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Archive for 2010
It’s been ages since I did a desktop wallpaper and… since this is the giving season… I thought December would be a perfect time to do one!
I do hope you all have merry and bright days, and I do hope we will learn to live in peace. A bit soppy, I know… but hey, that’s just the kind of girl I am.
Here are your download links:
1024 x 768 (good for ipads)
320 x 480 (good for iphones)
The best compliment any client can pay me is when they come back to me for more! Of course I love referrals, but repeat business is even more valuable to me. It’s such a vote of confidence in my work and the relationship I try to build with my clients.
So imagine my delight when Darbi G. came back to me for help designing the visual identity for her boudoir photography business. Yep, I was pretty pleased!
She was looking for something that would give clients a visual clue — “hey, this is a Darbi G gig” — but would feel distinct enough to stand on its own. It was important to her that it expressed the two elements of the name: there had to be some sweetness; but there also had to be some heat! She specifically requested that we explore the idea of portraying the female form in an abstract way.
And so that’s just what we did!
So what can I tell you about this logo… first, the colours are familiar. They are the same as the Darbi G. colours, and thus an important visual clue for clients. Second, we kept the typefaces the same. I mean, you can’t really go wrong with Garamond and Gotham, right? But we added the incredibly beautiful Baskerville Italic ampersand to give the typography a nice set of womanly curves.
The icon is round, to help express the idea of connection. The abstract shape is reminiscent of twin Ss (Sugar & Spice), but it could also be the curve of a woman’s waist. There’s a heart shape in there… maybe the small of a woman’s back, but also to express the idea that most women come to Darbi for boudoir photography as a gift for a loved one. And finally, some very feminine pearls.
Thanks, Darbi, for the opportunity to support you once again!
Darbi’s just launched her boudoir site (she took on the design for that herself… she’s multi-talented that way), and you can see it here. But be warned, serious curves ahead!
It’s that time of year when we start to see a lot “top 5″ and “top 10″ lists. You know, the top 10 best bikini bodies of 2010. [ Except, this is a place for me to reflect on design, so we'll skip the celebrity smut, shall we? ] Quill and Quire recently announced its top five Canadian book covers, and they are a great bunch.
Design credits, left to right: Goya’s Dog (David Gee); Fauna (Jennifer Lum); Kenk (Nick Marinkovich, Alex Jansen & Jason Gilmore); Cigar Box Banjo (Heather Pringle); Seven Good Reasons not to be Good (David Gee)
My personal favourite is Heather Pringle’s design for Cigar Box Banjo. I love how rich it feels, and the dimension the design gives to the cover, and the joy it seems to express. I am also struck by the similarity of the cover designs for Cigar Box Banjo and Seven Good Reasons not to be Good. Both use movement and direction to jump the eye around the cover… but with completely different (really, almost opposite) design aesthetics. And yet my first thought when seeing them was “wow, they’re so similar!”
Anyway, nice work! You can read more about each selection on Quill & Quire’s website.
Spirit of the North-Fall 2010 edition-is hot off the presses. This issue was a lot of fun to put together.
Our cover story? Why, the Grey Cup, of course! (For non-Canadian readers, the Grey Cup is the Canadian Football League Championship.)
We featured another gorgeous illustration from the very talented Ian Johnson:
There is a profile of Vancouver artist Suzo Hickey:
Our editor takes us in search of the elusive Whooping Crane:
This issue’s photo gallery features stunning images of the Canadian Prairies. These two by Robert Postma are my personal favourites:
And we get up close and personal with the Koalas of Australia’s French Island:
As you can see, lots of good stuff! Look for a copy on a news stand near you, or visit Spirit of the North’s website for more info.
I really can’t do better justice to the creative process behind this treasure of poster than the one who made it:
This poster is a father and son collaboration. All elements are hand drawn by Koen (age 6) with a Sharpie marker at the dining room table, then arranged digitally. The type is the “Golden Rule” as penned in the honest hand of a child. Maybe what we learned in kindergarten is most important.
You can see more detail on the Beast Pieces blog, here. The poster is available for purchase here.
As The Huffington Post’s Anis Shivani says
Book cover design is an underappreciated art form, yet it can help make a book. What goes into the thought process, and how do authors, designers, publishers, and marketing people collaborate? What degree of author input is generally solicited, and how do inchoate thoughts get translated into striking covers?
Luckily for us, The HuffPost took a look at 21 book covers and asked designer, authors and editors for some insight into the design process.
For example, this cover for Bernhard Schlink’s The Weekend features a shot of Barbara de Wilde’s (the designer) husband’s overnight bag.
The Weekend is the story of an untraditional reunion of friends after twenty-plus years of separation due to one character’s imprisonment for terrorism and murder as a member of Baader-Meinhoff. It is the first weekend of his release and the gathering inspires a confrontation of passions, loyalties, and ideals, and the question of his return to the movement. For the design I photographed my husband’s overnight bag, and placed the title inside. The significance of a piece of luggage without an owner has been burned into our consciousness in this current age of terrorism: is it a harmless bag or does it have a bomb inside? I probably would have preferred to leave the design with that bit of ambiguity, but the author wanted to see the bomb — so, I added it to the back.
See all the covers and the designers’ comments here.