–updated 8/26/10–

Final design for KIXE Easy Street Sweepstakes (click image for larger view):

KIXE (PBS channel 9) is having their annual sweepstakes, and again this year we get to do the design & printing! It was nice this year to have a little more creative freedom with the concept of everything. When the marketing person asked me what came to mind when I heard the name “Easy Street”, I thought of monopoly type line art/cartoons.

I had Tony draw the street sign for me, while I did the rest of the flyer. I thought it would look fun if I put the sponsor logos in clouds at the top. The clouds were easy in indesign, I just drew several ellipses, then merged them together with the pathfinder->add command. The wood signs I downloaded from vecteezy (thanks guys), and I drew the rest in indesign with the pen tool.

When I first presented the layout to the staff, they were all excited about it. No constructive criticism or bad comments! I love doing work for KIXE because they always want the designs to look fun… and if you know me, I love doing “fun” designs.

This flyer is going to be used as a handout and a mailer, so I put the order form for tickets along with the Rules & Regulations on the backside.

We’re going to print this puppy offset on 100lb. Gloss Book paper (kinda like magazine paper), and it will only have an aqueous coating so you can still write on it with a ball-point pen.  The next projects to work on with this order will be the tickets and the large posters.  I will post the tickets when the art is approved

Final layout for ticket (front only):

I really wanted to keep the ticket layout simple, so I only put on the pertinent info.  The sponsors were put on the back of the ticket along with the portion of the stub that the entrant fills out.  These tickets will be numbered (also on back) so they can keep it legit.

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.

New to Palo Cedro: a summer flea market!  This design wasn’t that challenging, except for the challenge of keeping “clutter” out of it… i.e. images or clip art of “flea market finds” or piles of “yard sale” junk.  I just wanted some natural background to suggest the location in the country, and I had to have a cute little mascot to represent the title.  I actually found him on google images, and drew the tag hanging from the string on the ‘R’ in market.  The background and the wooden sign are both vector stock from vecteezy (my fav site).

I hit the nail on the head (so to speak) with this design, the client approved it immediately, she loved my mascot flea, and thought the hanging tag was a “fabulous” idea!  I printed a bunch of these 11×17 posters, and I have seen them plastered all over town!  I also converted the entire thing to greyscale & printed a bunch of flyers on various astrobright colored papers.  She (the client) was so happy, she said she wants me to do something similar for the upcoming “Certified Farmers Market” in Palo Cedro. Yae!

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!

Poster with Full Bleeds

I love doing posters, especially when I have a lot of creative freedom.  This is the 3rd year I have gotten to do the posters and printed media for the Palo Cedro Christmas Celebration event.  It’s a lot of fun really… the whole center of town is packed with people walking around, there are bon fires in the rocks (put on by the fire dept), there’s wagon rides, and every business has free stuff and food to give away.  Sue Kossol from Palo Cedro Eye Clinic has been the organizer of this event for the last several years, and it’s amazing what one person can do with a little spreading of the word!

This project features the logo used in the last 3 years (so its kinda branded to the event), and this year I thought the poster needed to be a bit more elegant.  The last 2 years I had my assistant designer do this project, and I wasn’t happy with either of them.  I wanted to put my own touch on it this year, so I included some vector poinsettias, and a fun curve with the red box at the bottom.  I kinda threw the vector gingerbread cookies in at the bottom by the entertainment because it felt like there was something missing there… but I’m not sure if I like them with the poinsettias.  These vectors were all downloaded at Vecteezy.com (see my links menu), with the exception of the vector wreath in the logo, that sucker cost me $10 from istock.com!!!  Well, it’s what the client wanted 2 years ago and my designer back then didn’t know about all the free vector sites out there… oh well.  So this project will get printed on 12×18 100# cardstock, and I will cut it down to the bleeds so it’s finish size will be 11×17.  I’m really into the red this year for the holidays, and I put a hint of a gradient on this poster’s red box just to make it a little richer.  Feel free to leave your comments, suggestions, constructive criticism, etc.