Work: Radar, Halloween, & a Launch Party

Work: Radar, Halloween, & a Launch Party

At work I learn a lot about weather and weather gadgets. One thing I've been spending the last few months on was a redesign of static mapping, mainly radar products. One main thing I did was research and user test what radar images meant to people more specifically what the colors meant to them. Our former radar palette had complaints of making storms looks more intense than they were with the gradual color change from dark green to yellow, people couldn't pick out the strong cells in the storm. So with research and lot's Meteorologist and user input, I created a new palette that also was more legible on a multitude of different base maps (like google, our own, apple, etc.) So far it's been received well and I couldn't be more proud of everyone that helped me get all the code together and implement it, it went through without a hitch! Learn more about the palette change here.

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A couple weeks after we launched the radar color palette (and a new infrared satellite palette) we also launched a new static radar mapping experience that I helped design. We tied together our single site and regional radar products to create a better user experience. I also redesigned the base map to better suite our website stylization and improved the resolution and sharability. Learn more about that here, and try out our new radar maps.

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So as you can see radar has been on my brain which is why for Halloween this year I decided to keep with the nerdy theme (cause well I am a nerd). Last year I was Dr. Ellie Satler from Jurassic Park, the year before Mike and I were the Apollo 11 mission, me being the LEM (Lunar Excursion Module) and Mike being the Command Module. Yep nerdy. Soooo this year I was a RADAR STATION! Pretty obscure but I think I did quite a good job if I do say so myself. I dressed up in the parking garage then proceeded to ride the elevator with some odd glances. I then walked around the office handing out radar images, I even went into a developer meeting while my boss was yelling "Watch out Radar interruption!" Oh man we are all nerds, I love it! I even got a radar selfie while everyone else carved pumpkins. :)

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Which now leads me to my last radar story of the past couple months. With launching our new radar products and palette I decided to have a party in the office to celebrate everone's hard work! I made radar palette cupcakes (the color corresponded with the weather condition cupcake topper), some lime sherbert punch (thought it looked like clouds!) and reusing my radar costume into a PINATA! I'm pretty proud of making a radar themed party, haha eat your heart out pinterest!






Hope you enjoyed this lengthy post about Radar which has been my obsession for months now! I'm excited to move onto other user experience projects at work, but I guess I'll forever be the radar queen there!

Huggles,
Lauren

Life: My Tech Job

Life: My Tech Job

One reason that I don't blog much, other than being lazy about sitting at my desk, is that I kinda get burnt out at my job. But it's the good burnt out. I absolutely love my job. I work as an interactive designer at the Weather Underground, the first weather website as well as the most concise bringing weather data from not only government sources but local do-it-yourselfers and self proclaimed meteorologists. It's amazing.

We have recently redone the entire site including the outdated '93 logo that was a nod to our namesake, the 60-70s radical left group. Everything was launched the 15th of April and since we're an agile company we're constantly working on it. My team was in charge of the City forecast page, plus the overall experience of the site minus our Wundermap and our social/community pages, ie the photo and blog community. I have learned so much about organizing a SUPER DATA HEAVY site... and I mean super heavy. There were pages that's code hadn't been touch since the early 2000's, which is like 50 internet years.




There's still so much more to do and design, and I'm so happy to be there with such amazing people some who I've become good friends with. It's an absolute blast. It amazing how much was put into this site, the design will continually become refined, but the backend things that were done is just, whoa. The end consumer doesn't really understand how involved this site is behind the curtains. Of course there was a lot of "If it aint broke..." stuff but the site was actually broken, or just being held together by small strings of code. Now the backend is more robust, but we're still working on it, and not just piece-mealing it together which in the long run builds a better product.

Also if you ever watch Silicon Valley on HBO... it's crazy how spot on some of the absurdness of the startup/tech industry is...  

Now if only I found the time... no energy... no ambition... to actually make this blog look presentable. I mean really the kerning in the title font. Absurd.

Now go check out the site, http://www.wunderground.com/, and download our apps!! They're awesome!

-Lauren

Well Hi There 2012

Well Hi There 2012

So here it is another year. I'd say I've gone through hell and back this year, and with everything that has happened I'm sometimes surprised that I still get up every morning. But that isn't what this post is about... Maybe I'll do a recap on my year, but I don't think I want to pull out those feelings, they are safely locked away.

This is a post about what I've been up to this past month. I started a dream job in November at Minted.com, but sadly it was a seasonal job. I had the fortune of meeting amazing people, whom I adore. And I made every single day count working there because I knew this good time could be fleeting. I danced awkward dances for everyone when we had late overtime shifts. I went out and shared drinks and stories. We ate lunch in the park when it was sunny, and made lot's of trips to Starbucks. I enjoyed bagel monday a little more than I should. I met someone who went to CCS working there, and found friend soul mates in giggles and teasing.







I am so thankful to have found a job that is in the field I want to be in. And luckily I'm still there part-time after the season ended! It was amazing meeting hundreds of young people at an amazing company. But sadly it came to an end for most of the seasonal employees and people left to go off into the real world and the desks got cleared. I'm so so happy to still be around, and with an amazing group of guys who also got past the seasonal hurdle.





