I admit it, I’m a country girl. I grew up in the sticks out in Cottonwood, CA.  We have had the pleasure of having Grandma’s Favorite BBQ out here in Palo Cedro for the last couple years.  Her sauce is pretty addicting, by the way!  So, recently they made the big decision to move into Redding at the corner of East Cypress & Larkspur, and they wanted to change the name and all their artwork, too.  This is the final of their new logo (a sheriff’s badge was the request, and they also asked me to incorporate their cattle brand somewhere).  Click on the link below to see what I did for their “modern country” themed to-go menu.  These are basically 2 sided flyers folded in half.  They are opening up in their new location mid-January 2012, so go check them out (see map on menu).

Click Here to download the digital pdf menu—> Umsteds Smokehouse BBQ Menu

This was fun… had to come up with a new logo for our Chamber of Commerce.  I surveyed a bunch of locals, asked them, “what’s the first thing that you think of when Palo Cedro comes to mind?” Most people said horses or oak trees (because that’s really what’s out here).  So even though the name “Palo Cedro” translates as “Cedar Tree”, I did a lot of the logo concepts to include oak trees.  There was much debate with the board of directors about whether to use the cedar tree or the oak tree.  It actually got pretty heated so I made everyone vote privately via email on it.  Made them vote for their 3 favorites, then narrowed it down to 3 finalists… then they had to vote from those 3.  The new logo is simple and elegant don’t you agree?

Not sure if you’ve heard the news, but we are going green…  I am gradually replacing all of my tree murdering papers with tree free and 100% recycled papers.  I have items in stock currently printed on papers made with fiber from banana, mango, coffee, lemon, cigar and hemp.  I also have an array of 100% post-consumer recycled stocks.

I’m liquidating out all of the tree based papers at cost, so get your ace into the store and buy up some of this stuff!  I have papers ranging in weight from letterhead to cardstock and I also have envelopes available.

My friend Valerie owns K & M Custom Trophies in Redding, she told me the other day that she’d had the same design on her cards for almost 30 years.  I was not going to let her get away with ordering cards from me for the first time using an old black & white layout that was just text!  She said “do what ever you want, just keep it simple cuz I know there’s a lot of info on it”.

It wasn’t too hard to imagine what I wanted to do:  she does a lot of plaques with the wood base and engraved brass plates.  I found a nice high resolution image of some walnut wood (the choice wood for plaques), then I added some color boost to it thru photoshop.  I placed it into inDesign and just drew the plates.  I used a bevel/emboss technique to make the little plates look more dimensional, and then I drew some tiny screws for the corners.  Some drop shadows to the plates and “viola” it rocks.

She has the hours posted on her window, they’re kinda funny and she said she’d like them on her card if I could make it work with a map.  I just drew a tiny map & typeset the funny hours for the backside.

Dutch Bros. has quickly risen in popularity among people 18 to 35… I would have to say the fella that owns all the stores in Redding & Palo Cedro is a marketing genius too!  He’s really taken espresso to a new level with creative drinks and employing fun, outgoing people to make your drinks.  When you pull up to a window at ANY Dutch Bros. location, you are immediately greeted with “HEY! What can I get goin’ for ya today?!!!”  9.5 times outta 10, they see you in line and have your drink ready when you get to the window… I absolutely love that they memorize my face and match it with a drink!

I had the pleasure of doing their new stamp cards… wanted them full color instead of all blue because it just looked better.  They have started this new texting thing, and when you text the words to the number specified it adds you to a subscriber’s list.  Then they send out a broadcast text every time there is a new special. They have specials all the time, so when you want to get your regularly $4.00 drink for $2.00 you will know when it’s on sale… really a cool marketing technique!  I was asked to do 3 cards for 3 different area high schools in addition to their regular stamp card everyone uses.  I gotta thank the owner, because now the out of town locations (owned separately) are coming to me for stuff! Thanks C.R.!