Women in Tile

The tile industry is overwhelmingly male-dominated. The women who have made their mark in tile are inspiring a new generation and we celebrated through a small social campaign on Women's Equality Day (August 26th). My goal was to create an image for the postings that did not identify a particular person but was representative of a strong woman, of any race.

Oh, my, the horrors

I was asked to collaborate for a podcast interview with a good friend and illustrator, Tim Davis, about the role of illustrations in literacy. The Afterword podcast is excellent. Listening to myself is akin to swimming in the ocean and hearing the Jaws music score. I had no idea I speak so slowly but I suppose that’s a result of being raised in the South, plus an effort to be mindful of my words.

Part 1

Part 2

It’s the little things . . .

That time your boss called and said, “Cindy, could you design a set of coasters to give our members for holiday gifts?” Then called back and said, “Cindy, could you design another set of coasters for our members who are fans of the vine?” Such fun. The designs were produced on ceramic tile with cork backing and gift boxed in these sets of four.

Pretty Pinterest

Why Tile’s Pinterest channel is my baby, though I often refer to her as a teenager who is misbehaving. Pinterest can be fickle—changing dramatically with trends—which is exactly why I believed Why Tile should be active on this highly visual and DIY social channel. I started the channel in May 2018 with a couple dozen basic home decor boards. The effort was part experimentation and part personal challenge. We now have 128 boards that I update constantly in a response to trend patterns. We’ve grown to over 100K viewers with 5.5K engagement, 100% organic. While our viewer numbers bounce around, our engagement keeps steadily growing, even if our pins are fewer. My study of these analytics leads me to conclude our content is becoming more and more useful to the reader. Pinterest is now our top referring social channel driving viewers to our website. Next up: a little budget for paid postings; it will be interesting to observe the impact on our analytics and if our engagement percentage will grow at a different rate.

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Focused Editing

I have to laugh. My editing is anything but focused. In fact, my mind is thinking of a hundred things at once—who is the audience? what is the author’s voice? what’s the story goal? how many words/characters are needed/necessary? on which publishing platform will this appear? what’s the logic flow? does the average person know what this means? is that comma correct? should I capitalize this string of examples?—far more thoughts than if I’ve chosen the best word or not in a sentence. (And, I sweat that detail, too.) I do find a “zone” when I play with words and my “focus”
is simply one directive, to make the text as clearly understood as possible.

Below is a screenshot of some text I edited this week. I've blurred the image to protect the identity of this text but what you can see are my additions and edits in the name of clarity. My first edit is pink and my second review is green, blue text is a link, and black text is the original content.

While not much of the original content remains (and my green edits are proof that I even correct myself), the original content lays the critical foundation for the article. Just because I may edit heavily is no reflection on the value of the first draft. I love the process of editing that makes the content better and that would not be possible without the initial work.

Lexophile With Tile

I'm mostly writing and editing these days—a big helping of puns and creative writing mixed with a dash of technical wordsmithing. You'll find most of these musings in the blog section of WhyTile.com, a national marketing campaign to promote the use of ceramic tile and the craft of tile installation. 

Five awesome years at Legacy

A new adventure begins!

Grant writing presentation

This was fun. I've been writing grants for about 12 years. In the last six years I've written grants as part of my job and it's been at a very fast pace. I've written hundreds of grants (one day I'm going to try to count them). I realize most people write a few a year for their organization. If you are a full-time grant writer, you may get close to 75-ish a year. My record was 19 grants in one month. That left scars. Surprisingly, we got a number of those grants but I wouldn't recommend it. My little bit of advice is that whether you've written one grant or 10 or 100 grants, you learn something new with each opportunity. Create a structure so that you apply your lessons to the next grant . . . and the next. We are all doing good work. The key to getting a grant award is to tell your story well enough that your funder knows your story as well as you do, and it's a story they care about.

What's my weakness?

I've been exploring my strengths and weaknesses and I made a revealing discovery about myself. Read more in my LinkedIn article by Cynthia Faber Smith. It surprised me, too.

