Andrew Kelsall | Graphic Designer

◥ Me, Wife & Kids next to York Castle.

I have just returned from a couple of days camping a few miles away from the ancient City of York (England). I went with my family and some other family members. We had plenty of sunshine and it turned out to be a great short break away.

◥ York City Wall.

As can be seen, I yet again have my daughter strapped to my back! Check out my earlier photo from London regarding this. Note the red circle in the background…

◥ York Travelodge

A while ago, I wrote an article named 3 Great Logos I saw on the Motorway—and one of the logos I wrote about was the Travelodge logo. In the comments section, fellow blogger and designer David Airey made the following comment:

Had to make a comment about the Travel Lodge logo. I don’t feel the graduations are doing it any favours, and would like to see how it works as flat art (e.g. for use on uniforms).

Well, after noticing this white-coloured Travelodge logo after walking around part of the ancient York Wall, I couldn’t help noticing how thin the lines were which are contained in the icon. It does look rather classy, however, I feel a little more weight would have done the logo justice—and maybe the logo would have looked better than the gradient version afterall?

What a Mix

Yeah, this is quite a mixed-up blog post. As designers, even when we are away relaxing, the designer-brain never turns off. What do you notice design-wise when you’re away supposedly taking a break?

I’m sure you read articles about how to shake a client’s hand—or how not to. About 10 years ago, I once shook the hand of a client, who gave me the lamest, most limp-wristed hand shake ever—and I have always remembered it. Shorty after receiving payment from this client, with no cover letter or thank you note with the cheque, I remembered that dreaded handshake that basically said “I don’t like you”.

Ever since then, I have always given any client [I physically met] a very firm handshake. I never want to give a lame handshake like the one I received 10 years ago. However, recently I went to meet some clients that I was producing some work for (which was large-format prints, so I was physically erecting the display work).

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I reached over to shake the client’s hand and I heard and felt every finger of his give a mighty CRACK. This was then followed by a loud “Ouch!”. To say that I was both embarrassed and concerned was an understatement. Fortunately, he was okay after the event—and I apologised for the incident.

I don’t think my hand shake was particularly too crushing, but I reckon his hand was more fragile than most. In future, I’ll be performing hand shakes with slightly less grip, but still firm—and I hope that I’ll never break a client’s hand.

I learned much from this episode, but I reckon I’ll be paranoid about shaking hands from now on.

Have you had a bad experience shaking a client’s hand? Do you have any other client nightmare stories to share?

How does a Freelancer Relax? It’s hard to switch off our minds sometimes to the varied project assignments we work on most days.

Fortunately for me, I have my trusty four-legged friend, Bailey—my somewhat-loyal English Springer Spaniel. Taking him for a walk down the fields where I live on the border of South and West Yorkshire, England, can be a massive stress reliever.

I took  photo above this winter. Since I posted a photo of me, my wife and two kids recently, I also thought I’d introduce my trusty floppy-eared pet, too!

Do you  have a dog? What other pets do you think can help de-stress and relax us after hectic days?

Recently, I took another trip down to London (UK), which is about 260 miles south from where I live, near the City of Leeds (Google Maps #ref. here). My Family and I spent a couple of nights at a friends house, near London City Centre.

This is a photo of me, me wife and 2 little kids at the infamous Piccadilly Circus. As can be seen, I carried my daughter around in a new innovative “Child-Rucksack” device, which was really great—especially when it came to riding the London Underground.

The last time I was in London, I wrote an article named Three Great Logos I saw in London, but this time I was way too busy to notice great design…as the kids kept me busy!

A few weeks back, I posted a video about my new Business Card Design. I talked about many aspects of the design, but neglected to put it through the ultimate durability test: How indestructible was it?

Well, after my daughter, Paige, got her grubby mitts on one of them—I must say, it faired pretty well. The cards were printed onto 400gsm Equest® stock, so the attack of Said childs’ saliva made the edges droop somewhat.

Trouble is, she then proceeded to chew it.

My advice? If you want an Indestructible business card, get it printed on plastic

This ain’t The New Yankee Workshop, but here’s some photos I took whilst building a new home office, showing the construction in various stages, along with some humour for good measure. I’m not going to talk about what screws I used, or what brand of products, etc, but you’re welcome to ask any details in the comments section after the post.

A little Background Info

18 months ago, I was happy in my small, but quaint office upstairs at my home here near Leeds, England, UK. As can be seen in the photo below, I had a great view of the bowling green at the rear of my back yard—and all the tweeping birds and such-like. However, as my wife gave birth to our second baby, I needed to relinquish my office and turn it into a nursery.

