I love that it’s finally feeling like spring here in New York, because that means it’s that much closer to my absolute favorite season…Summer. I spent an afternoon planting some seeds, getting the first italian ice of the year, and exploring the weather. I went out with only my fairly new 50mm f/1.8 lens that I got for my birthday. I’m trying to get the hang of it and use it for photos other than portraits, which this lens is awesome for.

So way back in the day when I was about to start college, I got a letter in the mail from the graphic design department (called Interactive Digital Design at my school) urging incoming students to come equipped with a Macbook. They want me to get a Mac?! I didn’t understand. The world of Macs were a foreign land to me which I thought were only reserved for super nerds and fancy people or something. I had only used one way back when it still had the bubbly interface while I was taking my first photography class in 7th grade in 2001. Woah.

I was worried that the Mac would be sooo different from my PC and hard to learn. WHAT THERE’S NOT TWO CLICK BUTTONS?! I was comfortable with my PC and didn’t want change! I knew how to work my Paint Shop Pro and everything was fine and dandy. But my parents urged me to get a MacBook for my new laptop to head to college with, because that’s what my future professors recommended. And nowadays, I can’t believe I ever hesitated getting that first Mac! Soon enough I realized that Macs are less complicated and that I liked designing better on them. Ironically I am now kind of a super nerd.

These days i’m getting more and more into minimalism. Here’s some of my favorite things I use to keep my workflow simple:

Notational Velocity (& Simplenote)

Hands down my favorite Mac OSX app of all time. I use the program Notational Velocity for all of my word processing needs. I love the stark simplicity of it & how super quick it takes to load and use. I’m not a fan of Microsoft Office (even the mac osx one) because I find it too bulky and slow to open up. Basically, when I have something in my head I want to write down, I want to write it down NOW. Same for when I want to open a text file. Everything from the keyboard and everything saves automatically, no need to hit a button!

I organize my blog post ideas and drafts in one text file where I can work on some posts in chunks. I also use the website Simplenote (an iphone app too) and have it synced with Notational Velocity if I want to access my word files and i’m not on my laptop! That way I can always have my blog posts & other text files when I want to work on them.

Quicksilver

Quicksilver is a quick launch application that eliminates the need to use your dock to open programs, or clicking to open anything for that matter. Takes a some getting used to, but it’s well worth it.

iGTD:

This one is for Getting Things Done. I was a big fan of the app ‘Things’ after hearing about it from a professor, but didn’t want to shell out the money for it. I found iGTD as a great alternative. I mostly use it for long term goals instead of short to-do list goals…It’s great that you can have different categories. I have “design” “etsy/crafts” “art” “blog” “personal” and you can easily view all of your goals in one place, assign certain urgency for them, and cross them off when you’re done.

One of these days I will pay for the ‘Things’ app [especially now that iGTD is discontinued!] The UI is way pretty.

Evernote

I was a bit late to the game on this program. Now I can’t remember what I did before it. Some ridiculous combination of copying and pasting links to webpages that I wanted to save. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you how great this app is :)

Other essentials: Dropbox, Espresso (instant previews when coding!)

Notational Velocity | Simplenote | Quicksilver | iGTD | Things | Evernote | Dropbox | Espresso

I didn’t get paid to say anything about these apps. I just really love them!

I’ve been working on a re-design of this space and my personal identity in general, and the ah-ha! moment has yet to happen. Frankly that has left me feeling less than inspired to post. Although, I DID re-design My Portfolio site– I always have an easier time with that than the blog. Anyone else have that problem?

I’m going to try the opposite approach now of pushing through and creating content instead of waiting for the design lightbulb to turn on!

I don’t think i’ve mentioned this but I have been unemployed of a normal full time job since the end of February. Since then, I’ve been luckily up to my eyeballs in freelance work, traveling, playing in roller derby games almost every weekend, and last but not least..thrifting during the day!

One of my favorite shops is a bike ride-able distance from where I live, and is only open early during the day from Tuesdays-Saturday. (I just realized they’re open Saturdays mornings instead of just during the week like I thought!) Now that i’ve been around during the day I get overly excited for ample thrifting time.

