Alma Hoffmann's Weblog

Hello!

This challenge has been moved to 365 Temperamental Muses about Life and Design. Please feel free to look the January designs on this page.

Design #31

Hi all! Today’s design is inspired by a fellow designer, Daniela Dalfonso from Sydney. She designed a calendar with thumbnails of her January sketches. I liked the idea and asked her if I could borrow it. She kindly said yes. Thus, here I am showing you my January calendar as my 31st design. One thing I noticed in the calendar is that I use a lot of white background! So, this next month I will aim to incorporate more color in my designs’ backgrounds.

I am moving this page to a new blog. I will keep you posted. I just think that scrolling all the way down is inconvenient. Anyhow, for now, bear with me a little longer.

Design #30

Hi all! Today’s design is a blog header for my new blog to feature only my daily designs. As usual your thoughts are welcome!

Design #29

Hi all! Today my daily design is handmade. I am taking a calligraphy class and we have our first project due on Tuesday. I did my first draft today to get a feel for things. I am still very new to the letter making process. The nibs kill me! I am not sure if they are working right but some kind of split and they are new!  But here is my very amateur calligraphic project. The quote is a Haiku by Suju Takano. Let me know what you think!

Design #28

Hi all! Well another day of doing a lot of other stuff, such as grading and planning some marketing left me with little time to think about today’s design. But committed myself to do something every day. Thus, for today I have done another tutorial that I ended up adapting because it got complicated. And why is it that on every tutorial there are missing steps??? I find that irritating since some times the tutorial assumes you know a step needed. Or it assumes that you have done x or y that you needed because somehow it was communicated to you through the tutorial’s psychic power. Well without further ado, here is my ladybug with great praise from my daughter!

Design #27

Hi all! Today I did a tutorial because I had no idea what to do… I have to say that this tutorial was more difficult than it seems as there were steps and little details missing… So I spent more time than I had intended and I am still not certain how to do smokey letters. This is my first attempt at this but I will keep practicing because I am intrigued… Your thoughts are welcome!

Design #26

On Saturday my Mom called to make sure I watch one of my favorite singers on TV; Chayanne. I tuned in and he was singing as part of an effort to raise money for the American Red Cross to help Haiti. He was singing a song titled “Si nos quedara poco tiempo.” The song is about him realizing that if they did not have enough time to love each other, there were things he needed to say to her. Things like how much he loved her and how much she meant to him. He talks about that when they are together, routine takes over and being in a hurry has changed the way they love each other. The song is beautiful and contagious. And well, it is Chayanne and I have been a fan forever. Since I could not get the song out of my head, I drew my sketch, and today I did this. The photos are from istockphotography. I hope you like it and please tell me what you think!

Design #25

Hi all! As I was getting ready to leave for work this morning, I saw it was snowing. I could not believe how much snow was on the ground in like 30 minutes from the last time I looked out the window. I thought… “snow, again?” I kept thinking about that and designed this on my way to work on the train.

Design #24

Hi all! My design today is a wallpaper based on a video posted today on Facebook. It is actually very nice. Here is my wallpaper version of it. I do hope I have captured its essence. Please tell me your thoughts!

By the way, I am wondering if I should just create another blog just for these posts. I am worried that people do not leave comments because they have to scroll all the way down to the bottom, which I get it might be rather uncomfortable… what do you think, another blog, or keep them here?

Design #23

Hi all! Today’s design is a wallpaper dedicated to Caralee who is a baby soon to come to the life of good friends. Please let me know what you think!

Design #22

Hi all! Well today I designed my own Twitter background. Not sure if I am convinced this is “the one” but it will serve its purpose for now.
Your comments are very welcome!

Design #21

Hi all! Well, I spent about two hours doing an eye in Illustrator… yep, no tracing a drawing or photo. I drew an eye from scratch, the lashes, and all… Only to discard it later. Did not like it… Anyhow.. not a great design today. This came about after I tweeted about the printer I visited today. I said in the tweet that I had envy eyes.. it stuck with me. Not sure if it’s working but I did not want to miss a day.

