Christmas greeting

Using my new favorite font Lady Renee. It just feels like Christmas, dont' you think? I love what I do because of how much fun I have doing things like this. Even when it is just for my sanity and nothing else.

Christmas fun with the kids

This is the first year that I made ornaments with the kids. Well, two of the kids. Kadence is still a little to young. It is a great creative project and the ornaments won't fall apart like those paper ones they make in school. I got the recipe from Martha Stewart, but tweeked it a bit to my liking.

1/2 cup cinnamon
1/2 cup applesauce
1 cup white glue
water in a spritzer bottle

Mix the cinnamon and applesauce until mixed well, then stir in the white glue. Mixture will appear dry but stick together when pinched. Let sit for an hour. Dump mixture onto table and start kneeding together. Spritz water on the dough to help form it into a smooth ball that resembles the consistency of sugar cookie dough. Sprinkle cinnamon on the table before you roll it out so it doesn't stick and then roll it out and before cutting your shapes out sprinkle with cinnamon. (Make sure you don't spritz to much water on it, you don't want it to be "wet")
Once you cut out shapes lay them out on a paper towel and with a straw cut the hole to hang the ornament from. Let dry. Frequently turn the shapes over or else they will curl up.

*Forgive my slightly blurry photos. I am in need of a new lens, the one I am using is broken.

another option

Here is another direction I am heading. I am trying to fix all the space around the last logo, but still make it work.

Logo Progress

I am getting to a point with my eight and a half acre logo that I am getting pretty excited about it. I went with cool colors with a touch of the warm. I feel like I need to add a nice pop of bright color, so we will have to see about that. I also have some sketches that I am going to scan in and see how they work with the logo. Watch for more progress. For those that are trick-or-treating tonight, have fun and be safe!

Social Media-a quicker way to information

For those of you that followed the latest development of the "new" GAP logo, I hope that you are relieved as much as I am about them returning to good ol' blue. But this post isn't about the logo, this is about the social media swarm that caused GAP to ditch the new and replace with the old. I first saw a post on facebook about the new GAP logo on October 7th. Just 5 days ago. As the NY Times puts it: "Days after unveiling a new logo for its Gap stores, Gap Inc. has bowed to overwhelming negative comments online and brought back the previous logo. The turnabout is indicative of the faster pace of such reconsiderations that the Internet makes possible."

I don't know who GAP has working for them, but to almost make matters worse they opened up an idea to crowd source their logo on facebook. Talk about millions of people throwing crap together just to post something. Here is what GAP had to say about that:

“We’ve learned a lot in this process. And we are clear that we did not go about this in the right way. We recognize that we missed the opportunity to engage with the online community. This wasn’t the right project at the right time for crowd sourcing.

“There may be a time to evolve our logo, but if and when that time comes, we’ll handle it in a different way. “

We live in an age where information comes at you fast and learning how to use that speed is becoming a must. We also need to remember who we are as a brand, whether we are a company, or a single entity. We need to observe our customers to see where we are going or where we should go. Then use social media to work with our brand, not against it.

Designing with kids in mind

How great is this? The packaging was designed with the thought that kids would go for it and use honey instead of refined sugar. I of course love it because they are little bee bottles. The logo is even a smile, but so elegant. This is something I would buy just to have the bottles and packaging. Check out the designers web-site if you get a chance, what a unique way to showcase their portfolio.
www.ahandoh.com

Bonfire time

I love this time of year. It means a couple of things: Fall, sweaters, apple crisp and fire. Yes, fire, as in Bonfire time!! The first weekend in november is the miller bonfire and I always design a card to send out to everyone. Here is this years.

Exploring fonts

I have been looking at a few simple but vintage looking fonts in my quest to create a logo for 8 and a half acre farms. I have found myself leaning toward the thin deco fonts with one exception of trying out Arnold Boecklin. That is a direction I know I don't want to go. I am finding that I want to use Lady Renee(not shown), but I might be forcing it. Old Fashion Farm with a little of Martha simplicity is what I am hoping to achieve. We will see if I can be successful or not. I am going to turn to my sketchbook and draw up some simple vegetable and farm drawings and work a few patterns together with a color study next. Maybe I will take vintage further back to victorian...

announcing 8 and a half acre farm!

So I am in a lul and looking for some creative work. I decided to take my gardening experience, and soon to be chicken owner experience and form a logo to place on a blog. I have been researching vintage food labels and vintage type along with buying this really cool vintage type book (New Vintage Type classic fonts for the digital age by steven heller and gail anderson). I came up with the name "8 and a half acre farm" Our plot of land is 8.5 acres and I like how snappy it sounds. So on forth to the creation of our logo!! Font exploration first. Check back to see the progress and how it turns out.

