Color Disputes

After about a year of arguing with myself, I finalized my color scheme for my start up business. I never thought I would have had such an issue with just picking out colors! How hard could it be? But then I remembered these colors are going to stick with the business for as long as it's up and running, which hopefully is a very long time.

Does anyone else have this issue? And if so, what was your process for figuring out what colors would be in your logo?

4th of July Celebration!

Who doesn't love cake? Especially when mom isn't watching!

We had more fun this year on the fourth then we do all year long! I don't have too many photos of the actual fireworks we lit off, but feel free to follow me on instagram @shortney1228 - I have a few there I put up from my phone of both photos and even a video :-) I was impressed this year, our fireworks rivaled the fireworks in town this year!

We also had a much smaller group - not the usual large group, which helped a lot. Not so many little people to chase around and keep of the lighting platform.



My brother and my hubby set up the posts and marked it off. I didn't realized how much my bro has grown! He's not suppose to be this tall yet! *sigh* I'm not ready for him to be in high school already. Although, I'm soooo ready for more high school football games and even wrestling matches! Woot!

The boys this year lit off the bonfire this year in the style that has become our tradition. Dr. P was a dear and filled in for my other little brother this year and helped my wonderful husband and baby bro light it - Roman candle style.




The other pictures you'll see here are of my gorgeous baby sister and a few of the dolls she babysits on a fairly regular basis - they're so adorable!  

Mundane Mondays

Nothing too exciting happens on Mondays for me anymore. It just seems to be the day to catch up after the weekend, and since I was gone this weekend, it's nice to be able to sit here and catch up.


I've been here for 4 months now and I still have yet to unpack my coffee pot, which as most of the world knows, is probably the first thing that should be unpacked after moving! So instead of my morning coffee lately it's been whatever is cold in the  fridge - so water. I need to go shopping and maybe get some coffee and some cream, because of course you can't have coffee without a really amazing cream.

So, I'm sitting here, drinking water, and going through some of my photos I took from this weekend at the zoo. We headed down to the cities this weekend to spend my husbands birthday weekend with his family. Since the weather wasn't the greatest for fishing we decided to hit up the Minnesota Zoo. I've been there a few times and now and I've never seen the animals up and so active - except the bears of course. They still dig the holes and take a nap just about every time I've seen them. But they're still incredibly cute and even despite their massive paws (and claws!) I still think it'd be fun to cuddle up with them. Maybe while they're sedated, heavily, more like knocked out...



The coyotes were up and racing around though. I felt like the one was just checking the fences to make sure they were secure, and then posing for pictures. The wolves were up and about as well. I've always witnessed them during nap time - so when they were right up next to the glass it was breathtaking! They are far larger then I remember and just beautiful.





It's always fun to walk around the zoo, and it's even more fun when I actually remember to bring my camera!

Thoughtful Thursday?

Where do you go to get feedback on your designs when you do contract/freelance design work? I'm use to working within a team where I can bounce ideas off of others who know what I'm trying to get across and they'd either say something that sparked a new concept or just sat and listened (or at least pretended too!). Now I find myself going to other websites for inspiration. Unfortunately, I'm addicted to Pinterest now so I lose track of time and before I even realize it I have to get up and leave.

My husband is great at trying to help. But as he's a programmer, asking which shade of red looks better is like asking me to look at code and tell him where the bug is - to me, it's all buggy. For all I know it's a swarm of mosquitoes carrying random symbols around a black and green screen... which I would love to make look better for him! But apparently the whole black and green thing is normal and he enjoys it, I could use a little more color though.

But, as I've nothing too exciting to discuss I'll leave you to whatever it was you were doing until you somehow managed to stumble into my ramblings - which is obviously a work in progress.

I'm Back!

Well, I'm back! Not sure where I was the last few months - somewhere between getting married, moving and trying to find more work I got lost just enjoying my time away from an 8-5 desk job! Now don't get me wrong, I really miss the social aspect of the working in cubbies as I'm in a new location and still working on getting out and networking. Hopefully I'll be able to keep this a little more up to date now that I'm getting settled in to a schedule. Thanks to everyone so far who have helped me get to this point!

Slow Beginnings

Starting is the hardest part. The thoughts are all there, the images in my head and how I want to portray them, but wow, it's not always as easy as I think it should be! But then, as the saying goes, if it was easy everyone would be doing it.

So one thing at a time.

Started up my Facebook page for my freelance / contract stuff.

www.facebook.com/walkdesigns

Nothing too exciting yet but I have to start somewhere. I figure I'll take my time and hopefully do things right. I'm usually pretty good at jumping the gun and not thinking things through first - but that's what proofs and rough drafts are for, right? I'm sure things will start to fall in place over time. I have uploaded a few small things I've done for family and friends to start. I figure I'll start adding more as time goes on.

Any suggestions for someone who's used to designing in a tiny cubicle but is now free to roam the planet? Where do I start?

Remembering How

Where do you go when you have a creative block? I've been working in one area for so long that sometimes I forget that there's more then power tools and industrial equipment that make this amazing marketing world spin! I just recently finished up my site, as you can go see at www.walkdesigns.com and I still feel like the industrial part of me is taking over. It's a work in progress and like any good art, it won't ever be completely finished until it's over, and I don't want that to happen!

So help me out with where you go to clear your head and bring out the creativeness that's been buried so deep in you it feels like it's lost.

Shopping?
Swing on your front porch?
Favorite coffee shop?
Favorite ice cream shop?
Walk down a hiking trail?

Walking To Catch Up

After making a few life changing decisions, I've decided to go after what I want - seriously this time. I have toyed with the idea of freelancing for a living, but I've never had the guts to jump in and get things moving. After a few changes happened over the last year, I've decided there's no better time then now. Granted I am getting married in a few weeks so that's a bit of a stressful endeavor, but with all the support and the small jobs constantly flowing in, I feel it's what I should be doing.

So welcome to my crazy world.

I graduated with a B.S. in Graphic Communications with an emphasis on digital design and prepress but I did love to multimedia classes as well. I was offered a graphic design position straight out of college, which was amazing to be able to start a full time career 2 weeks after graduation. After working with the company for a few years I fell in love online branding and having a social presence for our company. I decided to go back to school and I received my Masters in Internet Marketing. I focused mainly on online branding and social presence and the PR that goes along with it. With all the knowledge I had consumed (finishing a Masters in just over a year) I moved over to the online side of the business. Granted I'm not a web developer - the coding goes way beyond my comprehension - but I love the design aspect and instant gratification from seeing your work immediately out there in the open - Although sometimes absolutely terrifying at the same time! Granted only a handful of people know it was me behind anything, it's fun to see what kind of ripple you can create in the design and advertising world.

I'm going on 6 years at this company and they've given me so much to learn from and grown on. From being hands on and wrapping vehicles, building signs to updating a Facebook page, it's definitely been a journey. I can only hope it continues as I start to build my own path and move forward in life.

So now that you know a little about me, I hope you'll take some time to look around and contact me if there's anything I can do for you or your business.