Dream Job Fridays: Product Packaging Designer

okay guys, we're finally back on Fridays. (but i kind of miss the whole fridays on wednesdays thing, no? kinda shortens the week and keeps things interesting. do whatever you want, whenever you want kinda feel to it.)

anyways, did you know pepsi spent $1mm back in 2008 to revamp their logo?!

image from bnet oct. 27, 2008 article

...it still looks the same to me. i could have drawn you a better one for $5. haha, jk i know there's a ton of strategy that goes on behind it in the marketing realms.. but i can't help but think that $1mm could have gone towards a better cause. to help out the hungry or something. but anyways, whatever. that's business for you.

so that's not my dream job for today. but i thought i'd just share that interesting fact with you, cause it's been bothering me since i heard about it back in '08. and now i got it off my chest.


so today's dream job is... designing the packaging for products! that'd be more exciting. yes, i'm sure companies also spend extravagant millions on this, but i don't care about the money. i just think it would be pure fun. like... you know, when you wake up one morning and while taking your morning dump, it occurs to you that roasted cashews would be cool if they came in a pyramid shaped package. and BAM! you go into work... and make it happen. a few years later.. your random idea that came out of nowhere appears on shelves. i'd do this job for free. pretty snazzy.
here's another product design i found pretty unique: gloji goji berry juice:
view the rest here.

Dream Job Fridays: Greetings Designer

...and we're back!! i cannot tell you how much i look forward to dream job fridays. it's the one day of the week i allow myself to live for a few minutes in a dream world and pretend i'm seriously able to do what i love doing for those few minutes. if only life could be so spontaneous all the time!

gosh, i love designing custom greeting cards and writing messages. it would be so much fun as a full time job... and not just baby shower invites... but cards of all sort! birthday cards, wedding invitations, christmas, thank yous, congratulations... the list goes on. i could get used to that as my new job.

guess these side orders will have to do for now.

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"Hickory Dickory Dock, the shower's at ten o'clock, we'll have some fun with April Glock, Hickory Dickory Dock."

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Below is another invitation I recently wrote and designed for my co-worker's sister's baby shower. No picture yet-- they're currently being printed. She requested rhymes and also that everyone brought a children's book instead of a card, with their message written inside the cover... so I wrote that into the poem for her.

pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker's man,
bake me a cake as fast as you can
roll it, and pat it, and mark it with a b,
and put it in the oven for baby and me.

so join us for carlie's baby shower
on the third of april at the thirteenth hour,
to celebrate her expected boy
and to shower her with our love and joy

please bring a childrens' book for him,
or some tales from the brothers grimm,
attached to your gift in place of a card
and your message inside with fond regard.

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taking individual custom orders for all events! large quantities welcome... just email me.

Dream Job Fridays: Sesame Street

hey guys-- sorry it's been awhile. i've been wanting to write something in here, but didn't want to bore you with my nonsensical rambles, hence the silence lately. however, i should welcome you back with a treat: DREAM JOB FRIDAYS is back today! 

in case you've only joined recently, feel free to catch up here. (psst-- check out my favorite, posted 9/24/10, before his fame)

i've also had a lack of inspiration for these in the past year, since i've been quite blessed to be more than content with my current job-- thus, i haven't been dreaming about many other jobs lately. but this morning, a friend shared this link on her twitter, and i instantly fell in love with my childhood again. 

some days, i really do wonder if my calling is to go into children's education. after all, i teach piano, violin, and pilates-- and busy as it keeps me outside of my full-time job, i love every moment it. but for now, those shall remain my outlets for my teaching passions... guess i'll continue to store the rest up for motherhood or something. (or i'll just teach you how to dougie.)