This is how my old office looks now:

And this was my peaceful view…although it looks better in Summer (the bowling green is the pride and joy of the Hemsworth Conservative Club):

Since I was booted out, I have been busy designing away in the corner of my living room. However, working downstairs with two kids and a nagging wife isn’t the best environment to be working in (don’t worry, Mrs. K never reads my posts).

So, over the past few weeks I have been building an office, as well been as busy on several design projects at once. Yeah, it’s been a challenge but now it’s finished, I thought I’d share some photos with you, outlining the steps I took to build it…and yes, it hasn’t fallen down yet.

The Build

I’m a designer, not a tradesman, however I figured it wouldn’t be too difficult to build my own little office. In this image, it shows where my Mac and desk are downstairs, in the corner of the living room. It’s only a small space, but it worked well for me in the daytime at least.

Here, I have started to cut away the flooring and started on the timber framework…

A few months ago, I was constructing some large-format Foamex® prints for Next, Plc and wrote an article named How to make a mockup Pallet Racking, where I saw a stud drywall being constructed. I figured that it looked simple to do, so I just noted the construction method. Here, I have started on one of the walls:

In all, there were three separate sections of the timber wall to construct. I also researched online to find out the best way of doing things:

After the stud wall was completed, I set about attaching large panels of plasterboard to the framework. I did the inside first, then insulated the inside before applying the outer boards. Then I nailed on the architrave onto the door frame:

I used special plasterboard tape and filler to smooth over the joints. After it dried, I used sandpaper to smooth it over:

Whilst I was doing all this over a period of several weeks (when I had spare time in-between projects), I worked in a bit of a mess with dust everywhere. At least I covered up my iMac—now I didn’t want this to brake!

I sanded down the inner walls and constructed an air vent. It’s only a small working space, so I didn’t want to suffocate whilst designing!

Here’s my daughter, Paige (yes, the one who kicked me out of my larger office). Since she’s so cute, I’ll let her off I suppose!

At one point, I needed to apply some more joining plaster, but bought one which was too coarse. However, I fixed the rough surfaces with some Polycell Smoothover compound instead of spending hours sanding it off. This is why the walls are all nearly all white here. I used a Dyson to suck up much of the plaster dust, but I clogged it much to my wife’s despair:

I painted the plaster with UVA Bond to seal it, then after it dried, painted the new office and entire living room for consistency:

The office is larger than it appears, as it is neatly tucked away under the stairs and looks more like a closet. I’m out of the way in the corner and I have a living room which is more visually appealing. No cluttered desk on show—and my wife doesn’t need to look at me, hehe.

One final step was to gloss the woodwork, so it matched the rest of the house:

On the interior of the office, I stuck on Acoustic Foam triangle/pyramid tiles to help with the acoustics of the office. Previously, when I needed to take a phone call when my family were in, I would have my Skype number divert to my mobile (so I could talk elsewhere, etc).

Now that I have a new office, it was very “echoey” and hollow-sounding, so I installed these tiles to dampen the sound. This way I can easily just sit down and talk from of my screen via the in-built microphone. As can be seen, I also installed shelves:

To cut the tiles into the correct shapes, I just used a saw (yes, that is Kermit the Frog in the background):

As my desk is under the stairs, there is an area where I have my scanner and printer. It’s great that they’re out of the way and not in my direct workspace. Again, I have used acoustic tiles to dampen the echoes—and it helps in soundproofing when I have music playing while I work.

By-the-way, to attach the foam to the plasterboard drywall, I used 3M Scotch-Weld number 74 Foam Adhesive for a very strong bond:

As the office is small-ish, it’s very cluttered, but tidy at the same time. I’m not one for wanting a lot of colour around my Mac screen (read my article on this for more details), but if I am doing colour-critical work, I can simply turn out the lights.

Oh yeah, here’s my son, Chase. He’s only 4 but can use Photoshop® with a graphics tablet already! A designer in the making?

Now the construction of my new office is complete, all that’s required a very mature, 30 year old graphic designer, complete with a retro He-man and Skeletor!

To Conclude

It just goes to show that with a little know-how and determination, anyone can build their own office. The total material cost for this project was about £300, but if I hired someone to build it for me, it may have cost a thousand (although it would’ve been built faster).

Do you have a home office? If not, would you consider building one if you had the space?

NoteBook: There’s a few of great articles on other blogs about designers’ workspaces that are worth a read:

Where Designers Work by David Airey

Designers present your workspace by Brian Yerkes

My design workspace by James Kurtz III