A little extra

This image was a high-performing post on Legacy's social media. The post had simple information about a regular school schedule after a snow day. The image has a bit of humor, reflects our Legacy Lions positivity, and is branded. It took me about 10 minutes to create this and the extra effort was well worth the engagement return.

My kids

Legacy's first appearance in the Greenville Christmas parade was thrilling for me. I stood in the crowd talking about my kids and had a whole corner of strangers on Main Street ready to cheer for the Lions. As the purple float came into view, one after another of my new friends shouted "Hear they come!" I jumped out into the parade route screaming and taking cell phone photos. After the float passed, I was asked "Which kid was yours?" I answered, "All of them!" The crowd erupted with laughter; they all thought I was excited about having a child from my family in the parade. I am so fortunate to know 1350 kids that I help each day reach their full potential. The kids love to take selfies. Here are a few:

I am often taking photos for the school but occasionally I am in a photograph. Below was captured by a photographer at a luncheon when my mentee told me she received a $30K scholarship to Benedict College!

Hidden Gems

Somewhere, in some doctor or dentist office, sometime in your past, you may have enjoyed finding hidden pictures in a Highlights magazine. Creating those illustrations are more difficult than you might think. One of Highlights’ long-time illustrators happens to live in Travelers Rest and we got together in 2014 to teach a Hidden Pictures workshop. The benefits of that workshop are now employing freelance illustrators in the Upstate. Two of our “students” received the highest Hidden Pictures honor by having their work in the 2018 Highlights calendar!

Rockin' Around

I've been slow to catch the Christmas spirit this year (too warm), but crafting this Christmas concert highlights reel has me ready to decorate the Christmas tree (finally).

T(W)hat's Creative?

Published as an article on my LinkedIn profile.

The image above is a photograph by Felice Frankel, one of the most creative people I have ever had the pleasure of working with. This is a photograph of peppers cooking in a pan with the cover on. Felice is known for envisioning science—showing us the beauty of fractals, microstructures, and our own human cells. In her bio she states her goal is to "encourage researchers to develop creative ways to visually communicate their work and to teach the next generation of scientists and engineers about the power of visual communication –– both to colleagues and to those outside the research community. I want the world to love science as I do."

Do I think Felice is creative because I would have never thought to take this photograph? Yes, I think that's what sparks us to say something is creative—we didn't think of it first.

So, how do we get beyond our own initial thoughts so that we can dip into our own creativity?

Rod Ebright once gave me 50 (or so) exercises to unlock creativity. Matt "PASH" Pashkow's book, Inspirability, ventures into the creative worlds of 40 top designers to ask them how they manage to be creative. Rod gave me some specific tools I have used reliably for over a decade (thanks!). PASH's interviews proved to me that talent doesn't always equal creativity and (for sure) it's not easy for anyone. But, I'll come back to Felice. I believe she really has the answer: creativity comes from intentionality and love.

I've art directed thousands of illustrations. When I didn't make a good match of artist to assignment, the work was usually late and mediocre. When an assignment synched with their style and medium, the work was joyful, quick, and with little editorial correction. Their creativity came from a love of the assignment. It was exhilarating to witness an illustrator hit their stride, act with freedom to create, see the challenges as fun, and intentionally invest themselves in a rewarding result. To do my job well as an art director, I have to figure out this love-match for every assignment or else figure out how to make the most of my misguided judgement.

