my day job

doorplate and doorknob thumbnails - May 08

Thought I'd show you a bit more of what I actually do - my freelance design work. That which pays our bills ... my day job.

This is a project from last year - almost exactly a year ago and samples of the finished pieces have just recently been showing up at all the spring gift shows ready for market. Yesterday while perusing a trade magazine that I have a subscription to I came across a little blurb and photo of the product that for well over a month I sunk my heart (and some blood, sweat & tears) into. For this particular company I'm working directly with in house designers. I become kind of like a sub-contractor. Either they have too much on their own plates at the time and need to farm some of the work out or they feel they need the skill set of another designer to realize their specific vision on a particular project. That's the thing about designers - our main job is to come up with the great ideas - then we figure out a way to have that great idea come to life and we're not at all personally attached to doing the realizing ourselves. The most important part is that "the vision" comes to life... some how. So we hire (if we have the means) whoever we might need to help realize that vision. Photographers, illustrators and other designers ... we become the art director or creative director of a project. Or in this case, as is most of my day job work, I am being art directed. And I enjoy it. Just me, some tracing paper, my fav red mechanical pencil and a lovely pile of parameters to work within. So much easier and much less taxing then having to be brilliant all on my own.

Each design, of these 5 musical doorknob and doorplates, was based in a historic style (Baroque, Greco Roman, Art Nouveau, Gothic and Neo Classical). Adding another interesting layer to what I do - lots + lots of research so I'm sure to get the history just right. In the end my client, the designer, was tres pleased with my drawings and apparently the collection is being very well received in the Giftware Lands. Each doorknob style is meant to represent a unique emotion or feeling and when you turn the doorknob music plays to help evoke that feeling.

The reason I'm most often totally secretive about what I do is because it can take up to a full year before the projects I'm working on are actually produced and ready for market and of course every company wants to keep their latest greatest product release top, top secret... so of course, I am totally sworn to secrecy.

Rain, milder temperatures (thank goodness), Tramp bubbles and our yard and garden is filled, this early morning, with the sounds of madly singing birds.



the actual product