BGLH has a graphic designer! You can meet her (and me) at the first ever BGLH meetup!
Yes, BGLH now has an on-site graphic designer. Shari — who debuted with the Saturday retrospective during guest blogger week — will be re-designing the site and also do some writing. The new BGLH website will debut in early Fall.
She works for an advertising firm in Chicago and has done design work for top blogs like Afrobella and the Fashion Bomb. And she is currently transitioning from relaxed to natural (go Shari!)
The coolest part is that she lives in Chicago, so we’re right by each other. (I’ve actually been living a few miles outside Chicago, but I’ll be moving back to the city in September.)
So Shari and I recently met up to discuss the blog and how we could make it nicer and prettier (at LePeep in the West Loop for all you Chi-towners. Funnily enough I ran into another BGLH reader there… Shout out to Sandra A!) And out of subsequent discussions we decided a meetup might be cool.
So on August 15 we are hosting our first BGLH meetup for folks in the Chicagoland area! We are still deciding a location, so stay tuned for details. Unfortunately J won’t be there cuz she lives in New York… awwww 
Shari wrote this by way of introduction…
I was born and raised in Chicago. (Born in 1984. I’m 25.) My folks are from Belize. I was an artsy/creative child. I loved playing with Legos, drawing, friendship bracelets, etc., all that jazz. If it was hands on, I was all about it.
Back in the day, my hair was a lot different than it is now. I had fine, almost straight hair. My mom used to put Shirley Temple curls in my hair by putting water on a comb and then twirling it around sections of my hair. I used to always get complimented on my hair and told how silky and long it was. Around age 8, that changed. My hair changed texture. Due to puberty or my eczema…I’m not sure. It was around that time my mom discovered the hot comb. And over the years, my elbow length hair gradually got shorter and shorter. When my mom noticed the breakage that happened over the years, we decided around 7th or 8th grade that I should get a relaxer. That worked well for a while (if you ignore the scalp burns). My hair always remained pretty healthy, but I never regained all of my length back.
I went away to college at the University of Missouri-Columbia and majored in Journalism. In high school, I did a summer program for fine art. I did a lot of drawing: naked people, printmaking & painting. And I hated it! Then I figured I’d be a psychologist, but I wasn’t too fond of having to go to school for extra years. I always liked to write, so I decided I would just be journalist since it was more of a stable career path than creative writing. Me and my indecisive self ended up deciding I didn’t want to write anymore once there, so I changed my emphasis from writing to advertising. But throughout college, I never got rid of the art/design bug. I designed fliers for campus groups & the black culture center on campus. I was also a student design assistant for the dining halls and I also took fashion design and textile classes. I interned at Draft in NYC as an art director intern the summer of my junior year, and after I graduated, I also interned as an art director intern at JWT Chicago.
I currently work in pharmaceutical advertising by day as an interactive developer doing mostly Flash development, and in my spare time, I do a lot of freelance work (Art direction, graphic & web design, t-shirt design, wordpress development).
As far as my hair…I decided to grow out my relaxer about 7 months ago. I had recently started paying more attention to the things I was eating and the vitamins I wasn’t getting. After that, going natural only seemed…natural.
Welcome to BGLH Shari!
Mad kudos on this interview, I really loved it… would love to know all the details on this meetup!
yay a meetup, i can't wait!
(first time commenter)
great to meet you! can't wait for the meet-up!
I'm so excited to be a part of BGLH. Thanks for the welcome, Leila! We're going to do big things.
Can't wait to meet all of you readers at the meet up!
@KittyMoser – Glad you liked the interview
It's wonderful to see you doing great things, Shari! Can't wait to reconnect at the meetup!
So excited to see Shari on here. We were roomies freshman year at Mizzou!!! As a fellow Chicagoan I'm looking forward to the meetup. I just decided to go natural and would love to get as much info/encouragement as I can during this transition process!!
Love the idea of a meet-up. I've done about 2 and they have been great! Might I suggest a product swap/sale? Lol. I have things I'm not using at home and it'll be nice to give them away to folks that want to try it.
I'll be checking back for a time and date
I want to come! If I didn't live in Europe I would be there!
By the way, I'm loving her chunky twist-out/braid-out in the last pic. I'm going to try that!
off topic
I have been thinking about the notion of beautiful hair. There are people whose hair is not beautiful out right and it has nothing to do with texture/hair type. People with beautiful hair have thick relatively the same type going throughout their hair, thickness, and shine. I my humble opinion.
I have a white friend with thin wispy sorry but I will take mine over hers. I see natural 4A hair all the time and I'm like wow here hair is gorgeous. I wish my hair could do that. My hair is wiry and has at least 4 different texture.
@KindredSmile – Ok, I'm going to guess we went to WY together, but I can't tell who you are from your avatar
@SouthLoopSocialLight – Hey girl! Thanks for commenting. And you can holla at some of my hair products anytime you need to, I have more than I care to admit.
@Chi – I LOVE the idea of a product swap. I got like 5 different conditioners in my bathroom right at this moment. I need to purge.
@Alicia – Thanks! It was actually large bantu knots that I did while my hair was wet. I did them not too long before I went to sleep and took them out in the morning. Caution: Those things take FOREVER to dry. The back of my head was a wet frizzy mess that day, so allow some more drying time if you try.
YEAH!Can't wait to see all you lovelies in person
J will mos def be missed 
YAY YAY YAY!! To bad i dont go back to school till the week after that… I go to Columbia College. Ill try,i might be there!
my homie shari
we made it official!
holla!
it's a pleasure to share in your transition experience
boo! @ "Unfortunately J won't be there cuz she lives in New York… awwww
"
thanks for the sympathy haitian roots
…i'm green w/ envy lol!- something must be done about this…
Can't wait for the meetup! Went to WY with Shari. Have seen her dope designs on Afrobella's site so i can't wait to see what she has in store for this one.
i'm gonna be outta town on the 15th of august, damn. : (
Can a New York meet up be scheduled?