I tweeted about the fact that I broke my rule about not buying anymore house ware stuff until I moved–Oops. I just couldn’t say no to a Powerpuff girls plate and vintage mushrooms :)

Here’s the haul I got from the Bellport Methodist Thrift Shop and the local Savers to kick off May. (Long Island, NY)

A couple shots from my first visit to The Lone Star State from two weeks ago! It was really nice to have a break from New York/the east coast…especially since the state of Texas is pretty much the opposite. (Or at least it seemed that way to me!)

East Austin reminded me of Brooklyn a lot– we ended up there for some free shows coincidentally on a very crowded last day of SXSW. There was so much going on!

Finish my personal zine

DONE! I’m so glad I finally finished this. I started the zine way back when I was 22 (?!) In the end I realized I just had to get over that hurdle of perfection and feeling like it wasn’t good enough.

Start saving a trip fund

DONE! I’m a big believer that things are easier to remember when you have a pretty daily remember of them, amiright? Like, if I just told myself to put away a small amount of money each month into my savings account I probably wouldn’t remember to do it.

I cleaned out an old jar and cut a photo I took of the woods to fit flush up against the jar. I figured the photo could be switched out depending on the season or where you most want to visit next for inspiration.

Plant a garden

DONE! (ish) When I put ‘plant a garden’ on my list I actually pictured a full on vegetable garden, but since the summer was kind of crazy I didn’t have a lot of time to do that and it quickly passed me by. I knew that I still wanted some kind of garden and succulents seemed perfect. I now have a little indoor ‘garden’ of sorts that I love, so i’m counting this as completed :)

Start a vintage clothes wardrobe

DONE. It’s a small start! Kind of obsessed with the Levi’s denim jacket.

Sell prints on Etsy

1/2 DONE. I have designed the amount of prints I was aiming for but I haven’t gotten the chance to actually set up the shop yet. I’ve posted 2 sneak peeks already so I didn’t think you needed to see anymore photos of this :)

I missed 7 things which were:

Table at a craft fair . Volunteer somewhere . Learn to surf . Record a demo & design it . Host a potluck . Take a knitting class . Adopt a cat

Not bad. I’m really proud of myself for creating such an ambitious list. The full list and everything I finished is located here!

What i’m planning for this year:

Hello from Texas! Been taking some time off in San Antonio since Wednesday. Today we’re headed to Austin (i’ve been totally itching to visit for the first time) Don’t worry though, we’re not going to SXSW so you don’t have to be jealous :) We came to visit Matt’s family and just adventure around. I’ll be back soon!

I’m not sure that i’ll ever be one of those bloggers who feature a weekly collection of links they love. I really admire people who blog almost every day–if you haven’t noticed already i’m not a huge fan of sticking to a schedule. I’m inspired more by just the opposite I think!

However, I have found a bunch of things on the internet this week that I love and couldn’t help but share :]

» The Happy Monday podcasts are just awesome.
» Danasia launched a new website on Monday!
» Made in NYC is a neat collection of internet companies based in NY– great if you’re on the job hunt.
» Heather totally summed up how i’ve been feeling lately about my living situation, & added a positive spin to it. [via Sillygrrl]
» My good friend Brian designs rad educational iPhone apps, now there’s a full website for them. Slate & Tablets (love how the bottom says ‘call us maybe’)
» Still swooning over Daily Dishonesty.
» You should probably be listening to Laura Stevenson’s latest EP. Her voice never fails to send chills down my spine. Stream it on Bust.com!
» Kathleen of Braid Creative talks about the importance of narrowing in on your niche

We have tryouts for our travel team next weekend, and a written rules test tomorrow, so lately i’ve been very derby, derby, derby– which is a good thing! Trying to really push myself more both in what I need to work on and confidence wise. Watching a lot of videos on Youtube and thinking ‘Hey, I can do that move!’ always gets me beyond stoked for practice. Practice, practice, practice. Getting past the mental block of ‘I can’t do that.’

