magicbeans. nothing if not awkward.

A number of months back I removed all the preset colours, patterns, gradients, brushes, styles, etc from my default Illustrator template, so that when I open a new file the only swatches I have are black, white, and PMS 186c. That's Bank of America red. And I got to use that red this morning, mocking up environmental graphics in the Bank's new call center in, wait for it, Providence.

At this early stage in the design game I actually got to play with it a little bit. I'm sure that they'll shoot down anything even vaguely creative, but intrinsically, that red is really not all that bad a colour.

Later, precipitated by the impending consolidation of design work within the larger scope of the company, and how I fell that the new arrangement is only going to squeeze me further down the list of people available to work on graphics-oriented projects, another conversation about how even though I've been around for a year and a half, a lot of the people that I work with still don't have a terribly clear idea of what it is that I do. 'A little bit of everything that we do here,' I explained. 'Hand sketching, drafting, model building, Photoshop, Illustrator, 3D.'

And I did get to pick up a pencil and draw this afternoon. Which is maybe third on my list of things that I want to be working on. And tomorrow I'll be model building, which isn't exactly on my list, but does make me feel like I'm actually using a skill that I learned in school.