anyways, in case i never get to motherhood, being an employer of Sesame Street shall be my back-up. as a child, i religiously plopped myself in from of the tube to watch SS every day-- at 9am after breakfast. (can't miss the number of the day, you know!!!) but now no longer a child, the only way to re-live it is to get in the mind of a child again. life must be so joyful if going to work every day meant creating a "Sunny Day" for millions of bright-eyed children, while helping them reach their learning potential at a young age... could you imagine actually getting to debut that little jingle about bananas, honey, and wombats that you hum in the shower every morning... on national PBS?!

not to mention, their offices look fantastical with their latest art additions!!!

source: a tour of sesame workshop's wall art

Dream Job Fridays: Pottery Barn Set Designer

one of my secret past times is perusing the home goods catalogs and websites like pottery barn and crate & barrel... and dreaming up interior design layouts. not really for my apartment or future home or anything, but creating ideaboards just for fun. i love it when people ask me to help them decorate or rearrange a new room, new house, or apartment, because this means i get to 1) play with paint chips, 2) reinvent the color palette, 3) play with lighting and 4) go paint and textile shopping! textures, finishes, colors, blends, thread count, opaqueness, lusters, and sheens... the spectrum goes on.

today, i got an e-mail from pottery barn, and the above image was embedded in it. for some reason, i just really loved this entryway cubby storage unit & bench... along with the neutral sand grey on the wall backdrop. everything was perfect in this shot... this would be perfect for a southern beach house or a northern michigan cottage! children can throw their beach toys in the drawers below, hang up their beach towels and straw sun hats on the hooks, and check their wind-strewn, damp from the lakewater hair in the mirror. and my favorite touch to this shot? the bouquet of pink flowers left for a special someone on the bench. :o)

seems like it's necessary to put another post in for my Dream Job Fridays... guess the wednesday is now the new friday! i didn't begin this post with the intention of it, but after i posted the first draft (without this paragraph), i realized this would be a cool job to have: being the catalogue set designer for the photo shoots. no client budget to work with, no pre-designated client space, and unlimited props to use!

i'm really looking forward to late may when beach season begins!


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oh, and by the way... i revamped the look of my blog this morning to mark new beginnings! officially closed out the chapter of "diving deeper" in my life, and i am now coming out of the depths of the dark waters feeling refreshed as i enter into a lighter, fresh season :)

Dream Job Fridays: Starbucks Entertainment Team

oops... sorry guys, haven't been too faithful to these posts in the last couple months... but i'm back! and on a wednesday b/c i just couldn't wait to post this one... so just make believe with me today here and pretend it's actually Friday, since we all love Fridays anyways... we could always use two Fridays in a week, right?

today's dream job is: working for the entertainment team of starbucks.

i imagine this would consist of browsing masses of files, looking for good artists and albums suitable for the cafe setting, then contacting the record label and the artist to meet with them and get a contract signed for distribution in the cafes. pretty awesome?

so i decided to do some research and look into it a little bit more.

the entertainment team is a 60-person team located in the 8-story headquarters building in south seattle. while most record distributors have been fighting the decline of the record industry with the era of digital music files offered through itunes, starbucks has been offering their labels at full price... and shifting the millions selling them. Every day, they receive 30-40 CDs, consisting of both major labels and unsigned artists.

this team is described as "avuncular yet businesslike, friendly yet doggedly on-message. He talks fluent retailspeak. Certain words recur with mantra-like regularity: customers, opportunity, experience." Ken Lombard, the President of the Entertainment Team says: "We are very protective of what we consider sacred and that is the coffee experience, and the only way that we are going to build this business is in a way that's integrated as part of that experience and adds value to that experience."

each record is handpicked, and their compilations are unique. it goes beyond simply offering good music in the cafes. their website states: "we are just as as passionate about music as we are about coffee. we pride ourselves in creating compilations you can't find anywhere else, because helping people discover their next favorite artist is one of our favorite things to do."

here is their vision behind the purpose the Entertainment Team serves: "In a lot of ways I viewed it as an idea in search of a format," says the 37-year-old MacKinnon. "Starbucks is the perfect way to accomplish the goal because we get to play music for 34 million people a week and hopefully build a trust with them."

