Logo Design: Living Mindfully Therapy & Wellness

For this project, a therapy and wellness practice located in NYC needed a new, modern logo. After talking over the design brief and doing a competitor analysis - the next step is coming up with a handful of sketches and concepts.

This is the stage where I can present some rough drafts of potential logos and the client can give me feedback on what they like or would like to move forward with. From this initial effort, we were able to move forward with the direction of needing something more peaceful, less on the nose of the city and not floral. I started researching what other botanical, nature elements could be used and came across the olive branch. A symbol of peace and visually interesting, I moved forward with the next stage and made the next draft that would end up becoming the winning idea for her new logo.

Here is the final logo, which started as a sketch that I scanned and finished using Adobe Illustrator. With this vector illustration, I was able to provide a logo file that can be used at any size, in any medium, without any distortion. I provided both black and white (transparent) logos to be used on her website, business cards, and any promotional products she needs.

WIIFM Factor

What’s in it for me?

This is the one question I love to ask when I work on email campaigns. I find it can help focus a campaign, especially if the client I am working with is new to email. Think about it; when you open your inbox and see a bunch of promotional emails waiting for you, what makes you open one over the other? It’s going to be the one that peaks your interest, offers a great deal, or is an update on something you care about. Thinking about WIIFM when planning out your email is one of the first steps to take. Oftentimes, clients feel the need to sell all their services/products at once to get the most for their advertising budget. This can lead to to decision overwhelm for the customer. Instead, focusing on one amazing deal, or promoting one service at a time can help capture the attention of those who are most likely to take action. This is what leads to getting the most ROI for your budget!

Email is the best ROI in the business, make the most of each campaign by putting yourself in your recipient’s shoes and offer them a simple, clear offer that they can act on immediately.

Offline Designing: Letterpress

As I am coming to the end of my latest class in letterpress, I am feeling so thankful for the time spent offline creating art. Not only do my eyes get a break from the screen, I get to put my graphic design skills to use by actually setting the type with my hands instead of using a keyboard. The process of letterpress printing consists of several stages: composition, imposition and lock-up, and printing. This class I took recently explored different ways of composition including at an angle, and even in a circle. I spent most of the 5 weeks composing a print for my daughter’s room in a circle composition. I also explored some quick prints using large wooden type and a sign maker’s press (a new-to-me press that was sold to grocers and butchers so they could quickly make their own signage).

Here are the two prints I made for my daughter, one using the wood type ( notice the cool patina texture), and the type set in a circle:

Spending time on hobbies like letterpress helps me stay creative and energized for the other work I do. A study by Drexel University showed that as little as 45 minutes spent creatively can help increase a person’s confidence in themselves and ability to complete tasks, and lower their stress. So, what are you waiting for? Get offline and go get creative!

What Makes a Good Email?

What makes a good email? That depends on the purpose, who its from, and how it looks in my inbox. For me, a good email on it’s most basic level will have these 4 things:

1. Subject Line - Short and Concise

2. Imagery - High Resolution, Eye catching

3. Purpose - Clear, Good Offer, Relevant

4. Quality - Links work, text is readable, images load, there is alt text included for screen readers

Curious about what a good email looks like to the experts? There is a website for that! Check out Really Good Emails. This is a website dedicated to collecting good emails across all industries. I find it helpful for inspiration, and staying on top of the newest trends in email design.

When I work on an email design, I try to put myself in the recipient’s shoes. Would I open this email if it was sent to me? Can I easily read the text and is the call to action button clear and clickable? These things may seem basic, but they are the building blocks to a good email. Taking into consideration how the recipient will experience the email is the key to creating a good email.

What I "Do"

When people ask me what I do, it is rare that the person knows what “email marketing” is. I explain it like this:

”You know how you get emails from the Gap telling you about their sale? It got there by a team of people working to design, write, develop and deliver it to your inbox. I am one of those people who figure out the best way to show you this message so you can get that sweater you have been eyeing for 20% off.”

