About 3 years ago I bought a Wacom pen tablet, which is basically like the device you use to electronically give your signature when you use your credit card at the grocery store, but for drawing. I played around with it a bit and then secretly, subconsciously, and guiltily, realized that I didn't like it very much and went back to my old fashioned pencils and sketchbook. I dug it out again last week because I knew how much faster I could make several different variations on a sketch if I used it. So I dusted it off and set it up to work in Photoshop. Unlike in Illustrator (or at least as far as I can tell so far), Photoshop lets me use it like the old school pens that change line width based on how hard you press down on the paper. This revelation alone secured the pen tablet's position on my desk for the foreseeable future. And indeed, I was able to bang out three designs based on the scribbles above.

But the best part is that it took me far less time to realize that I didn't like any of these designs, and within a day of sending them to the client, I came up with the new idea shown below (in the place where I'm convinced 99% of ideas are born, the shower). I shouldn't be doing this but here is a tip to any prospective clients who may be reading this. When I send you initial drafts, if you have the time to spare, wait a few days before responding. Rather than coming to the obvious conclusion that you are extraordinarily busy, which you undoubtedly are, I will assume that you are trying to come up with a gentle way to tell me that you don't like any of the drafts, causing me to redouble my efforts to come up with something better in the meantime. Thanks to the Wacom, those initial ideas that must be waded through to get to the better ones won't cost very much.

This project is a design for an academic lab's home page, and highlights their work on the role of ubiquitination in regulating proteolysis and autophagy of intracellular proteins.