"A lot of people have fallen out of the habit of listening to, discovering and enjoying music," says MacKinnon. "To me, it's about waking people up to having music back in their lives. The biggest goal for us is that customers ask baristas what's this that's playing?"

If Starbucks can change music-buying patterns as successfully as it transformed coffee consumption, retailers had better brace themselves. The revolution will be caffeinated.

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2005/oct/06/popandrock.marketingandpr

Dream Job Fridays: Erin Andrews

how do i get a job with the golden state warriors? this is my dream job of the day. perhaps become a finance analyst for them? better yet, PR manager? my friend's dad was the finance manager for the pistons back when we were in high school. their family had their own suite, and we watched the pistons play in the nba finals in '04 in their haydays. that was THE time of my life.

ive been diggin this #7 guy since hearing about him play in the ivy leagues... what more could you ask for? athletic, smart, taiwanese, and holy. better than tim tebow. my parents would approve. someone please get me a job today with the warriors so i can meet him! his dad grew up in the same town in Taiwan that my dad grew up in... perhaps they went to high school together. i should ask.

maybe skip the warriors. i want to become the next erin andrews. im diggin that idea. ESPN needs an asian sports anchor anyways-- diversify not just the sports teams but even their own employees. then, i can get free VIP admission to all the major sports events. who wants to be a finance analyst anyways? i think i have some relevant transferable skills from my public speaking class in the b-school and my experience from my cheerleading and gymnastics days! better start brushing up on my public speaking skills and devote more time to pilates and my marathon training plan... someone get me some heels and a mic, and get me an interview now please!

wonders of the U.S.

just returned from miami earlier this afternoon... i have TONS of posts to catch up on. (skipped two dream job fridays, whups... i'll make it up this weekend, i promise.) anyways, as i was traveling, i did a lot of reflecting. here is one of many thoughts that came up.

i love traveling.

and by that, i don't mean just vacationing, or going to warm or awesome places. it's interesting to see where people live, how people live, experiencing different cultures and languages, and most of all, meeting random people across the world. it began in 4th grade, when i was a HUGE geography bee nerd. to outlast the experienced 5th graders in our school district in order to advance to state finals, my mom bought tons of material for me to study, and i soaked myself in these atlases and national geography magazines for hours after school every day. it intrigued me to learn about the geography, topography, natural resources, local goods and crops produced, and peoples' languages, foods, and cultures. i memorized the capitals of each country and state, along with the largest cities in each and their population.

sadly, 12 years later, i forgot most of it. (i think i was smarter in 5th grade than i am now, but thats okay...) but if i had the time, i'd totally go through all of that material again and learn it all over again.

so this time when i was traveling, i remembered one of my life goals: "to travel to every single country in the world, including antarctica." it made me sad to think that i would never have even remotely enough money to do that.... :( how in the world was i going to fulfill this goal? i still don't know... but i do think it would be very cool.

last year, we drove down to key west during my spring break. that was awesome because we got to drive through all different types of climate and landscapes on the way down. this year, being my 3rd year in a row to miami, i realized why i loved going there so much: not only was it warm and relaxing, miami is a culture and history-rich city.

today, as we were flying back, i was looking out the window, blessed to have a view of two amazing US landmarks below us:

1) the mississippi river. it was shockingly larger than i had imagined it to be, and also MUDDIER than i thought! it was actually brown from all the runoff, and not so much dark blue and clean like the waters of lake superior that i had gotten used to canoeing down every summer. i finally got to see this river after studying so much about it for the geography bee and reading all about it in tom sawyer and huck finn. this is what i saw from the plane:

'(yes, the brown is the river, and the blue-green is the land)

2) the gulf of mexico. when i first saw it, i thought to myself, "what in the world is that?!!!?!??!?!" because it wasn't one color and didn't look like water. it was dark blue with black blotches. when i got home, i google imaged "gulf of mexico oil spill." that is what i saw. i was appalled and in disbelief that almost a year later, even with all the clean-up efforts going on, it still looks like the oil spill happened yesterday.

