A Change Will Do You Good

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Last Monday, the professional life that I had imagined for myself for the past three years was completely turned around. Throughout my life, I have found that when you are faced with an unexpected change, the only healthy thing that you can do is recognize it, regroup, and move on. Seize the unexpected moments. Don't dwell on what could have or 'should' have been. Life is too short to always be wanting things to go back to the way that they were. Just because you are comfortable with your daily routine, doesn't necessarily mean that you are on the correct path. Embrace the challenge of a new direction in your life. Have faith that everything happens for a reason, and even if the reason is not apparent at the present time, it will reveal itself to you sooner or later.

To this point, my life has not been full of many high-risk situations. It has been carefully planned and executed within my comfort zone. I have never traveled to an unfamiliar place on my own. I have never packed up my life and moved on short notice. I have never jumped into a new situation without being aware of some sort of safety net attached to it. I am not saying that I don't think that I could do any of these things, because I know that I could.  What I am saying is that I am rather content in the fact that I haven't faced a considerable amount of life-changing adversity to this point (knock on wood).

That being said, the unexpected change that I was faced with last week has simply become a reminder that this is a life worth living. I have family, I have friends, I have a husband, and I have a home. Among all of those other wonderful things, I have a talent, and I have passion. I am excited for this new phase in my life, wherever it may take me. Right now, I am blessed that I also have time to re-explore my passions and try to pin-point where I want them to take me in the future.  So if you don't mind, click the image above to view some of the previous projects that have brought me to where I am today, and leave your inspiration for the future.


"To come to be, you must have a vision of being, a dream, a purpose, a principle.  You will become what your vision is."  [Peter Nivio Zarlenga]


Change and challenges,

Wouldn't You Love?

Sister, wouldn't you love to have a bike like this?  I'm not so sure that my name would quite work out. There are simply not enough ascenders in 'Vanessa' for an appropriately-positioned seat.  View more Write a Bikes here.

image via

Color and Gender

via

Over the past few years, I have done my fair share of color research.  Color theory and preference based upon the market that I am designing for is the driving force behind my beginning stages of research and sketching at the start of every new project. It is very important to be aware of the colors that appeal to a company's target audience. It is also important to understand the various emotions that are evoked in your viewers by the colors that you have chosen for a design.  Red is an emotionally intense color and viewing it can actually increase a person's metabolism and respiration rate. On the contrary, blue symbolizes depth and stability, and has the ability to suppress a person's appetite, so it should not be used when promoting food or cooking.

An aspect of color theory that I have never researched before, however, is color preference of males vs. females.  This morning I stumbled across an interesting info-graphic regarding this concept on How About Orange. Although I found all of the data very interesting, the most intriguing part, at least for me, was the research on color naming for men vs. women.  What men perceive as the color "purple" women would name as any of the following six different colors: maroon, plum, eggplant, grape, orchid and lavender. As for the rest of the findings?  Cleveland, it looks like you are out of luck.  For more than 50% of both men and women, orange and brown were perceived as the 'least favorite' and 'cheapest-looking' colors in the entire spectrium.

Check out the info-graphic here.

What's your favorite color?  What is your least favorite color?  What was the name of your favorite crayon?  Honestly, who doesn't love cerulean?  :)

Aquamarine and apricot,