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  Compaq Flyer Original  

When I went to work at SicolaMartin in April 1999, I was given the Compaq account to work on. The department was faced with the overwhelming task of creating from scratch the design and layout for approximately 30 two- to 12-page brochures. These brochures would be produced every month thereafter, with five to 30 brochures to be completed each month. The month before I arrived was the first month the brochures were produced. With the new design being constantly tweaked, each brochure then had to be changed to reflect the formatting change. There were essentially 30 slightly different versions of brochures to choose from as a starting point for the next month's brochures, which I was to produce.
I made it my goal to establish a template that represented the ideal brochure that could be used as a starting point for all future brochures, so the formatting wasn't so wildly erratic.
As a result, all future brochures were consistent, which made them easier to read. Time and money were saved, as many changes at blueline were avoided, as well as almost no reprints due to content errors and none to formatting errors. The program was very successful and the client was thrilled with the consistent and accurate results.
 

  Compaq Flyer Redesign   After a year on the Compaq brochures, the format was completely redesigned. There were approximately 25 brochures due the month of the big change. When I started on the account, there was another artist helping out. By this time, though, I was able to single-handedly produce all the brochures by myself with only occasional help. It was my task alone to take the one design from the designer and create all the brochures from it.
I created a starting template to make my job easier, but still had to keep track of numerous formatting changes, which had to be made to all 25 brochures as I went along. At this same time, I also took over full-time responsibility for all the digital imaging and color correction of the photos. The new style called for shadows on all the products and many of the products were being used from the previous unshadowed brochure design. I had to create consistent shadows for all the images as well as incorporate a constantly changing design for 25 brochures. Whew! I took it all in stride and the client was very pleased with the consistent and accurate results.
 
  Volunteers Week 1998   In 1998, my art director came to me and told me that we had only the afternoon to create an entire graphic campaign from scratch for the Volunteers Week promotional program. He gave me an idea scribbled on paper of a waterfall with boxes zooming in on a single water drop, to illustrate the poem written by our copywriter. He and I went through several stock art books, where we selected all the photos to use, and I began to piece together parts of various photos (waterfall, sky, rainbow, drop of water) to create one image. The image we selected was too narrow to use, so I had to digitally retouch it to create more rocks and greenery on one side. The image was also very small and had to be enlarged to poster size.
In a matter of hours, I had done all the digital imaging, helped conceptualize the final design, laid out the design and did the typesetting and prepress for a poster, which was sent to press that day, due four days later for a tradeshow. The ensuing 8-page catalog was also completed under tight a deadline. It was my finest hour at that agency, resulting in its' most successful program ever at the time. The poster was so popular, it had several reprints and even the print house put one up on their wall.