Grabbed and Squeezed

January to February 2009

Adobe InDesign is a layout program used to create advertisements, magazines, and brochures. The text, images, and graphic elements of any graphic design piece are typically developed and perfected in other programs and then brought into InDesign to create one cohesive, engaging presentation. For example, you might write the copy in MS Word to take advantage of its editing features and prep your photos in Photoshop to manipulate size, hue, saturation, etc.

The Challenge
When I entered Cuesta College's InDesign class in January 2009, it was these skills I expected to develop. And, well, to prove myself right. You see, almost a year earlier, I made an offhand comment to the bank's graphic designer that, given six months of training in QuarkXpress (his primary layout program of choice at the time) or InDesign, I could be at 85% of his facility with the program. After seeing the offended look on his face (he is, afterall, a degreed designer with many years experience), I pointed out that it was the last 15% that could take a lifetime to achieve.

I am a precise and deliberate person and don't speculate unless I say I'm speculating; I don't make unfounded claims. (I do, however, make up statistics about 42% of the time as a way of explaining things--so who knows about the 85%?!!) The bottom line is that this statement had been eating at me since I made it and was, in part, a driving force in my need to take this class and do well in it.

Goin' to Disneyland
It's easy to understand why athletes want to go to the Magic Kingdom after a long season of hard work and training. Disneyland exudes an irrepressible lightheartedness that grabs you and squeezes you the moment you set foot in the Happiest Place on Earth. I'm not saying that the Cuesta College Fine Arts Department is Disney-esque, but there is a three-dimensional texture to an artistic atmosphere that doesn't exist in banking. (Duh.)

From the first day in Peet Cocke's InDesign class, I felt "grabbed and squeezed." Artists live in a world where inanimate objects have personalities and facial expressions (e.g., the recent happy face ads from American Express where purses, airplanes, and chairs smile) and political issues, mental shortcomings, and the meaning of life are all worked out in gouache and blood. How do you explain to the adoptive family you love and respect (my banking friends and colleagues) the joy and relief at meeting your biological family (instructors and fellow students)? Artists, even the suppressed ones who have found success in other disciplines, often feel like proverbial square pegs simply for the lack of companions who see the world through the same perceptive kaleidoscope.

Everything Is an Art Project
So, I shouldn't have been surprised then when our first project in InDesign was not a tri-fold brochure, but a mad rush to create something from nothing. The assignment was to take eight pieces of art paper and a 24" length of string and put them together. In 45 minutes. Without any other instructions. Peet's objective (as he often says, there is a method to his madness) was to demonstrate how artists’ books are structured before we put graphics on the paper.

I didn’t want to use glue or tape or anything except the materials we were given, so I rolled, cut, folded, punched, and wove mine into a kind of paper sculpture (see photo). The 18" x 12" piece will always symbolize the significant impact that Peet has had on me in recognizing that every idea is a potential art project and every thing is a tool for making art.

Everything Is an Art Project, Paper Sculpture, 18" x 12" (2009)

The Beginning of the Beginning

June to December 2008

Triggering Events
In the Fall of 2006, a definitive agreement was announced between a large ($750 billion in assets) foreign conglomerate and my much smaller ($2.5 billion in assets) regional community bank to merge sometime in 2007. To be acquired really--everyone just says "merge" because it gives the acquirees some sense of control and dignity. And we all know the only control you have in these situations, or in life I suppose, is how dignified your own behavior is...but that story is for someone else's blog!

As is typical in an acquisition, members of the acquired executive team are kept on only as long as they are needed to ensure a smooth transaction. The company, post-merger, clearly doesn't need two presidents or two CFOs or, in my case, two senior vice presidents of marketing and communications. So, after completing the rebranding of the community bank, my position was eliminated in June 2008.

It's important to point out here that even though I worked for the community bank for a wonderful and rewarding 16 years, I really didn't feel a high degree of heartache. These things are just business. They're not personal. They just ARE. Life is not about what happens to you, but how you react to it. There's an old Yiddish saying that pain is inevitable; suffering is a choice. So, I wallowed for about three hours and then began planning my next move. Of course, my abbreviated mourning period was facilitated by the fact that I have been "moving on" my entire life, that I had already been in banking for 25 years, that this was my sixth merger (statistics say the average banker will experience seven mergers in his or her career), that I ended up in a pretty good financial position, and that the first phone call I received after being laid off began with, "Congratulations!"

A Pretty Grand Birthday Gift
I celebrated my 51st birthday three days later, and even then, I knew I had been given a gift. We rarely walk away from the good things in our lives to seek out potentially great things. (If you haven't read Jim Collins's Good to Great, do yourself a favor!) Mine had been a good job--challenging work, a successful company, pleasant people, a lovely place to live--all things worth preserving. But here was an opportunity to figure out whether I wanted something else.

I had been working 60- to 70-hour weeks for the last year and was just plain exhausted. So, the first thing I did was nothing. Many of my colleagues jumped into looking for another job. Maybe they had to. I just know I had the time and means to take a breather, so I did. I watched movies, I read books, I walked, I quit eating vending machine food, I increased my volunteer hours, and I began to explore options. Maybe I would set up my own business or consult. Maybe I would change industries and work for a nonprofit that was doing something positive for the world. Maybe I would do something I hadn't thought of yet. I kept my cup empty and my options open.

The Glimmer of an Idea
In late October, I decided that if I were going to set up my own business or do some consulting, I needed to expand my skills. Although I had been acting as art director for nearly 20 years in designing and producing advertising, collateral materials, and packaging, I hadn't been doing the actual graphic design myself. I would pencil out what I wanted and have my staff designer execute it. (Note: I do not wish to imply that the designs created under my supervision as marketing director were mine alone. The degree of detail in my instructions was inversely dependent upon the talent and skill of the designer; some designs were mine, some were the designer's. More often though, final pieces were the result of good collaboration with the entire marketing team.)

I looked for graphic design classes at the local community college and university. Even though I graduated with an MBA from Cal Poly (California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo) and would have felt right at home, the community college seemed to have better offerings. And how can you beat the price? Three credits and four-and-a-half months of skill-building entertainment for $216--that's hardly the cost of a weekly movie and box of Raisinets. I signed up for Adobe InDesign.