Mouse Island Design

Observe the designer in her natural habitat. Coffee close by. Alienware laptop attached to 2nd monitor. Wireless mouse and keyboard in use. Working away on a Mouse Island Design project on WGL time, OUTRAGEOUS!!! This is the natural state of Rowena in design mode. Smirky sidelong glance as she hears her husband walking into the art/photography/design studio. Assuming there would be a camera in his hand, and obviously there was.

It is a beautiful day outside and we are in our studios. I’m in the story studio slinging words that have nothing to do with story. A little copy here, a little copy there. I may not have the 20+ years experience that Rowena has at design, but being wordy I can handle. Sounds of Pink Floyd Live from Pompii are providing the soundtrack of this session for me, but I could sense from the quiet in the design studio I should investigate.

Upon watching the designer take my recent copy and paste it onto the indesign file, I learned my investigating was worth doing. I would have not had an understanding of the frustrations in the other studio. Something was brewing, but what was the cause? The lack of a sans serif font or a condensed fonts being available in the graphic standard guidelines. I knew I was over my head on this one so I added in my, “Wow, there isn’t? That must be tough.” She was in design speak mode. I knew the only way to escape its pull was to run quickly across the kitchen that separates our creative worlds.

Okay, for the record I do actually know what she was talking about with the fonts, but it just made for an interesting scene. Yes, I actually ran out of the studio, but only so I could write it down.

We had unexpected visitors today, it happens quite often for whatever reason. This is a situation where for us two to three it happens. I don’t know if it is a think that happens to others and I’m to lazy to research the frequency of the situation, but people who were related to the people who live in this house at some point in time stopped in randomly. They ask to come in and look around even. While we do have a home photography studio that people come to have portraits taken by appointment on a regular basis, strangers asking to come in and look around is a bit odd.

I don’t think that they have an understanding that as a pair of introverts the request to enter our home is a pretty big ask. We granted it as we’ve become quite fluent in the family history of two of the different owners the house had. We talked for a few moments, before they were off. Nice people, but it interrupted a story idea I was working on and I lost the thread and I had to get out of my jammie pants and put on jeans. A minor annoyance as it was time to move on to other things anyways.

The graphic design work we do for Mouse Island Creatives under our Mouse Island Design brand pays for a large chunk of the life we life. While photography is the fastest growing segment of our business, design work pays the bills. Our website for design is in no way an indicator of the work we have done or do, we just haven’t had the time to update and push that side of the business. Ironic when it’s our bread and butter profit center for now.

Time is our enemy and it is the reason I am abandoning this post here. There are things to do and I need to do them.

Also me 3 hours later, we should go grab another flash so we can gel another color into the smoke. What? It’s a Wicked Good Life.