2014 Business Cards

I was out and about the other night when an old teacher of mine asked me what I was up to and mentioned that they would love to see some recent art.

Recent Art? I really do not think of myself as an artist anymore. Designer, sure. Creative crocheter? Yeah. Artist, nah.

Sure I've doodled a bit recently. And I am working on some fan art for AC:NL. But nothing frame-able. I feel lately like calling myself that would take away something from the other artists out there who continually work to improve themselves and their art.

That aside, once again I realized that I should have some personal business cards. Or at the very least carry around this custom stamp I had made with my logo and website on it... So I looked up the old art for the business cards I made up in 2010. I never had them printed and it's time for an update anyway.

The old old business card was boring and disjointed I felt. The playing card idea I still like a bit more since it at least looks cohesive on both sides. Sure, I'm not a card dealer, but I do consider the crafty things I do to be play. I am an ace (ha!) at what I do. I also like the limited color scheme of playing cards.

I updated the contact info and my name... since I've gotten married since I made these last. I tried to make it look a little like the box for cards with the patterns and dots and large symbol. I then took a few hours and reworked the playing card art to be a little more relevant and thoughtful.

I shortened my hair, colored it blue, updated my glasses shape. I also changed the outfit a bit. Before I was referencing the strange cloak-like clothes the card characters wear; now it is a layered kimono. I collect them, and love asian culture. The kimono itself has leaves (for the gardening I do) and chibi-totoros, for the obvious reason that I love them and flowers, just cause they are often on kimonos. I changed the waist sash into an obi (not too much of a stretch there). I left the lotus in my hair. I also left the bluebonnets since they are the flower of Texas. I added a wedding ring to my left hand and added a crochet hook to my array of implements in that hand. In case you can't tell those items are: a crochet hook, an art pen/marker, a pencil and a brush.

Making these cards allows me to show off my range of skills. I get to draw the design on paper, and then bring it into Illustrator to get vector lines, then into Photoshop for coloring. I also get to show off my design skills since everything is brought together in inDesign and text and embellishments are added.

So yeah, I'm thinking I will get these printed on glossy cardstock. And if it isn't too much extra, maybe I will have them die cut with rounded corners like real cards instead of the drop shadow effect. :)

UPDATE: Picture of the finished cards. I did get them die cut.

Logo Opinions

Logos are important. They need to say a lot visually without saying much more than the name.
That is why a good logo is priceless and why people who design them can charge quite a tidy sum if they are any good.

I'm personally not all that good at them yet, but I can tell a good one from a boring one.
Yahoo's new logo is boring.

I do love this article page where they show all kinds of ideas and rehashing of the logo idea. But the new font, from the thin straight lines and the identical nature of the two o's read "bank" or something else equally obsessed with order. Now the fact that the o's are two different sizes seems conflicting with the formality of the font itself. Sure the little tiny scoops at the top of each stroke of the letters is interesting, but it is rapidly lost as the logo is made smaller, to the point where I did not even see them on first glance at the new logo on their search page.

Obviously a lot of thought has go into their logo blueprint. The angle at which the ! is tilted, the exact size difference between the o's, etc. However whereas before I read Yahoo with that same sing song kind of phrase that they used in commercials... YaaahhoooOO000ooo! to now reading it like ya-hoo. Or to use it in a sentence: "That kid in the hoodie over there looks like a real yahoo."

I guess it is not as bad as it could be. Some of them also struck me as for different products. For example Day 2 looks like Yahoo is a feminine product or a yogurt or brand of yoga pants. Day 6 could be a toy manufacturer or something. Day 11 reads "dairy" to me.

My favorites from their list are Day 25 with the hidden smile, Day 23 where it looks like a bit of a funnel like its coming to a point, which is the goal of a search engine... to find the one thing you want, and Day 5, which just feels friendly and relaxed to me without the capitol letters.

Of course everything is subjective and as long as you have pleased the client and gotten paid, at the end of the day, the graphic designer's job is done.

Which one was your favorite?

ParaNorman on my doorstep!

I usually tweet my posts here to their relevant subjects or creators if those entities have a twitter handle, for example, I direct tweets of fan art for webcomics to those comics' creators. Usually I get a nice note back from them expressing appreciation.

Last week, I tweeted about my outfit that inspired this post about the film ParaNorman. I got a reply back with a link asking me to confirm my identity and give them my address. I was unsure if I was simply entering their #WeirdWins contest or what. But I thought it couldn't hurt in any case.

