Our Daughter at Cheerleading Camp

August 13th, 2008 by webmaster | Posted in Spence Family | 2 Comments »

Sixteen cheerleaders attend summer camp, Crowston named All-American

By KEVIN HEIMBIGNER
Observer staff writer

Thursday, July 31, 2008

BELLINGHAM - Sixteen Ilwaco High School cheerleaders and Coach Jessica Jansma attended the National Cheerleaders Association (NCA) Camp at Western Washington University July 9 through 11 in Bellingham. Team awards included superior skills in stunting, game day top team, safety award, national championship bid winner, and spirit stick winner.

Coach Jansma achieved NCA coaches credentialing program status and also won the Herkie Award for “realizing that team unity and learning are the most important parts of camp. Your cheerleaders’ lives will be better for having you in them.” Jansma said, “Throughout camp, individuals are nominated by the NCA staff to tryout to be an All-American Cheerleader. Girls who are nominated perform in front of the entire camp and are scored by the NCA staff.” All-American nominees were Marie Boteilho, Vallori Crowston and Jenna Lee and Crowston was honored as an All-American.

Others who attended the camp were Alyssa Cousineau, Alexis Ferguson, Kelsey Gardner, Kaylie Grunland, Angelina Jackson, Charlotte Johnson, Elleigh Kaino, Erin Kelly, Kady Kirby, Kelsey Madsen, Katie Powell, Paris Spence, and Brooke Weir according to Jansma.

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Thanks to the Chinook Observer for this article.

Your Style, Your Brand

August 12th, 2008 by Susan Spence | Posted in Design Tips, Susan | No Comments »

What do you want your advertising “look” to say about you. From your logo to your type fonts, colors and graphics - what feel do you want to convey about your business?

Here is your homework. Write down 3-5 adjectives that describe your company. For Spence Photo Design it would be:

1. Artistic/Creative

2. Professional

3. Fresh/Current

4. Comprehensive

Now use these key words to drive your logo and every piece of collateral and web material you produce. No matter how good your material looks it isn’t successful unless it reinforces your style, your brand.

White Space in Ads - how to get more!

August 8th, 2008 by Susan Spence | Posted in Design Tips | No Comments »

White space is key to good design. All ads - especially the small ones - need it.

I produce a lot of ads every month. The most import factor in making those ads work is white space which allows your eye to navigate to each key point in order of importance.

Here are some tricks to getting more white space to work with:

• Clump what little white space you have together to get one or two big chunks instead of a lot of little ones.
• Bleed photos and color bars off the edge of the ad. I see a lot of ads with a little bit of white space around a photo. By bleeding the photo (or info bar) you can get a bigger photo and then clump the white space that you saved.
• Use narrow type columns to avoid wasting white space in between lines of type.
• Avoid centering - it splits the white space in half.
• When applicable, put all the contact info in a bar at the bottom. Bleed left, bottom and right. The logo can go above it on the right bottom where people expect to see it.
• Group your info together instead of having text (and the white space that surrounds it) sprinkled all over your ad. By grouping type into a column you group your white space with it.

You’ll be surprised how much white space you can find!

Favorite Fonts

August 7th, 2008 by Susan Spence | Posted in Design Tips, Susan | 8 Comments »

Okay, I’m a font flirt. I have a new favorite every month. That’s much better than in when I started this font affair. I used to change my “go-to font” weekly. I don’t go out looking for a new one - they find me. Last week I was working on the same branding project all day - “Myriad Pro Condensed” and I were rocking with little “Lefty Casual” on the side. At the end of the day I started a new job and by that time my hand was so tired of throwing the curser around that I came up with the idea that I would only use fonts that started with the letter “S” to minimize browsing through my font list. Now, Syntax and Slimbach are my new font-friends. I couldn’t help myself.

Working with My Sisters

August 7th, 2008 by Susan Spence | Posted in Design Tips, Spence Family, Susan | No Comments »

I am so lucky. Every so often I get to design with my sisters. Some people might think that would be fraught with danger but for us it is an extension of our childhood. We were a project-focused family. We always had individual projects going on; sewing, gardening, baking, woodworking, art projects. Especially before Christmas, we would sit around in the evenings and work on hand-made presents. Sort of “Little Women” meets the feminist-hippie generation.

Fast forward to now. My sister Ann and her husband Tony, own the Bridgewater Bistro and as the Bridgewater designer I get to work with her weekly, designing ads, menus and bridgewaterbistro.com. My sister Beth has two businesses; Red Barn Consulting, redbarnconsulting.com and the Nature of Leadership Workshops. Both have brought us together on designs for her clients and her company’s branding.

So here we are, still working on projects together. Lucky for me, my sisters are creative and fun and know good design when they see it. The perfect clients!!

Susan @ spencephotodesign.com Makes Headlines

May 5th, 2008 by Christopher Spence | Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Steve Buckelew, the marketing director at Columbia Memorial Hospital, walks Susan Spence, of Spence Photography and Design, through the main stairway of the Health and Wellness Pavilion Jan. 15 to see where photographic murals will be located.