Deadlines

They need to be set even when you're only doing stuff on your own.

That's just how it is. If there's no set end time, how does one get anything done?

So that's the plan. Make projects, make deadlines, meet them.

And, GO.

The Journey of a Broken Hard Drive

The journey of Blackie, the small but powerful external hard drive, begins in Los Angeles. He has traveled to distant places within LA, making friends with several different computers, oddly all of them named Mack. He was happy that his 320 gigs of capacity was only being used minimally.

It was a Sunday morning and Blackie had been acting up, refusing to play with his two of his friends. Soon after turning his back on Mack(s), he took his gigs and went home to pout.

His owner sent him away to Utah for therapy. There wasn’t anything that therapist could help them with, so he was returned to Los Angeles, where another therapist was commissioned to help. The new therapist was unable to help the depressed, run down Blackie, but his owner refused to give up on him.

Someone had suggested that putting Blackie in the freezer might help him give up his data better. So into the cold air he was sent, for over 2 hours, shivering, shaking, but still staying strong in his conviction to keep the data to himself.

Soon after this, Blackie was taken to one of the biggest therapy centers for more diagnosis and it was there that some hope had been instilled. There was a special facility in Santa Monica that was almost guaranteed to help. Blackie’s owner made one last phone call, and found out the fate of poor Blackie had already been set. The Santa Monica facility was no longer open and there was no hope.

In the end, Blackie just quit, and his owner finally gave up trying to revive him. He sits, broken and damaged, on a desk in his original home of Los Angeles, unable to function and ignored as his owner begins to recreate the 10 gigs of data he refused to give back.

ABUYS

Alwyays. Back. Up. Your. Shit (Stuff).

Once again I find myself on the receiving end of being a dipshit and not backing up my files.

This is just a gentle reminder to myself, and anyone who chooses to read this.

Never, never be so lazy that you rely on one copy of your files.

End Public Service Announcement.

Being In On The Joke

One of the benefits of being a designer is getting to be "in" on the jokes and little nuances of the design world. Like, being able to laugh out loud at the following t-shirt:



Being a designer is perky.

Logopalooza

Sometimes you just have to go with your first instinct when it comes to branding yourself. Over one weekend, I spent 72 hours (OK not all 72 but most of it) working on creating the right logo for myself. I went through all my fonts, all the fonts on dafont.com, searched countless databases for inspiration and drove myself crazy trying to come up with just "who" Stacy Phay is.

After all that time, struggle and research, I finally gave in to what I had known all along. I am Bickman Script Pro and its glorious glyphs. The font is permanently tattooed on my skin. How could I be anything else?

So there you have it. Go with your gut. Sometimes it is OK to stay with your zone. The result is the pretty nifty logo below.

Posters Galore!

My favorite "go to" site for inspiration and everything movie posters is the Internet Movie Poster Awards or impawards.com. They have uploaded on their site, every poster made by the design companies and approved by the studios, as well as some posters that never saw the light of day.

Not only do they have these posters on their site, but they are organized by year, genre, and even designer. Plus they have a message board so that you can chat about your love for movie posters with other lovers of movie posters.

Whenever I am stuck for inspiration, or want to know who designed a certain poster, I go to this site. It's all about resources when it comes to designing, and this one is a definite favorite.

Someday my name will be listed among the designers on this site. It shall be done. 'Cause I said so.

I Heart Type

For as long as I can remember (or at least as long as I have had a computer that could handle it) I have been obsessed with fonts. Granted back then I was a big fan of stuff like Comic Sans. But hey, that was way before I knew it wasn't cool to use it.

So it was exciting to learn that font and type are a big part of the design world. And once I found out that I could not only manipulate fonts that are already available, I can make my own font face, I was giddy.

My favorite download site is now dafont.com, my favorite thing to do is see what type faces work well with different designs, and manipulating fonts in Illustrator has become a sort of past time.

TypeCon, the annual convention of typographers is coming in August and I am seriously considering plunking down the $185 to attend. Just so I can say I was there once.

And thus ends my confession of love for type. Now back to manipulating some letters.

Key Art Awards

Every year the Hollywood Reporter holds the Key Art Awards for professional designers of poster art, trailers and interactive web content.

As I begin to make my way into the professional design arena, I have made a list of desired companies to work with or for. This year my top three companies are all up for multiple Key Art Awards. Ignition Print, BLT & Associates and Art Machine.

Here's hoping my dreams of working for one of them come to fruition. I am thinking big, why not?

Examples of each company's work:

BLT


Art Machine


Ignition Print

What is Key Art?

Film posters, DVD packaging and movie advertising all under the category of Key Art. They are categorized by Theatrical, Home Entertainment and Television (usually "TV Spots").

Billboards, bus shelters (those big posters inside the glass at a bus stop) and the posters lining the walls of a movie theater. All considered theatrical print advertising. Movie trailers shown before a film are called theatrical trailers.

Home entertainment encompasses all the advertising you see on DVDs (including Blu-Ray).

Television spots are the .30 - .60 second previews shown on television (imagine that!)

All these items are now considered Key Art. And each year there are award shows held to honor the best in the business.

This blog will be my journey into that world as a designer, and as a fan of film and film advertising.

Enjoy the journey.