I forgot about it until yesterday when a tube appeared on my doorstep, addressed to me, from Blithe Hollow. Blithe Hollow is the fictional town that ParaNorman is set in. Also, it was stamped with this tell tale stamp. I practically had a heart attack right then!

With trembling hands I brought it inside and set it on the table. My plan was to open it with my husband, but he didnt get home until 6pm. It was 12:15pm... could I make it? I busied myself with chores and work and trapping and rescuing a mother cat and her litter of 3 day old kittens from behind my woodpile.

The kitties didn't even have their eyes open yet.

 Now it was 4 something... nope can't wait!

Inside I found a lovely little postcard. Cool art on one side and a nice message to the recipient on the other. Loved the little skull detail at the bottom of the card. That's the graphic designer part speaking.

Rolled up inside was not one, two or three but FOUR... four posters. They are huge: 36"h x24"w. And on really nice paper too. They range from the one you see at the theater, to a few highly stylized zombie genre looking ones. I have no idea where I am going to put them, but I am going to frame and hang each and every one. I'm now thinking I should turn the giant blank wall in my office into a giant inspiration wall and just hang all kinds of random stuff on it, including these four.

This one is at theaters I think.

Looks a little Invader Zim to me.

My favorite.

Runner up for favorite.

Hark, A Vagrant Madonna!

And now for something less completely different... or: back to webcomics!

The next on my reader list is Hark, a Vagrant! by Kate Beaton.

Honestly, this is one of my favorite comics out there right now and I'll tell you why... If some of these had been shown in my history classes I would be less bored by history. I have found that putting difficult subjects in comic form makes me want to learn more about that subject; make sense? Not really. Ok, I will try again: History is totes boring to me. Always has been. Except for Art History, that is... and what little "actual history" gets put into art history for context is all I care about. This pains my husband, who is a history graduate and teacher. Part of what makes it so likeable, is that the famous (or not so famous) people in these comics are all humanized. Meaning I can relate to them in some way, which makes their plight or circumstance something that maybe I might just give two cents about.

My favorites: the covers, the peasants, and sexy Tudors, or anything with wolverine, the pony or her younger self too. Even when I have no idea about the subject matter, I still end up laughing and maybe even learning something, after I go look it up. But SHHHHHHH, comics are silly and rot your brain right?

My doodle for this comic has been daunting. I knew I couldn't pass by without doing one, but like I said, I don't like history enough to try and learn something new just for a doodle. I thought about drawing my husband in her style, but I can't cause she's too good at capturing that essence of a person in so few lines. Then I thought about asking him what his favorite historical figure was, but then again I might have to go look something up, so no.

Today I thought, OK, if I did a comic like this, it would be about art history right? So pick something from that... duh. I wanted to do a comic about Dali in his limo full of cauliflower since that story has always stuck with me, but it is funny by itself. So I started looking through all the images I have kept from my art history classes... Oh lord, the Spiral Jetty... that is only funny to a certain few of us I think. Ahah! That will do.

This painting, so strange with the proportions... With a neck like that, it's no wonder Mr. Giraffe liked her. And I am pretty sure that babies do not look like that.

Viral Marketing Campaigns

Lemony Snicket is a bit of a mystery to me and I like it that way. Both fictional and actual he moves in a realm of intelligence and intrigue, both involved in the real world and the one he has created. For example, have you read his observations of the Occupy Movement?

The name is a pen name and you might know him from the numerous books that he has written. If you have not read the Series of Unfortunate Events, than I have a question for you... WHY NOT? "Its for children." you might reply and I would answer "True enough, but that is only on the surface and the shelf that it sits on in the library."

The truth is that if you, as a learned adult, were to read said series, you might just discover the inkling of the larger nefarious plot afoot in the lives of the Baudelaire children. For instance, what is the VFD? A name, an organization, something hinted at in the outskirts of your mind as you read. These questions are only exacerbated if you take into account and read the other novels that orbit around the primary series like satellites. Or perhaps you might wonder, who is Beatrice? (I have often wondered if something is meant to be drawn between the relationships between Lemony and Beatrice and Dante and Beatrice.)

Anyway, I digress, the purpose of this article is not to spur you into going out and purchasing the entire series for your iPad and digesting them at an unhealthy rate, but rather to demonstrate a new marketing technology that I find fascinating: Drip Campaigns, Viral Marketing, whatever you call it!

