AIGA Into the Woods

I had the privilege to attend AIGA's Into the Woods. It is a design conference that happens about every 2-3 years in Leavenworth, WA and brings together all sorts of design professionals from Seattle and a handful of lucky students. My design classmate, Nicole and I signed up to be student volunteers which helps pay the way and then sent proposal after proposal to get further funding from our school for the conference. We were so thankful to be successful with the financial side of it because the conference turned out to way exceed our expectations. It was a weekend full of workshops, important speakers, meeting cool design professionals and eating amazing food. We stayed at the Sleeping Lady, which was perfect for a conference, we actually felt like we were at camp. The resort is equipped with clusters of cabins (5 star cabins to be exact), a dining hall, a chapel, spa/pool/hot tub/, recroom and mini cabins for workshops. Overall it was a wonderful place to stay at.

The conference itself was so inspiring, I came back from the weekend refreshed and ready to plunge into all my design, personal and at the magazine.

Here's a few photos of some of the fun we had. Friday night was a costume party themed to Oktoberfest (which is huge in the german Leavenworth town). On a college budget, Nicole and I decided to twin yodeler boys...also pictured was our conference roommate from Chicago who was a beer maiden. And the last picture is us with the beer glasses we received at a workshop on package design--specifically beer packaging labels. All in all, we came to the conclusion that designers really like beer.

Birthday celebration

LasSaturday I celebrated my 22nd Birthday with my roomies and some close friends at the Rock in Tacoma. Then on my actual birthday (Tuesday the 21st) I went to the Matador downtown with some of my design buddies who I have worked with at the magazine. Overall I had a lot of fun celebrating and got tons of birthday love. Thanks to everyone who mailed cards and gifts or celebrated with me in person, it was a great 22nd!!!

Oh and not pictured because we forgot to take pictures :( but Dustin and I headed to Kirkland this weekend to have birthday dinner with the fam. Our birthdays are 8 days apart, his is the 29th. We were treated to Zeeks pizza, which is one of my favorites!! 

425 on Groupon

425 Magazine is on Groupon today! $8 for a year subscription...check it out if you were looking to get one :)

http://www.groupon.com/deals/425-magazine?utm_campaign=425-magazine

Kitties!

I know Heather has shared the news, that Mom and Dad adopted kittens (yay finally!). So, I thought I'd share some more photos, because you can never see too many cute kitten photos, right? :)

If you look close you can see Zoe (all black) on my lap.

Aren't they just adorable? I had to bring Dustin home to meet them as well! Now I'm just hoping that Mylee will accept them, I've left her in Kirkland to have bonding time with her new siblings :) Zoe and Silus aren't afraid of her at all, but Mylee is still making sure they know their place in "her house." 

425 Sept/Oct

Because I'm in the process of building my personal web page, I thought I'd share a couple of the articles I designed for the latest 425 Magazine. It was our largest issue ever! Be on the lookout this fall for my website...I'm part way there as I've purchased my domain name (www.hollydunning.com) which is under construction. 

Below: This is the second page of an article on the Puyallup Fair, front page to come too!

Racing cars and photographing piglets

This last friday was packed full of activities for me! I woke up at 6am and drove across the Narrows Bridge to watch Dad race his Miata at the Bremerton Motorsports Park. I only got to see his first race, before I had to head off to work, but here are a few pictures of him...

It was pretty cool to see him race his car, definitely looks a little scary! I headed from the racetracks to work to meet up with one of my co-workers, Lauren. She's the same age as me and a writer for the magazine. We were going to a farm in Puyallup for a story she's writing on localfood. She interviewed and talked with the woman while I photographed the farm for the magazine, how fun! Here are some of my favorite shots of the two week old piglets. More to come when the magazine comes out at the end of September :)

How stinkin cute are those piglets?! One of my favorites is the muddy pigs butt. hehe. 

