Short Blurb: Adobe MAX Day 1

I have never been to a design conference.

I’ve always wanted to go to one, but when you see how much they cost… <___<

Anyway, one COVID blessing, I guess, is Adobe MAX being FREE this year! Just need an Adobe ID, and the conference is your oyster!

I, so far, have watched the keynote. Conan O’Brian was hilarious (vice presidents of vice presidents), but the entire presentation was amazing and definitely got me yelling at my iMac the same way I did for one of the last PANTONE presentations I watched. (This is a positive.)

Some things to be aware of:

+ Illustrator for iPad

+ New Recolor Artwork panel

+ An improved way to create patterns

+ Photoshop updates including the Sky Replacement tool and Neuro Filters

I highly recommend watching the keynote, as it’s CHOCK full of information and excitement!

Also, Adobe understands the importance of coloring, so they put together a coloring book for all of us to enjoy.

So…enjoy!

Logo: Slayed By J

I was trying to wait before writing an official blog post introducing my latest logo design, as I wanted to take some hero shots of the collateral that comes with it, but the South Jersey-based makeup artist I designed it for debuted the logo and is using it on a lot of her things. I guess because it’s been out in the air for over a month now, I felt like now was a good time to show it off.

Currently, we’re working on some menu handouts for her to give her clients, and I plan on surprising her with some other unnamed things around Christmastime, namely business cards with some gold foil and spot gloss and mayyyybe some stickers.

Anyway, I present to you, Slayed by J:

Shown above are the logo in three of the four colorways. The fourth is an all white version that can be used on dark backgrounds, when appropriate. The one currently being used the most is the pink one I show large.

This design was one of the easier ones to accomplish, as Jocelin (“J”) was very vocal about what she liked, didn’t like, and wanted to see. It makes a design task more enjoyable when you have information and input from the client. After all, they’re paying for it, and there’s no need to drag on a job longer than you need to.

Her vision, she told me, was to use a script face, modern, on a layout that was simple, clean, pretty, and classy. The hardest part, I think, was having to find just the right typeface/font to use for both the “Slayed” and “By J” part. Did I want to use the same for both? Would that be too busy and tacky?

And although we weren’t into the color phase yet, we did talk about it in the beginning, just so I could try to design in my head. One thing that stood out was she asked for glitter in the words. I warned her about using glitter texture in her logo. Glitter looks great on screen, especially if you can animate it, but going to print, it’s not always going to translate well, especially when you’re working in grayscale. It will become too busy and distort whatever it’s on, and because most of the strokes are thin, it would look so weird.

I convinced her using this reasoning, but told her I’d figure something out; thus, the sparkles were designed, used, and were a hit.

I also threw in a version (seen in the screenshot above) that used no script, just sans serif, just to break it up and see if maybe her vision would sway. She didn’t, her wants were adamant.

The final design used an ever-so-slightly altered version of the free font, Andasia, for the script, and Avenir Next in Ultra Light for “by J”.

Moving on to color, we explored a few combinations using colors found on Jocelin’s booking page: dusty pinks and greys with accents of gold and deeper shades of a modest pink.

Originally, she told me during our kickoff meeting she wanted purples and golds, which if I can be honest, sort of fits her personality. After reviewing her own assets, however, she decided on more subtle and classy colors, thus adding that modern chic touch that tied in with what she was already using.

The color round of this project went smoothly and quickly, and we were able to build three palettes: B&W, Gray/Pink, and Gray/Pink with a gold added.

The beauty of this is her colors can change with her tastes while staying within the palettes, so as long as everything else she does stays the same or similar.

Because color is the last step, once this was finalized, I packaged everything and sent it on over to her. From here, we moved into collateral. As mentioned earlier, we’re working on some handout menus for her clients, current and potential.

With these, we’re ironing out final colors and textures. This seems to be the more difficult part, because the size of these is small, and too many things like lines of copy, photos, and backgrounds can really clutter the layout, and then it won’t work. Below is where we’re at, trying to figure out what works and what doesn’t.

I’ll be updating this post as more of the collateral gets finished.

Below are screenshots of where the logo can be seen. And of course, if you’re in the South Jersey/Philadelphia area, you can book with Jocelin to have her slay your look for any special occasion or just because. All services and pricing can be found on her booking site, linked above.

Proposal Pumpkins

You always see on Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok how these people get these lavish, elaborately planned and laid out engagement proposals from their significant others. Some of them might be less elaborate than others, but the planning is there and it is absolutely one of the sweetest things you might see in your lifetime, even if you see multiple versions. It sometimes gives you ideas of what you might want or want to do.

My boyfriend’s daughter sent me a text one day asking if I’d be able to do her a favor. She decided she was going to propose to her girlfriend and asked if I could put words on some decorative pumpkins she bought at Target. She had three of them and wanted them to have three specific sayings on them: “V-ever” (5-ever, but with the roman numeral), “will you marry me?” and “be mine”. Super cheesy, but at the same time, super cute.