That usually explains it enough for people to understand that I work on a team that gets those promotional emails into their inboxes every day. I get it, unless you work in advertising or have done some email marketing yourself why would you think about how those emails got into your inbox?

The truth is, so much work goes into a successful email campaign. For example, did you know that there are over 90 email clients and devices that emails are viewed on, and most of them will display the code that generates the email differently? The code that I develop has to show up the same for people using Gmail on their desktop as well as those opening the email on their iPhone. It is no easy task, but after doing it for so long I have developed templates and snippets of code that help me pull together an email pretty quickly, and my experience gives me a great eye for correcting any issues that may come up.

I also design email creative, laying out the text and images just right so the email looks great and is successful. Usually, success is measured by how many people click through to the website or specific promotion’s page, ultimately leading to a sale. Or, it could be how many people click through to register for an upcoming event or donate to a charity. Finding just the right way to present the offer to you is just as important as the offer itself - you probably wouldn’t click on an email that had broken images or text that was unreadable, right? This is where my background in graphic design comes in handy, and my skills in digital design are put to use to create emails that are eye catching, readable, and easy to click through.

The world of email marketing is an interesting niche part of digital advertising that I am glad to be a part of. I hope this post helped to shine some light on the world of email and what I “do”.

Holiday Printing Fun!

Lately I have been diving into letterpress making more cards for the holidays! I am also designing a new line of prints inspired by pets, so be on the lookout for those.

Check out my holiday cards and prints available now in my etsy shop: TwinpopPress http://etsy.me/2nb8BEZ

Lettering & Calligraphy Pens

Lately I have been practicing my lettering and calligraphy skills. I picked up this Pigma Calligrapher pen set a few weeks ago and love them! I have been practicing my letters, flourishes, and words. One of my favorite resources is The Postman's Knock, she has a ton of free worksheets along with paid classes if you want to really up your calligraphy game. Practicing everyday is something that isn't hard to do when the subject is this fun, as you can tell by my instagram feed being full of drills and lettering projects lately.

My Sunday morning work space

Incorporating illustration and calligraphy

Summer is Coming, Upcoming Pin Project

Now that the weather is warming up, I have been focused on creating new print projects full of color and fun! I recently did a small letterpress card in magenta/purple ink, and I have been working on a new pin design featuring colorful popcycles for my Etsy shop! 

Sketching ideas, playing around in Illustrator to finalize the vector illustration for the pin design!

Small and sweet, perfect size for a little note to brighten up a friends day!

New Season, New Projects!

As spring is slowly coming into view, I have been diving into new creative projects! My goals for this year included learning how to letterpress and setting up an Etsy shop for it...and I did it! I had private lessons with a letterpress expert and became a member of Spudnik Press here in Chicago. Check. After I had enough prints made, I opened my Etsy shop and listed a few of my favorite pieces, each one of them is pressed on the Vandercook using a custom polymer plate I had made! I love the feel of the punch of the press on the paper, there isn't anything quite like it! I am excited to engage my illustrative and design skills in this new medium.  Check it out here: https://www.etsy.com/shop/TwinpopPress

Breakfast Buddies 5"x7" Flat Card 

Pizza Pup 8.5"x11" Print

Teatime Kitty 3"x5" Flat Card

Watercolor!

I have always loved the look of watercolors and have dabbled a bit in the medium throughout the years, but never felt like I had a good grasp on them. I have been painting along with some online classes through Skillshare, and really love it!  I have been posting my little paintings and works in progress through my Instagram, and I know the more I practice them the better they will get. Here is my most recent session complete with hot tea and some lovely spring subjects!

Drawing Food is Fun!

Lately I have been sketching and drawing all sorts of food. From sketching some tasty donuts and coffee to illustrating a gooey-cheesy slice of deep dish, I have been exploring the creative side of my foodie habits. Here is a few illustrations I ended up using for food related event invitations for students at JMLS. Food is one of my favorite subjects to draw, if you need a special food related illustration let me know, I would love to do it!

