Anja Rüsewald                        

Age: 28  Location: Co. Louth, Ireland
Personal Website/Blog: http://indigo_art.livejournal.com
Positions in WAMCARE: Volunteer, Graphics
Conditions: I'm not afflicted with ME/CFS or FM myself but I have been suffering from depression, (social) anxiety & weight problems/obesity since my early teenage years. I decided to join WAMCARE after I became friends with Laura Dunks on LiveJournal and read about her day to day struggle with ME/CFS.
Interests I focus on:
Although I am not professionally working as a designer, I love making graphics, working with shape, colour & text. I publish my user icons, avatars and other graphics in my online blog and am happiest when I learn that my artwork is enjoyed. Apart from this I enjoy drawing, online networking & blogging, movies and tv shows, music, decorating, various games, collectibles, learning new things, the beach and playing with my dog. Well okay, I am not a beginner when it comes to graphics or design in general, the eye/talent runs in the family with my dad, mom and brother also having creative talents. My dad is a painter & decorator, my mom sews table cloths and loves to do different sorts of stitching. My brother works in advertisement, printing stickers, huge banners, tshirts or flyers, the lot. He does the artwork as well as the finish product most of the time. He also works with models, cars, buildings and has done work for a lot of big companies already, like Desperados (that beer-something mix-drink, Rothmans, soccer clubs and stuff. I started a degree in interior design back home in Germany after school but I never finished it because there was too much material from the architectural side involved and maths/physics are far from being my strong suits. I graduated from a school focusing on creative subjects and the final test actually included designing a logo for a travel shop. So yeah, I am not totally new to all this, I have a vague idea what it's about, but I don't have any practical experience to go with it. No prior knowledge of how to actually produce the logo in the pc/photoshop from scratch. Even on the ribbon I had to cheat and it took me a few hours to get it as it is now, adding the globe (and picking the spot it looks best in) actually only took two minutes, plus another few to add the text. So yeah, in my head I most of the time have a clear image of how I want something to look, ideally, I just don't have a clue how to get there. Can be very frustrating at times though. Alas, I don't actually think the ribbon is perfect yet, but as said, I am a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to these things, so I will see if I can get it to look even more balanced later on. A professional would be able to do this even better and a lot quicker. I would love to know how to add shading to the ribbon to make it look more 3D, so I cheated by placing the globe between the two ends of the ribbon to give the illusion of 3D at least, I think it sort of worked. :)
(We think it worked Anja - we love it!)

Graphics Anja has made for ME/CFS Awareness:

Volunteer For Wamcare!

Want to join the WAMCARE Team and make a difference?
Check out our volunteer pages, or email: volunteer@wamcare.org