I made a portfolio book from scratch, and despite my lack of knowledge when it comes to using tools and building things, I think it turned out well.

The cover is made out of wood, which I stained with two coats of Minwax. The first coat of stain took about 10 minutes to dry, while the second coat of stain took 3 days to dry.

I used continuous hinges on the inside, 12" long. The posts are screw posts from Lowe's, 1/4" long.

The prints inside are actual photos, 11" x 17", which makes it easy to swap out for new images in the future.

There are currently 14 pages, but there is flexibility to grow in the future.

As members of Design West Michigan, we received the perk of having a trial membership to the Grand Rapids Art Museum. We took advantage of this a few times to check out the ever-changing exhibits, and the educational Friday Night Conversation series. The focus of the series for the month of June was 2D and 3D design, which was perfect for a pair of design junkies like ourselves.

One particular conversation series (Design/Educate/Connect) featured 6 interviews with a variety of local design entrepreneurs from different sectors of the design community. Featured were Benjamin Gott, creator of Boxed Water, Nicolai Czumaj-Bront, furniture designer at Haworth, Rick DeVos, mastermind behind Art Prize, Josh Higginson of Premier Skateshop, Chad Miller from Restaurant Bloom, and Nick Stockton of Teamwork Design. Each designer shed light on how their respective businesses came about, how they are influenced by everyday design, and how they use design in their business.

You might ask, how does design relate to a restaurant? Well, in Restaurant Bloom’s case, its simple. Chad talked about how design influenced everything from his choice of dinnerware to the way the food was displayed on the plate. Its easy to choose the cheapest item, but give design a little thought and your customers will notice the details.

When you open your mind to the idea that design is involved in everything you do, your concepts become more functional and more aesthetically pleasing.

The highlight of the evening for me was listening to Rick DeVos explain how Art Prize came about, and what to expect this year. If you visited Art Prize last year, you know the impact it had on the Grand Rapids community. Personally I cannot wait to go back this year.

In closing, a quote that really stood out to me was explained by Nicolai Czumaj-Bront. When asked how ideas come to him when creating beautiful, yet functional pieces of furniture he stated that when you look at a caterpillar, you never expect that the end result will be a butterfly.

Think about design the same way. Things aren’t always as they seem. What can you create today?

We often get clients requesting a new logo design for one of 2 reasons: 1. They are a startup business. 2. They are in need of a change, either because their old logo does not represent their business and identity well, or they are undergoing some "internal changes." Unless you've been living under a rock, you know by now that Jay Leno is retiring from the Tonight Show, and being replaced by Conan O'Brien. What happens when "new management" takes over a company? Inevitably there are going to be some changes, and in this case its a new logo. You might remember the old logo, which looks like this:

The new Conan logo looks like this:
O'Brien had this to say about the new logo... "I wanted a logo that acknowledges the long, rich tradition of The Tonight Show while still looking good on hats, t-shirts, mugs, lawn furniture, notebooks, stemware, urns, defibrillators, water bottles, cell phones, sports equipment, pens, vacuums, chimes and our new line of unisex cologne."

What do you think of the new logo? Was it time for a change, or do you like the old logo better?