Loraliegray (LOR-a-lie gray) When trying to come up with the idea for the name of my site I wanted something that I would enjoy talking about, and could have fun saying. It can be painful at times to talk about myself, especially with people I don't know. I did not want to name the site after myself, so I thought about the things that I take pleasure in. My cat Loralie was the first thing that came to mind.
Loralie is my 7-year-old diluted tortoiseshell with white cat (in laymen's terms it means that she is gray with peach and white). Loralie is an American short hair that's one generation away from the ally. She enjoys playing fetch, loves to give cuddles, and is quite the scraper when defending her turf. She is the love of my life, and I'm smiling even while I type this. I am sure you understand why her name was the natural choice for the name of my site. Her name comes from Germanic folklore; the Lorelie, whose singing would lure men to their destruction from a rocky cliff on the Rhine River.
My name is Jennifer Wright, and I am a graphic designer. This site not only immortalizes my beloved kitty it also acts as my portfolio site. I was born and raised to be a commercial artist in my dad's off-set/silkscreen print shop. My mother was his type setter/graphic designer. My childhood was similar to growing up in the circus, except there was more of a smell of ink than elephants and less of the risk of falling from a trapeze than getting a paper cut.
About two years ago I became very engrossed in the web and what went into designing it some of the beautiful pages I would come across. I began reading anything I could get my hands on that pertained to the subject. In college I gravitated toward design and found that, besides my beloved cat Loralie, there is nothing I love more than to design and create. I feel so alive when I'm creating, and that is what I look forward to doing most in my life. I realized that in order for this dream to come true, I would need to find some place where I could gain the knowledge that would allow me to replicate the great work I was encountering. I searched for some sort of a testing ground or laboratory (spoken with a German accent) if you may, to test out my ideas and see how to take them from conceptual to practical and real.
The end result of my pursuit would be, of course, to help me find a job doing what I love and get paid to do it. We, as people, spend so much of our lives working, why shouldn’t we have it be our passion instead of just our job? It is important to me that I am excited about getting out of bed in the morning, and doing work where I think "Man I can't believe they pay me to do this... its SO MUCH FUN!!!!" I was fortunate enough to have had that experience one time in college, so I know it can be achieved.
"It is not because things are difficult, that we do not dare, it is because we do not dare, that they are difficult."
— Seneca
This is a quote that my Papa lived by. In his memory I try to live every day by this idea.
I finally came up with a subject I can blog about and decided to write a blog about my studies. I've gone back to the basic idea of blogs as online notebooks. So I'm writing the blog for my own purposes for learning but I hope that it may have some value for anyone that stumbles upon it.
I have my portfolio up here as well. This is mostly past and present print work. I'm working to build up the web side of things. I am available for freelance work as well as currently looking for fulltime position in anything web design.