"Old-Fashioned"

Lake Farmpark is a demonstration farm celebrating Ohio's farming heritage. It is part of the Lake Metroparks park system in Lake County where I was Art Director. Most things at Lake Farmpark are "old-fashioned".

This piece was created to launch the facility to the public and potential sponsors. It is a bi-fold folder with inside flaps which hold a brochure, business card, and informational step downs.

The art for this was old-fashioned too. Painstaking rendering with Prismacolor pencils was insane. One of the joys of being Art Director is that I could assign myself a task like this. One of the miseries is that meant I did a lot of this on my own time after hours because I wanted to do it, and didn't feel it was fair to do it on the parks' time when quicker methods would've worked.

A lot goes into a project like this, and that doesn't even count in the major display I designed for the Cleveland Home and Flower Show to launch the campaign. (Though I am happy to say we won awards!) I researched what the facility would be because it didn't exist yet. I wrote copy and got it approved by staff, committees, and the board.

I had already designed the Lake Metroparks' logo, and created a separate, but complementary logo for the Farmpark -- which of course meant going back through the layers of staff, committees, and board. Bidding out the printing and hovering over the press checks was both fun and anxious for me. I cursed my own district-wide policy of printing only on recycled paper. The stock absorbed the ink, and many of my lovely Prismacolor details were lost.

Sometimes I look at projects like this and think they're wonderful because I know how much I put into them, but reality is that other people often don't understand or care. This piece was successful, and that's all they really care about. Lake Farmpark is known in the region, and I had something to do with that success. I went there for a farmers' market last week, and the drive is lined with two rows of banners of the logo, my logo. I felt a little surge of happiness.

The Prismacolors are getting dusty. I just don't love them any more!