Running

So I am training to run a 4 mile race in November. I found myself thinking several things to myself when I was running to keep me going. This is my interpretation of it turned it into an ad. I am not an ad person per se, but as I was saying all this to myself, it felt like an ad, made sense that it should be an ad. A view into my mind as I run.

Love Patterns?

I stumbled on this website today and thought it was pretty fun. I could probably get lost looking at all the patterns she has created.

http://apatternaday.tumblr.com/

Hopefully my next post will be my own work. I have a million ideas brewing and am going to make the time to work on them. Way to many times do I have an idea that I let sit and then it disappears into the void, never surface again. Where is my sketch book?

Great Student Work

So it is August. (REALLY?) Which brings my thoughts back to school, and hopefully vacation away from Ohio. Now is the time of year I turn to my schedule, and assignments, go into my lectures and see what examples I can show, how I can explain things and get better work out of my students. Here are some great book covers I found from someone who enjoys bragging about her student work as much as I do.

http://jessicahische.com/spendstoomuchtimeinternetting/?p=280

Simple design

I am always looking for great simple design. This is great, simple design. The moomah website says that they are "a place of sweet whimsy, wonder and warmth, moomah is a creative playscape, a cozy cafe, a living classroom, a quiet hideaway, an art oasis, our neighborhood meeting spot. Your favorite place to be together, and a place for your child to simply be." Wow. All that information in one simple design.

The design studio has a nice clean website also and all you have to do is click on projects to see what they did for moomah. And I am always a sucker for a place that doesn't use capital letters in their logo.

check it out:
http://www.apartmentone.net/

Great inspiration

I have had this site bookmarked for a long time. The inspiration it gives me is endless and there are great links on the site. Not only is it updated constantly with new and great designs, but I still find new things I have never seen each time I visit.

Enjoy the flood it gives: www.graphic-exchange.com

A different type of canvas

Last Friday my husband and I had a "date day" and we enjoyed it by attending the Hell City Tattoo Fest. The art was phenomenal, whether it was watching someone sketch in their sketch book, or hand draw a tattoo on someones back before inking it. Shops came from all over the country and even the world, Sweeden and Japan to name a couple. We found a shop in particular that we instantly fell in love with. Truth & triumph tattoo (smartbomb tattoo was also theirs). Not going to the convention to get inked...we ended up getting inked.

Josh Cook is this amazing person who does the most beautiful hand lettering and placed my children's names on me and Matt Clemmer, a very talented artist did bike chains on my husbands wrist, he has gotten tons of comments on them. They were very professional and a great group of guys that were fun to hang out with. They have gained customers for life. Yes, for life meaning I will be getting more ink on my body.

I wonder why the computer takes pictures backward? Funny, but you still can see how beautiful it is.

Modern wallpaper

In New York right now the International Contemporary Furniture Fair is going on. Graham & Brown, has been a company since 1946 that has been revolutionizing wallpaper. Not the wallpaper we see in the houses that have "country" themes to it, but real wallpaper that should honestly be called art. Their blog talks about two new designer wallpaper collections they are introducing. One is Kelly Hoppen and the other is Amy Butler. (her designs are pictured here)

How can I explain to my husband that I need to buy wallpaper that costs $80 a bolt?

http://blog.grahambrown.com/us/

creeptastic dolls

My mother forwarded me a short film a couple of months ago called "alma". Great animation and just beautiful, with a creepy underlay. It reminded me of the 1963 The Twilight Zone episode of the "Living Doll". I remember seeing an episode when I was a child (obviously a rerun) and couldn't even look at my dolls for awhile. Pretty sure I put them in my closet till I was over the trauma of the episode.

Check them both out:
http://almashortfilm.com/

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1927690_1927684_1927643,00.html

Small Can Be Big

So I was wasting time going through the usual websites and I go to CA to find this most wonderous bee art front and center. The illustrator is Johnathan Bartlett whom donated his talent and time to create the poster for smallcanbebig.org.

Check it out:
http://www.commarts.com/exhibit/smallcanbebig-poster.html

Also check out Johnathan Bartlett:
www.seejbdraw.com

And yes, I of course bought the poster. Not only does it have these great bee's in it, the concept is smart and needs no explanation. What a great feeling, feeding my bee addiction and helping out a great charity.