It was great having this little Minted family over my first holiday season on my complete own. And most of my roommates were gone as well, visiting their families, so I created a safe haven at work and put in a ton of overtime. Christmas Eve, I was making cards... day after Christmas, I was making cards. It was just what I needed, keeping busy with awesome people. And man are they awesome, I love walking to the Bart station every morning to get there and have my day filled with absurd jokes and awful puns. Just what I love. So who knows what this now part-time position will turn into at Minted, but I'm so happy to be there and working with an amazing company.

I'll be back with my funtimes from Xmas Eve, Christmas, and my awesome New Years. Don't know who sill reads this other than my dad (hi dad!) But I love sharing with you guys my new life here in the bay, and of course its something good to look back on.

Huggles,
Lauren

At Work: The Tutu Series

At Work: The Tutu Series

Two weeks ago on the 13th I curated a show at my gallery!

"the Tutu series: past and present works by Lenore Gimpert"



Lenore is one of our local regular artists whom the design community adores. Her work is seen all around the Detroit area as well as the Caribbean, NYC, and the north-east. I decided a couple months ago to throw together a show and try to get new people into the showroom. I was pleased with the turnout, and we had great food, and of course for her french inspired art we had pink champagne and macaroons! yum yum!!

And of course I also had to dress ballerina-esque! Too bad I forgot my pointe shoes. :)

I also designed all the posters, postcards, and tags; wrote the press releases and managed the social media outlets... The hardest part was my trip to San Fran was the week before the opening. So I had a week to paint and fill in all the holes in the main space in the showroom and hang everything. We had 29 of her pieces, as well as rehanging other rooms in the gallery to make everything flow together. It was a crazy week! But ending it eating treats and drinking champagne was worth it.

{ Materials Used }

Leotard } American Apparel

Skirt } Vintage Dress, will be for sale in my Etsy shop soon!!

Heels } Gifted from Kristina

Belt } Urban Outfitters

Necklace & Bracelet } F21

Huggles,
Lauren

Strangness

Strangness

Work can sometimes make you do weird things....

Look I'm poking her!

Today I'm off to a bridal expo with Kevin's cousin's fiance. I'll probably update my outfits tomorrow!

Work Work

Work Work

This past week I've been super busy. We had Sample sale and I was sick :( So there's the reason for lack of photos, and honestly I haven't really been wanting to take pictures. So yeah... Life goes on. Here is another look at what I do at work.









Huggles,
Lauren

Oktoberfest Vignette

Oktoberfest Vignette

I work in an art showhouse in the Michigan Design Center, which is like a mini mall for interior design. There are upholstery and drapery places, furniture stores, tile places, and one art & framing place... TRA Art Group. This week the MDC hosted an event called "Celebrations" where designers were asked to create a vignette of a celebration of their choosing. Some designers did New Years Eve, Christmas, Engagement & Wedding parties, even a Divorce Party. We decided that I'd be the designer for our showroom and I wanted to be a little different and true to my roots, so I chose Oktoberfest. I transformed our front room to what I thought would be an awesome Oktoberfest dinner and gathering. So here you go, my Oktoberfest vignette.

More images on my Flickr

For my color scheme I centered around the Bavarian flag colors where Oktoberfest is celebrated, blue and white. I brought in silver elements for more "white" and brought in accents of yellow and orange for the German flag. The dishes where all blue and white motifs but they all mismatched to give in a country/elegant feel. I folded blue napkins into little Bavarian hats with feather accents to push the traditional feel. The name card holders had illustrations of Dirndls and Lederhosen in silver goblets with succulents (aka Chicks and hens, from my backyard!) in them to give more of a earthy country feel.

The center piece was comprised of thrifted beer steins holding dried flowers, twigs, and wheat, placed on top of some of my collection of old hard cover books. I also added in some candles, deer antlers and mini deer skull to give it even more of a old world feel.

The art I chose I wanted to be very eclectic and not of a certain genre. I have framed pieces beside unframed, and abstracts next to old traditionals, I wanted a feeling that the host of the party has art from his ancestors and collects new art. The ceiling drapery over the seating area I wanted to remind the guests of a tent where Oktoberfest is usually celebrated. With all the little details I tried to convey the host as collector living in a Southern German country home. I borrowed furniture from Beacon Hill and Henredon (both are located in the Design Center), the art is from our gallery, TRA Art Group.

I of course wore my Dirndl and we served homemade baked pretzels (by me), apple cidar, oktoberfest beer and german wine. Here's a quick iPhone picture of my outfit, more to come later.

So what do you think? Did you get any ideas for your own Oktoberfest party?

Oktoberfest Vignette

Oktoberfest Vignette

Last nigh Kev, me and the dog were at the gallery until 10p setting up my vignette for the Michigan Design Center's Celebrations event on Thursday. My "celebration" is Oktoberfest! Which I had a lot of fun setting up. Here's a quick photo we grabbed before we left. I'll have a ton more photos in the next couple days, I loved doing the set up! I'm really proud of myself, I really like what I set up. Yay!