What I Designed Today: Slide Deck for Healthcare Client Strategic Talent Group

I picked up a new client late last year and designed a deck for them in December. Normally I’d design anything and everything in Adobe (well, almost), but when they needed editable forms with limited resources they could revise on the fly, I designed a form for them using Master Slide feature in PowerPoint. It’s not how I’d normally do forms but there is a use case for those who only work in presentation software. Random sample slides from the deck below — including a sample of the Candidate Presentation Template form.

Welcome Home, Blue-Eyed Rottweiler Mix Rescue Puppy!

The title speaks for itself! Take a look at those baby blue eyes on this Rottweiler mix rescue from the SPCA. He’s 7 lbs and fluffy and we named him Roscoe after Rosco P. Coltrane for those of you who are old enough to get the TV reference. 10-4 little buddy! We’re in love.

Blue eyed Rottweiler puppy

We were told 5 pups were dumped on a cardboard box and approximately 5-6 weeks old. The shelter thought they might be Rottweiler mixed with German Shepherd, but we’re thinking we got a Husky disguised as a Rottweiler — he’s so fluffy, he’s like a little bear.

Rescued Rottweiler puppy likes his new home

What I Designed Today: a YouTube Thumbnail + Social Media Post Graphic

The image below is a thumbnail cover image for an upcoming live podcast by sports commentators who I’ve grown to admire recently as I’ve helped them with their social media. The sports industry is new for me and I’m learning and making connections with sports journalists and reporters — they’re a fun crew! If you like to talk sports, give The Buck Stops Here a listen. They’ll be announcing their trademarked United States Athletics Hall of Fame inaugural class this week! Details on the image.

The image below will be slightly adjusted further to optimize size and resolution for Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. if you’re interested, I’ll be the podcast LIVE on their TikTok channel as well. Join us!

Advanced Reader Copy Book Review for Net Galley: Agatha Christie Plots, Clues and Misdirections

Book Review: Advanced Reader Copy for Net Galley for Agatha Christie Plots, Clues and Misdirections book title


As an Agatha Christie devotee, I found this book by Sally & Tony Hope through The Book Guild Publishing (a subsidiary of Troubador Publishing) to be a thorough collection and analysis of the mystery-genre literary devices she uses in her works. If you’re an Agatha Christie fan as well, or an aspiring murder mystery writer, this book is for you!

Want to get Advanced Reader Copies of books?

Join Net Galley.

What I Designed Today (er, 2020): Digital Religious Stake Fasting and Prayer Invitation Graphics for Social Media

⏰ One of the things it took me far too long to learn 🎓 is that 🔥 “done” is better than perfect 🔥 . . . except for maybe brain surgery and rocket science. If I could go back and redo this pro bono 2020 religious invitation for a special day of prayer and fasting (needed now even more than during the pandemic!) I would absolutely request higher-ups change the verbiage to “It consists of abstaining from . . .” but likely they requested it and I was preoccupied with my full-time humanitarian role. Does the message get across? ✅ Does it still bother me it wasn’t perfect? ✅ Can I live with that? ✅ 

Two prayer and fasting invitation options below that I had designed for the Bartlesville Oklahoma Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) below.

Religious invitation for day of prayer and fasting during Covid 2020

What I designed today: An Evita Theatre Program for a Theater in Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia

Yes, I spelled “theater” both ways — the intentional “error” will increase engagement and better the SEO results for my Google search terms, so it’s a win-win for everyone except old-style grammar afficionados and most English teachers. As unofficial president of the Sharpie Enthusiasts Club, I apologize and encourage fixing the error with a Sharpie.

This program was actually designed in very early July on a rush basis because the original print layout person became ill. It’s been a few years since I designed anything for the theater, so it took longer than usual, but was fun to try and match the original cover style the original designer had created. I loved the custom gilt frames and golden photo backdrop I was able to bring to the interior — particularly the spreads for the major roles. It’s been a long time since I designed anything and felt like riding a bike after many years. The speed will come back as soon as I get familiar with the upgrades to the tools I used to use and some fantastic new ones that have surfaced in the last 6 years!

The show had all sold out performances — CONGRATS to Superstar Productions and the Darwin Theater in Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia!

What I designed today: A horizontal funnel to illustrate learner journey retention for Google Cloud

Disclaimer: I’ve been so busy working that most of the “What I designed today” posts are going to be a retrospective! I designed this horizontal funnel a few weeks ago. The funnel was used in executive presentations using Google Slides for Google Cloud Partner Learning & Certification. The intent was to illustrate Google Cloud learner journey progress through a 5-stage funnel. I had a difficult time finding a vector or raster graphic for a horizontal funnel, so I drew one in Adobe Illustrator! I actually drew two versions: a horizontal funnel WITH a gray path and one without. Here’s the original .ai file for Adobe Illustrator for you to copy and tweak or a transparent PNG. Not-so-incidentally, this fits standard Google or PowerPoint Slides perfectly.

