OryCon 35 Pubs are Done

by Meredith 1. November 2013 22:39

On Saturday, I had to take over doing the pocket program and spent most of the weekend and into Monday building a new publication. I had all the content and had already tested creating the program grids so it should have been pretty simple to complete. But oh the issues I had with formatting! I wasted way too much time wrestling with character and paragraph formatting -- trying to recycle all of the styles that I had created in the souvenir book ended up being more trouble than it was worth. In the end, I cleared all of the formatting, made all new styles, and started from scratch. Everything worked way better after that.

Despite any headaches this project has given, it has been a fabulous opportunity to refine and refresh my print production skills. I’ve dealt with a printer (two actually) and their requirements, created new documents from scratch, gathered content, wrote new content, edited old content, prepped art, made ads, collected ads, and organized a complex layout in two publications. And the bonus… I got to brush up on my skills in Inkscape, Photoshop, and InDesign.

Yesterday, in between all the Halloween stuff I visited the printer and approved the proofs. The souvenir book and pocket program look great! Lithtex use a digital process for printing so the proof review was different than how I've done them in the past. They actually had both books completely bound and cut just as we would see them. It was pretty cool. I was going to do a tour of the printing process but totally forgot about it. I'll ask about it next year.

I'm already thinking about what I want to try out next year. I would love to get all of the souvenir book in full color and on glossy paper. I'll need to get creative with the quotes to see if that can happen. I'm also interested in feedback from the convention membership. I would like to know more about what they want to see in the printed publications.

Want to see what I’ve been working on? Follow the image links to get a sneak preview of this year’s publications. Or you can go to the convention next week to collect a copy in person.

 

More Ads for OryCon 35 Publications

by Meredith 23. October 2013 16:48

Needed several more ads for the Pocket Program. I’ve updated the gallery with the images. Two of the ads were comps for the other conventions (RadCon and Norwescon) because of there inadvertent help (aka we borrowed several of their ideas for our own convention). I thought a little extra help would be a nice thank you for them being so awesome.

I’m hoping to meet the person that did the Norwescon publications sometime (maybe at the 2014 con). I wanted to compliment them on how clean their layout is and how professional it all looks. Their pubs were a heavy influence in the design layout for OryCon this year. There were several elements that just seemed like a really smart solution, particularly in the Pocket Program. Hopefully they will appreciate the extra ad. <smiles>

OryCon 36 Ad

by Meredith 1. October 2013 16:44

Working on the OryCon 35 Souvenir Book and Pocket Program I need to create an ad for next year’s convention. These are the ads that I created with the graphics and instructions given. The Pocket Program ad needs to be black and white.

My production schedule for all the publications is looking good. I am supposed to have all the parts and pieces collected and placed into layout by the end of next week. I have 90% of my materials.  

Finding photos has been a bit challenging. High res images with a note for photo credit would be very welcome. Currently, all the photos published in the souvenir book will be black and white (the CMYK section is reserved for the guests of honor and ads). We might be able to go full color next year. I plan to add a little blurb of text about photo submissions into the pubs. Maybe we can get more submissions for next year.

Because we have such an amazing number of panelists this year, the only way to fit panelist bios into the souvenir book is to limit text to 75 words per person. I'm working with programming to get a message out to everyone. Also, because of the large quantities of panelists and programming I need to get a new print quote for the pocket program. In my brief phone conversation with the our rep at Lithtex today I learned of several things we can do to save us some money on printing the pocket program. I am going to meet with them on Wed to work out a new design that will give us the the most pages for our money. I really like Norwescon's pocket program and would like to see if we can have something similar. 

Regarding ads, I have made contact with all the other conventions that we are doing ad swaps with and should be receiving their art files soon. 

All of this reminds me of my old job at Pelican Productions. Fun times!

 

 

 

 

OryKids Logo

by Meredith 21. August 2013 21:54

OryCon 35 has a special programming track for kids and it needs a logo. I’ve created three options based on sci-fi themes (and kids). Number three is the one we’re going to try out this year.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

About Meredith Cook

Welcome to my repository of creative expression. I'm not a happy camper unless I am making something and over the years I have dabbled in quite a few different kinds of art projects. Some projects come from taking art classes, others are completely hobby driven, and projects like home decor come from a need to customize an item and make it better or unique. The overall theme behind what I do is to learn how to manipulate objects and practice what I know about visual aesthetic and good design. Oh yeah, and to have fun.

Archive