Happy New Year!

I kicked off 2010 by spending a week down in chilly (!) Atlanta, teaching a few design classes at Portfolio Center School. If you’re not familiar with Portfolio Center, you should be. It’s a school for design, art direction, photography, copywriting, illustration and digital media. (It’s also where I attended school… ages ago. :-) )

This little school turns out some of the best design portfolios I’ve ever seen. Over the years, I’ve kept in touch by attending grad reviews, giving talks, and reviewing portfolios to get a first-hand look at new and upcoming talent. I also spend quite a bit of time chatting with Hank Richardson, the school’s department head of design, about how I want to see more/better UX work in graduating portfolios. Anyone who’s ever attempted to hire a UX designer knows that it’s really challenging to find new talent with both great graphic design skills and good understanding of what it means to design interactive user experiences. More on that in another post…

While I was in Atlanta, we were also able to put on a little A Story Before Bed event at Decatur’s Eagle Eye Book Shop (recently voted Atlanta’s best independent bookstore of 2009!) For one evening, we commandeered every flat surface in the shop to set up recording stations. Just like the Fort Lewis event, there was a lot of contagious enthusiasm and general all-around excitement as grandparents and military families used the online stories to reach out and connect with the special kids in their lives. Thanks to George Scott from Eagle Eye Bookshop, and to the Portfolio Center volunteers who helped keep everything running smoothly!

Check out some of the pictures from last week. We even managed to make it into the local paper :)