Puppies Saved From Drowning

One of my Designs For Good projects is PawPADs. They are a service dog training center which is starting from ground zero. Well they are not at zero any longer. This is turning into an amazing story. In a matter of months PawPADs has been growing rapidly. They were given 7 acres, a house for the new training center, have attracted a bevy of volunteers, and now they acquired 7 Labrador puppies destined to become service dogs. That is, after $25,000 is invested in training and keeping each dog over several years.


These puppies are destined to become service dogs now. They were destined to be drowned by a heartless owner.

Earlier today I did my fist photo shoot with the dogs. The plan is to follow the dogs through their years of training and then into their service appointment for a person in need. The dogs are trained for over 70 different behaviors such as opening doors, turning on lights, and picking things up from the floor. These behaviors are the 'service' in service dogs.

Far beyond that of course is the human-canine bond that these dogs provide. These newborns are so small and weak now it is hard to imagine what an absolute essential role they will play during their life in service of another.

Third draft & I'll bet I'm only half done

Not bad for a 3rd draft of just the layout/design. Then there will to be the web version. This will require putting the image though a tool to create 'hot spots' (links) on the image to more info, and the link to PayPal, and maybe a audio file of the director of PawPADs talking about the fund raiser.

Then for the print version there will probably be issues with enlarging to a poster size 20x30 print. I had to start with a small jpeg (shot with a point and shot camera) of the dog. Enlarging my be a challenge.

But I'm done for the day. Now off to do my own fliers for my glass adventures.

My new HP B8550 is cooperating at least. After a bit of fussing I was able to get boardless 8.5 x 11 prints which compete with professionally printed fliers.... hey... I'm am a professional. What am I saying?

Ok... now for the nerdy design stuff. Click on the image and take a look at the dogs front paw. Doesn't it look like it is pushing down on the cushion and the shadows were added too. I love using the warp tool on things. You can really take the years off of a person... warping that fat away :)

Wheel Chairs Dogs & Chicken And The Egg

Since I stopped my IT job I just don't know what adventures the day will bring me. Yesterday it was successfully savaging for $400 dollars of metal to be used a CAFAC when it opens, then doing a crazy photo shoot at the Como Conservatory.

Today I was back at PawPADS reviewing the fund raiser poster and newsletter I'm doing for them. The poster is now going into its third draft. The first draft at this link shows the image where I cut the dog out of. The second suffered from the same issue of the lack of an obvious call to action. That is, it wasn't obvious what a person was supposed to do after reading the poster.

Back to ground zero. We all like the cute puppy. But the dog has grown up since then. The puppy was on wheel chair in the old picture, but no one would really see it unless they look closely... and who does look that close except design nerds.

The solution is to cut the puppy out of the old picture, shoot a nice shot of a wheel chair by itself, and then place the puppy into the wheel chair picture via the magic of photoshop. Now we can use this image in multiple pieces of literature.

OK, so that's the wheel chair and dogs part of the post. The chicken and egg part is simply the struggle I'm seeing when working with nonprofits. Most people don' t want to participate or donate to startups. How do you get the word out if the media doesn't see a story and won't waste the ink on you? Of course this is not only true of NPOs. I guess it is also true of someone like me starting a career over.

Good things do happen however.... and sometimes absolutely magical things. Like PawPADs getting 7 acres of land AND a house donated to them just by visiting the right yard sale and meeting someone.

Or like me meeting a PR person today at the PawPADs meeting. No telling what good might come out of that.

pawPADs Photo Shoot

Shot a set of images for pawPADs. Some will be used in literature and some in a photo journalism piece. You can see a few more at my Flickr page.

Click slideshow at the upper right of the page after using the link above.

These were done using the Topaz Simplify and the Imagenomic Portraiture plugins in Photoshop. I'm really liking the style. Not to painterly, but not too realistic either.

Enjoy!

Designs For Good is Taking Off!

Boy... A bit overwhelmed at the moment.

Leaving for Iowa tomorrow to talk over a art glass commission of two free hanging panels of 5 by 4 foot, and to also meet with a store owner who may want to sell some of my craft-end items like FritFlowers as can be seen here.

I squeezed in the time to create a prototype of the glass panels. Even if the commission doesn't come my way I can still use it as an example piece at CAFAC for my kilnformed glass students.


I've started working with the owner of PawPADs as another Designs For Good effort. PawPADS is about.... Pawsitive Perspectives Assistance Dogs (PawPADs) is a 501c3 non-profit organization whose mission is to facilitate the power of the human-canine bond, and enhance the lives of others, through the process of training assistance dogs and the outcome of partnering them with people with disabilities.

My first mission was to produce a flyer for their fund raiser. Pretty simple layout with a bunch of paw prints in the background and a cute image of a puppy that I made into puzzle pieces using Photoshop.

It is an amazing amount of money, to the tune of $25,000, goes into turning a rambunctious puppy into a dependable helper for a disabled person.

Another project will be to do a photojournalism piece for them. For this project I will be following a puppy from beginning to the end of its training to illustrate just what is involved, and how the dogs achieve their goal of aiding a person in need.

I've got my eye on a few other nonprofits as well and I'll post those when we iron out some of the details.

On the Circular Obsessions front, I'm starting to get fan mail as a result of the Sculptural Pursuit Magazine Award. It is gratifying to hear from people. I'm really hopeful to sell a few of the works and it will be a wonderful experience to be able to donate a majority of the proceeds to worthy nonprofit ventures like PawPADs.

Oh... and I guess I have to officially announce that I am no longer working at my IT job as a Database Administrator. I quite. Yes, jumped over the edge. Designs For Good in now my full time obsession.

Wish me well! I couldn't be more excited about my future!