An unprecedented year, an unexpected way to serve.
Written in August 2020: The story of how this summer happened so evidently shows how the Lord was moving all these pieces around before I was even aware of what these months would bring. I'm so thankful that I was able to provide for others with my work in a way I've never been able to before, and I see a little more clearly what God is calling me to do with the tools with which He's given me to serve.
My family bought a home in Bozeman, MT, leading up to my Dad's retirement. He finally retired spring 2020, so we spent our entire summer there getting settled, enjoying Montana weather, and adjusting to Bozeman life. I knew when we arrived at the end of May that I wanted to find something to do to add to my portfolio besides hike in the Gallatin mountains and eat huckleberry ice cream, but I was very unsure of where that experience would come from. I walked into as many local design studios as I could, sent emails, submitted applications, and made phone calls. While I found some really cool places I would've loved to work, no one was really hiring because most graphic designers were working remotely in light of COVID-19.
In our second week in Bozeman, we went to one of our favorite downtown restaurants called Jam. We ended up striking a conversation with one of the managers that my mom had met before, and as we talked I eventually landed on how I was looking for graphic design experience in Bozeman. The manager took my contact info and told me she would get in touch with one of her graphic design friends in the area to see if she could find something for me. That afternoon, I got an email from the manager explaining that while her friend wasn't looking for any help, she was looking for someone to design children's coloring pages for two more downtown restaurants she managed, one called Revelry, which was having its grand opening in two weeks, and another called Dave's Sushi, a local favorite.
I used a process that started with creating a mood board to fully engage with the restaurant's aesthetic, making a few compositional drafts, and finally submitting PDFs of the final coloring page to the client. I loved working on these first two pages so much that I emailed several other local restaurants to volunteer my services to them and help in this way because COVID had been so hard on local businesses, especially restaurants. I ended up making three more for The Farmer's Daughters Cafe, another sushi restaurant called Seven, and one of our family's favorite places, Feed Cafe.
At this point in the summer, I thought I was done, but the very best was yet to come! We have some really good family friends who live in Gardiner, MT, which is the town at the North entrance of Yellowstone National Park. They've lived in Gardiner for 40 years, run the Yellowstone Park Service Stations, and know families who also live there and work for The National Park Service in Yellowstone. When they saw the coloring pages I was doing in Bozeman, they sent a few to one of the designers they knew in the Planning and Interpretive Media Branch of Yellowstone. I was aware that they did this, but I didn't expect to hear anything back. One morning I got the email of my dreams. The Acting Branch Chief of the Planning and Interpretive Media Branch wanted me to redesign the kids' handouts given to families at the Visitor Centers all across Yellowstone! I was beyond thrilled.
The old handout was very educational and felt like it was targeted for an older audience than kids. In order to balance education with vacation, I wanted to design a new page communicating joy and engagement, where kids would color animals in a scene as they found them with their families in the park. Since the page was a 8.5 x 11 front and back handout, I divided the work into two sections, one for herbivores and one for omnivores/carnivores. This project was my most difficult of the summer-I haven't grown up drawing these animals, so getting everything anatomically correct while making each Yellowstone animal fun and engaging required a lot of patience.
Once I finished and submitted the Yellowstone pages, I had the opportunity to meet my employer, get a tour of the Planning and Media Branch's facilities, and got a look at some of the projects they're working on for Yellowstone and the National Park Service! I was so thankful to get to meet Mr. Krueger and see all the design work he and his team does for Yellowstone and beyond.
Looking back on this year, my favorite design memories surround this summer and the unexpected blessing it was to get to serve the Bozeman area and Yellowstone with my pages. It's taught me that design extends beyond signage, fonts, and color schemes, and lies in the moments of joy that quality designs can provide to those around you. I want to continue serving with my designs in this way, working with my whole heart on every project.