To move a mountain...

The last seven days have been a banner week for me. Toward the middle of last week I sent a resume and portfolio to Caffeine Interactive, a design group running out of New Haven, and they called me in for an interview on the coming Friday. My first impression of the place was that it’s exactly the kind of environment I’d hope for in a design studio. A voluminous brick interior with two story windows draped in crimson curtains, neon signs, air hockey… atmosphere. The kind of place that immediately puts me in the sort of creative mood I usually have to put on some heavily electronic music to get in to.
The interview went well. I liked the people as much as the place, and I guess they liked me too, because I received a call the following Tuesday offering me an internship position. Now here’s the real kicker: They’re even going to pay me. Design gods be praised! I’ll be doing 20 hours a week beginning next Tuesday. It’s going to be a tall order considering my substantial workload at school this semester (and a few independent projects) but I’m confident this will be the real world exposure I need to make a comfortable transition after graduation.

I managed to procure a copy of Adrian Shaughnessy’s How to be a Graphic Designer, Without Losing your Soul this week, and promptly dove in. Immediately striking about the book is its shocking lack of what most conventional people would call, well, design. Its plain blue cover with white text offers almost no initial graphical pizzazz. Each page is densely packed with small black print, and pictures are few and far between. To the casual onlooker, a person with this book might appear to be reading the manual to a large and complicated calculator. The funny thing is, hugely unconventional for a design book though it is, it does have style. As you make your way through it, you begin to appreciate the Spartan simplicity with which the book is put together. There is nothing flashy, but everything is in its place, and done right. I would compare it to the subtle and careful work of Steven Spielberg, whereas most design books hearken closer to Michael Bay.
Another surprise the opening pages of this book have thrown at me is that it’s actually enjoyable to read. Chapters melt away readily, and it is full of useful gems. Of particular interest to me were sections on interviewing and portfolio presentation, as, as I have said, I went through this process over the last week. I was happy to find an emphasis on presenting yourself as an affable person who is easy to, “get on with” as Shaughnessy puts it. I make a point of this in interviews, and try not to focus too much on my ego. I guess it’s panned out.

Finally, I’ve begun work on putting together some logos for myself. One possible option is now visible in the header of this blog. Others are still more in the planning phase . The letters “D” and “T” were not really made to mesh together in an attractive fashion, so I’ve had to, well, get creative in some areas. Some of the logos, however, are less typographically oriented and more graphically oriented. I’m actually leaning toward one of these, but nothing is final yet.

That’s all for now my friends. It appears this body cannot be sustained on high speed internet access alone, so I head off in search of food.