Waiting for my Maibock, originally uploaded by arahbahn.

Mmm, handsome, awesome husband.

Awesome beer & nosh stop, too: Glockenspiel is right between work and home! A pretty impressive task, given that the former and latter are less than three miles apart.

So many things to be grateful for, lately! There’s more:

Just this week I have made the most surprisingly comforting discovery. Perhaps it’s more of a determination. A certain meeting on Monday turned serendipitous.

When I began my graphic & web design career, 10 years ago, I was strongly attracted to internet usability problems. It was 1999, and there was a lot of bad design out there. Ugly, with inconsistent expectations and assumptions about a wide range of potential users. I love to make things work, so I grabbed onto web design because I felt I could help make solutions.

Going in this direction was in conflict with the artist in me. I’ve always felt that a sense of wonder, play, and discovery are very important – more so for some web experiences/clients than other, but in all of them, the experience has got to be enjoyable -nay, fun!- because, well, we are animals. We like to play. There’s no use denying it.

My job took a turn toward management about 6 months ago and as a result I’ve had fewer opportunities to exercise my Adobe creative software package, never mind my creativity. So when I got a small opportunity to work on some design recently, I approached it my more natural manner: loose association and symbolism, in the hopes of providing the end user with rough suggestions, rather than obvious cues.

The ensuing business-concerns critique (in the aforementioned Monday meeting) yielded unanimous feedback that no one felt the symbols related tightly enough to the topics they were meant to pair up with. I’ll fully admit that I had not enough time allotted to the project to bring them up to perfect snuff for the group. However, the artist in me absolutely relished the ambiguity I’d present to the group.

Some time ago I strayed from the usability-focused area, perhaps by accident, but this week I got a confirmation that it’s more appropriate, given my inclination, that I’m detached from it. I’m one of the ones who needs to push the creative, conceptual envelope. Yeah!

Also: my run today was delicious: 6 flat pavement miles in 52 minutes, which included 4 quarter-mile intervals. I had great weather for it today (70 and cloudy), and great music as well: Eileen Rose and Michael Franti.