One of my main clients is a non-profit scientific organization - National Shellfisheries Association. Amongst other things I serve (in essence) as their graphic editor for the Journal of Shellfish Research ( https://bioone.org/journals/journal-of-shellfish-research ). Helping select and ensure cover photos are properly prepared, helping authors get their graphics and figures created properly and, if needed, rebuilding them. Basically helping keep image quality high for the journal. I also help them with their annual conference.

Every year the conference moves around the country's coastline to a different spot (well one that can host a conference of our size (not HUGE but large - 600-700 regular attendees for a 5 day conference with 4-5 concurrent sessions every day). Since I have a background in both IT and A/V Production, I basically make sure the contracted AV crew has everything we need, and nothing more, and then have to get the price in line (Almost always starts out at $40-50k and eventually, after much back and forth, we end up around $22-25k). Onsite I make sure everything is going as planned and try and either handle issues myself (IT or A/V) or get the subcontracted A/V crew to take care of it.

I also do the conference branding package. This primarily consists of several large posters (8'x3' verticals), program covers, and Logo. I try and tie it to the local area and it's history with shellfish (So for Baltimore, with their old docks and oystermen, I found Library of Congress shots of the working docs in 1909 and used that shot and the old style as the main theme and for the FilmFest Poster used their historic Art deco theater - The Senator).

Charlotte though... We wanted to ave the Conference somewhere in NC or SC, but not one of the places we had used in recent years. Charlotte has the facilities, but there is literally no shellfish history there. What is Charlotte best known for? NASCAR. So... after scratching heads with the organizing committee about other options, NASCAR it was. I got ahold of a 3D model of a NASCAR Mustang (shoot me, I am a Mustang guy, 1966 for fun and 2017 for daily driver). Had to do some minor modifications to the moddel, and then created an NSA livery for it with the NSA Logo on the hood and doors, and a bunch of little easter eggs all around it too. Doubt anyone really noticed the easter eggs, but...I love those types of things.

After I got the livery where I wanted it, I composited several render passes (a motion blur pass, a shadow pass and a "hero" or clean pass over a screen capture of a frame from. the most recent Coca-Cola 600 at the Charlotte Motor Speedway. pulle it all into Photoshop to mask and adjust each render pass, and composite it in InDesign for the posters and cover at appropriate resolution. (BIG! These files were trying to kill my poor (now repurposed) computer. As you can see there were 3 main "scenes" Each different of course, but each featuring the actual Charlotte Motor Speedway and the NSA Mustang.

The "FilmFest Poster" I continued the NASCAR theme for essentially the "Starting Line up" using similar graphic treatment as NASCAR uses for their race broadcasts. Each "Car" in this case is a short film or outreach video about Shellfish Biology, ecology, aquaculture etc.. As long as it is shellfish related in some way - or at a bare minimum ocean issues that shellfish researchers and shellfishermen need to consider - I'll put it in the FilmFest. Oh, yes, I also run the film fest top to bottom. Every year we get a handful of fresh releases that are doing the film fest circuit to build buzz which I love. The film fest is always a hit - a quite room with a few rows of theater style seating, a few rounds with seating and a few cocktail tables. It starts at 9am the first full day and runs 24 hours a day until we shut down the conference. It's place where attendees can wind down a bit, but not completely unplug from the conference. Catch their breath and hopefully see something interesting. Always cool to catch a bunch of early career scientists and grad students in there late at night having a pizza party while watching one of the longer pieces. And they know they can always ask me to cue something up for them too.