Category Archives: Community

Meetup Scheduled for May 27, 2015: Engaging Creativity and Innovation of the Upstate’s International Community

As part of Beer and Napkins Community of Growth we seek to engage diverse members of our community to continue to brew innovative ideas to help individuals, communities, and organizations. We are excited to be spotlighting two leaders in the community who are devoting their energies to tap the creativity of diverse community in the Upstate

Veronica Schoell – Business Coach and Leader in the upstate automotive industry

Veronica is the founder of The Greenville (SC) International Group – Group used as a tool to increase the interaction and integration of the international community and its American friends in Greenville, SC. She will share insight into her group and some of the needs of the international community and how to engage them more.

Juan G Gonzalez, MS- Business Consultant and Entrepreneur

Juan is the owner of Innovation Builders, LLC, and co-owner of Optimum Professional Services, LLC, His is also the founder of Spanish Writers, a mixed group of published writers and writers in the works, with the common ground of finding beauty, culture and history in any language we can find them, and then share our thoughts to other cultures and communities. Beside managing his companies he is devoted to his Hispanic Innovation Exchange HiE. HiE has a bi-fold purpose: On one side, HiE intends to bring the cutting-edge events in the English (Mainstream) Innovation Market into the Local Hispanic Group Market, this process implies the use of an interface that translates into Spanish initially (other languages in the future) and promote events, flexibly, timely and on the most appropriate target market inside the Hispanic Group. The other side involves building up relationships with Spanish speaking countries and foster innovation exchange into and from this countries with America Innovation.

Come join us for this free event sharing ideas.

Space limited to 20 attendees. Snacks will be provided.

(Coffee, wine, and beer are available for purchase)

Challenge of the Week: Melinda Hoffman-Afghan Book Collection

Our Beer and Napkins Challenge and Sketch Art comes from local artist and social entrepreneur Melinda Hoffman. Melinda Hoffman, artist and lifelong learner, was inspired by her beautiful granddaughter and her own Afghan art project to create Afghan Book Collection. Melinda “stumbled” upon this need of the Afghan people. We believe it was a calling and thankfully she listened. ABC has become her passion.

The Director of Public Libraries in Afghanistan communicated to Melinda Hoffman that there are no children’s books in Afghan libraries. The idea of a children’s book collection is a new concept to the Afghan people. To make matters more difficult, in Afghanistan the print industry is basically nonexistent. ABC knows that there is a need for children’s literature in Afghanistan, so they are starting at the very beginning. ABC has been offered library space in the Kabul Public Library with a librarian to oversee the books that are sent. ABC will begin with this first collection of books as their initial project. The collection will comprise 100 books for the first shipment. Additional funds will allow even more titles and more translations. ABC is a lean, mean machine with every dollar going into books and their translations.

To learn more about Melinda’s art, passion, and story visit the following sites :

http://www.melindahoffman.com
http://www.afghanbookcollection.com

Challenge: Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open to “stumble” upon needs your talents can fulfill!

Beer and Napkins Holiday Makers Special with Joey Loman

Naughty or Nice in 2014 do you have Ideas you want to make a reality in 2015?

Tuesday, December 9th at 6;00pm, The Community Tap

Continuing the Makers conversation from our November 25th Meetup, this fun year end Beer and Napkins 2014 finale features lnnovator and Maker Joey Loman sharing his key steps in making your ideas and inventions come to life in 2015!

Event details here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/beer-and-napkins-holiday-makers-special-with-joey-loman-tickets-14663241149

November 11, 2014 Meetup: How Can We Use Art to Convey Ideas

One of Beer and Napkin’s purposes is to provide learning opportunities to expand our understanding of “visual literacy.” At the November 11, 2014 Meetup Bridget Kirkland, Designer at Kirkland Designs and Instructor at USC Upstate and Designer Russell Tripp facilitated thought-provoking dialogue on How We can use Art to convey Ideas. Thanks to Russell for outlining some of the thoughts below from the session. Also, thanks to B&N advisor Paul Hebert for sharing his thoughts and sketchbook from the session.

The conversation started with Bridget sharing a number of personal visual and creative resources:

Here is a list of Bridget’s book suggestions in case anyone missed them (Bridget, please correct/add if any are wrong or missing, thanks.):

Ways of Seeing by John Berger
The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp
Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon
The Art Spirit by Robert Henri
Drawing From Life: The Journal As Art by Jennifer New

In addition, Russell mentioned the book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards. This is an excellent book for people who think they can’t draw. Anyone who can learn any other skill can learn to draw as well.

2. Set a regular schedule to practice, grab a journal and start sketching regularly

3. Be vulnerable and share your work with others. Learn from others on techniques, style, and general approach.

4. Act like you are 5! Bridget shared her experience being hypnotized by an artist into thinking she was actually 5 years old. She said the spirit in which she drew an image without inhibitions was the best ever!

5. There is no truly “universal” imagery or visual language beyond the most fundamental geometric shapes and primary colors (see Piet Mondrian). To create imagery that is readable (understood to mean the message you are trying to convey) to a particular audience, you must first understand that audience and their “lens”. That audience can be expanded by finding some, perhaps not immediately obvious, common ground within the diverse group you are trying to communicate with.

6. Understanding of your visual message can often be enhanced by simplifying the images used. Less unnecessary data means less chance of personal differences in interpretation.

7. Visual literacy incorporates a set of skills that can be trained just like any others, and which, combined with an analytic mindset, determine our level of visual literacy. Russell’s personal recommendation for improving visual literacy is to learn the fundamental elements and principles of design – there really aren’t that many – (http://goo.gl/1EcUK) and use that knowledge to analyze what you see and when you’re discussing it with other people. One way to have the opportunity to do both (and learn a surprising amount about human history and human nature) is to study art history (http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/).

8. When creating a visual that we wish to convey a clear message, the onus is on us as the sender/creator of the message to be sure the visual message is understandable to the audience. Audience matters – design your visuals in terms of the recipient not the creator.

9. When developing any sort of visual message, sketch/try/work out lots of ideas before deciding on what to use. Get the obvious ideas out of the way first. You might come back to them, but give yourself options to choose from to find what’s right for your audience.

10. Remember that everyone projects their own emotions, experience, and understanding onto visual imagery when interpreting it. This can be valuable knowledge in designing specific visual messages when you understand your audience and simplify the design to allow this kind of projection.

Sample of Paul Hebert’s Sketchbook notes from the evening

Phil McCreight’s Sketchnotes