ACCOZZAGLIA

may i just say that ingesting three cups of decidedly strong coffee starting at midnight, despite not being remotely tired to begin with, leaves one in a strange headspace?

top this with being ADD. caffeine does curious things to ADD symptoms, not unlike cocaine (so i’m told): both help you focus.

trouble is, i’m careful about caffeine consumption. this shit will dry you out like a Ronco food dehydrator. making matters worse, one of my maintenance meds has diuretic properties, which means that i have to ingest copious amounts of water compensate and counter what would otherwise become my own raisining.

too bad “raisining” isn’t a real word, cos it’s appropros, especially as i get older and skin gets less elastic. not like i’m racking up crow’s feet yet, but just sayin’.

* * *

anyway, that pot of coffee was dedicated to a new section being thrown together for my professional Web site. originally, i’d planned this section to exist under its own separate domain, but hey, when you’re unemployed, it’s hard enough to afford virtual hosting and registration for just one domain, much less any others.

so, i’m really wanting to finish this site before night’s end, knowing fully well that that ain’t liable to happen. the urgency lies in the fact that there are some compelling openings i found for companies which are wanting graphic designers whose design ideology and approach run pretty close to my own.

curiously, if not bizarrely, two of the three possibilities are in the Chicago area (i know, i know, typenik), since a panoply of work that this new section will present comes from my Chicago client.

the third is in NYC. and as is par for the course these days, there’s nothing to be had in the Seattle area. whee.

meanwhile, there are also some copywriting openings which garnered my interest. i’m at this crossroads between pursuing a copywriter role, permitting me to strengthen my writing capabilities, and continuing in graphic design, which is fine, except that i’m now consciously aware that i can’t mimic every conceivable style or approach out there.

if anything, my design ethos has gelled itself over the last eight years, which isn’t exactly a good thing for someone who has to cater to the often contradictory, clueless whims of a diverse client roster who all want the biggest and the best. and the most divergent idea.

a senior designer. a junior copywriter. a mid-to-senior-level Web architect. that’s me in a quick nutshell. despite this uncommon multidisciplinary background, though, i’m still unemployed. and without an English B.A., a graphic design B.F.A. or anything in between, getting upright in the Bush 43 depression is going to continue to be astonishingly difficult, if not futile.

* * *

on a bright note, though: my former client, the one with whom i mutually ended professional relations a little over a month ago, left me a sliver of encouragement and hope in an unexpected voice message Tuesday afternoon.

in the voice mail, she wanted to take a few moments from her hectic schedule to let me know that she really valued the work i provided for her now-successful startup company, which i represented since its inception a couple of years ago.

she noted that not only did i handle the heady process of devising a brand, a voice and an image for a company which previously had nothing, but that — she recently realised — i also kept my eye “on the bigger picture”, handling a strong strategic framework for the future expansion of the company’s image, all without forcing them to start from square one once they became ready to move on to a larger-calibre design agency.

she punctuated this comment by adding that as she handles revisions to her existing marketing materials, such as the product catalogue, she continues to be impressed by my effort and contributions while i was the steward of her company’s brand.

even though i lost a lot of money in ambitiously taking on that client — creating all the branding, the copy (content, mood and personality) and the design from scratch, all on my own — and referring her to her new furniture designer without seeking a finder’s fee, i’m starting to believe that the effort was probably worth it.

i questioned myself over the last few weeks, but given that this message was effectively a standing endorsement and testimony to my professional and creative capabilities, i’m certain that having such a reference can only be a push in the right direction, should i ever get as far as the reference check stage of a hiring process.

sure, it’s not a Cleo award (one of the Golden Globe-calibre commendations from this industry), it’s not a profile story in some trade rag like CA or Surface or Graphis (whoever suggested i was anything close to revolutionary?), it’s not name prestige from schooling at some elite institution like Pratt or OCAD or RISD or and it’s not the cred one gets from working at some big sweatshop (errrm, agency) like BBDO, Saatchi or Chiat/Day, but hey — it can’t hurt.

right?