Freelance Mania... or should I say pro bono mania...

Last night I got a call from a family friend to present concepts on the RAGBRAI (Register's Annual Great Bicycle Race Across Iowa) campaign for Jefferson, which is an overnight town on the race this year. I am really excited about the possibilities of this campaign, but also really nervous. I got the call on Wednesday night and I need to have concepts ready by Sunday! We are in the rough concept sketch phase, but being the over-achiever I am, I want to present more finished campaigns. I have some decent ideas, but I am finding it hard to get motivated to work on (thus me blogging!). I am working on concepting for so many campaigns right now it is a bit draining.

I was very honored to be asked to present concepts for Jefferson's RAGBRAI events. Jacque (the family friend) has also asked the two art teachers I had from elementary through high school. It's so crazy being considered on the same level as the people who started me on the very basics of art and design in my younger years! I would love to collaborate with both of my former teachers!

I am also working on Jefferson's annual Bell Tower Festival campaign, which has proven a bit more challenging in different ways than I had originally imagined. I am extremely excited to be able to help Jefferson out and (hopefully) give them a strong campaign that will create a more concise and fun image for the festival.

The Bell Tower Festival campaign is all revolving around a spray-painted look. We will use spray-paint to create the posters (above is a rough preliminary version) and stencils and spray chalk on the streets before and during the festival. The spray chalk should wash away in about 10 days. Using spray chalk would also be a really cool solution for RAGBRAI... but I don't want to be known as a one-trick pony. Because I am working on both campaigns, I am really trying to keep them unique and specific to their own needs.

I am also working on a friend's (Stephanie) wedding invitations (above are preliminary ideas). To give Stephanie & Beau the wedding invitations they deserve, I am giving them all of the design work as a wedding gift and we will make the invitations ourselves. Stephanie's colors are olive green, black, and silver as accents; she is also thinking of using decorative branches in some of the flower arrangements, hence the branch imagery in the initial invites ideas.

Whew! Thinking about all of that, on top of all of the extra projects I want to get done at my day job, I am feeling a bit overwhelmed. I better get to work on something...