Blogging in Relaxing.

I think I like blogging on my lunch break…it’s relaxing.

Tuesday I came up with several different concepts for the Centralight ad, spinning off of one of my original concepts. At the end of the day, he came in and said he really liked my classified ad concept (I’ll post more if we use it). Unfortunately, there are no graphic designers available anytime soon to work on it. So more on that to come.

Dan brought me the page dummies for CMU Welcomes You and I started inserting the ads. That is what I spent the rest of the day doing. Some were very easy to do…and others were huge pains because the ads weren’t the right size.

This morning I finished up a CMUWY article with a quote about academic advising. I will be interviewing an adviser on Friday morning to finish up another article and am waiting on approval for my transfer student article. The Volunteer Center article is in between – I sent it for approval and it was returned with a few changes, but the woman said she might want to make more. Its a little frustrating.

Dan brought me two new projects – adding to an article about Upward Bound and writing the text for a landing page for a web page about diversity posters.

I have sent the landing page text to Sydnee to see what she thinks – whether I need more or less – because she has been with the project since the beginning.

I have not started on the Upward Bound article since I am waiting to hear back from a source.

This morning Dan and I talked about me working an extra day. It looks like I’ll probably come in on Fridays, since I have class Monday and Wednesday afternoons. But I won’t be in tomorrow since I had already made plans to go to Dow Gardens with a friend.

Check back later to read about the rest of my day.

Don’t settle for the first concept…

Today I went into work in the morning to finish up editing the website copy so I could talk to Ryan about it. I suggested to him that we add the library to the list of links because the library so I ended up having to write a short summary for Park Library and Clarke Historical Library.

I also completed one concept for the Centralight ad and created a second. I sent both to Dan for him to review. One ad focuses on the how being a Gold member saves you money, and the other focuses on how good it makes you feel to support your alma mater.

I sent Dan the website copy for him and Mark to do final edits before it goes to IT.

I also read up a little bit more on the man that I will be writing a story about for the Friends of Libraries luncheon.

Since I had finished up my end of the project, I headed home at 11:30 a.m. I don’t usually work Mondays and I have an BIO 101 exam today, so there was no sense sitting around with nothing to do.

Lesson of the Day: Don’t settle for the first concept. Always generate as many as ideas as possible before developing the good ones. If I hadn’t brainstormed so much, I would have settled on my first concept. It seemed OK at the time but it was much better when I had many ideas and sorted the strong from the weak.

Friday there were scattered showers and severe brainstorms…

Friday I went into work to write the copy for the website. Dan edited it for me. I had some AP Style mistakes. He also explained to me that with the web site, they do straight AP, but with the publications, there are some differences.

I also worked on concepts for the ad I am doing for Centralight. I was having major trouble coming up with ideas so I searched for alumni associations on Google and read about other school’s associations. I then filled a page of brainstorming to get my mind working. I came up with three concepts.

Lesson of the Day: If you are stuck in a rut, do some research to get your mind going and then brainstorm until you have at least one full page of ideas.

You Just Need Ambition…

Yesterday, I mostly worked on CMU Welcomes You. With any new information I had, I finished up a few articles and sent them to be approved. With any approvals I received, I changed any information that needed to be changed. This morning I received several more approvals. I think that the publication materials are coming along pretty well.

I also typed up some copy for an ad going into the PBS booklet. It was fairly simple to do. The only thing I missed was to italicize the title of the exhibit at Clarke Historical Library.

I’m excited about this upcoming Friday because I will be going to a project management workshop. I won’t be paid for the time I will be there, but that doesn’t bother me. I’m sure it will be well worth it. I think I will learn a lot.

I do have some bad news. Originally, I was going to be taking a second class this summer that teaches you how to use Adobe InDesign. After purchasing a car this past weekend (and spending more than I had planned), I had to drop the class. The class fills up quickly every semester, so I will have to wait and see when I can take it next.

I do plan on teaching myself more about Adobe InDesign. There are several books about InDesign at the library that I plan to check out soon. Dan has already taught me the basics, so I know I can learn a lot by myself.

Lesson of the Day: You don’t have to take a class if you want to learn. You just need ambition and a good library book.