I went to a small house-party with Jessica and Amy for New Years. It was a surprisingly good time, and I was happy to be with great friends! So just thought I’d say… it’s been one hell of a year.

Things I learned about design this year:
- use drop shadows in moderation
- how to make transparent gradients in illustrator
- command D for “place” in indesign
- command “,” and “.” for text in illustrator
- justified text sucks most of the time
- dafont fonts are no longer “so cool”
- tightly kerned helvetica light doesn’t mean you’re a designer
- indesign over illustrator for lots of text
- using san-serif for body copy in print is generally a no
- how to save a pdf so it’s not huge
- pictures and textures add a lot to a design
- i don’t really like making logos that much
- i work great under pressure
- coffee and 5 hour energy helps

My Resolutions:
1. continue to grow as a designer, never stay put where I am
2. read more books, learn more words
3. get inspired by everyday life and act upon that inspiration
4. stop caring what other people think, about anything
5. take a more active role in being healthy
6. paint and draw more
7. live for myself, rely on myself, still have great friends
8. be a little more understanding of others
9. be a girl, don’t be afraid to give someone a hug or paint their nails
10. continue to make more friends, connections, and bonds

For those of you who don’t know, I tend to have bad luck holding on to cameras. Sophomore year, my Nikon S2 was stolen in Richmond at a party. Junior year, I left my purse under a table and my Canon SD890 got swiped. This past summer, I finally bought a new Canon SD870. 2 weeks later it fell out of my purse under a table at a restaurant (which I didn’t realize until the next morning)… once again, never to be seen again.

After a few months I begrudgingly bought another sd870… which I’m trying really hard to hold on to for a decent amount of time. With that said, it’s safe to say I’ve spent a crap-ton of money for the pictures I took in 2008. This is my showcase of these pictures, taken with 3 different cameras, the best of 2008.

BEST PANORAMAS:(gotta love em)

BEST MACRO SHOTS:

BEST “PTFO” SHOTS:

BEST ARTWORK / MISCHIEF SHOTS:

BEST TRAVEL SHOTS:

BEST FRIEND SHOTS:

BEST GROUP SHOTS:

BEST ANIMAL SHOTS:

BEST POLITICAL SHOTS:

MOST RIDICULOUS SHOTS:

So I just got home from my 4-hour drive back to Northern Virginia and decided to take a look at some of the pictures from this past week.  I found some good ones from our night at the Cellar last Thursday…  and thought I would waste some more time by photoshoping them to look “old school” (which constitutes pretty much anything slightly unsaturated w/ minimal contrast and awkward blurring in this instance.)