Friday, September 9, 2011

CuddleBat Graphics LLC

So I am finished with another one of my side gigs, reinventing Cuddle Bat's unique branding and creating a website, business card and stationery to go along with it. Cuddle Bat is a company owned and operated by Emma Lee Dyer and her boyfriend Collin (his last name escapes me). They create one-of-a-kind apparel and hand-made housewares using up-cycled materials and original designs. If you want to check out the site live, or buy from her shop go here : LINK

The logo was created by the owner of the store and the design was reinvented by me to be more her. Becuase of their offbeat merchandise my design choices followed suit - typography was chosen to mix and match and photos were made to look more grainy and used. Inspirations for this indie chic store stem from band posters and an argyle sweater. 

The business card (front) mock-up and cover to the left are a continuation of the branding direction and state their mission. At the bottom of the post is the mock-up to a letterhead. Emma hadn't requested that I make this particular things, but I loved the project so much that I added them in (though she has yet to see them).

What I like most about this project is that it is a much different aesthetic than I normally do.  It has definitely been rewarding to step out of that design safe zone that I find myself in. This project has been long due for an overhaul and I am honored they saught me out to do the job. They sell really neat wares and their stuff comes and goes so you have to check often for new items.



Sunday, September 4, 2011

Third Potato - Brianna's New Website


So recently I have just finished one of my pet projects, a website for Brianna Alexander, a deviant artist who goes by Fyuvix and is the artist behind Pompfiction (pompfiction.com). You can check her out either right on her portfolio website (ThirdPotato.com), or on deviantArt.com (fyuvix.deviantart.com)

I tried to recreate her personality by duplicating the colors she often utilizes in her own artwork and the present color scheme for her corporate identity. Although there are a few things I would like to fix as far as the design goes, I really love the way this project has turned out.

As far as the corporate id, I have been a great part in assisting her with what she wanted her site to represent. This includes nudging her to go with something that that has a little more "third potato" and less comic-y flair to make her more original in her branding. Coming up with different layouts and ideas for her branding, and of course creating the website to go with it all.

All in all I think this will definitely set her apart from many of her competitors and really showcase her already amazing portfolio when searching for job opportunities in her field and I wish Brianna the best of luck and I am happy she loves her site as much as I do.




Now to move onto creating my own site to finish my newest branding solution!

Jeffrey's Heart Color Options


Hello Everyone! 
This is just a follow-up to Jeffrey's Heart Foundation branding and logo design work that I have finished up some time ago. Below are the color options that I had considered when starting the project. The first are a color combination being presently used by the organization. The middle was a solution I found to be best suited for the overal scheme (to keep it from being too predictable), and then the last being the happy medium.

(Read top to bottom then left to right) Pleasing color combinations for Jeffrey's Heart Foundation.

So to just explain, there is a reason why I went with the center blue scheme. The red & white color scheme pictured first on the left side really doesn't look too nice when combining things such as the tin man imagery and I felt the colors are a bit obvious. White and red are the colors of many hospital organizations (such as the Red Cross, American Heart Foundation, etc) as well as the local color of a heart and a piece of paper. But does this really go on to represent Jeffrey at all?

I wanted to go beyond that. I combined a much more sophisticated pattern of blues and browns to push that there is a boy behind here with a family and a story. I was inspired by a picture Tatiana took when exiting the hospital after a visit with her brother Jeffrey. The image itself is a simple one: A stain on floor shaped like a heart right on the path outside of the hospital. This was the key image and a sign of hope for Clarisa, her son Jeffrey, and the rest of people behind Jeffrey's Heart Foundation. The blue is eye dropped directly from this image and the rest of the colors accentuate that blue in a pleasing sense that is both earthy and masculine. The heart shape is derived from this stain as well and the proportions remain largely unchanged from this image.


A sign of hope for Jeffrey and his family
found by his sister, Tatiana when visiting
him at the Hartford Hospital in Connecticut
The last color combination is a mix between the two. I kept the incorporation of the "red heart" as it's a big color in their overall branding scheme already and then followed it up by earthy browns with maroon tints. Its a pleasing combination of both color schemes, and though it loses some of its connection with Tatiana's original post, it continues to be a warm, loving, much more feminine color scheme. The colors do a wonderful job coming together and balancing each other out, and are a nice break from the red-white combination.





Photoshopped T-shirt Mock-ups for the
"Show Some Heart, Wear a Heart" Campaign.
Information on that on previous post.
 However being much more fond of the brown and blue, I continued to create mock-ups of the design in that color scheme. Above is a snapshot of the pieces created right out from my own portfolio. To the left are T-shirt mock-ups that feature the patch design that went for the donation campaign I had described in an earlier post (To see the post click this link : LINK). Model Shot T-Shirt Mock-ups taken from DBH at http://www.designbyhumans.com/. Poster Mock-ups were made below. Idea was to be sold as prints or be formatted for later use as banners or props. The original printed versions have the finished logo underneath.
Poster Mock-ups featuring the "Tin-Man" motif & the Simple Missing Heart motif.


As for logo choice,after going through several failed versions, this one is the one I had chosen. There's a quirkiness to the font and a simple illustration with meaning.



Representations of the tin hat in different color
options from color scheme 1 : original color choice
I had tried to incorporate the Tin-Man's tin hat into the logotype, however as you can see below it starts to look more like an Asian straw hat without the tin-man underneath to make sense of what people are looking at. 

Friday, September 2, 2011

Finished with my Last SCAD class

Me in the fetal position...something only my lovely roomie gets to see
Hello everyone!
It's been so long since I have last posted, but I am happy to announce my classes are finally over. Man this quarter was hard, I was just bogged down with so much work to do and no time to do it. No one seems to believe me when I  However I managed somehow and now I'm ready to get right back into blogging more regularly, updating The Taffetas more regularly, and practicing all my artsies.

As for my plans right now and for the hopeful future I think I am going to apply to some jobs that I've always wanted, but never really had the balls to go for. Since the final stretch of my last portfolio class I feel that I can be a real good contender. Wish me luck~<3

I'm also going to try to keep this thing updated. I like being able to just chit chat (well to no one in particular) here and up until now I actually have the time to do so. (Let's hope it says this way)
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