In 2003, after moving out on my own for the very first time, I got a call from a friend who works as a customer service rep. for a local printer here in Central PA. They told me there was a book that was in need of a graphic designer to create layouts and prepare files for print and thought it would be ideal for me. At the time, any freelance work would be appreciated since I needed to make ends meet and pay rent, so I decided to meet the person in charge of the book and go from there.
I'll admit right now, this project was the sort that really tested me and tried me a lot. I worked all sorts of crazy hours for months trying to get this completed on top of working my normal hours at the magazine to design ads and also postscript each page and send them off to our printer. There were definitely a lot of lonely hours spent sitting at the computer in the dark, quiet office cranking on designs and layouts and revises until the wee hours of the morning. Still, all things considered, I really am proud of this piece.
It was really fun to design something that I've never gotten the chance to work on before. Working for the magazine, I design things for local business mostly, and I didn't really work on editorial layouts that often because my duties as the production manager didn't give me much latitude beyond keeping up with designing ads and then postscripting. Plus, something that was interesting was designing with an entirely different audience in mind, because I had never gotten the chance to work on something like cars before.
All things considered, I was very proud when the contact for the project told me how happy they were with my layouts and I managed to get their book to look head and shoulders above any previous attempts they had tried. I designed another book for them the following year, which they did love as much, if not more, as this one.
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