Several new changes will come to pass Tuesday that will effect how Saav Media operates. The reason for these changes is that I will begin working for Chicopee Ski & Summer Resort as their Marketing and Design Coordinator full-time. Working full-time means that 1) I will not be conducting my personal business during the hours of 9am-5pm, Monday - Friday. 2) Turnaround time on design projects will take closer to 2-3 weeks to complete depending on the project. 3) I will no longer be taking any print or branding projects with a budget less than $300.00 (before printing costs), and I will not be taking any web-based projects with a budget less than $2,000.00. 4) With regards to communication, from Monday-Friday I will only reply to email inquiries. On Saturday’s, I will reply to phone calls between the times of 12pm - 4pm, any other time I will only reply to emails.

I am very excited to start my career with Chicopee Ski and Summer Resort while also excited to be working with you on your design projects. I look forward to the challenges and the triumphs of each design, and the prospect of learning more about the design industry so that I can better myself as a designer and a leader.

I must say, the following ads for the new Chevy Traverse made me laugh. These television commercials were released a few months ago, but they still see regular rotation on many television networks. I’ll let you watch them and then provide my insight.

With the GM brand being tarnished with the possibility of bankruptcy, advertisers will have to try especially hard to sell GM cars that have little consumer confidence. Currently, Toyota has overtaken GM as the number one car manufacturer in the world. It should come as no surprise that Toyota has been able to de-throne GM with their commitment to customer satisfaction and innovation.

My very first volunteer position at Laurier was in video productions - an organization responsible for filming events during orientation week and creating a memorable DVD to sell to students. Since then, I have offered marketing services to not only WLUSU through my roles as executive graphic designer and executive video producer, but also to the SBESS (School of Business and Economics Students’ Society).

Through the four years I have spent at Laurier, I have tried to offer my design services to student organizations so that they may illustrate a professional presence whether online or through print. On April 3rd, 2009, at the volunteer appreciation dinner at Federation Hall (which I sadly was unable to attend), I was awarded the Wilfrid Laurier Students’ Union Marketing Volunteer of the Year Award. This award is presented annually to an individual who demonstrates an immense commitment to the marketing department and provides marketing solutions that best communicate the branding initiatives of several organizations within the union. I humbly accept this award and thank all of the coordinators I have worked with over the past four years for pushing me and helping me become a more creative, responsible, and determined creative artist.

Thank you.

Probably my largest weakness as a designer is my inability to be happy with my designs. I am a perfectionist in a way that hinders my ability to say, “I’m done.” I am never done with a design. I always try to find a way to make the design better and in doing so, find myself going back to projects already completed and continue to work on them (just for fun). It was this feeling of inadequacy that led me to change the design of my prior website.

My old site was for my business Saav Media. The biggest problem that I had with the website wasn’t the aesthetics (which I had grown tired of), it was the lack of a complete content management system to be able to update my portfolio and news. While I had implemented Wordpress for my news section, it wasn’t as intuitive and easy to use as I needed it to be. In regards to the portfolio section, I had to manually add and change all the work pages every time I added a new project. The time needed to add new projects to the portfolio section led me to leave a lot of projects off my website because I didn’t have the time to add them. With this website, I made sure to make things better.