Confessions of a Graphic Designer

"INVU4URAQT" used to be an autograph saying kids would write in yearbooks at the end of the school year. A wealthy friend travels the world but spends most of her time alone. Another is successful but waited too long to have a baby. Another has everything except her life mate who died too young. And another goes on a dozen cruises a year to every corner of the world—sometimes taking the same exact cruise twice—for what reason? It seems like he is searching for something he'll never find. It so happens my husband and I are surrounded by people who have made a ton of money throughout their careers. Many people believe "if only I were wealthy—it would solve all of life's problems." But wealth and resources are not panaceas. Despite the resources a person has, it doesn't guarantee life will be wonderful. Once critical issues like having food, clothing and shelter are answered, everything beyond that speaks to enhanced quality of life. But it ...

Fern tree across from the hotel Okay so some of you guys know I went to Los Angeles last week. There are more details about the gathering I attended on my other blog American Express made it easy to get my flight using miles, but booking a hotel was an adventure. I looked and looked, using many of the usual sites and didn't feel like there was a significant difference between them. It's not as simple as it should be. Basically, I know nothing about LA, so didn't feel like I could find a place on AirBNB and confidently know it would be convenient in terms of getting to the W Hotel in Westwood—the venue of the #140confLA event. So I tried to find a reasonably priced room in the W Hotel, which is across from the Mildred E. Mathias Botanical Garden at UCLA. (BTW, there wasn't a reasonably priced room, but I bit the bullet and booked it anyway since the event was taking place there.) Being a little bit nervous traveling by myself because I usually have my trusty...

Through The Seattle Public Library The Sally Goldmark Library in Madrona is our local branch. Sometimes I think my husband, David, and I are the only people in Seattle who don’t subscribe to Netflix or Hulu. I guess one reason why is, we aren’t huge consumers of video content and we'd regard it as wasteful to pay for something we won’t use. We like watching films and television series, but since we opened Alki Surf Shop , we have even less discretionary time, including TV time. We spend an average of about an hour each evening watching films or programs. Truth be told, we’d dearly love to "cut the Comcast cord," but there are certain channels that would be a bummer to lose, like Bloomberg News, and any channel that airs "Law and Order" episodes :) The concept of getting rid of cable became more of a possibility when David discovered a treasure trove of content available through The Seattle Public Library (SPL). He regularly visits the SPL web ...

This final day of 2015 started out pretty normally. Woke up, fed the cats, put on my make-up, got dressed, then looked at my to-do list. All doable! I needed to pick up my car from my mechanic of 19 years, and no one was around to drive me there, so I called Uber . Uber was in 50 percent surge-price mode, so I said, forget that! Opened Lyft and put in my location and request... Lyft did something weird. I watched the Lyft car circle around, then was notified the car had arrived. Scanning all directions—no Lyft. The driver calls and tells me he is in West Seattle. Uh, yeah. I was 20 minutes away in Madrona. Wonder what happened? Obviously I couldn't wait for him, so I called my old standby, Farwest Taxi. They said it would be 15 minutes until a cab would reach me. No thanks. In this age of "I have no time to wait," I called Yellow Cab next. They arrived in 5 minutes. An older East African gentleman was driving and he wouldn't exceed 25 MPH....

After traveling in New York for several days to attend a Verizon Summit (#vzsummit), and enjoying meals at fabulous restaurants there, I returned, craving home made comfort food. Just before the trip, I roasted a pretty sizable pumpkin (uncarved), yielding a two large sheet pans of delicious pieces of roasted pumpkin. So before heading into Alki Surf Shop on Saturday, I searched for a pumpkin soup recipe, and found one that looked good, but I didn’t have some of the ingredients. Never one to let a missing ingredient stop me, I forged on! The original recipe, Thai Pumpkin Soup with Coconut Milk, called for lemongrass, fresh coriander, vegetable stock and coconut milk. But I didn’t have any of those things. So here’s what I did: Terri’s Pantry Pumpkin Soup Ingredients: 2 TB Olive Oil 1.5 medium onions, diced 5 cloves of garlic left whole 3.5 lbs. of roasted pumpkin, diced* 1 tsp ground coriander 2 tsp curry powder 2 TB fresh minced ginger** (which BTW, was f...