Design#20

Hi all! Yesterday was my first day in my calligraphy class. The instructor, Timothy Botts, famous and accomplished calligrapher, showed us a sample of his work. Among the pieces there was a gorgeous one based on Mother Theresa’s quote “…do small things with great love.” I decided last night that I would do my daily design based on this quote. Some day I will do this quote in calligraphy.

Design #19

Some days the ideas come even in your sleep! Some days it is like going to labor for an idea! Well, I woke up with this idea and had to do it! As always, your thoughts are appreciated!

Design #18

Today I decided to play with the term water aerobics. As I was participating today in the class, I heard someone complain about the water splashing her. I thought, “it is called water aerobics and we are in a pool which is full of water….” Anyway, it stuck with me. Water aerobics here it is! I used two tutorials to create this: The first one is at Veerle’s blog and the second one at Designer Today blog. Very easy, fun, and quick. Let me know your thoughts!

And please if anyone who visits this page knows how to work the page so it only displays one entry and the comment box right underneath and can tell me, I’d appreciate it! This is a static page and I have tried doing the “read more” break  but it doesn’t take and have been looking around to make it so people don’t have to scroll down all the way to leave a comment… but have not been successful. So please if any of you have an idea, do let me know! In the mean time, do tell me what you think too!

Hi all!

Design #17
Today I started a tutorial on Celtic knots. Seemed appropriate since I am working on a project that requires me to get familiar with Celtic crosses. This is my first try at the Celtic knots.

Hi all!

Here is my daily design #16. This one is in honor of my niece Margarita. Her name means daisy.

Hi all!

I almost did not get to post today!!! Long day cleaning and cleaning!I still have to do my Friday Wallpaper…. Anyhow… my inspiration today: the cleaning we have done!! So here it is, in honor of the cleaning tools that are supposed to make life easier…

Hi all!

Today I spent some time doing some tutorials. I wanted to do a pattern for a long time. Nothing fancy but it helped me learn some simple things to create patterns later. Anyhow.. here is my wallpaper.

Hi all!

Today is my daughter’s birthday. She turns 5. Her name is Marisol, which means sea and sun. For my daily design I am posting the card I designed for her.
I hope you like it! Please let me know what you think!

Hi all!

Yesterday was my first day of classes for the spring semester. Though I work one day a week, it is a very long day. I leave to work at 10:30am and come back at 10:45pm. So as you can see it is a 12 hour day. Plus since I am teaching, and when I am teaching, I am on pure adrenaline, I come back wired. The result is that physically today, I am tired. But I am not complaining about me teaching. I LOVE TEACHING! It is just going to take me some time to get used to the long hour day. So my daily design today is a visual typographic representation of how I feel… I had fun doing this one.. Hope you like it! And please feel free to tell me your thoughts!

Hi all!

Well it is technically day 12th because I am posting at 12:10am… I have a very long day on Mondays. Anyhow, because I am conflicted at the fact that even though we want to think we are past racism and discrimination, I made a wallpaper called THE WHITE WALL. You will see texture behind it made out of a word. The point is, at least to me, that in some places, contexts, thought processes, racism is impenetrable, like a wall… Like a white wall. Anyhow… Your thoughts and feedback are appreciated as always!

Hi all!

Today I had a conversation with a friend who was telling me about his experience calling the cable company. He proceeded to explain how he was compelled to ask the customer service representative where he was located since he spoke with “broken English.” Those of you who know me, know I immediately had drawn a picture in my head. Mind you, I am bilingual, I have an accent, thus the thought went through my head… Does he think I speak in “broken English?” My daily design today is two versions of what I pictured the phrase “broken English” would look like. So tell me which you think looks more “broken!”

Version 1

Version 2

Hi,

Today has not been a very inspiring day.. Thus my creativity is almost zero…. Maybe I thought about things too much…
So my daily design shows the state of my creativity today. Enjoy!

Hi!

