Media General, Inc, the company to which I'm employed, has decided to final update our software. We've been using Quark XPress 4.11, Photoshop 7, and Illustrator 8 since I started working here 5 years ago. Now, a new system for billing and routing ads has forced them to upgrade us all to Adobe CS2. For the past week, I've been converting Quark files over to InDesign CS2, and it's pretty freakin' sweet. I've got all the features I've longed for to make my job easier and my ads look better. And with CS2 comes a newer Photoshop and a much more user friendly Illustrator. I've been avoiding Illustrator 8 due to its stiff interface (no live scrolling is a pain) but the CS2 version makes it much nicer. I've come to really love it. In fact, I've done a little moonlighting.

One of the local car dealers that I've done ads for before recently contacted me about designing a new logo for them. I've never done any freelance graphic design before so I had to check around for the standard rates. They accepted my slightly lower than standard terms and I'm waiting to finalize now. I gave them two designs and I'm now waiting for them to get back in contact with me about which they prefer so I can clean it up and give them an vectored EPS version. It's nothing fancy, just some green gradiants, a few different type faces, some drop shadows, and some nationally recognized car logos. I might display it for portfolio purposes but I'm not sure if it would be legally acceptable since it has logos for Pontiac, GMC, Cadillac, etc on it.