Congrats to Caitlin and Andrew!

I am so happy to congradulate my cousin and his new wife on their wedding! It was a beautiful ceremony, with a beautiful bride and handsome groom, great friends and family and much festivities to be had by all! I can't wait until I get home and get a chance to post some of the pictures from the wedding. Until then I am having a great time being home with the family.

Compliment Cards

I was going through my old papers and came across one from our sorority recruitment days. We would all get together the night before it began and each put a sheet of paper on our backs. We would then go around and write something nice about each person on their backs. At the end of the night you could remove them and you had your own mini emotional boost right there for the rest of the time! I loved doing that and as a new years resolution would like to start complimenting the people in my life more. I know I always love a random nice word to boost my spirits. In honor of this new resolution I'd like to come up with a line of "compliment cards" so that I can have them ready to send out at least twice a month to a different person. I think it will help me to recognize my friends strengths and brighten their day with a kind word. Here's a very preliminary example of what I'm thinking of....

Searching for a headband

So my hair is a little too short to do anything fun with for my cousin's wedding, but I wanted something cute to hold it back. Here's some fun little bands I found while searching Etsy:

Sellers listed clockwise from the top: My lavaliere, Little jardin, Be something new, Sweet grass mill

More stop-motion fun

So I am apparently on a stop-motion kick and am loving this video my friend Ashley found. You can also watch it on you tube at: Deadline.

Caitlin and Andrew's Pfeifsel Wedding '09

I was so pleased to be able to design the wedding invitations for my cousin's wedding. It's an 11x17 invite that opens up to a full map on the back so that guests can make their way around this destination. The entire wedding theme is maps and travel so we incorporated maps and compasses as well as the colors: green and purple. The map is actually a very old map I touched up to use and I was able to snag some cool drawings of different locations at West Point to add visual interest. I'm so pleased how the printing turned out and am waiting on a new camera to post pics of the final product. It was all printed on eco-friendly paper and folds down for mailing so no envelopes are needed. For now - here's the digital version of the invites:

Great Distressed Font (that's free)

Here's a fun font I stumbled onto while looking for something a little funky as a header for a magazine article on volcanoes I'm designing. It's free for use and you can download it here. Here's a little sample of what this article might start with.... who knows I have to sit with it for a bit to see if this layout will work.

Office Holiday Cards

Our office holiday cards were approved. Here's a little peek at the front of them!

Stop Motion

Just a quick post so that you can check out a great stop-motion animation done for the New Zealand Book Council! Find it at: You Tube - Going West - NZ Book Council

Beautiful Promo Posters

I just crashed into these checking out some other bloggers on the web and really love the design of these jazz promo posters. You can check out the rest of them at: Behance Network

Frontiers Magazine 2009

This is a spread from one of the articles I worked on for the research magazine put out by my office at University of Alaska Fairbanks. There are some really interesting articles in here and it was a fun piece to collaborate on with the other designer, Melissa. I'm now working alone on the design for this spring's upcoming Frontiers and was just looking back to get some inspiration. You can check out more articles and images at www.uaf.edu/research and follows the links to Frontiers in the top right corner.

We're No Angels Soap Co.

We're No Angels Soap Co. started with 5th Avenue Design who has done all the identity and logo work for Lee. 5th Avenue has also designed all the soap and candle labels, all amazing work as you can see. I came on to help out with the lip balms and have continued to work with Lee to get some labels together for her newer projects. Her most recent collection is her new shampoo and conditioner which you can find on her website under bath and body:  http://www.werenoangelssoap.com/

Below are some promotional posters we did over the summer to advertise her salon and list her services and pricing:

Remembering my thesis

My friend has an upcoming thesis presentation for her masters and as we were talking about it, it reminded me of the thesis presentation I did at the end of college. I redesigned text book illustrations for a 7/8th grade biology text book. I have a second major in Biology and I think it's incredibly important that the first time students have to focus on science it is a clear, fun and interesting experience. I obviously believe good design and illustration is a huge part of that. Here are some of the illustrations I came up with:

Cakes by Virginia Business Cards

Designs for my friend's cake business. The cards have yet to be printed but here are the designs front & back:

 

Tuesday

Just working at getting this blog of my creative endeavors up and running on the web. More examples of my work to follow...