I happened to stumble upon this site. I have no recollection of how I got there, but once there it was clear to see that something was happening and all I needed to do was express an interest in what that was and provide my email address. The impetus for all the events to follow.

Nothing happened. A few weeks went by and I put the strange site out of my mind. And then I received this in my inbox.

 
After staring at the image for a few days I saw something that I thought might just be the reason... VFD. It is maddening! I replied to the email and got this response:

Hilarious. So I waited some more. Every few weeks, I would check my email to find another clue, another puzzle, another maddening hint.

 Then I got one that said Drop Everything! with the date March 28th and an image of a man falling from the sky. I cannot show you that email, because after March 28th the email image somehow changed and became this:

It is the cover of a new book to be released sometime in October. Exciting isn't it! What an excellent use of email, to ratchet up anticipation and inspire your loyal followers to talk about it to friends, coworkers and strangers. Just a light touch; never once saying "Buy This" or "On Sale Soon" simply gaining interest and allowing your market to find your product in their own way. It is refreshing and keeps me looking for more, and was glad to see that although an announcement was made, the campaign was not over.

I cannot wait to get my hands on this book.
Can you see how powerful this marketing technique can be? I bet you have experienced something like it and not even realized it. That is it's true power.

Concrete Results Logo Work

So, with my current position at Concrete Results, I do a lot of things. My position involves creating banners, flyers, e-blasts, e-newsletters, maintaining our Facebook pages, creating new websites, working on packaging for products, getting printing quotes, creating brands, etc. It is a challenging position that requires me to constantly be learning new ways of doing things. One of the most fun parts of my job, to me, is getting to design a new logo for something.

I have a fascination with logos. A truly great logo says everything about a company without saying anything at all. The foundation of a good logo in current trends seems to be the type you choose. I feel like the personality then can come from the colors you choose. These two things can set the tone of either fun and whimsy, strict or tight-laced, efficient, archaic, etc. Here are just a smattering of some of the logos I have worked on... You might just see a few in stores in the near future.

New Business Card

Well I had that other one, and I'm sure it would be acceptable as a business card, but like I said in my last post I had another idea rattling around in my brain. It is acceptable. Not sure which I like better...
I do think it would be really fun though to hand out a business card printed and laminated just like a playing card with rounded edges and everything.

Working Idea

So I've got that other business card which I am pretty happy with. However, I've got this itch in the back of my mind for an even cooler card... I'm starting to work on it now...

Business Card

So I thought since I might be doing some freelance in the future, that I ought to have a good business card for myself. I came up with this. Most of the art on the card is mine (can't take credit for the love birds, except for the coloring) and has all of the info one should need to find me. Cute no?

First Horizon Stuff

Well I did a lot more but it would take too long. I even did powerpoint backgrounds for my presentation that I had to give to the CEO at the end of the internship as well as ones for their bridal expo and things like that... I liked mine too but they don't look right when I put them up here. Anyway they had my lithographs of the colored and blank face as cool sidebars in a very sleek look for me to put all my thumbnails on. Anyway. Yeah. It was fun... and I might go back too. Who knows. Anyway for now I'm enjoying Omega learning the ins and outs of taking those files off my computer and putting them on paper!

First Horizon Stuff

These are ads for magazines where the people who ordered them live. I then get to send these files to the people for approval and then usually to the magazine's ftp online.

First Horizon Stuff

These two are postcards.

First Horizon Stuff

Here's a look for the posters in all the bank branches. This is the look for the whole series... pretty cut and dry I wanted the one below though...

First Horizon Stuff

So yeah I made anything and everything they wanted me to. And by made I mean designed and laid out in the computer. Postcards, take-ones, flyers, banners, posters, koozies, etc. It all had to look similar you know within a corporate look but it was still pretty varied. take a looksee. Here's a flyer.

my logo

So just fyi, and for me... but this fishy thing is my logo. It's an A and an M which are my initials but stacked so that it looks like a fish. So yeah I put it on all my stuff so I know its mine and it's a fish cause I'm a Pisces. OK.

Update: This design was originally going to look more like the artist Albrecht Durer's signature, but after turning the page sideways to draw more I realized that it kind of looked like an angelfish. I have always been a big fan of fish and aquariums so it seemed kind of natural to have my signature reflect some of my interests. The Pisces thing only helped solidify it in my mind. This logo has gone through a few changes, primarily being simplified, but of late the M has changed to an S to reflect my married name.