Thoughts - 25th May 2010

25th May 2010

I have rather enjoyed doing this and will miss it. I think I am a project manager at heart - and why I was so good at my last job. Over the weekend I went through some old school books that my dad had removed from his lot. I found lists and diaries and more lists. I cannot understand why I was never encouraged to become a librarian. If I can find a way of being a project manager, a photographer, a librarian then I think I would be happy... is that role a gallery curator? I need to find out.

Things will not slow down really for me as over the summer I intend to work on the 'Overton Family' book that I am creating.

Thoughts - 24th May 2010

24th May 2010

Books had their final proof over the weekend. This morning I sent them to Blurb. Total cost £67.62. I can only have them on standard paper as the page count is over 160. I think I have slightly misunderstood something about the Blurb pricing - but none-the-less it should all be OK.

Created, uploaded and ordered 50 business cards from Moo. Total cost £15.99. I have used 14 different images from the books on the reverse side of the cards and this image on the other side.

I will display them in the business card holders and the use of the asterisk will tie in with the asterisk on the front covers of the books.

I have been asked many time times "Why does it say Helvetica* - what does the asterisk mean?" so with this at the bottom of the books it will now make sense.

The books and business cards should arrive before 2nd June - wow that is only about a week - these guys are fast.

FedEx redelivered the items from Euroffice and they look great. Seeing the DL leaflet holders reminds me that I have thought about creating a leaflet to encourage people to purchase things. I shall work on that over the next couple of weeks

Posters will be printed shortly - so everything is done as far as it can be until the exhibition spaces are created.

I am going to carry on with my blog right up to preview night - but this is as far as I can go as far as my sketchbook is concerned.

Thoughts - 27th May 2010

27th May 2010

Ordered loads more stuff just to make sure I have chucked as much as possible as I can to this project. Very excited about it all arriving and putting it all together. I now have a business card holder for each book so that the asterisk idea is on each one. I have created a 'story of helvetica' postcard and ordered 60 from Moo. I have also created a helvetica timeline which I might print off myself as a postcard. I reorganised the helvetica items for sale leaflet and ordered some double sided paper from ink2paper and I will print those off myself. I asked at the college shop if they did colour copying to get them printed at college as all the online places I tried do not do short run orders. The college shop said "Yes we do colour copying - but not for students." Well that surprised me, I shall take my business elsewhere. The college shop can do the posters too but it will be on photo quality paper and charged by the metre at £7.69 for gloss on 195gsm and £5.49 for matt on 120gsm.

Decided to list all the items I had purchased to complete this project - I will share them here ....

67.62 Blurb books

15.99 Business cards

24.98 Vinyl holders

44.50 Helvetica products to resell

20.00 Tee shirt

62.34 Printer Ink

60.00 Trip to Cardiff

28.64 Postcards

13.00 Double sided paper

I also bought 3 books about helvetica and the blue ray disc of the film was bought as a Christmas present.

TOTAL COST around £350.00

I am hoping that some items will be purchased at the show and that will help re-coup some of the costs.

Thoughts - 21st May 2010

21st May 2010

Into college for morning to share out the winnings from Chev competition around with rest of team. Arrived 8.30am to be told they cannot open up rooms early anymore because of an 'incident' yesterday neither can we stay in classroom to work through breaks or lunch. I like coming into class less and less.

Need to see if college shop can print the 2 posters. 1212mm x 304mm and 1212mm x 594mm and how much that might cost. Also my mate has a plot plan printer which I can use for free but need to check out the quality of the paper. The posters do not need to be robust or fancy as I want it to be like wallpaper, pasted to the wall and have the book holders screwed through it. Paper quality is less of an issue and I do not want to keep it after the event. Only thing I want after the event is the books and the holders. Will get a sample of the paper to see what it is like.