Coloring Page Freebie

One of my favorite sayings is "Look at the flowers in your garden instead of focusing on the weeds". Yesterday I was sketching and came up with this coloring page full of flowers and a positive message. One of my goals for this year is to Spread Kindness through Creativity, and this is the first of many projects to come. Feel free to download, color, and share.

Pressing On!

I have always loved the look and feel of letterpressed cards, but the process eluded me. Wanting to learn more, I took a 5 hour workshop at Spudnik Press.

The workshop was both challenging and fun. I left with an even greater appreciation for the workmanship involved, and a desire to learn more.

I signed up to be a volunteer member at Spudnik, and hope to enroll in the 12 week letterpress course in March!

2017 - Spreading Kindness through Creativity

This year's goal for myself is to create more work with an intention of kindness. Shining some light into this challenging year will be my goal and I invite you to do the same. Some projects I am working on include: letterpress cards, postcards, and a line of enamel pins!

2017 Calendar Design

It is time to find a new calendar for 2017! I love finding a new, unique calendar to hang up in the office and at home.  I have designed this year at-a-glance calendar that features flowers and adorable foxes. This will be available on my Spoonflower shop soon, where you can make it into a tea towel or a unique wall hanging.

I took this sketch of a fox and a few floral elements and transformed them in Illustrator into this calendar design. The fabric design version that is going into my Spoonflower shop doesn't have the floral repeating pattern in the background.

Inktober 2016

“Practice Makes Perfect, or Something”

I am excited to be doing the Inktober challenge this year, started by Jake Parker it gives everyone a place to practice drawing in ink. With some sample prompts and tons of inspiration from fellow artists who are also participating, it has been a great opportunity to work on trying new techniques and styles. Check it out here http://mrjakeparker.com/inktober

I have been posting all my daily drawings on Instagram, which has been fun to see the variety of subjects and inks people are using. You can check out this years contributions by searching for #inktober2016. Practicing something daily is a good way to build up a new skill set and for me, work through the creative blocks that can come up. If I don't feel particularly inspired, just drawing anything is better than skipping a day, it has really helped me push through those blocks and come up with something anyway! No pressure, just practice.

Ready for School?

As summer draws to an end, and fall is right around the corner I felt inspired to draw a corgi getting ready to go back to school. This was a really fun illustration to do, I started in my sketchbook with a pencil,  and then finished coloring it in Photoshop and cropped the original drawing down to this layout.

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Women in Science Illustration of Margaret Hamilton

Margaret Hamilton is a computer scientist, systems engineer, and business owner. She was a part of a team that developed on-board flight software for the Apollo space program at NASA. Her contributions were an integral part of the successful moon landing, and I bet you have never heard of her. I was inspired to do this illustration of Margaret after listening to this segment on Science Friday about her and the all female team of coders working on the Apollo 11 mission. I started off by doing a rough sketch using a blue pencil, and finished it on my Surface Pro using the Bamboo App and finally Photoshop to add in a few finishing touches.

Learn more about Margaret and other women in science who deserve to have their stories told.

Watercolors for Summer

“Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good”

When inspiration hits, you have to act. Recently I have felt the call of thick paper and paint brushes. I busted out my watercolors and tried to paint some scenes of summer arriving. Fruit, flowers, and bright colors. The quote above about not letting perfect be the enemy of good really embodies my experience with watercolors. Sometimes it works out and even when it doesn't, I still had fun learning.

Seeing Design Come to Life

How cool are these paper cup PSD mock ups by Diogo Capelo? They are available for download on his Dribble page (https://dribbble.com/shots/1649858-Cups-Mockup-PSD).

I love seeing my designs come to life on a product like this. Free mock up templates are widely available in the design community, and attribution is usually optional, but I would like to say thanks to Diogo and all the makers out there who contribute their work so others can visualize their own designs in a new way, and hopefully learn something new in the process as well. For me, learning about smart layers and how they work in Photoshop has been really cool, it is a powerful tool available to quickly see the changes different designs have on the mock ups without a ton of layers involved. Here's to seeing the possibilities that are out there and using the tools available to achieve them.