The Man Who Thinks He Can

If you think you are beaten, you are.
If you think you dare not, you don’t.
If you would like to win but you think you can’t;
It’s almost a cinch you won’t.
If you think you’ll lose, you’re lost.
For out in the world we find,
Success begins with a fellow’s will;
It’s all in the state of mind.
If you think you’re outclassed, you are.
You’ve got to think high to rise.
You’ve got to be sure of yourself,
Before you can ever win a prize.
Life’s battles don’t always go to the
Stronger or the faster man.
But sooner or later, the man who wins;
Is the man who thinks he can!

~ Walter D. Wintle

I love the fact that commercials can still make me smile or at least get in a small chuckle every now and the. Check out this Geico commercial about cats and dogs. It caught me off guard this morning and gave me a bit of joy.

At the day job, I am often given the opportunity to work on creative graphic design projects for UCO’s Office of International Services. Dr. Dennis Dunham runs the show there and he is always thinking up creative ways to share the benefits offered by the International Services office. For this project, I had the opportunity to work the UCO’s Centre for Global Competency (CGC) , a program created to enhance the global vision of students and expand their future opportunities through education and experiences studying abroad. You can find more information by visiting The Centre for Global Competency’s website.

I was very excited when Dr. Dunham gave me the details of the project. The Centre for Global Competency had acquired a booth for the annual Creative Oklahoma Conference. This year Dr. Dunham wanted to step it up a notch (which is usually the case) and create a walk through booth.  We settledon Pink Displays for the vendor and I began designing a huge 8′ x10′ display. In my years of graphic design experience I have designed vector based designs which have been larger than this, however this was a bitmap design requiring the use of photos. The difference is that vector based graphics can be blown up to any size without losing quality, whereas bitmap designs have a finite number of pixels and the larger you make them, the lower the quality of the final image.  In other words, I couldn’t just draw my way out this situation.

All in all, this ended up being yet another fun experience. We created a 10 foot back drop,  36 inch banner,  and matching 2-panel brochure to go along with the design. In a few weeks I’ll have pictures of the real. In the meantime, check out the mock ups.

10×8 backdrop

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