while i LOVE what i do and wish i could do it all day, there are kiddos that need lovin’, friends to be seen, and oh yeah, life to be lived.

i need an assistant.

basically, i am looking for ME circa 5 years ago. someone who is footloose and fancy free (perhaps an SMU or Art Institute student?!) who is looking for some great design experience along with a fast lesson in Real Business 101.

about me:

i own both Mica May Design (a boutique graphic and web design firm) and May Books (an eco-friendly notebook company).

i’m a busy mother of two under two, and they are the loves of my life.

any given day can find me running to and from parent volunteer meetings, or i could have a candle burning at my desk designing away.

i need someone who can keep up with me and my wild ideas on any given day. i want to be able to email or text you an idea that YOU bring to life (a pattern idea, a project needed for a client, etc.)

the way i see it, there is no need sugar coating what i need in terms of an assistant. the more honest i am, the closer i’ll get to finding someone i can grow to love and trust!

what i’m looking for in an assistant:

-passion for design

-skilled in adobe creative suite (personally owns/has the software at least version CS3)

-savvy with social media. needs to know how to tweet, update facebook and generate blog posts

-familiar with current design trends

possible tasks could include but are not limited to:

May Books

-designing patterns

-creating eblasts

-print production management (dealing with printers and binders for custom orders)

-sales (retail and etail)

-blog/social media PR

-overall marketing strategy

Mica May Design

-logo creation

-print layout design (business cards, flyers, etc.)

-web layout design (custom blog creation + general website design)

-programming would be a GREAT ASSET but is not a must

expectations/salary/timeframe:

ideally, i will have someone on a weekly retainer about 10-15 hours a week. {give or take a few hours}.

the ideal candidate would be a student or have a full time job, as this position will not be enough to sustain you in and of itself.

however, it is LIKELY that this person/position will become vital to the success of my businesses and my hopes are to hire full time staff in the next year as we continue to grow.

most of our interactions will be via email – i am all about freedom. i don’t care when or where you work, as long as the project gets done!

while i’m not a micromanager, i am a business owner and will expect timely project completion and progress updates.

if this sounds like a great fit for you, i can’t wait to hear about you.

so please, WOW me about why i should hire you and not the next person.

email your WOW, portfolio samples, etc. to mica@micamaydesign.com

ciao,

mica

this is why i live by my pantone color books.  they live on my desk and i constantly reference them.

of course, my heart skipped a few beats when i saw this video and thought everyone might enjoy it as well {that’s not true, very few of you will actually click on link to a video about how color is made}, but i for one was pretty pumped and had to watch it immediately.

http://www.pantone.com/pages/pantone/pantone.aspx?ca=1

color simply brings everything to life.  a few weeks ago i stumbled upon the greatest nail polish color and was simply in love with my nails/toes for several weeks.  when it was time to get my nails retouched, the place i usually go to didn’t have my new favorite.  i mixed and matched and finally just chose one that was “close”.  it was a major letdown.  then, in New York with some fun gals this weekend, i couldn’t wait to fix the color mishap on my nails and happily went right in and picked my color.  the girls all said, oh, well that’s the same as you have on now, right?  WRONG!!  i just smiled and said, “You’ll see.”

needless to say, there was a lot of ohhsss and aaahhhhs, because the finished product really was that good and whatever magical combination of color was in this particular mix is genius.  it shines in the sun, is flat inside, and all together makes me smile when i look at it.  something about it even makes my wedding ring dance a little dance . . .

i’m just sayin.

i decided to document the day’s events . . . it’s pretty detailed (!), but at least it gives you an insight to what i’m up to.

the preface:  husband doesn’t work on wednesdays during the days, so he was a HUGE help today, and allowed me to go to a luncheon sans Jax.  but typically, he would be with me through the rest of the activities.

second preface:  the may fam is no stranger to busy days.  in fact, i’m one of those gals that gets more done when i have more to do . . .

here goes.

6:45. Wake up to husband kissing me, telling me Good Morning and Goodbye. (he has guys breakfast at 7:00 on wednesdays)

7:00. Hear Jackson happily yelling for me to come get him.

7:15. Actually get out of bed and go get my little man. Change diaper/get him dressed/open all the blinds in the house together. This is our little morning routine.

7:30. Make coffee/breakfast for the both of us and check email on iphone while helping Jackson feed himself some toast and strawberries.

7:35. Realize I accidentally doubled booked my morning with an Occupational Therapy appointment for Jackson {9am at the house} and Girls Breakfast {8:30 at Mel’s house!}. Send a quick text to girls explaining and they graciously change the time to accommodate me! Thanks girls!