It’s been a year since my husband, Kahuna Dave, and I opened our store, Alki Surf Shop, in West Seattle. The past 12 months have been filled with lots of laughter and learning, and we’ve met thousands of great people from nearby and all over the world. We’ve made new friends, rekindled past friendships, and love being a part of the Alki Beach community. It feels like we’ve been on a business “graduate school” crash course. We're smarter store owners now, and continue to evolve. Among some of the things we've learned: How to create a positive experience for people who visit; how to identify products that make sense; and how to work more effectively with suppliers. My husband's vision of "Hawaii-Beach-California" is fun, and comes through clearly in our store, from the fixtures to the colors and raffia and bamboo trim. One of the things I made a conscious effort to do is to incorporate my friends in the creation of our unique space. We’re constantly hear...

It’s been said, “Life’s a beach,” and in our case, it’s true! Eleven months ago, my husband, “Kahuna Dave” and I launched our store, Alki Surf Shop on Alki Beach in West Seattle. It took extraordinary effort and thinking to create such a unique place. It’s not just the fact that the “physical plant” is fun and adorable, but we go further to make sure our customers have a positive experience in every way we can. As Kahuna Dave says, Alki Beach is Seattle’s playground, and when you’re there, you’re having fun. It starts with the music we pipe out onto the sidewalk. We actually see people outside on the sidewalk dancing before they enter our store. We have an incredible UE Boom bluetooth speaker, which acts like a pied piper, drawing them up into our space. And when a customer leaves, we often give them something extra to remember. Our stock-in-trade is genuine Alki-branded tees, hoodies, and tank tops, but we sell all manner of beach essentials: sunglasses, sunscre...

What's more important? Building a brand, or serving your customers? Happy buyers are essential to making your business succeed. Without customer service, it doesn’t matter if you’ve created a great brand. Ignoring buyers or potential customers is counter-productive to the ultimate goal of attaining success. That being said, a strong brand identity is like a way-finding system for your customers, so it’s very important, too. It signals what you do, how you position yourself and lets your customers understand how you fit into the marketplace, and how it relates to them. Customers encounter your brand and should quickly understand a brand’s personality and position among competitors and decide whether there is a good fit. That’s how the Graham Cracker Cookie Crumbles Some of you know, my husband, David Horsfall , and I opened Alki Surf Shop  in Seattle seven months ago. It may be February, and so what if Boston is buried in 100 inches of snow ( @chillie31512 )?...

Rejection sounds negative, but it can play a positive role in choices we make. It can force us to pivot in a new direction and help us develop skills to adapt and succeed. By changing our focus to something we hadn’t planned, rejection can lead us to a better outcome than if we’d simply been handed the thing we wanted. In pursuit of happiness? Last fall I learned of a great job with one of my local design clients. They were looking for a communications director who could write, work well with others, and organize the department. Plus it was a bonus if they had design and social media skills. I’d had my business for a long time and, thinking I might be an ideal candidate, I vigorously pursued it. Five months of meetings and interviews led me to become one of two finalists. The search culminated when I had a 9-hour successive interview with about 40 people. After ruminating three weeks, they emailed to say neither of us were chosen, and they were going to start the search anew....

Why We Need to Digital Detox Our Irrepressible Need to Be Connected From the moment we adopted the smart phone—a tiny, life-altering portable computer—the need to stay connected intensified. Our devices provided us with instant connectivity. And with the introduction of social media, the time we spent connecting practically doubled as we kept up with daily news of not just real life, but also virtual friends. It’s extraordinary how technology enables us to have our family and friends as close as our pockets. But our devices can be like a spoiled pet—needy and demanding. Digital Day-cation In September I posted a tweet about Jake Knapp's year, free of digital distraction from the iPhone. A Twitter friend, Adrian Lee, saw it and tweeted me to say he was going to give it a try for 24 hours. I didn’t think about it too much until he wrote about it. He did it! I was so impressed! Social media relationships, as those in real life, thrive when you are present an...