In other news, today I am officially no longer 24! I’m mostly celebrating next weekend with some good people, a day trip to Boston, and seeing one of my favorite punk bands. Tonight i’m headed home for birthday dinner with my parents and the boyfriend.

25 before 25 recap to follow, along with a new goal list–gotta add a couple more to finish it!
Kind of bummed about no longer squeezing by in the ‘early twenties’ age range (hah) But, there are some really great things happening lately that make me excited for 25 :]

I’ve been designing a series of typography prints over the course of a couple months now.

As i’m nearing the end of finishing touches & getting them test printed, i’ve also been doing some research to double check that everything is A-OK to sell. This means making sure that the fonts are able to be used in a commercial design as per their licensing agreement. This means that if a quote is used, it’s properly quoted as so people know where it came from. I have an in-progress design that I wasn’t planning on selling because the art is centered around a song lyric by a band that is active.

I don’t wanna self promote my upcoming shop right now, but more so I want to talk about trademark infringement and what’s okay to sell in the world of graphic design. While hunting for a little inspiration on Etsy on how shops are set up to sell prints, I came across some things that bothered me.

Personally, I get annoyed seeing so many graphic art prints that are simply just typefaces put together. It’s one thing if the fonts are edited & manipulated in some way, and accompanying other artwork, but it seems wrong for me to see prints being sold with little designing done (largely just featuring a font that someone else designed, in some cases).

I also noticed, and became aware that there are tons of possible copyright/trademark infringements on Etsy. There seems to be a blurry line. For example, there are many simple prints featuring the phrase “may the odds ever be in your favor” from the Hunger Games. I was under the impression that this was NOT okay to do, legally or respectfully. If I wanted to, I could quickly whip up a similar print and pop it up on Etsy for a profit.

This is not an attack on graphic design by any means. I’m very aware that simple/minimal design is not easy to do, and takes just as much time and work as a more complicated design. When I say ‘simple’ I mean that from working in the industry I can recognize when something was created without much effort.

Moving on!

How do you know if/what ‘fan’ art is okay to sell? Like the above example, if everyone is doing it it seems OK. Is the writer of the Hunger Games book going to take the time to sue someone over a $20 print? Probably not. Did the seller of the artwork get permission to use the phrase? Probably not. As far as I can tell from looking into it, the internet tells me that particular phrase is trademarked. It seems like you can create a lot of fan art and get away with it.

For me, I see this as a huge issue of respect. You might be able to create art centered around someone else’s idea and not have it reported, but is that really courteous?

All of this frustration makes me want to throw in the towel and not sell prints of my own. Maybe i’m just tired of seeing ‘Home is wherever i’m with you’ quote prints (as lovely as they are). In all seriousness, it bothers me to be taking a part in something where there’s such an unclear area of what’s right and not right. It seems like no one wants to talk about it.

‘Get Real’ is a new monthly-ish series on Completely Unfinished featuring honest ‘real talk’ & more personal posts.

I pretty much dislike every pair of eyeglasses i’ve had. Each time I get a new pair i’ll think…this is it, these are the ones! But really i’m just settling on whatever Costco or Zenni Optical has as a selection. During my last glasses adventure, I was excited to find a pair by Betsey Johnson. Even though I adore her I don’t adore the glasses as much as I should and despite my prescription I don’t end up wearing them much.

Every time I see a vintage pair of specs on the internet though, I fall in love. I imagine myself with a retro pair that will complete my ‘look’ and I know i’ll want to wear them all the time.

We all know how hard it is to find something you’re particularly hunting for, though. Every once in a while i’ll check out Etsy, and I happened to find these babies I was specifically looking for. Pretty neat, huh? Shuron Nulady glasses.

So I took a gamble and got them, and crossed my fingers multiple times hoping they’d look good on me. As you can see, not so much! They do need some bending/adjusting so they look a little overly wonky. Back on the hunt!

I’ll keep searching, and now I have an idea of what my face can’t rock. No cat eyes or Wayfarers. Next time i’m going to look in person so I can try them on. I will find the perfect pair of retro specs and feel fashionably awesome. One day!