OryCon 41 Books

by Meredith 8. November 2019 06:00

Here they are: the OryCon 41 Souvenir Book and Pocket Program are ready for you to read and enjoy.

Proofs Required

by Meredith 28. October 2019 18:35

Annnnd both proofs are now done. I always want to see a printed copy. There was a miscommunication on the Pocket Program cover alignment. All should be fixed now and we're good to go.

Souvenir Book gave me doubts about color correction around 6am before turning the files into the printer. But then I pulled up old files of past publications and compared them to the printed results. Confidence was reinvigorated and the files were submitted. They turned out perfect. Take that Doubt Demons! Printer was awesome and gave us some extra copies of the cover so we could hand them out as thank you posters.

One file DONE!

by Meredith 17. October 2019 19:48

I just mailed the OryCon 41 Souvenir Book off for review. Minor tweaks planned for next week, no problem. Now it's time to make dinner, get the kids ready for bed, and get a good night sleep because it's time to start the big beast of a Pocket Program first thing tomorrow morning.

I'm also a big fan of how the layout of my table of contents page turned out. #designnerd

OryCon 41 Poster

by Meredith 8. September 2019 16:51

The Artist Guest of Honor, Rob Carlos, is known for his creation of dragon portraits. For this year's OryCon Rob created a special painting inspired by the theme "Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations." An early version of the painting was captured for us to use in our promotional materials. This is a poster that I put together to advertise the convention. The completed painting will be on display in all its glory in the OryCon Art Show. Come to the convention to see it in person.

Westercon 69 Pubs are off to press

by Meredith 24. June 2016 09:04

Files uploaded, proofs approved, we’re good-to-go! I've compiled all the files, made low-res exports, and uploaded them to the gallery (view web PDF copies of the Souvenir Book and Pocket Program).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

OryCon 36 Pubs are at the printer!

by Meredith 2. November 2014 06:41

Files delivered, proofs approved, the Souvenir Book and Pocket Program are off to press. I've compiled all the files, made low-res exports, and uploaded them to the gallery.

My goal for the Souvenir Book this year was to focus on the general content of the convention; giving information relevant to people new to OryCon as well as long-time veterans. I also wanted to spotlight the people that make OryCon a unique experience; including full color pages for the Guests of Honor, more photos of members throughout the book, featuring panelists by programming track categories, short bios for panelists (if provided), and extended text about charity organizations that partner with OryCon. Listing the panelists by category was new and a ton of work. We didn't have existing reports to create those lists so I had to do a lot of scrubbing manually. In the end, I think it was a pretty neat feature. It looked really good and I hope people like it.

My goal for the Pocket Program this year was to provide a pocket sized book that contains all the details of the convention programming. I wanted the book to be a single source of information to find panels (date/time, location, description) in both grid and text formats; with a compromise between making the text large enough to be legible and the book small enough to be portable. My intention was to make this the book you carried around the con; giving you easy access to hours of operation, quick reference programming schedules (readings, concerts, autographs, panelist locators), maps, fan groups, dealers coupons, policies, and local area restaurant information. I upped the page count (from 80 to 104) and we moved to a spiral binding. It's the cheapest print media we have so I am hoping that more content (like paid ads) can be added to it over the years.

Another success this year was reworking the ad pricing and focus for our printed pubs. I evaluated the purpose of the ads we print (2/3 of our ads are swaps or for charities) and decided that this year our mission is to support the convention community instead of trying to make money. We analyzed the cost per page and set fan/non-profit ad rates to nearly at-cost. As a fundraiser, however, we offered the premium space of our inside front and back cover at a premium price and we sold one! I also created layout options for half page and coupons in the Pocket Program. In the end, even though we cut costs, we nearly doubled last year's ad revenue. Plus, the ads are more focused on the community of the convention.

New Ad for OryCon 37

by Meredith 17. October 2014 07:58

OryCon needed a generic ad for situations where we're doing a swap but the latest convention information isn't ready yet. I've made this a full page but will also make a half page and maybe a quarter page too. A web ad probably wouldn't hurt as well.

This version of the ad is updated with just a bit of the O37 information we have right now. Photo credit goes to Phil Whitehouse.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Westercon69 Ad for OryCon Pubs

by Meredith 13. October 2014 08:09

It is that time in the production schedule to make ads for everyone. Westercon69 needed a new full page ad to be used for a flyer and I had to create a half page version for the OryCon36 publications. Not exciting stuff but it needs to be done. /smile

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

OryCon 35 Pubs are Done

by Meredith 1. November 2013 22:39

On Saturday, I had to take over doing the pocket program and spent most of the weekend and into Monday building a new publication. I had all the content and had already tested creating the program grids so it should have been pretty simple to complete. But oh the issues I had with formatting! I wasted way too much time wrestling with character and paragraph formatting -- trying to recycle all of the styles that I had created in the souvenir book ended up being more trouble than it was worth. In the end, I cleared all of the formatting, made all new styles, and started from scratch. Everything worked way better after that.

Despite any headaches this project has given, it has been a fabulous opportunity to refine and refresh my print production skills. I’ve dealt with a printer (two actually) and their requirements, created new documents from scratch, gathered content, wrote new content, edited old content, prepped art, made ads, collected ads, and organized a complex layout in two publications. And the bonus… I got to brush up on my skills in Inkscape, Photoshop, and InDesign.

Yesterday, in between all the Halloween stuff I visited the printer and approved the proofs. The souvenir book and pocket program look great! Lithtex use a digital process for printing so the proof review was different than how I've done them in the past. They actually had both books completely bound and cut just as we would see them. It was pretty cool. I was going to do a tour of the printing process but totally forgot about it. I'll ask about it next year.

I'm already thinking about what I want to try out next year. I would love to get all of the souvenir book in full color and on glossy paper. I'll need to get creative with the quotes to see if that can happen. I'm also interested in feedback from the convention membership. I would like to know more about what they want to see in the printed publications.

Want to see what I’ve been working on? Follow the image links to get a sneak preview of this year’s publications. Or you can go to the convention next week to collect a copy in person.

 

More Ads for OryCon 35 Publications

by Meredith 23. October 2013 16:48

Needed several more ads for the Pocket Program. I’ve updated the gallery with the images. Two of the ads were comps for the other conventions (RadCon and Norwescon) because of there inadvertent help (aka we borrowed several of their ideas for our own convention). I thought a little extra help would be a nice thank you for them being so awesome.

I’m hoping to meet the person that did the Norwescon publications sometime (maybe at the 2014 con). I wanted to compliment them on how clean their layout is and how professional it all looks. Their pubs were a heavy influence in the design layout for OryCon this year. There were several elements that just seemed like a really smart solution, particularly in the Pocket Program. Hopefully they will appreciate the extra ad. <smiles>

About Meredith Cook

Welcome to my repository of creative expression. I'm not a happy camper unless I am making something and over the years I have dabbled in quite a few different kinds of art projects. Some projects come from taking art classes, others are completely hobby driven, and projects like home decor come from a need to customize an item and make it better or unique. The overall theme behind what I do is to learn how to manipulate objects and practice what I know about visual aesthetic and good design. Oh yeah, and to have fun.

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