SEE BELOW the FUNNEL IMAGE for QUICK DESIGN TUTORIAL on how to use PNG files and keep image sizes low in large presentations and documents.

Design tip: place the entire PNG in your file and crop the image to the part you want to use. If you’re working in PowerPoint, you can compress images to what is shown to keep your file size down. Here’s a handy, quick 1-minute video tutorial on how to save space by compressing images in PowerPoint — makes for easy file sharing and space saving files. It was an old tech tip I shared with colleagues in my last role but still applies for those of you who want to keep file sizes down for sharing without using cloud hyperlinks.

What I Designed Today: Google Cloud Exam Tips Packet

Much of the work I do for Google Cloud is to help partner organizations help their learners successfully become Google Cloud certified. I actually designed this during Q4 2022 which always seems to be crunch time for taking certification exams — both for achieving KPIs for Google AND for achieving personal career goals before year-end. If you want to download a PDF of this Google Cloud Certification Exam Tips packet, here’s the official Google linked PDF for you.

What I Designed Today: Farmers Market Business Cards

I have always been somewhat proud — that’s not quite the right word — of the fact that over 25 years of designing marketing materials for clients, I have NEVER advertised. I think it’s less pride than it is reassurance that my skills and talents are valued and worthwhile and not having to advertise is just a key performance indicator (KPI in the business world).

Front of the business card for Palisades Farmers Market in Washington D.C.
Back of the business card for Palisades Farmers Market in Washington D.C.

During my 6 years of consulting and humanitarian work, I didn’t design much of anything (although those skills did come in handy many times – particularly using MailChimp to send a regional newsletter but I digress…). Occasionally random strangers would still approach me via email or my website about design work. Most of the time, I’ve had to ignore those requests but I had some free time yesterday when an easy request arrived in my in-box and I learned a few things about myself:

  • I was giddily happy to be doing any kind of design work again. I just love to CREATE whether it’s a small business card or an entire marketing plan or confidence in a colleague or friend…creation is my “thing.”
  • Software is the same, but with wonderful upgrades — and believe it or not I kept up my Adobe subscription for 6 years while barely using it (now that’s a commitment to software you love).
  • I’ll never get used to switching from Mac to PC back to Mac again — muscle memory from years of shortcuts and keyboard strokes do NOT translate to the right buttons! I’ll get there…still loving my new MacBook…but probably just in time to get back to Windows 10 and a PC (which I despised at first but quickly came to love). I joke that we’re a non-denominational platform family — we like to use ALLLLLLL the devices available to improve our lives.

This new client found me via a simple Google search for “ticket business card” and came across this old post from 2013. Wow! That’s reassuring because even though I thought my skills were a bit rusty — and I’m sure they are — good design is timeless. I may not have the drawing skills I’d like but I can set up a typographical hierarchy like nobody’s business…and it was good to know I’ve still got it, it just takes a little longer than six years ago!

What I Designed Today: Billboards for Adam & Kizzie at OK Mozart’s Ambler Hall

Adam & Kizzie are coming to Bartlesville and it’s going to be a fantastic night of music at OK Mozart’s Ambler Hall.  This is a new direction for OK Mozart’s music selection and this duo with their gospel, blues, rock-n-roll and jazz sound are sure to please.  I can’t wait to hear how they sound in Ambler Hall.  If you’re local, info & tix are at okmozart.com.

Technically I designed these billboards a little over two weeks ago.  The traditional billboard goes up tomorrow and I hope to add a shot of that from the street as well.

Traditional billboard

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Digital billboard

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Digital billboard from the street

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What I Designed Today: Logo Guide for Bartlesville’s Ambler Hall

It’s not a full-on style guide but it’s a step in the right direction with a usage guide for the most common scenarios for a logo.  I’m so excited about some of the concerts coming up at Ambler Hall!  Check out Adam & Kizzie — they’re coming in November.  For more details, visit OK Mozart on the web.

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What I Designed Today: 2015 Bartlesville Oklahoma Stake Women’s Conference Invitations

These invitations use some lovely artwork of a young woman in armor originally created by Judy Cooley.  She graciously gave us permission to use them for our stake events (auxiliary conference and women’s conference) this year.  I love the ENLISTED adaptation of her work.  You can find more of her work if you search for Judy Cooley Deseret Book and Altus Fine Art.

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I’m excited that the service project this year is collecting or creating slippers for women at the Claremore Safenet Shelter (for women who suffer from domestic abuse or sexual assault).  2015stakersconfinvite1back