Week 8

The signup deadline for the Designing Action competition is tonight at midnight!  If you or anyone you know would like to sign up it is not too late.  We have over 100 contestants from 24 different countries and six different continents.  One team from Sweden has already submitted their project, and it is amazing what some people come up with.  This is an “ideas” competition, so I have a feeling we will be getting some outrageous projects.  This week was pretty much the same as the last couple, mostly working on graphics/materials.  On Tuesday they had me photograph a new farmer’s market that takes place once a week in downtown Nashville, which was neat but really hot outside.      

Presentations are an important part of NCDC.  At least one or two days a week there will be some sort of presentation either to a small group or a large one, and all of the staff members are very good at communicating graphically and verbally.  They give presentations at things like community meetings where NCDC presents ideas to the general public and get their feedback.  These are usually very controversial and some really outspoken people attend them.  What is interesting is that the areas of town with younger people are usually excited about the city changing for the better, but the people of “old Nashville” are usually the ones that are more hesitant.  The programs used here are mostly Photoshop/Illustrator/InDesign.  They use Photoshop to make before and after shots to use in their presentations, and they use Illustrator to make their boards.  NCDC has also published several book and counting, and they use InDesign for this.  People in the office are familiar with programs such as AutoCad, Sketchup, etc, but these are rarely used. 

The person of the week is Julia Landstreet, the Executive Director and my boss.  Julia’s role here is to oversee the administrative and development functions as well as cultivating relationships within the design, development, education, and civic communities.  So she is pretty important around here.  Like the other staff members, Julia is on numerous boards around town and plays an active role in the community.  She has two adorable dogs she occasionally brings in the office, and Julia has a very smart sense of humor.