In addition to our own International Competition this week, the AIGA/Omaha chapter's design competition held it's judging this weekend. I was honored to be asked to judge along with Brian Edlefson from Target and Debbie Millman of Sterling Brands.The fine designers of Omaha knew they had some typophiles for judges so they booked us in a hotel with this for a view.



Between the steaks and the practical jokes, we did manage to have some interesting converstions about design and see a lot of great work. Debbie and I did podcasts for Be A Design Group. When that gets posted, I'll post a link. You can catch Brian's Be A Design cast here. Also, each of the judges gave a short talk at the judges reception. Brian spoke about his process and showed some fascinating images from sketch to final. I'm looking forward to hearing his longer talk at the HOW conference in Atlanta next summer. Debbie, too, made some thought provoking points as she talked about things she's learned by making mistakes. One of my favorites: Have a personal design philosopy.

Hello and thanks to all the Omaha designers. I had a great time getting to know you all.

Dear Lord, how many working hours does Von Glitschka extract from each day? Every time we turn around, he's got some new project up his sleeve—and it's usually something cool that he's made available to the rest of the creative community. (Let's see ... there's Illustration Class, Bad Design Kills, Doodle Archive and, oh yeah, his "real" job.) Noodling around on Designers Who Blog (hey, it's Friday, and I'm procrastinating), I came across Von's Three Thumbs Up Gallery, where designers can post illustrations, journal pages and other visual goodies. It's free to join, but you don't have to be a member to just browse. Being a Midwest girl (and partial to rural landscapes), I particularly enjoyed Tommy Kane's sketchbook post: