I’ve hosted the project myself, here. You can also see it in the wild at bannedbythebay.org.

It started back in February with a bunch of ideas and sketches that helped us get to the heart of what Banned by the Bay would be, and what, visually speaking, it should look like. She wanted an illustrative, bright, and crafty style to it. Since I was still in Germany, we worked over email.

I set out on the logo. Always inherent in this process is knowing how to communicate when a client is trying to fit too much in. It’s imperative as a designer to keep the logo straightforward and clear, even when their tendency is to throw everything in.

Eventually we were able to whittle down to more refined ideas, and cut back some of the content.

And the final product, a hand-drawn black and white graphic.

Then on to making a website. It needed to have a very “San Francisco” feel to it (pretty perfect for me as I was fresh off the plane from Germany). I created a skyline with some pens, and construction paper for the footer.

And then I drew some small graphics to illustrate each of the four events.

Then I did a lot of work with textures to find the right look and feel. It needed to be light and crafty.

This is the landing page. Since the festival is primarily a series of events, it seemed fitting to put all of that information here, in the most accessible place. All of the details are in-window callout boxes made with JQuery. With more time I’d have loved to find a more eloquent solution, however this was quite simple and to the point.

All in all, it was a great project. I’m excited to be able to put some hand-drawn graphics on the web, and excited about the cause.

Congratulations, Paola and Greg!

In my internet reading yesterday morning, I came across a GOOD post posing an interesting question: is it important to promote awareness to a problem, even if you aren’t promoting a solution?

In short, yes of course. Upon greater consideration, can’t we do better?

The two cases mentioned in this article are both about American health and obesity, Jamie Oliver’s new LA  Food Revolution, and Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move campaign. For both, certainly an increase in awareness is beneficial. However, it seems the solutions are falling short, or missing completely.

This is a particular sore spot for me.  As a designer, I feel that I’m more “whole package” oriented and less likely to appreciate solutions which don’t go beyond addressing a problem.  A great deal of my job is working with clients, asking questions, moving something towards the tangible. Bringing an idea or product into a cohesive identity, telling a story, and putting it in context. Getting it out to the world in the clearest way possible – to me – includes asking “What do we want them to do now?”

This past year in Germany, I’ve grown a little more objective about the US, and a lot more fond of it. As Americans, we have an inclination toward the new, shiny, provocative, and sensationalized. More so than here in Bavaria, at least. I was shocked the first time someone here referred to a tabloid-esque paper as “American style news” but, it’s quite telling. Our world changes quickly and we have a laundry list of complaints that we will easily write about in our blogs, put on bumper stickers, or express in whatever voice comes most naturally. Our communities are large, and often quite disconnected. For example, I don’t believe that obesity in San Francisco is as large a problem as it is in Huntington, West Virginia so it’s easy for me to misunderstand life there and point at the obvious. I experience people here frequently making comments about how big Americans are, but I’m speechless because all I can think is, the America I know isn’t that fat. We have less of a community based identity than Europeans, and it may feel like we are less adequately represented by our larger national identity. Maybe it’s easier to have something wise to say about problems within the US, even if you don’t have much connection to them than to just admit that that life is nothing like your own.  But, frankly, sometimes it feels like we’re a land of squeaky wheels. For what it’s worth, I’d like to be a part of the solutions instead.

I’m all for ideas, innovation, and awareness, of course. And I do recognize that both of these projects are moving the world forward. For my own work, if an idea is to become a thing, I feel it must first have a purpose, and a place, and a method for implementation. It has to make the world a better place, it has to say something to people they haven’t quite heard before, and then give them tools in which to move forward.

I’ve been doing research lately on some programs that proactively provide solutions, one of which is Code for America. I’m amazed at how excited I would be to be part of something like this: helping people connect with their government through technology. I’m tired of seeing people point out problems with the United States. It’s a great place that I’ve grown to miss, and appreciate over the last year, and I can’t wait to go back and be a bigger part of it.

Sometimes you can’t articulate exactly what you’re looking for by doing something new. I’m not sure what I wanted to find by living here in Munich: maybe a sense of adventure, worldliness, some new people, or a different slant on things. Mostly it was just something that I felt lucky to be able to do, so I did.

Whatever that was, I believe I’ve found it, and it’s time to go home to San Francisco. (End of May, no rush here.) I’m happy to have a place I belong to go back to — and looking forward to bringing some pieces of Munich along, too.

Below are some screenshots, as well as descriptions of my thought process.

• Updates

I first wanted to keep it synced with time, place, and recent experiences. Portfolio sites in particular can feel so disconnected from real things, so here as a user you immediately see evidence of me as a living breathing person.
On a technical note, the twitter and location plugins were fairly easy to incorporate, however Picasa albums were difficult to sync.

• Blog feature

The blog section is the next step from immediate updates to more in depth experiences. It’s a good way to keep fresh new big images and ideas moving through.

• Sketchbooks

Once a friend said to me “The longer I know someone the more I can’t help but like them.” This is how I feel about sketchbooks. While they may not be my most professional or saavy side, they are certainly my most honest.

• Design Portfolio

And, certainly the design portfolio. I found lots of inspiration on the internet for toggling between projects and details, giving various degrees of information. There are as many ways to approach this as designers to document this. I ended up dividing it into a few simple categories, hopefully I will have time to add more in the recent future. It’s tricky to show work from team projects and highlight your own work, and I did this as gracefully and with as many credits as I could. I essentially decided to cut out the gray areas as larger scale projects are difficult to grasp without enough extraneous background information.

Thanks for looking, and stay tuned for more updates! And for good measure, click here to see the site in action.

When this photo was taken, I remember sitting there thinking that I hated being a kid. Everyone was smarter than me, and bigger, and yet when I really did know something I couldn’t express it as well as they could. (Also, I don’t know was in charge of this outfit! )
I chose to address my before-self because I still feel this way most of the time: mostly through living in Germany and speaking such rudimentary German, but also in general life. Though, then and now, I also find my sketchbook is a place where this doesn’t matter. I can explain or not explain my thoughts, and they all sound equally profound, kind of like singing in the shower.