So I agreed. I had just shipped off all of my extra art supplies (basically all of them) to California to a longtime friend who decided she wanted to go to art school. At the time I was working and figured she could use the things more than I could—after all, I had been out of undergrad for several years at this point and most of the supplies sat unused.

However, now that I wasn’t working, it would be an extra expense for me to get the paints for this project. She offered to pay for them, but seeing as I’d be keeping the paints, I decided to just make it rain on Hobby Lobby and go get what I needed plus some.

I remember buying white and silver and black acrylic (along with ultramarine blue, canary or cadmium yellow—can’t remember, and some sort of “real red”) to paint the pumpkins. Small tubes is all, as the pumpkins were white and I didn’t need to gesso them or anything.

I started with sketches (that I no longer have) and sent them to her for approval. I did this for each pumpkin. When all was good, I mapped out the pumpkins with graphite and sent her photographs of those as well. With the thumbs up, I began applying the paint. Part of me wanted to etch the surface so the paint would grab. However, I was also afraid I’d ruin the pumpkin, so I just took a chance and left the pumpkin’s surface alone.

I sent photos of the first pumpkin—it was OK, but the silver was very, very flat. Though, to be honest, I’m not sure entirely what I was expecting. Luckily, I had some glitters on hand (silver and white iridescent craft, as well as some cosmetic grade ones, if need be). I started mixing in the iridescent glitters, and while it looked great, the consistency became very dry. After a few minutes of adjusting ratios and even introducing water into the mix, I got a consistency I could work with.

I thought painting these things would be easy, but I wasn’t getting an opaque result with just one coat, and now that I’ve changed the consistency of the paint, wasn’t getting the coverage I’d normally get. These pumpkins ended up taking me a couple of days to knock out, but in the end they were worth it. She loved them and said she would pick them up from her dad’s when it was the day of the proposal.

Fast forward—she ended up changing her proposal plans and did something that included her now fiancée’s two sons. The pumpkins were never used and we’re coming up on the one year anniversary of what should have been their engagement in a month. In fact, the 19th day of this month is when I started working on the pumpkins. It’s taken me a year to get this blog post up because I was waiting for the pumpkins to be used! But it’s the perfect time now since we’re already into fall and ‘tis the season, right?

In hindsight, I should have painted the words on with black first. Let it dry, then apply the silver. And if it needed more glitz, apply a layer of clear or something, and sprinkled on the glitter. Instead, what I concocted ended up being thick and difficult to paint on, so I ended up dabbing it on to keep the opacity. They didn’t come out bad, but they weren’t my best works of art. Oh well, I’ll do better next time! (Anyone need engagement pumpkins painted?)

EMCHI Nail Products Color Brochure

EMCHI Nail Products started as a small brand launched from a full-service nail salon in Williamstown, NJ. After a couple years of establishing themselves as both a salon (operating as The Arts Beauty Salon and Spa) and a designer/manufacturer of high quality dip powders, EMCHI found their color portfolio bursting at the seams with 180+ selections.

In order to promote their color offerings, EMCHI approached me to help with designing a new product brochure for them. I visited the salon (pre-COVID) and was handed two items: EMCHI’s current brochure and a custom cut roll fold from a nail lacquer company they use as a supplier. The directions were simple: take the directions from this brochure, put it in a new one with all 180 color swatches and do something like the custom diecut roll fold.

Right.

So over the course of two weeks, I had some back and forth with Nicole, a nail tech at the salon and also one of the managers at Emchi, who was sending me the color photographs piecemeal. Eventually I received all 180 colors, as it was really everyone waiting for the photographer and his editing of the photographs I would also need.

I found designing the diecut version to be really fun and interesting!

Dieline for the original diecut roll fold.

Front, back, and inner-outer flaps.

Inner-most content

About a month later, the product was complete. At the request of Nicole, I reached out to a few printers to get estimates, however it was here we reached a bit of a wall that needed to be climbed over.

The cost was too much. What I had to explain was that for anything diecut, the first run will be expensive, because they have to make the die, but every run after that will be cheaper, so as long as you keep that shape.

They weren’t going for it, and understandably so—it was a big cost. So, to keep the dollar signs down for a bit, we moved to a rectangular format.

Front, back, and outer-inner flaps.

Inner-most content

After all was approved…

I was asked to make it into a square format.

Okay, no problem!

This is the final, final, FINAL version. It’s also the version they include in all orders you make online.

However, it’s already outdated, as they are WELL over 200 colors now and are continuously releasing new products and adding on to the spectrum. They’re rapidly growing and maybe in the future we can revisit the diecut option!

Final front

First fold inside

Inner-most content

Back

Design Quickie: Vogue Challenge

This past summer, a new trend surfaced online called the #VogueChallenge. In short, it was a creative way for BIPOC to showcase their work (in modeling, beauty, art, etc.) through imagery using the famed publication as a template during the height of the #BlackLivesMatter movement.

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