New Year

I went for a walk on New Year’s Day in the morning. I found this abandoned frisbee in our town’s dog park. But no dogs and no walkers – I think it was way too cold for that.

I took 57 photos to get this one I like. I don’t mind those odds. It’s like doing design thumbnails. I have to do 56 sketchy sketches I don’t like before I get to one that I do. No way around it for me.

Holiday card ‘07

Our holiday card for 2007. The design came in second place in a contest to create the holiday card for Governor and Mrs. Jim Doyle. Although in that iteration, the dog collars in the upper right hand corner of the cover were two little mittens shaped like the state of Wisconsin.

I haven’t seen what the winning card looks like yet. I’m sure, though, that if there were a national competition for best Governor’s holiday card, our guy would win. A couple of years ago a political blog had a post about governors’ holiday cards. Have a look. Clearly, the bar is pretty low.

Mike Huckabee’s card that year included “a family picture, a short New Testament passage and a detachable recipe for green bean bundles. The recipe from the famously health-conscious governor requires a pound of bacon and a cup of brown sugar.”

Wow. Congratulations to the Doyles for raising the design intelligence of the whole country!