Rebonjour!

Hello again!

rebonjour (ruh-bon-joor) : hello again

Salutation said to someone you have already seen that day and said hello to

-- Wiktionnaire

When I was teaching in France, I always felt a bit awkward and shy around my collègues.  I had just graduated from university at the end of the previous academic year, so being on the "other," or teachers' side was new to me.  I wasn't sure whether to call them Monsieur or Madame or by their first names (I felt particularly awkward about this toward my older collègues).  The consequence was that I would avoid addressing them by name directly when possible and would mostly end up greeting them with rebonjours every time I saw them in the teachers' lounge.

I feel a rebonjour is in order.  I started blogging again in February for a few reasons: I had been thinking of my time in France and travels throughout Europe; I felt I had more stories and anecdotes to tell about my year abroad; and I like the blog medium as an outlet for creative writing.  When I first started this blog ahead of my leaving for France, I gave it a subtitle: Travel Blog & Catalog.  I did this in part to help me stay focused on my topic, but also to allow some flexibility in posting about non-year-abroad-related things (this was before Pinterest existed as a medium to bookmark and microblog about things).

With this renewal and relaunch, I decided to freshen up the look of my dear blog.  I (impulse) bought a domain, so you can now bookmark www.cartes-postales.ca.  I also enlisted the help of two fine friends of mine: Parker Iain and Henry of Hank White Design Co.  Both gentlemen have cultivated a personal aesthetic and design style I admire, and I was delighted to work with them both.

I met Parker at UBC through a friend.  Falling out of touch with both of them, I met Parker again when I served him coffee for a term at the campus coffee shop.  His name on the tip of my tongue, I kept calling him Patrick until the poor soul eventually corrected me.  He's a super talented and kind guy, one whom I've had a fashion crush on, and was so pleased to have him agree to spiffy up my blog with a new header.  In an email to me he explained the idea for the image was a scene erupting from a postage stamp.  I love it as together with the font, it reminds me of Paris and the Seine.

I met Henry through Peter.  They went to university together and played in Henry and the Nightcrawlers.  Henry's creativity extends beyond music, to photography, painting and graphic design (among other mediums, I'm sure).  Since I've known him, he's lived in a few different and interesting flats, including in an industrial area and currently in a historic rooming house; I've always found his spaces to be impeccably-well curated, a skill that translates into his design work.  I'm glad to have had Henry's help to bring my blog layout and design beyond a Blogger template and in line with Parker's header, including doing the coding stuff that I don't understand. 

Prior to this redesign I had never worked with a designer, my experience with Henry and Parker was only positive and I do not have enough good things to say about these gentlemen.  If you have any design projects, I would fully recommend checking Parker and Henry out.

Thank you Henry and Parker!