaroo feel pretty well.  Here it is!

Short and sweet this week.

MISCELLANEOUS

• The Cool Hunter - “Roaming the U.S. and the globe…so you’re in the know.” A site that keeps you up to date with the latest ‘cool’ things. Great site, cheesy name. Don’t miss the pixel couch.
• Dear God - “Hear us, one prayer at a time.” A site full of posts containing people’s conversations with God. Some people are gratuitous, some people are inquisitive…and others are just angry. Quite interesting to read.
• PostACrime.com - “Stop Crime, Get Cash.” Taken from the website…”a free service for anyone to upload photo or video content of burglary, theft, vandalism, or other criminal acts that have been caught on camera for the purpose of identification by the public.” This could keep anyone busy.

DESIGN

• Vitamin - “Nourishment to help the web grow.” A great resource for web designers and developers.
• The BookScans Database - If you’re into vintage design, you’ll probably enjoy these images of old books.

PHOTOGRAPHY

• Dave Hill Photo - Photography with a surreal feel. Very interesting.
• David Bean Photography - Great Nashville-based photographer with a very impressive client list.

Welcome to my latest attempt at a recurring series titled “Bookmarked”.  I hope to introduce you to various cool things on the internet periodically.  Enjoy!

DESIGN 

•  ISO50- The Visual Work of Scott Hansen - Scott Hansen is by far one of my favorite designers.  The colors, shapes, and typefaces that he chooses are perfect.  Beautiful work that anyone can appreciate.
• Cameron Moll - When it comes to web design, Cameron has flawless taste.  He became widely know for his Wicked Worn Series, but it’s his knack for clean design that really inspires me.  His blog is extremely informative.
• Veerle Pieters - One of the best CSS blog designs out there.  She frequently offers great how-to posts for Photoshop and Illustrator.
• Smashing Magazine - This may be the number one online resource for designers of any kind.  Learn CSS tricks, find the best Photoshop tutorials, or even the best designed Wordpress themes.  There’s a plethora of information to sort through.  A little bit overwhelming - but it’s a good thing.

PHOTOGRAPHY

• Jeremy Cowart Photography - With only a few years of photography under his belt, it’s amazing how much he has accomplished already (just take a look at his clients).  Oh, and he’s from Nashville, to boot.  My only complaint:  no blog!

PRODUCTS

• Fresh Arrival - “one amazingly cool thing, every day.”
• Uncrate - The Buyer’s Guide For Men - hard-to-find and extremely cool and useful products.  And for women - Outblush.

As with any profession, being a designer has its ups and downs. My success is defined by my creativity and how other people perceive my art. There are no rules to follow. It is more exciting than desperately trying to meet a sales goal or struggling to increase the bottom line of Company X in hopes of receiving an annual bonus. Don’t get me wrong, corporate jobs are equally as important in most cases, and many people who have them enjoy them. However, the biggest perk of designing for a living is that it isn’t monotonous because each project must be unique. Therefore each day is unique. And so on.

With this freedom, however, often comes frustration. I’m not referring to ‘designers block’ here. What I’m talking about is much more frustrating than that. It’s the disconnect between the finalized design and the quality and accuracy of the display of the design in its final environment that can cause frustration. Let me give you a real life example.

I was assigned to design an identity for a youth group retreat called Wired. Naturally, Nathan and I went through all of the ways we could work wires into the logo, hoodie, and banner designs. We sent a few comps to the client, and they responded with a few minor adjustments. With those adjustments made, the design was done, and everything was sent off to be printed.

This is where I start to get nervous. How will everything turn out?

I ordered the banners onilne. We had never seen a banner that this company has printed. To boot, they are located in California. This alone is enough to make any designer worry. Ordering a 12 foot by 5 foot poster, sight unseen? That’s ludicrous! I thought so too. But this company was extremely affordable and their turn-around time was 24 hours. Alas, we ordered them, but not without hesitation. While Nathan and I discussed everything that go wrong, the posters were shipped, and came back perfect. We were amazed! We couldn’t have asked for better quality.

We also placed an order for some hoodies around the same time that were scheduled to be printed and picked up on January 17, one day prior to the event.

• Problem #1: On the 17th, the order wasn’t ready.
• Problem #2: The printer says “We have never printed a design across a zipper like this, so we are going to have to have to cover the center of it with a piece of tape.”

At this point, I’m thinking

Fabulous. Rather than splitting the design down the middle and making a new screen with everything in tact, you’re just going to knock out a line down the center of my design?

What’s the worst that can happen though, right? Zippers are thin. So it can’t be that bad.

But it can. What’s wrong with this picture?

The knockout is two inches wide, at least! It looks like a roll of duct tape was used to do it!

Outrageous! Why did I let this happen?

Now that is frustrating. At least I can take something from this situation though. Next time someone says “We’ve never done this before”, run for the hills!

As a side note, the incredibily beautiful model in the picture is my fiance. Thanks, Meredith!