7:45. Fox Electric arrives to fix our ceiling fan that shakes.  Bounce between monitoring the two men hanging out in our bedroom while I make sure the Dude doesn’t choke on the berries.

8:15. Play with Jackson for a bit in the living room/watch the Today Show as he plays.

8:30. Set Jax up in living room with some toys so I can sit at the computer to respond to some urgent client emails.  Email back and forth with an illustrator from New York about partnering together for May Books (yay!) & followed up with another client about a custom May Book order.

8:55. Occupational Therapist arrives and we do a little paper work. She starts working with Jackson.

9:00. Hubby comes home and we sit and talk with the OT for a minute. Talk too long and realize I’m now late for my Girls Breakfast. Kiss the dudes goodbye and run to throw on an outfit that can work for a business luncheon later. Throw make up in a bag along with a hair brush and run out the door.

9:30. Arrive {late} to girls breakfast after putting make up on in the car {at red lights of course}.

9:45. Eat a muffin {or two!}, hold sweet Quinn, a 6 week old, and rest/chat with the girls.

11:25. Realize we’ve chatted far too long {loved it though!} and head out the door for my luncheon downtown at 11:45.

11:30. Return several phone calls in the car {thank you built in car blue tooth} and confirm landscaping date with my grandmother for later in the afternoon.

11:45. Find the perfect parking spot downtown in a metered spot, scrounge purse for quarters and run into the Polish luncheon.  Set iphone timer so i’ll know when the meter is about to run out {genius iphone!}

12-1pm Enjoyed a fabulous meal and speaker at the Tower Club. Met a fabulous intellectual property attorney {been meaning to get a few things trademark/copyrighted!} and exchanged contact info. Timer goes off so I know I have 3 minutes to get myself and the big belly out of the bldg and to my car before a potential ticket . . .

1:15. Arrive home to find Jackson just waking from a nap  {slept from 10:45 to 1:15!}.  Love my sleepy snuggly guy.  Got him out of the crib and fed him lunch/changed clothes, etc.  {Jmay caught up on emails and made client phone calls.}

2pm: Drive to GranBy’s {she’s a landscaping guru and offered to help us pick out plans and give us tools!} and looked at plans/load tools into Jmay’s car.  Jax showed her how he can crawl!

3-5: Nearly died from unexpected heat exhaustion at Lowes/Calloways, etc. buying plants for new spring/summer landscaping!!  Whew it was hot.

5:15 Miscommunicated with the hubby about our next location {we drove 2 cars to Plano to accommodate plants} which actually worked out well.  He checked on some knockout roses at another Lowes and I dealt with a Jackson melt down at Callaways. Bought some more plants while holding Jax on my big belly. Called hubby on the drive home and had him order pizza.

6pm Arrive home. Let Jackson unwind and cool down from being in the stroller/car seat by crawling around in his diaper/play with toys.

6:15: GranBy arrives and we all sit down to eat for 15 minutes . . . Jackson was CRAZY about the pizza!  He made a royal mess, but loved every second of it.

6:30-7pm. I give Jackson a bath and put him to bed. Jmay and Granby survey the flower beds, deal with bees, and figure out why our yuca plants are dying.

7:15pm. Join the landscaping crew {GranBy and hubby} who discovered the flower beds are getting too much water. Jmay tests all the valves so we know which ones are which, and we label them as such and switch the settings.

7:30pm Kiss hubby and send him to work {he leads group at the halfway house on Wednesday nights until LATE} and said bye to GranBy, who knew all the right things to do with our yard!

7:30-8pm: Put a load of laundry in (I leave for NYC girls trip tomorrow!), wash dishes/clean kitchen/living room/office.

8:15: Search high and low for my lost May Book which has the address to a client I need to mail a custom May Book to (!!). Remembered having it at Discount Tire on Monday . . . . never found it, but cleaned out my car in the process.

8:30: Lay out all my May Books to take inventory and set up all the retail sales rep starter boxes!! Yay for hiring Dallas, Lubbock and Denver sales reps!

8:45: Back to checking/responding to emails: Schedule three meetings for Mica May Design clients for Monday and solidify plans for our Saturday dream session with the girls in New York! {more about this tomorrow!}

9:15. Check in for New York flight tomorrow and send a mobile boarding pass to my email! Double fist pump for www.AA.com being technologically savvy!

9:30. Design my Bump Diaries: Chapter 31 letter to Baby May.  This is how/when I relax and unwind from the day.

10:30. Prepare May Books retail sales starter boxes for the reps. Itemize out the chosen patterns/box on a spreadsheet and label them. Put back on my display rack in my office.