Despite intention and love, we can also get stuck via a crisis of conviction or confidence. This is when we think we are not creative, when we've lost our mojo. I've talked enough illustrators (and myself) off the ledge over the years to have compiled eight suggestions from Rod and PASH and Felice that seem to help:

1. Turn it upside down, on it's ear, look at it in the mirror, read it backwards.
2. Look behind you—the sunset may not be as interesting as the sunset reflected in the windows of a beautiful barn.
3. Inspire yourself by going to a museum or a library or just go shopping and open your eyes.
4. Take a bath. A long hot bath or shower works wonders for me. When something is especially challenging, I rate it not in stars but in showers—"That was a two shower solution." This also means I've likely slept on it. Fresh eyes can be very powerful, either your own or through a colleague's review. (I always have a colleague review my work.)
5. Take a bath. This kind of bath is a long walk in nature, literally called Forest Bathing. It's the best kind of meditation/mindfulness for me and it's amazing how the exercise coupled with nature activates the little grey cells.
6. Don't ever cop out by saying, "there's no need to reinvent the wheel." In this age of sharing, give others their due, build yourself through known expertise, and form alliances that make you both stronger. You cannot literally copy someone's work and successfully apply it to your circumstances anyway . . . you'll have to put your own air in the tire at the very least.
7. You don't know what you don't know. Do your research; it's often inspiring.
8. Develop a reputation for creating concepts that work, not for doing what you want. Keep your opinions to yourself so that you are known for your expertise. If you can approach a problem objectively, your mind is open to solutions beyond yourself.

And, there's one more point to make. That colleague who always plays the devil's advocate is doing you a favor. Listen to them. Take a few showers, if need be, and use their perspective to make sure you've kept #8 in mind. Or, maybe, that devil will help you practice #1.

Smoke and mirrors

I revel when someone says at a photo shoot that "Cindy can fix it in photoshop." The most challenging work I've done recently was a composite of the boy's national basketball team. I was taking the photos that day because the photographer I had scheduled was sick. I struggled to get these active teens to focus for one good shot. The first image is the base photograph and the second is the composite I created from multiple images in order to capture everyone at their best. The poster was created by Derick Harris.

My Social Media Wedding (Strategy)

I have two big buckets of skills. One bucket is Design and the other bucket is Writing. Who knew that they would meet and fall in love? Admittedly, my writing has always been a bit of a stalker of my design work. Most editors have been grateful that I cared about the words, too. For event planning, I'm a one-stop shop. My publishing experience taught me to copy fit for space (yeah, like Twitter on steroids). I learned to be a skilled copyeditor and then to write captions and headlines, then reporting and articles. It's a beautiful union to write a story, take the photos, and then design the presentation, either in print or online. Social media gives me this opportunity and challenge multiple times a day.

Social Media is a powerful communications tool. However, it requires engagement. Success is often measured by likes and shares but even more powerful is mentions. A healthy social media program engages and builds relationships with followers. In effect, followers lead you to—and help you build— meaningful content.

Want to build relationships?

• Be authentic. 
• Celebrate, be grateful, and always be positive.
• Reciprocate to followers when they comment.
• Be immediately responsive to questions and direct messages with answers. 
• It takes 24/7 monitoring to make your social media a safe place for comments. 
• Become a trusted resource for clear, accurate information. Consider yourself a reporter and abide by reporting ethics, ie. don't report anything unless it can be confirmed, be nice, and don't take sides.
• Make every post specific to your audience, ie. your Veterans Day message should highlight veterans from your organization, not just be a generic Veterans Day post.
• Brand flyers with your logo so followers can print and share.
• Resist using social media as just a bulletin board. 
• Use video, photographs, gifs.
• Create some infrastructure to support you—key individuals you can rely on to answer texts promptly so that you can reply to a worried parent and a rich pocket of contacts who will keep you in the loop about information your audience needs.
• Shout out and mention organizations and people who support you and especially those you want to support you in the future.

Use technology to your advantage—

1. Set Google alerts for relevant topics.
2. Program your phone to alert you for activity on posts.
3. Use Hootsuite (or similar) to manage multiple platform posts.
4. Use Asana (or similar) to manage your strategy and delegate tasks, if needed. Yes, there's a strategy to it so use that strategy for it's best purpose—Twitter and Facebook posts are not the same. Your audience peaks at 4 pm...post at 3:55 pm. You have the most engagement with photos of adorable children. Your following businesses actually follow you...mention them, thank them, comment on their posts.
5. Review analytics to make sure you are posting content your audience cares about.

