I'm a big kid now

Two posts in one day...whew. But this is important.

I am officially a big girl. I got a job offer from United Way of Central Oklahoma so starting Monday, I will be their graphic designer! YAHOOOOOOO!!! I'm so excited to be a part of this incredible team. The people there are wonderful and my job is exactly what I envisioned myself doing after college. Some of the jobs I had applied for were manager or coordinator jobs, where I would be supervising design, not actually getting my hands dirty. But I really wanted to get my hands dirty. So this is perfect. And I'll be able to expand my skills into web design, my lack of which seems to have been my downfall in my job search up until now.

"Job search"...mine is FINALLY over. Thank God. I feel like I've been job searching since I started college (or internship searching anyway). Ever since my internship ended in June I have felt like such a waste of space. I went from being so busy during school with my senior capstone, internship, job hunt, other classes and other commitments that I got a couple of hours of sleep a night, was always on the move, and remained stressed to the breaking point for a solid 4 months to sitting on the couch applying for jobs and occasionally going for a run to keep my blood flowing. Doing nothing sounded great 5 months ago when I just needed a break from my grinding daily routine. But I'm not a "do nothing" type of person. Being busy and stressed out suits me. Not being busy has been very unsettling. Maybe I'll miss unemployment after a few weeks as a working adult, but right now I'm just ready to get started!

All business

I started designing some personalized business cards for myself. Now that I have CS5 on my laptop, I don't know what I'd do without it...knock on wood please.




Now for the back I wanted to do something a little different...to make it memorable. So I decided on putting little quirky/kind of embarrassing facts about myself in the hopes that people will find my self-depracating-ness hilarious (I know "self-depracating-ness" is not a real word, but if you've ever seen 'You, Me and Dupree,' you know that you can add the word "ness" to the end of anything and it will still make sense). These little nuggets are also on my resume to give it a little pop, but I figure I might as well spread the laughs. The little color-coordinated dots were an attempt at the blush meters you find in magazines. I didn't want to get too complicated so it turned out a little different than I expected, but I like it. I'm sure I'll be able to come up with a wide array of fun facts to share. Enjoy.

Double zero

So I just received my most anticipated graduation present (drumroll please): the Adobe Creative Suite 5 Design Premium software package. That is a mouthful. And my life is now complete.

I'm currently sitting at my kitchen table attempting to start at the beginning of my Classroom in a Book for Illustrator. I'm still on Lesson 00. Yes, you read that right. Not even Lesson 1. Lesson 00. I have a bad habit of looking ahead when I read books; I do it all the time. When I read the much-anticipated 7th and final installment of Harry Potter (yes, I love Harry Potter and I'm not ashamed to say that at the ripe old age of 21, I still enjoy it as much as I did when I was 10), I got through the first couple of chapters before looking ahead to the last chapter to see how it ended. Call it impatience, but I prefer to label it "eagerness."

Apparently Classroom in a Book is no different for me than Harry Potter. I keep looking ahead to the advanced chapters, but I need to stay focused on the basics for now. I gotta start at the beginning. Rock bottom. Okay now back to Lesson double-zero...

Here are some more recent pieces from my work at OU Recruitment Services:

The cover of Viewbook, a magazine-style publication that is sent to prospective students. It outlines all the basic information they need to know about applying to the University of Oklahoma, as well as personal quotes and stories from current students and faculty and information about student life.

The front of a personalized postcard promoting a web page that allows prospective students to scroll through and find information about each of OU's colleges and majors.

A poster promoting OU's "Get Connected" campaign.

The front of a postcard that is sent out to high school juniors to encourage them to sign up for either of OU's Junior Day events.

A postcard promoting a recruitment event.

A postcard for a reception for prospective students living in Texas.

A postcard for an OU Tulsa event.