Nearing the end of summer

I can't believe it's practically the end of August. This summer has gone by so fast, it seems like just yesterday I was getting ready for Paris. I tried to pack everything in this summer, seeing as it's my last "school" summer, and although I'm practically working full time it still is my last summer of freedom before I'm officially in the real world. I managed to be gone every weekend except one, either venturing down to Portland to be with Dustin or up to Kirkland to be with the fam. Needless to say I have done my fair share of driving in summer traffic and gas guzzling (sorry environment!).

A few weekends ago our landlord stopped by to fix our sink and left us with about 4lbs of fresh caught salmon. He fishes on his boat and brought it to us two days after it was caught, (what a nice landlord!). This was the first salmon I've cooked and I think it turned out pretty well! My roommates and I invited a couple friends over to partake in the abundance of salmon we had gotten.

A few of the girls at our dinner party...

This last 4-day weekend I drove down to Portland to go camping with Dustin and his family. Every year they go with about 10 or 15 other families to the Oregon Coast. Everyone there was at one time a part of a company called Premia and they get together once a year to catch up. It's actually pretty amazing that they've kept it up for the last like 15 years. This was my third year getting to join them (and im finally seeing familiar faces haha). We went to Fort Stevens State park which is out on the peninsula, so it's on the Columbia river and the Pacific Ocean. The Oregon Coast resembles the California beaches most of us are familiar with, but the weather is soo much cooler. There's no way you'd catch me swimming in that water. Overall camping was a lot of fun, we went to the beach, hung out around the campfire and ate way too many things sugary. But it doesn't count when you're camping, right? :)

I have two more weekends of summer left! Hopefully more pictures to come :)

One last piece of exciting news, the magazine I have been working on all summer at work is officially back from the printer. It's beautiful!! And the largest magazine our company has ever produced. That's saying a lot since it was only me and our new designer, Anna who put it together and we're both the least experienced with this magazine. We had a lot of fun with it though and even gave it a little bit of a facelift, updating the look of some of the pages. When it's officially hit the newsstands maybe I can post some of the articles I designed. It's off to designing the next issue! 

Enjoy the last few weeks of summer!

Mt. Rainier

Dustin and I ventured to Mt. Rainier saturday for some hiking. We climbed roughly 1500 ft in elevation and covered 5 miles. It was gorgeous, even on a foggy day. Once we got above the fog and clouds we could see the mountain. Above are some mountain views, some fog views and a little marmot animal who came out to pose for us Lion King style. Hopefully this is the first of many hikes this year. We're hoping to go back and do a little bit longer of a hike when the mountain is out more. Overall a great day!

Zoobilee

I got the privilege to attend Zoobilee this year with some of the other interns from the Magazine. Pictured are Lauren and Lizzie who write editorial pieces in the magazine. Zoobilee is a fundraiser event for the Zoo in Tacoma (Pt. Defiance). The event itself is amazing, everyone dresses up in fancy dresses and suits/tuxes and all the local restaurants, breweries, wineries and distilleries host booths with free food and drinks.  So basically you get to taste all these decadent foods and desserts while walking around in pretty dresses. There are also multiple dance floors, photo opportunities (like ours with the parrot) and animal viewings. It's just such a fun event and quite the social. What a treat for getting to go to something like this! 

La Nourriture

We ate some amazing food in Paris. We started most of our days with coffee and pastries, how much better can it get? Especially when you walk everything off! We lived off of baguette sandwiches, although we failed to document them. Must have been too good to wait for a photo ;) Most of our dinners consisted of either baguette and cheese or going out. Here's a selection of some of the best!

Almond Pastry

Croque Monsieur 

Gelato!

Mini cake pastries from a fancy patisserie.

mmm chocolate cake filled with chocolate pudding and actual french vanilla ice cream

Vienoisse baguettes-the softest you'll find

le metro

The Metro in Paris is all underground so when you're walking around Paris and ready to go home you look for Metro signs. They come in all varieties. These are a few of my favorites!!