Work at last!
After a long, long drought I'm finally back to work -
It's been 3 years since I finished my contract job with the Oregonian. Since then, I've only done freelance graphics and web work here and there and made a few bucks playing music. Mighty lean times...
A couple weeks ago, I spotted an ad on Craigslist for a graphic designer that made me sit up and take notice, as it seemed made for me. I've applied for dozens of design and web jobs, but it's really hard to compete with kids fresh out of college who'll work for next to nothing, especially in today's job market.
It was from a jewelry company here in town called Metal Arts, that does Celtic and NW Coast and Native jewelry, as well as corporate and organizational award pieces. They wanted someone to do graphic design, illustration work and publications, as well as design, update and maintain their web site. The real kicker was that they also wanted this person to be one of their jewelry designers, so they would have to know jewelry production, as well as being familiar with Celtic and Native design.
I didn't expect hardly anyone else to be able to hit all those points. Yeah, unemployed designers - both print and web - are pretty thick on the ground here in "Creativesville", and there's some jewelry folks about, and a few people that know something about Celtic and Native motifs. But it would be pretty rare to find someone who did all these things.
So, I sent them a resumé and updated my website at http://bobwoods.org to tailor it for them. They called me earlier this week to come in and interview. I came in with my design portfolio, but what clinched it was when I pulled out Liadan's coronet, some fibulas and the silver harp from my peerage necklace, along with pictures of several other commissioned pieces and my shop.
They gave me a test piece to see if I could do better than what they were using in their catalog. They've been using simple flat-shaded illustrations of jewelry, serviceable but not great. I told them I could do photorealistic illustrations, so they gave me a photocopy of a photocopy of a pencil sketch done by the original designer, and I gave them back something pretty close to a photograph. Thankfully, I've been keeping my Photoshop skills up to snuff all this time.
This is a piece for the Portland Golf Club, it'll be about 1 inch tall, in gold. My instructions were to find a way to save gold from the earlier version. So, I did it with piercework in the center, and moved the letters to the edge to connect them for the casting. Below are the "before" drawing and the "after" illustration done with no scans (other than the stone), no 3D, no photography - completely by hand in Illustrator and Photoshop. Click on it (and then again) to see the high-res version.
So, I start tomorrow at 8. Looking forward to this...
It's been 3 years since I finished my contract job with the Oregonian. Since then, I've only done freelance graphics and web work here and there and made a few bucks playing music. Mighty lean times...
A couple weeks ago, I spotted an ad on Craigslist for a graphic designer that made me sit up and take notice, as it seemed made for me. I've applied for dozens of design and web jobs, but it's really hard to compete with kids fresh out of college who'll work for next to nothing, especially in today's job market.
It was from a jewelry company here in town called Metal Arts, that does Celtic and NW Coast and Native jewelry, as well as corporate and organizational award pieces. They wanted someone to do graphic design, illustration work and publications, as well as design, update and maintain their web site. The real kicker was that they also wanted this person to be one of their jewelry designers, so they would have to know jewelry production, as well as being familiar with Celtic and Native design.
I didn't expect hardly anyone else to be able to hit all those points. Yeah, unemployed designers - both print and web - are pretty thick on the ground here in "Creativesville", and there's some jewelry folks about, and a few people that know something about Celtic and Native motifs. But it would be pretty rare to find someone who did all these things.
So, I sent them a resumé and updated my website at http://bobwoods.org to tailor it for them. They called me earlier this week to come in and interview. I came in with my design portfolio, but what clinched it was when I pulled out Liadan's coronet, some fibulas and the silver harp from my peerage necklace, along with pictures of several other commissioned pieces and my shop.
They gave me a test piece to see if I could do better than what they were using in their catalog. They've been using simple flat-shaded illustrations of jewelry, serviceable but not great. I told them I could do photorealistic illustrations, so they gave me a photocopy of a photocopy of a pencil sketch done by the original designer, and I gave them back something pretty close to a photograph. Thankfully, I've been keeping my Photoshop skills up to snuff all this time.
This is a piece for the Portland Golf Club, it'll be about 1 inch tall, in gold. My instructions were to find a way to save gold from the earlier version. So, I did it with piercework in the center, and moved the letters to the edge to connect them for the casting. Below are the "before" drawing and the "after" illustration done with no scans (other than the stone), no 3D, no photography - completely by hand in Illustrator and Photoshop. Click on it (and then again) to see the high-res version.
So, I start tomorrow at 8. Looking forward to this...