{this is the plan for after I post this}

11pm. Take clothes out of washer and move to dryer (hang dry jeans).

11:15. Attempt to jump start my packing for NYC. {find suitcase/organize toiletries/move over diaper bag to purse/etc.}

11:45ish. Go check on Jackson and pray over him.  Turn off the baby Coldplay music he goes to sleep to.

Midnight. Eat 2 frozen thin mints with a glass of milk and read on the Kindle until hubby comes home. Snuggle up with my best friend, pray for each other, our little ones, and friends/family and drift off to sleep.

i typically don’t do a lot of “personal” posts on my design blog, but since this is sort of a collaboration of daily life meets design style, i thought it would be fun to do a double posting!

basically, i’m partnering with Studio Eleven Photography to do a little 10 weeks series of not only the bump growth of baby girl, but to create an online diary of thoughts as her due date gets closer!

read the full post on The May Nest.

SO love the whit and humor associated with helping my clients choose the perfect font!!

this was done by julian hansen, a 22 year old graphic design student in denmark.

Deb, the owner, has has an incredible vision and ability to encourage business owners to leap forward and take their business to the next level.

i didn’t want to do the quintessential “stair step” icon in the logo — but rather make a sophisticated nod at the concept of steps or stairs.

she wanted something modern, fresh, and clean — but something that could be timeless through the years as well.

i absolutely love how the final version turned out!  stay tuned to her website (still being built) to follow her weekly business tips on how to be more successful at what you do.

{excerpt below from doobybrain}

A few years back, Facebook contacted Information Architects to think up some ways to redesign the Facebook site. The plans that iA drew up were never implemented and after sitting on them for a while iA decided to just go ahead and show the design concepts to us to get our opinion on them.

In essence, iA changes the Facebook site to be a primarily 3-column page similar to an inbox or the default view settings in a mail application like Microsoft Outlook. By default, only two comments related to an item are shown and if you click on the item then it expands (the top image is a before and the image below is after an item has been clicked).

Overall, I really wouldn’t mind if Facebook was more like an inbox. I already treat it like one and seeing things this way would just make my life a bit easier.

asha is a handmade jewelry line started by a brave and incredible lady.  she partners with women who were formally enslaved a brothel in mumbai, india, who design and make all the jewelry.  she has set up a company to sell their jewelry line “state side” so we can all help support the healthy, safe, and respectable employment of these young women!

her passion for these women is the heartbeat behind the company, therefore, the logo was of extreme importance to capturing the essence of all these things.

the client wanted something simple that could potentially be a jewelry piece in and of itself.  of course, i felt it absolutely  necessary to consider the culture of india and so we started our research.  after taking note that the lotus flower is the national flower of india, we knew we hit one of our target elements for incorporating into the logo.

the lotus flower grows in muddy water and rises above the surface to bloom with remarkable beauty. at night the flower closes and sinks underwater, at dawn it rises and opens again. untouched by the impurity, lotus symbolizes the purity of heart and mind.

with several other concepts behind us, this new inspiration sent me over the edge, and i tweaked and pieced together a logo that made my heart sing . . . i waited with baited breath to hear from my client and after about a day and a half (!), i heard music to my ears:  ”mica, i cried when i saw this logo.  this is exactly what we have been looking for.”

yes!!

{we are just beginning concepts for the website, so look for the web launch in the coming months}

we successfully built a house (and by we i mean our incredible builder, www.jeffbaronhomes.com) in 16 weeks.

i had to throw my design perfections to the wind a little, as there was little time for backsplash deliberations and paint swatches.  i am beyond pleased with the results, and pretty much skip around my house, i love it so much.

here’s a little snapshot of the front.

the process was a BLAST and i would do it all over again, but WHEW, i’m wiped.

with a curious 1 year old, a little girly girl on the way (due july 9th!), and the official launch of www.maybooks.com, my blogging, needless to say, had to take a back seat.

somehow, i’ve been able to continue designing in the midst of the mayhem as, regrettably, i had turn to fonts instead of vino to alleviate my stress, thanks to my growing belly.

the posts in the next few days will detail several logos i’ve completed in the past several months that unfortunately, didn’t receive any blog PR in my time lapse.

if you are still here, thanks for your patience.  i won’t stay away so long this time.

a special thank you to my clients out there, who undoubtedly, received the short end of the stick from about november to february.  i actually owe my sanity to you– the ones who kept me up until wee hours of the morning designing away.  in case you don’t know who you are:  cindy, paula, leslie, stacey, deb, randy, matt, kat, stephanie, jeff, susan, gina, ashley, jacque, ashleigh . . .and the list could goes on.

stay tuned people,  there are LOGOS to post!