Colorful Five

Week 3 assignment- Emphasis

Ahhh- he's five! I'm the mother of a five year old! ACK!

Ok- panic mode is now OFF. I realized something yesterday. I completely forgot to get a picture of my oldest son on his birthday. DOH! Now, Tuesday (his birthday) would have been the perfect day to take pictures. The light was perfect, not too bright, not too windy, just an all around nice day.

Wednesday, on the other hand... BRIGHT. Very BRIGHT light. Blindingly bright sunlight. Also.... wind. Lots of wind. I was really kicking myself for not taking advantage of the absolutely perfect day that we had on Tuesday. March in Illinois isn't exactly the best month of picture taking- you'd think that a life time of living here would have taught me to get up and move when we have a beautiful day in March. I tried my best on Wednesday, I really did.

I ended up with four pictures. The first one- his eyes are closed. The second and third ones- his eyes are closed, and he's shielding them from the sun. One of them, he looks stoned, and I do not want people to think that I drugged my son (I don't). But... the fourth picture. Oh my gosh, I'm loving the look of this picture. I had placed myself just right, I managed to keep his hands from heading for his eyes again, and his eyes are open! Yay!

I'm loving the angle here- that has to be my favorite part of this picture. I've used it before, but not on a picture so... bright. But, enough on the picture. I created this layout for the P4D Design Class. This week's assignment is Emphasis. I used one of my kits for this layout- the My Ducky Kit, available at Elemental.

We shouldn't be afraid to use color in our layouts. I was so nervous about this kit- I didn't know if it would sell, I thought that I might have limited it too much with the duck images... But- it's selling. Yay! People want color! And not just any color, but bright color! Woohoo!

One last thing before I leave you... If you have ever purchased one of my kits through Elemental, I would love to see what you've done with those kits! Please, feel free to email me at tracey@pagesoftheheart.net so that I can see what you've done.

Time

As a designer, it's important to me to know what my customers want. Because of this, I joined a mailing list for digital scrapbooking customers. The entire idea behind the list is to offer a neutral place for customers to express their opinions and for designers to learn without feeling attacked. It's a sharing environment, and so far, it's been great.

Today, a customer made a comment that it sounds like many designers do not have the time to listen to their customers. Her comment implied that designers will not make the time to listen. Her comment got me thinking. This whole discussion started over a website. Some designers stated that they just don't have the time to check a website on a regular basis- they have other commitments. One customer came back with the 'now I hear that designers don't have the time to listen to their customers.'

I have an email sitting here that I haven't sent yet. I'm debating it. I don't want to sound like I'm flaming or anything, because I'm not. I'm pasting part of the email below, because it states exactly what I feel.

Every day, I see designers bending over backwards to help the customers. There are many designers who are on design teams or who frequent message boards and who answer questions and give feedback for layouts. We see it here just as much as we see it anywhere else- we saw it with the discussion over drop shadows, we saw it with the discussion of coming up with a list of standards, we see it whenever a customer makes a suggestion or has a complaint. Yet, when a designer stands up and says ‘what a second, I don’t have the time for that’, the designer is told that they don’t care about their customers or what their customers think. This just isn’t true.


I'm one of those designers who belongs to a design team and who tries to help customers out whenever I can. I don't enjoy being told that I shouldn't stand up and complain when I see something that I feel won't work. Hey- my opinion is just as valid as the next person's.

I don't think that the site will have the same effect as the mailing list. There are too many designers who won't join the site or who won't visit the site often enough to actually take into account the comments being made there. The way that it is set up now, more designers are able to see the comments and are able to act on them. They don't have to remember to go check out a site. They don't have the same risk of skimming messages or ignoring posts completely. I'm more likely to read every email from a group than I am every post on a message board. At least how fast I can access emails isn't dependent on bandwidth. If a site is slow loading, I'm less likely to visit that site. I know many customers who are like this.

I highly suggest that customers join this list. It's a great place to post your thoughts and feelings so that most designers see them. It'd be great if all designers joined the list. The intentions behind it are awesome- and I've learned so much in my short time there. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DigiScrapCustomers/

Thinking Outside The Box

My layout for the critique.

I signed up for a layout design and critique class through Promos4DigiScrappers. The first lesson was on how to critique a layout. Great lesson- awesome experience, so far.

But- I do have a slight complaint. When I posted the above layout, I was expecting to hear more on design type issues and not what I did hear- which was that this layout was too feminine for a boy. Or rather, 'when I first saw this, I thought that it was about a girl'. Someone even commented on having it in a boy's album.

Uh- wait a second. These sound like stereotypical comments. Boys are not all about dirt and mud and bugs and cars. Granted- those are huge factors (I am the only person in this family who has to sit down to pee, afterall) in a boy's life, but it's time to step outside our comfortable little boxes and look at the big picture.

The colors are blues and browns- those a typical boy colors, so the problem isn't there. The problem is in the flowers. Wait. Flowers. Apparently, flowers are too girly for a boy layout. We should be challenged to think outside the box in all aspects of our lives. This includes using florals on boy layouts and dirt browns on girl layouts. Not all little girls are pink and frilly girly girls (one of my step nieces is happier playing in the mud in jeans and tshirt than she is in playing tea party in a frilly lace dress). Not all boys like getting dirty (the son in question here is complusive about keeping his hands clean... and he's not three yet).

Don't get me wrong- I'm not fighting the critiques. What I'm arguing for is that scrapbooking layouts are personal. There's always going to be something that the average viewer doesn't see. There's no way that I could do a layout with flowers on it with my oldest son- flowers don't fit his personality at all. But- I can get away with it on my middle son's layouts because flowers DO fit his personality.

Not all boys fit the stereotypes. I really think that when we are critiquing layouts, we should consider what we don't know about the person in the photo.