(can you believe fish and birds live in that mess?!)

At the rate we're going, fresh water is going to be a scarce resource soon! I'm so glad we live near the Great Lakes... where we're surrounded by fresh water...



Side note: Dream Job Friday updated for 3/4-- scroll on and read!

Dream Job Fridays: Hollywood Symphony

Before college, I lived in the world of music. All day, a song would always be playing in my head. For each situation during my day, I would have the perfect song. Sometimes they were songs played on the radio, other times orchestral masterpieces I played in orchestra, and whenever that didn't suffice, a little melody was composed in my head. My life had its own soundtrack.

Unfortunately, nowadays I'm not as immersed in the world of music anymore. I miss it terribly... there is still a soundtrack that plays in my head though, and I LOVE a good concert. It doesn't matter the genre, as long as its well-written music. This week's dream job would be to be a member of the Hollywood Symphony and to have the opportunity to be immersed daily in the world of music again.

Comprised of 75-members in the orchestra, the HSO is conducted by John Scott based in LA, they perform and record premieres of world-famous cinema scores for the movie soundtracks. They are the ones who get to first perform future classics for each movie that is released.

Even more exciting would be to have the opportunity to compose some of this music. Imagine having the opportunity to compose the soundtrack to Despicable Me, Tangled, or Star Wars! I would LOVE that... and then to direct all the sound effects and cue in the music as they were producing the movie. It would be SO much fun. I would no longer just be writing the soundtrack to my life, or even just the movie, but the soundtrack to so many others' lives as they engage in the movie experience.

Dream Job Fridays: Pierre Coffin

How freaking sweet would it be to be Pierre Coffin? He was the animator and director of Despicable Me, but that's not really the part I want to be. I find it impressive that he was the voice behind all the minions in this movie. Now how sweet would it be to just sit around all day brainstorming hilarious minion scenes, and then record the voices for them!? i think i would crack myself up all day at work if this was my job... i can't even type out minion-speak language.. but this is one of my many favorites.

watch them at work in the recording studios, it looks like so much fun!!!
"it's kinda like, being a little kid, just goofin off.." -- Jack McBrayer, voice of tourist dad and carnival barker

Dream Job Fridays: Pie Bakery Owner

i'm always trying to think of ways to put my passion for food to use. recently, i walked into a very cute local pie shop the next town over, and it just had this warm welcoming feeling of home. as i browsed the variety of pies sitting behind the glass display after i ordered my slice of french silk pie with a cup of local michigan cherry coffee, the inspiration came for this DJF post.

the secret: it's not difficult to make a delicious pie crust and pie filling. the technique for any pie is the same. with a punch of passion, kick of creativity, and bit of inspiration, it's possible to whip out a counter full of delicious pies. and the fun part comes in here: tweaking the ingredients to create a variety of different pies, and using your artistic mind to determine how you're going to present it: a lattice work, cutouts, crumb toppings-- the options are endless.

the more i thought about it, the more i wanted to bake an apple pie in honor of the coming of autumn and the abundance of apples in michigan. always intimidated by lattice work and pie dough, i was taking a risk by altering this crust recipe to make it healthier with some butter modifications. it didn't turn out that bad! it came out of the oven looking decently presentable... i just hope the crust hasn't lost too much of its flakiness due to the butter substitution. welp, at least now i can totally have my pie and eat it too!

Dream Job Fridays: Making Beats

so i just realized that this awesome percussion musical theatre group, STOMP, is coming to Sagniaw, MI only for a one evening performance on February 17, 2013! (please email me if you would like to go with!)

could you imagine if your life was dedicated to making beats and moves like this? i think i would love it... lately i've been really missing my musician and dance days. perhaps the corporate world just isn't for me? man, i always love me a darn good beat. 

if you have time over the holidays, this is a definite must-watch. (my favorite part is from 1:02:20-1:19:30)