to the ones I love

I end of doing a lot of work for free. It is hard to charge the people that I love. It is just too much fun. And they are never like clients. It is more like a constant ego boost ... cause they usually love everything and tell me so.

I am incredibly lucky to have relationships with so many of my parent's friends. Most have known me since I was a kid. And I have in turn become friends with their kids. A few months ago I did the rehearsal dinner invite for some of them. It was a fun job and gave me an excuse to catch up on their lives.

the process

So I thought I would share a bit about the process of coming up with someone's identity [I actually hate that it is called identity because a person's identity has nothing to do with a logo or letterhead]. In doing the Oijoy Photo stuff it helped that I knew Janet and a little bit of her style. I tried to stick with simplicity, grace, and a vintage modern feel.

I gave Janet a lot of options (I always give at least three, it makes the process much quicker in the long run). Here are a few (besides what she decided to go with ... which was one of my favorites).

freeze frame

Something about having a kid makes me feel like my life is a movie. We will have moments that seem to freeze time and make me want to weep with joy (sometimes I actually do). We have two CDs that seem to bring this on instantaneously. One is the Amelie soundtrack and the other is Jonathan Elias' American River. For those of you not in advertising, Elias is a composer/music house that creates mostly amazing music for Nike, XBox, Bud, etc. The Nike stuff is always my favorite.

Go to the iTunes store and just give a listen. My favorites on American River are #1 and #10.

rare

My friend Janet is incredibly talented. She is one of those people that can make anything look beautiful without even trying. I am convinced that she could take up any creative job and knock it out of the park. She chose photography. And I am always blown away by her pics. Even the ones she takes on her cell phone.

I did some business cards, letterhead, etc. for Janet after she gave me some of the most amazing pictures of our son (not the kid above ... that is a picture from the Amish country that Janet took a couple of weeks ago).
Check our her website at oijoyphoto.com

this is the color of the sky

all the time. Oh man. The skies here are amazing. It does rain. We were afraid that it wouldn't rain. But we have already experienced three or four thunderstorms.

So we met a few people on our street. All of them have lived in Chi-town. Yup. This seems to be the next stop for all of the young couples with young kids. The neighborhood gossip lives across the street. In a matter of 10 minutes I had the low-down on pretty much everyone. It is always good to be in the gossip's good graces. They somehow make sure everything is running smoothly. In Chicago, it was this guy named Harry. He started smoking cigars around 6:30 AM. I saw him while walking the dog and then later while walking the dog and the kid. It was somewhat endearing that he thought nothing of blowing cigar smoke right over my baby. It was always fun to figure out how to non-chalantly move the stroller away from him. Every street needs those people.

We are going to be out-of-pocket for the next week. I promise to be better about writing once we get back.

oh to be connected

I am back. And I cannot tell you how much I missed the old computer. What am amazing tool. It sometimes feels like another arm. I would dangerous with a laptop. Nothing would ever get done.
They're everywhere!

Just before leaving Chicago I spent a few days in the burbs ... or "the country" as my mother-in-law puts it. The cicadas have emerged and were out of control. We woke to their song and it was a bit haunting. Not the low familiar hum of my childhood in the South, but a high-pitched, constant song. Actually, I shouldn't call it a "song". If it was, it would be on the "b-side".

My nieces were incredibly brave. Check it out.

homeless

I was listening to Ladysmith Black Mambazo's rendition of this song (for all I know, they originally wrote it). It is so beautiful. I started to think that maybe we are homeless, still having no place that is ours to lay our heads. But then I realized how incredibly lucky we are. We are all here and have a free roof and food and vehicles. So it is kinda like a long camping trip. Homeless we are not. Stuff-less is more like it.

I forgot to bring the cord to my camera, so you will be seeing some generic shots until then.