I love doing edgy designs, and that’s why I love this client.  Team Quest MMA (mixed martial arts) and their Fight Club is putting on a huge tournament for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Gi/No-Gi type fighting.  There was quite a bit of info to include on these small 1/4 page sized postcards, but I really made use of the space.  They requested that I use the “Fight Club” logo, which has a green fist instead of the usual white one as seen in the postcards below.  I was also asked to come up with a logo of sorts for the title of the event “NorCal Classic 2010″.  We used the trendy North Star over the state of California, and I added a little flair to the sides with what is actually an exclamation point punctuation from the font called “the King and Queen” (thanks dafont.com).  I had to convert those punctuations to outlines & give them a bit of rotation (obviously).  I also included their “burst” background to this layout because it’s kind of become a branded look for them.

Along with this order was another postcard for their “Back 2 School” specials.  They supplied a design for the front of the postcard, so I wont take the credit for that.  I was also given a word doc with a table for the schedule of classes to go on the back of the postcard.  What I did was, export the word file as a pdf and then I placed it into my own design layout for the back of the postcard.  I kept their design theme going with their official logo and the elements from their business card design.  Most all of this is vector art, and it really lends itself to the overall theme.

I’ve done a few projects for this client, including their grand opening posters & postcards.  This project was pretty easy once I understood that it was actually an advertisement for 2 different things!  On one side (the blue side), they wanted to advertise to new MMA (mixed martial arts) students for summer sign ups.  I use the burst looking dealy-ma-bobber behind their logo on a lot of their stuff. It’s kinda part of the look ya know?  The client really wanted to put photos on this project so newbies would really know what they’re about: they are not a karate class, they teach everything from physical fitness to down and dirty fighting.

The red side of the card advertises their MMA camp to the same age group as new students, and explains what is covered at the camp.  The client actually suggested the different colors so that folks reading the advertisement would get the idea that it actually is 2 separate things being advertised.  I gave them an awesome deal on 14pt UV Gloss coated cards, and even printed 100 free digital cards so they could start handing them out the day they approved the artwork.  The Team Quest people have become great clients, and I really enjoy doing their artwork because it gives me an opportunity to do something different than the stuff I normally do.

Memorial Card - Front Only

I do a lot of memorial cards, and 99% of the orders are due the same day or the next day because of the circumstances with the funerals.  I thought I would share this card I did recently because although I could have used photoshop to remove the background on the picture, I used a little trick in inDesign instead.

I created a clipping path using the pen tool & edited my anchor points to crop her out of the photo.  I placed it over the image of the clouds, and gave it a white drop shadow so it looked like she had an outer glow.  For the heart with her name, I just drew a heart, typed the text, then converted the text to curves (or outlines).  Then I subtracted it from the heart like a compound path.  This card really was simple, and the family just loved it.  They thought I spent hours on it, when in fact, the whole job only took me about 1/2 an hour.  This card has a 1/4 inch margin on all sides, I was able to get 2 cards out of 1 sheet of cardstock.  Had I done this design with bleeds, I would have had to charge more to print on oversized stock & cut down to the finish size.  I try to keep the costs down on memorial cards because I know how costly funerals can be, and if I can save the family on the printing, I will– even if it means sacrificing my paycheck a bit!