#1: I made these for my dad’s restaurant
My Year of Making Things That Matter
For 2015, I’m spending 365 days making things that matter. Things that matter to me. Things that matter to the people who matter to me. Things that matter to the world. For behind the scenes email updates, sign up here. For background on the entire project, click here. This is the recap of my first project.
[What]
Design a set of greeting card templates for my dad to print out for his customers celebrating holidays and special occasions at Oriental Garden.
[Why]
My dad has been the manager at Oriental Garden since before I was born.
He works 6 days a week, getting off at 11, 12 every night. I grew up thinking it was normal for dads to never be home for dinner. He even works on his day off, driving to Queens to pick up fresh shipments of seafood, responding to emails, staying up late to design cards for customers who have chosen to celebrate birthdays and special occasions at the restaurant:
I’ve spent the last few years trying to figure out how I can help. Ideally and idealistically, I want to figure out what I can do to help him retire faster. However, I’ve recently learned that he is, unsurprisingly, indispensable to the restaurant. So for now, I want to figure out what I can do to make his life easier.
I had thought he has a ton of fun designing these:
But a month ago, my mom asked me if I had time to design a set of greeting card templates for him. Turns out he doesn’t enjoy making these as much as his love of clipart seems to suggest. ;)
So here I am.
tl;dr | Why am I doing this? Because it matters to someone who matters to me.
[How]
The Process
Day #1 (1/365): Create Google Doc to establish goals, strategy, and action items (Google Doc accessible if you want to take a look). Document design ideas. Gather design inspiration. 2.2.15
Day #2 (2/365): Decide on design direction (align with website). Wireframe card layout. 2.3.15
Day #3 (3/365): Finalize wireframes. Review past PPT templates. Create new PPT template and put in placeholders. (Why PPT? Because it’s the layout design software my dad is most familiar with.) 2.4.15
Day #4 (4/365): Pick fonts (Lane — Narrow, Georgia) 2.7.15
Day #5 (5/365): Design back of card 2.8.15
Day #6 (6/365): Design front of card 2.9.15
Day #7 (7/365): Design inside of card 2.10.15 (screenshot)
Day #8 (8/365): Put background in master template. 2.11.15
Day #9 (9/365): Come up with greetings 2.13.15
Day #10 (10/365): Come up with moar greetings 2.15.15
Day #11 (11/365): Test print some cards. Decide we need some updates: flip the two inside pages so that when menus don’t exist, they can be deleted off the left page. Move big Chinese greeting so that it’s not half on the fold , which was what I’d intended— it looks weird on the embossed borders of this card stock. 2.17.15
Day #12 (12/365): Install font on dad’s computer. Create PPT slides for all templates. 2.18.15
Day #13 (13/365): Print and field test the Chinese New Year cards! 2.21.15
[Verdict]
TBD what customers think. But my dad likes them. ;) So I’d say that’s a win.
[My next project]
Thanks for reading! My next project is a surprise. Sign up for email updates here to be the first to know.
