Flowers, Bows and Hair-ties, OH MY!

I have been chomping at the bit to blog about this logo I did.  Don't mean to toot my own horn or anything, but I love love love this logo!  It just clicked for me...I'm not sure why because I'm not usually into majorly girlie things...but it helped that Michelle from Sugarbug Boutique wanted blues and yellows for her colors.  Michelle drew up an image for me to go off of and I came up with this:

It was Michelle's idea, I just executed it :)  I think it's EXTREMELY important for a client to have an idea for a concept.  Of course, I love coming up with concepts...but it's easier to please a client that knows what they want.  To prove that point...besides changing the font around, Michelle approved the silhouette figure after the first time she saw it.  I was so happy because I really loved the way it turned out.

I then designed Sugarbug's blog, etsy store, business cards and bow cards...in a month.  I think it was a record for me.  Michelle needed all her designs ready for her show (read about it on her blog--it turned out amazing!)  Here are some of the designs she sells:

SOOO CUTE!  My favorite is the lavender flower...and though I hate to admit it, that huge PINK rose is absolutely adorable :)  Can't wait to see more!

Shoe Spoonflower Contest

Spoonflower has contests almost every week.  I try to enter the ones that appeal to me...and what's more appealing than shoes?  

This is my design...please vote for me (or of course the other designs that you like!)  This page will show last weeks fabric winner (a FABULOUS tessellation design) and on the right it will tell you to VOTE IN THIS WEEK'S CONTEST.  Click the link at the bottom.  There are tons of designs, but I'm pretty partial to mine. It's titled "Girls Love Shoes"...so true.

Art Brush Tutorial

So, I searched EVERYWHERE when I was first starting out on how to make clean lines, and I didn't find any brushes in the brushes panel that I liked...I finally figured it out myself (like almost everything else).  So, to keep my readers from going through that painstaking process, I'm going to bless you all (lol) with a series of tutorials on how to create your own brushes.

My three favorite brushes to use are art brushes, pattern brushes, and scatter brushes:

In this tutorial, I will show you how to make an art brush and I am using Illustrator CS3.

STEP ONE:  I will be using the ellipse tool to create this brush, so select the Ellipse tool in the tools panel and create an oval shape.  Don't make the shape too large.

STEP TWO:  After you have created the shape you want, select the shape and go to the Brushes Panel (usually on the right side) and create a New Brush (it looks like a little notepad).

STEP THREE:  You'll have many options to choose from.  You can choose the direction the brush goes, the size, flip and colorization.  I'm going to keep all the generic options because those work best for the stroke I created.  Click OK.

STEP FOUR:  Apply the brush to the stroke by selecting the stroke, then selecting your new brush in the brush panel (you might have to scroll down to find it if you have another brush selected already).  Your image should end up looking like this:

Of course, don't limit yourself to oval or square shapes.  You can create an art brush from any type of image.

Please let me know if you have any questions and feel free to add on to this or let me know what other tutorials you would like.  Next week, I'll show you how to work Scatter Brushes.

Colour Lover

Yep, that's me...if I were European.  Technically I'm color lover...but I digress.

I realized after I made my last post that I forgot to mention one of my most favorite designer sites:

But I thought it deserved its own post anyhow.

I showed my husband the site and he just didn't get why this was such a good tool...well, I'll tell you why:

• Because you can search through thousands of other people's color palettes to get inspiration.  Plus, you can heart a design so you can view it later.
• You can create your own colors and color palettes and save them to your profile for others to view (mine is here.)  I don't know how many times I have put a palette together for a logo and the person didn't use it, but I couldn't remember where I saved the palette.  Plus, I don't have to save it to my computer...it's so handy.
• You can also view and create patterns with your color palette.  That way, you can see if those colors REALLY look great together.
• I can send my clients to this site so they can show me what colors they like best.  Sometimes I don't know what shade of blue they like...and many times I can't pick the color up out of a picture, so this site is perfect!  They just copy the link and email it to me.  Designers...if you're having shade and hue issues...send them to colourlovers.
• It's fun.  I could look at the site for hours if time permitted.

And that's my ode to colourlovers.  My husband will definitely be reading this post :)

Design Resources

I have gotten a couple requests this week for me to teach people how to design, so I thought I might share some of my design knowledge today.

Honestly, the main thing I did was I googled and searched through TONS of design blogs (design blogs are THE best resource, especially for beginners!)  Here are a couple of my favorites:

By David Airey, an Irish graphic designer in Scotland.  This site is great for anything having to do with logo design.

Techno Target has every kind of tutorial you can think of...from Illustrator and Photoshop, Java and CSS...It's pretty much a one-stop shop (except it's all FREE!)

AllBlogTools.com for all your blogging needs!

By Preston D Lee has great articles on how to be smart about your graphic design business.

Let me know about your favorite design resources!

Guess I was right...

Renule's fabric Retrospring is a winner :)  She just won Spoonflower's Garden Contest...Congrats!

I Heart Fabric

I think I could spend all day looking at fabric designs.  Spoonflower is one of my favorite sites...the people that upload designs on here are either starting out or have been designing for years...it's such a great array of styles.  These are some of my favorites (click on the pictures to see these designer's sites):

     

From left to right:  Winter Bloom by troismiettes, Lime and Chocolate by gollygeebaby, bobafinal by snork, Retrospring by renule, Michi by jhoanna_monte, and Linoak on Fifth by lushop

I just bought a new rug (finally convinced my husband that Teal is awesome!) so I'm designing fabric for my pillows...it's for fun (Nacho Libre anyone?)  Here's a little preview:

Thanks to all the Spoonflower designers that inspired me!

Brand New Edub!!!

...Again :)  I was having an identity crisis...literally.  I really liked my old logo, but it started to wear on me...and I just didn't think that it matched my style or skill level.  I wanted something clean, fun, girlie, bright, colorful (of course blue and green!), something that would last me a while.

I went through many many many many drafts and styles.  It is so much harder for me to design something from my own vision, than from other's...if that makes sense.  I decided to keep it simple and I tweaked my favorite font (aerolinea), kept it green because that's my favorite, and added some depth.  I love it.  I love that I can work around it...it can match almost anything.  For now, I have the leaves and flowers on my blog, but if I get antsy (obviously that happens a lot!) I can switch it with something new...but it will probably still be green.

Enjoy :)