Where we're coming from…
Adventures with Nature, founded in 1972, evolved quickly during its early years—from nature and wildlife photography, motion picture film production, and graphic design, to ad production where our passion settled on typography, along with mechanicals and negative stripping. Halftones and line work as negatives or stats were produced on our horizontal process camera. Finally, all was assembled as plate-ready flats on our stripping table.
Then the Macintosh™ computer arrived on the scene. Like all typographers who have survived that change, we were dragged (kicking and screaming) into the PostScript™ era. But it grew on us and we grew into it. Our first Mac was overshadowed by five Linotype CRTerminal 300s. The learning curve for operating Macs is much shorter than it was for the Linos. However, the learning curve for fine typography, on any computer, is still long and arduous.

Even before that first Mac, Adventures with Nature acquired the nickname Skunk Farm. Yes, there was a skunk. He is part of our logo. Brandy was an executive skunk— Chief Skunk was the title on his business card. He'd usually be found sleeping in front of the refrigerator to more readily get attention during breaks. He was well known in the printing industry as part of Adventures with Nature. His advice was: Keep Your Tail Up, And Everything Is Okay!
So how did an engineer and a music teacher become the Skunk Farm? In previous lives there was MSU, with degrees in experimental psychology for Bill and music education for Natalie. Not the usual beginning for graphic arts. There were years of graduate school as well as work experience in photography, writing, typography, graphic arts, advertising, skydiving, music and business. Following marriage and parenthood, all of this culminated in the next step.

Bill was then chief engineer in machinery manufacturing, and Natalie was a voice teacher. There was a skunk then, too. Flower preceded Adventures with Nature. She was not an executive skunk, but she was a very affectionate pet. Meanwhile, daughter Barbara had become an accomplished artist at an unusually early age. So Mom and Dad, clearly in need of a new role model, pursued Barbara's lead. This new direction was combined with their love of nature, wildlife, and environment, and resulted in Adventures with Nature.
Its objective was to learn more about the many ever-changing but delicate balances within nature that make our environment support such varied life (including ours), and to share this understanding, through film production, with everyone. Now, however, Adventures with Nature has more to do with graphic art production. But that original objective is not forgotten. Our computer workstations are arranged for the best view of the backyard, which is a registered wildlife habitat. And our clients frequently come to see the animals as well as our work.

This wildlife habitat and its fish, birds, squirrels, rabbits, raccoons, woodchucks, 'possums, and other animals are as much a part of our work environment as our equipment. These critters are part of our lives as we are of theirs. We provide them with habitat, food and water. They provide us with entertainment and understanding. Enjoyable as they are, they show us that nature cannot really be seen just as a thing to enjoy. It must also be seen as a huge system of dynamic balances of which we are just a small part. Hopefully, a part in balance with all the other parts.
What we do…
We do graphic design as well as all the detail work that supports graphic designers and provides printers with the files they need to make good plates. So it follows that our clients are limited to graphic designers, advertising agencies, corporate or institutional advertising departments, publishers, and printers.

When our clients create their ads or pages, we often make scans of color and monochrome photos, transparencies, or other art to be placed within those pages or ads. We also retouch and perform image modification on the scans. Sometimes we assemble the elements of their design in a page-makeup program, ready for printing.

However, files often come to us after page-makeup. Clients request additional services like typography to fine-tune appearance and readability, and proofreading to eliminate spelling, punctuation, or grammatical errors that might slip by. (The tenth time you read the same job, anything can look okay.) But our end process is the output of files, usually color-separated as process color for printing, as well as proofs. And we feed the animals. Every day.
How we do it…
We do it digitally, and keep the high quality cost-effective. Digital files from clients do tend to require repairs to avoid printing problems. It costs much less in the long run to fix the problems before they produce defective plates that must be replaced or, even worse, create bad press runs. Therefore,
we spend a lot of time fixing files, consulting with clients, supporting software and even hardware for them, and working out alternative ways of producing files to avoid the problems. Ideally, file-fixing is greatly reduced when this communication happens before the file is created instead of after the problems have happened. We encourage this ideal, because it provides us with more time for the animals.

Sustaining this level of performance requires extensive knowledge of graphic design and its software, of printing, and obviously of what is done in between. We must always carefully check files as well as check and proofread all of the necessary proofs to avoid any printing problems.
Why we do it…
Because we love what we do. And the way we do it, we can lose ourselves in it. If you have ever experienced being so engrossed in something that time ceased to exist, and hours or even a whole day slipped by without notice, you do know. Call it working meditation if you like, but during that time YOU were not.
Whether bathing
or working on a
computer-graphics
file, it's important
to really immerse
yourself in what
you're doing, and
enjoy it thoroughly!

When we solve a difficult problem, there is only it, there is no I or me or self. We become part of that problem. From this we derive clearer vision. Afterward, with that problem solved, we're us again, and we're really happy. It isn't exactly party time, but we feel good because we are part of the Skunk Farm which is known
for quality graphic art— art that pleases the eye and speaks clearly to the mind. That is real communication. Communication is, after all, the essence of all forms of art. And we like the trust printers have that our work will be problem-free. So now you know our secret— we really do what we do so that we can feed the animals.
Color Color Color Color