Barb, I know that you are a graphic designer and I have a couple of questions related to that.
1. Are you freelance or do you work for a company?
Well I started working for a local shopping newspaper way back in the 70s. I went to college for Advertising Art and Design and loved learning photography, calligrapraphy, design, ect, but believe it or not page layout at that time was may least favorite thing to do. Lol. I was looking for a summer job between semesters and I got a job with a local shopping newspaper. I started as a paste-up artist. Back then we didn't have computers to do ads, we did them all by hand. A layout artist sketched the design, a typesetter set the type, and a paste-up artist cut everything up and glued it all together. Yes it was where you started lol. This was when I met dh, as his father was the owner of the paper (which we eventually became the owners of when his dad passed). When I was promoted up to layout artist I remember not being too happy about it. I remember my very first ad. It was a small ad, and remember that I got the copy and sketched out the size and looked at the blank space in front of me and said "what do I do now?" Lol. Eventually I got used to it. The one thing you really need to be able to do when you are doing advertising is you need to be able to break up copy into what is most important, and you need to be able to present it in a way to draw the reader in. I found I could do that. But designing ads for a local newspaper was really very confining. The customers buy a space and really try and get their money's worth by cramming as much in as possible. So there really isn't much you can do in the way of creativity and design, especially when you have a bunch of copy and coupons in a small space. Or you have a customer that tells you exactly how he wants his ad to look, even if it isn't even possible to do it that way, or you know it won't be effective.
Where I really was able to get my chance at true page design was when an organization that we printed for had me start designing pages for their business paper. We were moving on to doing our work on computer at this point, and I had started to do some flyers for their Executive Director, and I became in charge of her account. They put out a quarterly Business Newspaper that we printed at our place. Someone did the design for them and we printed it. Well dh brought a copy of one home one day and I said omg that is awful! Lol! It really was though. Columns of text just ran up and down the pages, with articles just ending at the bottom of one column and continuing at the top of the next one. Ugh. So I said to him to tell her I could make her paper look so much better. The following issue she asked me to just do the centerfold for her. She loved it so much the issue after that she had me do the whole paper! I loved it! Their papers were not like a newspaper, they were printed on white paper, not newsprint, and they were very picture intense. They would showcase all of their business events and she gave me full creative reign. I did all of their flyers and brochures and newsletters and event invitations too. I wasn't working at the paper anymore so I was able to work at home on my Mac and got a tabloid size printer to print out the pages. So technically at that point I was still working for the newspaper as a company, but it was our company. I also did some newsletters that I also got through our company. After we sold the newspaper she stayed with me so I guess at that point it became freelancing. She became my client, and I did all of their work until she retired. Then I retired too. I now love being able to do page design for my OWN projects. And digi is such an extension of the page design that I used to do, except I can design for me now! And I never got to work in full color, only spot color. I never worked for a magazine or anything where I could do full color. Well now that I think of it I did get to do full color when color printers became really good. Then I could do her flyers in full color photos and full color graphics and she could have then printed on a color printer.
Sorry for the long explanation lol.
I am an OCD warrior and I fight for my son. 
! But I don’t think I’ve ever asked this one.
