Invitations

My invitations are done-printed and in the mail.
Thanks for the encouraging words and support everyone.
I look forward to documenting more projects online in the future.

Mug insert

Target sells these mugs that come with the regular boring
old designs mugs usually have, but you can unscrew the
bottom and put your own designs around the sides. This is great! I’ve been looking for one of these for the longest time. Texture by Roland P from k10k, line art from House of Lime. Quick and easy. Click the image for the finished version.

And now, this guy

I’ve got a slower machine at home which handles large files just
fine(eventually). The problem is that I have a lot of in-between
time where I perform an action, wait a minute. I’ve been keeping paper around to make the waiting seem less tedious. I’m still waiting, but now I have this guy. Enjoy.

Ah, and here’s an ad for wind power. It’s really well done. Link I had thoughts about this but I don’t want to spoil the premise for anyone who hasn’t seen it.

Invitations – concept to production pt. 2

Continuing this project, here are some mockups I pulled
from everything I gathered and showed from my first post here.

The next step is to revise one of these to a finished project and start producing them. I’m a little concerned about production because I need to print on cardstock but local printers hate that unless there is a large run.  This is a pretty small print run so I’ll probably need to see it through myself, whatever route I take. It is so important to consider output so when things like this come up(they always will) you’re as prepared as you can be.

Homemade paper

I tried making homemade paper and got some really nice textures from them. All I used was:

- scrap paper, grass,  whatever you think would make an interesting piece of paper
- a large, deep, wide lid for storage(as the basin for the paper/water mix)
- a cheapo metal or wooden window screen from a do it yourself store, framed canvas
might work, too.
- 2 large flat planes to press the paper, like a couple of spare pieces of clear acrylic
- a blender
- alligator clips, gift from the heavens.

 Here is a google search for making paper, but it really is easy and you’ll have no problems doing it. Using the paper for some functional purpose takes more work, however.

To make it, tear and soak paper/ingredients in water, then put it in the blender.  Put the mesh screen into the deep storage lid with a little water and pour the pulp from the blender into the screen. Coerce the pulp to take the shape of the screen by gently shifting it back and forth in the water. When you’ve got a good shape place one of your flat planes over the mesh and turn the mesh over, carefully dropping the wet pulp form onto the acrylic/flat plane. You can touch it up if you need to, it is somewhat forgiving. Place the other flat piece on top of the paper and sandwich them together with clips. I also put some heavy objects on top of my paper to keep the paper weighted down. Let it dry, pull it off, enjoy.

Alligator clip picture frame

I use these clips more than I use paper clips, they’re nice to have around, and they make neat frames for anything you have matted or on a cardboard backing. If you know who made this picture please tell me and I’ll credit them. Click for big version.

Invitations – concept to production

Another work in progress, this time wedding invitations. I already spoke to the client and they’re fine with me talking about this(ha) This will be three pieces- envelope, invitation and postcard for the R.S.V.P.

Here are the colors, here are some pictures I grabbed, some I took myself, and here are a few of my first thumbnails and the paper these will be printed on. Arvey Paper, kind of an offshoot of Xpedx, sells specialty paper by the sheet so I was able to get nice paper without paying quite so much. I only bought what I needed, I love that place.

I’m using the flourishes I found the other day as a reference-there is some great line work that I think is perfect for these. I’m working out fonts now.

I want this to look more carefully done, and less like a regular set of invitations. There won’t be many of them made so I’d like to make them a little more interesting.

What I didn’t know is that the minimum size for postcards(in the United States) is 3.5 x 5in., no more than 4.25 x 6in. Anything above that I guess isn’t classified as a postcard, and is just a self mailer I think. I’ve done larger sizes for work but never postcards without a mailing house. Researching post office regulations can save a lot of wasted effort and money. If you know of any mailing houses, ask them about size restrictions on things you produce.

Kaliber 10000’s pixel tiles

Another useful website is Kaliber 10000. A little tough to navigate at first but it has some really great content, like these pixel backgrounds. There are a lot of them, community made and many are available for commercial use. Most people use them for tiling webpages, to break up the monotony of plain old backgrounds and they work great that way. Since they’re there for anyone to use I wanted to try something a little different. Here’s something I made with them. 

Look around at the rest of the website, too.

Flourishes

I know non-designers read this, so a flourish is a set of embellishments, sometimes line drawings that designers often use. As a solo designer for a non profit, time and money are are very valuable(as if they aren’t for other designers). Here are a few links for free flourishes I pulled up today. I’m trying to link the sources to give proper recognition to those who did the work, and to let those who read know where I’m finding this stuff. Mograph thread on flourishes and GDF with a few links to flourish fonts via dafont. I hope these will be as useful to the rest of you as they were to me. I try to interpret resources I find into some kind of composition when I can. Click the image to see what I came up with.

I’d like to be one of those people who trace old line art from musty books all day, putting them into vectors keeping the old style alive. Early design is just so interesting to me.

Work in progress

I’ve been doing a lot with freehand drawings and digital color lately. Here is one I’m doing now which I’m going to bring into flash to see what I can do. I don’t often get to experiment like this much when I’m working, because the end result is the focus more than the process. Click the picture. I’m up for critiques, comments, suggestions, what have you.

With my reliance on digital art for jobs, I’m becoming more comfortable with mixing traditional art into digital formats.

I’ve spent some time at some flash and traditional artists’ websites today, too. Here’s one I’ve been messing with. There is a lot of content there. These are the people who made the Comedy Central identifiers  that run before and after the commercials. They’ve done a few other things which are alright, but this flash page really showcases their work well. Take a look.