Social media takes much more time to do well than we are usually willing to admit. There's still a stigma that equates social media to pics of cute puppies. Get over it. Unlike other communication tools such as direct mail and telephone marketing, social media gives us an opportunity to truly build communities with people and businesses. That means you have to care and be able to put yourself in your audience's shoes... and then dance around in them. The effort increases the results exponentially, as only social media can—greater audience, more event participation, and larger fundraising dollars.

See a screen shot below of my recent Asana social media calendar tasks.

Quickie Videos

I am skilled just enough to put together small, quick videos for social media with iMovie and a personal video camera. 😊  Bonus: Most organizations don't have the personnel to do this so if you create a movie and tag a partner organization, you've given them a wonderful gift that they can use on their social media, which grows your social media reach. 

Legacy Early College Design Portfolio

Legacy's annual golf tournament and gala

Double truck ad in the Greenville News for Legacy's first graduating class and Parker's 90th reunion.

Middle School postcard, graphics created in Photoshop.

24-page comprehensive development booklet—concept, photography, writing and design

Small development brochure, the concept, all photography, writing, and design created by me. On an added note, I created this in two days over the weekend.

Postcard for Legacy's annual basketball tournament. You can also see in this photo the banner design I created for the tournament.

Our Top Stories flyer was a popular flyer for recruiting events.
We also used this content for a donor e-blast and a parent e-blast.

Photography, writing, design, and management of translation

Save the date postcard

Legacy's CrossFit facility business cards and t-shirt design.

Do you believe in ghosts?

I'm a skilled ghostwriter, with appearances in the Greenville News, Greenville Journal, and guest blogs. Here's a recent OpEd I wrote for Legacy leadership.

Recommendations

I recently reached out to some connections to ask for their recommendation on LinkedIn. I am honored by the responses.

It's a Revival!

Someone just asked me if I blogged. I haven't contributed to this public blog in years—I even had trouble remembering my password. This was a fun and useful project when I was relocating. Now that I'm settled in "sunny Carolina," I'll get us caught up on my accomplishments and challenges and begin posting regularly again. Welcome back!

Pretty Darn Quick (PDQ)

It's the name of the game: silk purse stuff...making something out of nothing...we need it yesterday...you get the picture. Here's a collection of items I've produced at Converse pretty darn quick. Although most communication products usually come with a PDQ deadline, I'm especially proud of these recent quickly produced projects.

The Converse Diversity Club held their 3rd annual Love-In, a day to celebrate acceptance at all levels. This year, they showed the film Bully and sponsored a campus discussion. They wanted to give all the students who came to the film a t-shirt. They decided this just before term break and needed the shirts produced in one week. I created the design in a morning, a positive play off the film's tenet "stand against bullying." 

When Converse was advised to alter their affordability message, the admissions department wanted to get a financial guide in the hands of accepted students right away. I was asked to produce a brochure PDQ. The design I developed is half the size of our recruitment brochures (an effort to keep the branding and allow the piece to stand out from other communications but minimize the impression that the process is overwhelming). Because the brochure was produced in one day, I didn't have time to arrange a photo shoot. I bought a royalty free image and in order to make the image look uniquely Converse, I used Photoshop to place the Converse Viewbook on the desk in the image.

A College campus produces many events. Publicity for these events usually has to happen PDQ and at little to no cost. I produced this poster in less than an hour by using a purchased border graphic, photos from the speaker, and a Creative Commons photo of Susan Smith. The photo was a simple mug shot but it worked with the graphic subject matter. I also used a manipulated free typewriter font to reflect the news sensationalism of the subject.

Another PDQ is the 48-page reunion memory book (see older post from 3/25/13). I designed the book and cover in one day. While the body of the book was being proofed on the second day, I researched trivia and alumnae interviews to augment the book. Blurb books only take 7–10 days to print and ship...pretty darn close to magic.