Today has been so busy, I was afraid I would not be able to upload my daily design. But not to fear! Here it is! This is a sketch that I did while waiting for my doctor at his office. There was nothing to read… so I took out my moleskin, marker, and started to visualize the wait… and this is what I came up with. I put the arrows and numbers in Illustrator so it was easier to follow the thought process. Have you ever waited a long time for a doctor inside the exam room? Well, then you know that it is potentially more boring than waiting outside where they sometimes keep a TV and gossip magazines,

Enjoy and please tell me your thoughts!

Hi everybody!

My design for today is a quick sketch I did on my Moleskin sketchbook. I am doing visual research for my Typography class on Monday to show students examples. While going through pages in books, I suddenly had this thought: Typographic Design is to design with soul. Yes I know the structure should be to design with typography is to design with soul. But somehow that lost the flare. Anyhow, I sketched it quickly, colored it with my favorite Crayolas and scanned it. Hope you like it! And please do not forget to leave me feedback!

Hello and Happy Epiphany Day!

I am from Puerto Rico and we celebrate Epiphany Day. Epiphany Day refers to the visit of the Wise men to Jesus after his birth. It is believed the visit happened 3 years after his birth. Regardless many countries around the world celebrate Epiphany Day. However, in Puerto Rico we call it ¡Feliz Dia de Reyes! or Happy 3 Kings Day! So, ¡Feliz Dia de Reyes!

My design today is a diagram I designed for my senior class called the Capstone. This class allows the students to choose a topic, problem or anything of substance they want to research. Thus, there is a lot of research, data documentation, presenting the data, explorations, sketches, prototypes, and others. It is a great class to teach because one can see every student’s progression throughout the semester and how the research shapes both their thinking and their design outcome. Because it the steps can get very complicated for them, I designed a simple diagram to help them understand the progress of an idea or topic. It does not include what happens within every aspect, however. It is intended to offer a general view of what to expect from the course.

As usual your comments and feedback are appreciated!

Hi again!

Trying to catch up because I am a day behind in the challenge. When my children saw the a and h combo, they were very excited. I share initials with one of my kids, so he was very happy when he saw the a and h combo. My other child whose name starts with m wanted one too. So I thought “this is a good way to catch up on my daily designs!” I went to doodle again and came up with this in honor of my daughter. Would love to hear your thoughts! And after this entry I will be in sync with everybody else!

Hello!

While at the Apple store today (where if you read my tweets you would know their customer service sucked today), I started thinking what to do for the daily design challenge. I came up with some ideas but I started thinking, for some reason about my initials. I started thinking about how the shape of the letter a sort conforms to the right side of the letter h. So, I wondered what would it look like if I combined them? As an experiment, when I came back from the store I sat down to doodle with it. This is what I came up with. Would love to hear your thoughts!

Hello! Well today was a long day! I am finalizing syllabuses for the classes I am teaching this semester. Plus the usual routine stuff one has to do every day combined with an uncooperative muse…. ah! my muse is very temperamental. She needs lots of TLC. Long story short, I started thinking on the title of the daily challenge and I came up with this. Tell me your thoughts!

Hello friends!

Here is my Daily Design. Today I did a card for my son Aramis. It is his birthday today! I asked him what was his favorite animal and he said “bats Mama!” So I designed a simple card featuring, you guessed it, bats! Enjoy!

Hi!

This year I have decided to take Smashing Magazine’s 2010 challenge to design something everyday. Those designs will be displayed on this page. I have not yet selected a theme or a specific thing I would be doing. I started to design Friday giveaway wallpapers on Dec. 18th and I feel it is easier right now to think of wallpapers. Thus for today, my first day on the challenge, I did a wallpaper. Well we’ll see what I come up with every day. Today’s wallpaper is based on a verse that is stuck on my head. It is in the Psalms and it was posted it on Facebook on New Year’s day by Dave Vosseller, a good friend of mine. I have since then been thinking about it since then. This is the verse:

“So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. Return, O Lord! How long? Have pity on your servants! Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.” (Ps. 90:12-14)