When I started on the debut collection in Fall 2009 with (what seemed at the time as) the distant future launch date of Fall 2010, I questioned whether I was being a bit of an early bird, starting a full year in advance. Clearly I was not. At this point, it will be rush-rush just to meet the Fall 2010 goal. I’ve still got quality testing to do, photo shoots, lookbooks, line sheets, dossiers, meetings with prospective buyers, arranging for a visit to Guangzhou, corporate and administrative stuff and of course, production of the debut collection and final QA. All I can do at the moment is pray that it will all work out in the end and when the samples do finally arrive in March, work like an ox. (Oxen are stereotypically hard workers, right?)

On a happy note, the factory seems to be working in earnest and in good faith to do everything it can to materialize my vision.

Sitting in my "corner office." This is where I design.

Oh happy day. The metal logo plates are here! They will be a lovely adornment to the Alpha Collection handbags. Cheers to a good Monday.

The corporate lawyer at the end of the table with her nose in her portfolio folder?

Yeah… she’s probably not diligently transcribing everything you say…

After the mind-numbing task of creating every single frame for the [first draft of the] above animation and the [first draft of the] larger-res one that appears on the splash screen, I realized that (1) the square logo kind of resembles the Chinese character for “country,” or guo (total accident/serendipity), and (2) say I really were to run with the whole resembling-the-Chinese-character thing, my [first draft of the] animations animated the drawing of the logo in the wrong stroke order. (See Wiki on Stroke Order.)

The correct stroke order for the character guo is as follows:

In dumb-speak, only three sides of the square are drawn first, then all that interior mumbo jumbo, and then the last bottom line of the square.

My [first draft of the] animations “drew” the entire square first, then filled it in with the T and Z interior mumbo jumbo.

Shouldn’t have been a big deal, especially since I never intended the TZ logo to look like the character guo. Who cares about “the correct stroke order,” or whatever “the correct stroke order” even means? My reluctance to re-do the entire thing convinced me that I did not care.

The effort and energy it took to convince myself that I did not care started giving me anxiety attacks. No, really. So tonight, two glasses of Riesling in, I admitted that I did care. I scrapped the old animations and started over, following the stroke order depicted above, the first three sides of the square, then the interior mumbo jumbo, and then the last bottom line. Bam. Done. No, actually it did not go so fast. It took all night, and I had to stay up past my bedtime.

James, my husband, said that redoing the animations just “to get the stroke order right” was a bit OCD. Well, when you’re doing something for yourself and you know that the result of it will be a reflection of who you are, then you can’t help but be just a bit OCD about a detail like stroke order.

P.S. The above character for guo is not the way I write it, just so that is noted. My heritage is Taiwanese, and so I learned to write Traditional Chinese. The above is the Simplified Chinese way of writing guo. The Traditional character is this:

Prettier, I think, though the stroke order is essentially the same as the Simplified — left, top, right of the square, then all the interior mumbo jumbo, and then the last bottom line.

Full Disclosure: I’m not actually literate in Chinese. Doh! However, I’m trying to change that by learning the language. It’s one of my 2010 resolutions– learn Chinese.

I spent the weekend going over the numbers, calculating financial projections, and when the math started to strain my brain, I designed meself a postcard. (One of the books I’ve been reading recommended postcards as a promotional tool.)

Then I toyed around with Jasc Paint Shop Pro:

The above image gives off a very appealing mood, but it’s a tad too…suggestive, let’s say, to be consistent with the brand’s point of view. Taryn Zhang’s focus is on women in the outer sphere, not women in the inner. Otherwise I’d use the image more prominently on the TZ website; I love the photography (credits: Da Yu). Also, just in time for the holidays. It’s sort of Christmasy, with the Santa red and white poofballs.

The weekend was also spent mapping out tentative storyboards for Alpha Collection promotional videos, redesigning the embroidered labels to go inside each handbag, designing hangtags, dust bags, and discussing with the business partner, my husband, whether it’s worth it to get custom Taryn Zhang zipper heads and buttons. We decided not for the Alpha Collection, but maybe the Beta.

Sigh. Promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep… (in high school I could recite that poem by heart; dorky, huh?)

Happy Holidays!