Tag Archives: publication design

My Little Japanese Restaurant, Part 2

13 Nov

Work has stalled for several days on my little Japanese restaurant. Not intentional, but a good stall because there’s work at the office that is more important than DIY projects.

I have not been in the office physically for long durations ever since the pandemic started. Occasionally, I go in once a week. But in the two weeks, I was in the office daily to work on a digital publication for our client.

I even reduced my weekday golf games to focus on this project, playing only on Tuesday. And after the game, I head for the office. I must say it has been a welcome busy with my energy directed towards layout formats, grids, fonts, and such instead of tiny sushi, chairs, and accessories.

The publication finally closed yesterday. And I have a little break from today onwards, so perhaps I can go back to complete project number six by the coming weekend without any interruption.

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My Little Japanese Restaurant

2 Nov

Project #6 started well two weeks ago but has slowed down because of circumstances. Number one being my golf schedule. Last week I played four times, on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday. I would have played on Sunday too if it wasn’t for the rain and the course was closed. Then I also had to work.

I should be thankful that we are getting design work from our clients, and I have been going into the office daily with hubby. Even on golfing days, after lunch, I was in the office instead of staying at home. So in between the golfing days and the office, there was hardly time to focus on the DIY set.

And by the time we get home, prepare dinner, eat and clean up after that, there’s no more energy left. It is too tiring to sit at my station to concentrate on the set.

Well, the first floor of the main structure is up, and my little Japanese restaurant is starting to look good with what I have managed to complete so far. I’m just saving difficult tasks for later when I can sit down without interruption and focus.

Furniture and decor pieces are done!
Itty bitty pieces

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Twelve Hours Later, Part 2

10 Jul

When I was working on that stressful publication design project not too long ago, the timeline and deadline was simply ridiculous. It’s every designer’s nightmare but I pulled through.

Will I subject myself to such nightmare design projects ever again? Well, when a client is of utmost importance despite no room for negotiations on the deadline, we have to be as professional as possible. (We’re talking about the government of the country here!)

The urgency to meet the deadline was very critical because the project was a very high-level publication for submission to the United Nations. And looking back, stress aside I am proud to say my team and I have done our part because our work is now uploaded to the United Nations’ website for the world to see!

I hold my breath as we will continue with the client again for the second publication, which thankfully has a more reasonable timeline, no festivity holiday ahead and we have no travel plans.

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Twelve Hours Later

26 Jun

Last week, we intended to leave town on Friday morning but there was a hitch. A big hitch. I had mention we will arrive when we arrive but little did I know it would be 12 hours later that we began our journey…

It all started from that last minute publication design project that I was working on. The original deadline of Monday set by the client was not met (not because of me but them). Then it got pushed to Wednesday but the client still could not finalize the editorial. What happened thereafter was just a designer’s nightmare. It’s been a long time since I have been subjected to such a situation.

After being informed that Wednesday night’s handover to me was good to be worked on, a Friday deadline was given and it couldn’t budge. Not even an inch. So I basically had only a day (Thursday) to work on the new stuff. One day to redesign what I had done earlier because there’s so much more information! The design ended up being revamped and expanded from the initial 60-pager to 80-pages. My team helped wherever possible.

And as if the situation wasn’t stressful enough, things were still under edits that Friday morning and more new materials to include came after the redesign was done! Can you believe it? Leaving town that morning was not an option because I don’t think I can leave with a peace of mind if this wasn’t completed properly. Thank goodness we were driving instead of flying.

To cut a long story short, after a flurry of phone calls on Friday morning, the client came over, at 3.00pm and not earlier unfortunately. They sat with me and together, we finalized all the details of the publication. It was 6.00pm when we eventually completed the task in hand. What a day Friday turned out to be!

Twelve hours later (9.00pm) from our intended time of departure, we started our journey. Traffic was heavy at certain stretches but thankfully not bumper to bumper due to the holiday break and took the usual time because of the distance. It was 2.40am when we finally arrived at the grandparents’ home up north.

Today we head back home and hopefully traffic will be kind. All in all, it was a good break despite the unexpected circumstances to the start of it.

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