Last night I finished up a print piece that was going into a competition.  I am not a print designer by all means so doing print work was probably my biggest headache this month!  I have a customized built PC; C2D processor with 2GB of RAM.  Its fine working for web projects, but for print, it was a nightmare!  It was times like these I wish I had a Mac.

I had to make a 20×30” motivational poster featuring my army unit’s “Espirt de Corps.”  Keep in mind I did not volunteer to do this, someone else volunteered me!  They knew I am a designer in my civilian career but what they didn’t know is that I don’t do print!  I mean, I do know some print stuff because of where I work but I don’t have extensive experience with it.  I pretty much had no choice since there was no one else available.

I was assigned the project on February  2nd and I finished it all in one, which was yesterday the 13!  I mean I started some concepts about a week ago but due to my job and other things in my life I did not really put too much effort.  The person who was in charge of this emailed me to see the status and I just freaked because I had nothing to show.

Yesterday I went to Borders with a Starbucks inside.  I studied my A+ book for about an hour and a half then ventured off into the magazine aisle.  I went straight for the digital art magazines to get some inspiration. 

I found some good designs and wanted to use my camera phone to take sample to work off of but I realized that I think the whole magazine was worth it.  I looked at the price and it was $30! What the hell!  $30 for a magazine!  It was called “Advanced Photoshop” and it was from the UK.  Since this magazine inspired me, I decided to get it and use it as a tax write off!

I got home at 12pm and started.  I was just freaking out because it is due on Saturday!  I took a 30 minute break for lunch and took about a hour break to go work out.  As I progressed with creating the piece, Photoshop started to get slower and slower to the point it was taking minutes to save!  By the time I was done at 11pm, it was taking Photoshop 3 minutes to save!

Before I went to bed, I converted the pieces to PDFs and CMYK.  This morning, I went to Kinkos to go get it printed.  I know there is a lot of horror stories about that place but I did not have any choice.  So I dropped off my file, made my order and left.  Finished right?  NOPE!  I got back to my computer to take a look at my piece and I realized I spelt a word wrong!  Now I am freaking out again, I open Photoshop and it takes 3 minutes to open!  I then corrected the word, converted it, and drove back to Kinkos.  Got home and made myself a breakfast burrito.

Talk about procrastination! I can’t even to today to get a proof because I am having Valentines Day dinner with my girlfriend!  But I am sure they won’t mess it up.  The piece is on my portfolio, I know I could of done way better if I didn’t procrastinate but I would say it looks like a pretty solid piece!