Had a tutorial which comprised Steve sitting and reviewing where I had got to. He has suggested that I think about getting specific business cards created that match the whole exhibition - this is something I had thought about and I still have time to do it. They would look good. He also suggested perhaps having a website that shows off the helvetica work link it to my own website. I could create a helvetica project gallery within my galleries but I do not think I want to create a whole new website. I know I do things fast and love being busy but I know that once the FMP work is out of the way I have to get on with creating my business plan. I therefore do not think I will be doing new website as I need time to concentrate on that this weekend.

Home to see if Mr Love has sent me his words and there was a FedEx 'sorry we missed you' card - think the book holders have arrived. They are re-delivering them on Monday morning.

2pm

Text has arrived from Mr Love - it is perfect. Brilliant. Right now I can complete books do final proof and send them off this evening.

4pm

Preface now added to all three books. Had a final proof read and have updated/amended about half a dozen pages. Will leave it for half an hour and then have a final look through before sending books.

Mr Love would like a copy of a book. I think the best thing to do would be to send him an image of the exhibition once it is up and ask him which of the three books he would like. And perhaps I can get another set printed up then.

Thoughts - 20th May 2010

20th May 2010

Working out how the exhibition stand will work now that I have changed the look/design of the books and the imagery. Had confirmation that the space will be 7 feet by 4 feet 2133mm deep x 1212mm wide. Now I have this I can decide how to lay things out.

The top poster (helvetica*) needs to be 304mm deep x 1212mm wide and the a b c posters need to be A2. I printed out shapes to scale to see how all the component parts would work together. Decided that I need to have more control over the letters because it is important that they sit on the same baseline and if I am sticking 3 posters onto a wall they will not follow the same line. Created the a b c as one poster and this will need to be 594mm deep x 1212mm wide.

Need to source options on where to get two large posters like this printed - costings and timescale.

Contacted Mr Love and said if I do not have his words before 2pm I would be sending the books to the printers without his preface. He replied saying could I wait until tomorrow morning as he was in London - I said yes. I will go into college in the morning and then go home to deal with Mr Love's words and create the pages for the book and then send the books to Blurb.

Ordered the acrylic holders 3 x A4 book holder; 2 x business card holder; 2 x DL leaflet holder.

Realised preview night (18th June) is 4 weeks away. I thought it was 3 - so now I have less panic. Blurb can take 2 weeks so I don't mind waiting for Mr Love. His original deadline was 10th May ... it's all about man management and you have to build in tine for people to miss deadlines. It is the hardest part of any project to deal with the intangibles.

Thoughts - 19th May 2010

19th May 2010

Walked around Burton and took the final images for the Burton Book - boy was it warm. Got home to convert the images into pages for the book. I reviewed the book to make sure the images looked good and flowed together - some were not quite right and so I changed them.

Onto Booksmart to duplicate the Ashby book - remove the Ashby specific pages and replace them with Burton specific pages. I did the same for the Cardiff book and the Cardiff pages.

I now have all three books waiting on to go. I just need Mr Love's words for the preface. I will give him till 2pm tomorrow (Thursday). If he is unable to send me anything by then I will amend the contents page and create 2 pages of images for the pages where the preface would have sat.

My favourite image from today is this:

I need to think about all the bits and bobs associated with my exhibition space now tha I have had a rethink about it and will not be using the teardrop shape. Tomorrow I need to be at home rather than college as I need to sort things out that are on my home PC and I need to get on with sketchbook which is a publisher document and not compatible or workable on the Macs.

List of things to do tomorrow:

- Chase Mr Love

- Prep final 3 pages accordingly

- Send books to Blurb and pay for them

- Order items from euroffice.co.uk - 3xbook holders; 2xbusiness card holders; 2xDL leaflet holders

- Sketchbook

- Prepare 3x posters for exhibition

- Think about Open Here comp - www.photofest.org/openhere

Thoughts - 18th May 2010

18th May 2010

Woke up to a power cut. Thankfully it was only for about an hour between 6.30-7.30am but began to really panic abnout what to do about everything!

I keep seeing advertisements for the Olympus OPEN wherethey are using an image shown through the letters of PEN - hope no-one things I have copied this idea.