Freedom or Stuff?

This design exercise was inspired by this blog post from The Simple Dollar. I know it's been awhile especially since most of my last posts were about wedding stuff. I will post final pictures of my wedding craftiness in action - promise. I just haven't gotten to it yet. I think this post especially got to me today because of all the things that come with throwing a big wedding celebration. We have amazing friends and family who were beyond generous so there are lots of new items in the house and a good chunk of extra money in the bank. After all that I think this is a good reminder for us to keep a level head and remember what we are spending money and why we are spending. I follow the Simple Dollar in my google reader feed and really enjoy it. Thanks for all the great content Trent!

STD!

From

Vote

Well it's that time of 4 years again. My inspiration for this post is the election. Tomorrow we decide who gets to be in charge of the US for the next four years. My hope for this election is record voter turnout - I feel for the first time since I've been able to vote that people are truly involved and interested in this election. No matter what side of the fence you are on go out and do your civic duty - VOTE!

Some technical details: I did most of the layout in Illustrator then brought it into Photoshop to mess around with some texture brushes. I was hoping not to completely over do it with the texture since grungy textures are on the trendy side.

Ribbon.

Since last Friday I've been dealing with ribbons finding the right kind of ribbon and the right quantity - yesterday I spent a good chunk of time cutting ribbon. My companies holiday cards (which I designed and am in charge of finishing) are going to be completed with a ribbon tied around the outside - I'll post a photo of the final project when it gets done. We are sending out 200 gift baskets which will contain the holiday cards out to clients. In the beginning stages of this project I thought it would be nice to finish the cards off with some ribbon. Little did I know or realize how much ribbon in takes to tie around 200 5x7 cards. Almost 130 yds or 390 ft or just for fun 4,680 inches. Yep. Ribbon.

Pretty Patterns

I had a bit of a lazy weekend and unfortunately didn't make time for any sketches so I went back to some patterns I had made. For about a month I became pretty obsessed with patterns. There are so many interesting textile and wallpaper designs out there - many of them out of my budget but something about making patterns is therapeutic for me. I usually get my start with an already designed ornamental glyph and try to create something new from it. The basis of this pattern was made a while ago but I re-did it and messed around with some different color. This what I came up with my inspiration being the crispy fall weather. Let's hope it doesn't snow any time soon - it would be nice if it was still fall for a while!

Connected

Here goes sketch two - I posted some photos on facebook over my lunch but was hard pressed to pull myself away from the social network after posting. Making comments on photos posted, reading comments from others on said photos, and the beat goes on.

I find the online connections we have so interesting. There are so many ways we can be personally and emotionally connected with out even being in the same state. The interweb is a crazy crazy place, but enables you to do so much. This sketch is my take on being distantly connected and plugged into essentially the same network. Once again messed around with coloring in Photoshop.

I'm doing best to do pencil/pen sketches and colorize in photoshop. People who know me as a designer know I tend to rely on Illustrator a lot - it's my favorite program pretty much. I'm going to keep trying to expand my hand drawing capability!

Ready, Set, GO!

Well here it is. My first sketch of hopefully many sketches. Yesterday my word/theme of the day was "over-input" - I know not really a word but that's the first thing that came to mind reflecting upon my day. I took in a lot of really cool design posted by people online. I was on an idea generation binge, but I think I overindulged–my brain was wrecked!

So with those thoughts I decided it's high time I start outputting more - even if they are simple sketches. So I sketched this scene waiting for the train. I finished it up this morning by scanning it in and messing around with some coloration in Photoshop. No work of art but that's not the point of this.

My goal is to post 5/week - mostly during the weekday. I don't like putting too much pressure on my weekends - but if I do have time/make time I'll post more.

Hooray!