Logos on the Brain

A little opportunity cropped up mid-week that had me devoting my free time to logo design.

A new Arts Festival is being introduced where my parents live, and the committee responsible for the whole shindig showed some love for local designers and held a contest to find a permanent festival logo.

Putting my entries together was a lot of fun, but admittedly stressful at times. Logo design is completely new to me, and although I've been reading a lot about typography, it's still difficult for me to make informed design decisions. I get so frustrated when my current skill set keeps me from recreating the image in my mind's eye on the screen.

Despite all that, after a few days with the pen tool and 3 pages full of thumbnail sketches, I had 5 solid entries to submit. The winner of the contest gets $2000 and the chance to see their work on promotional material all across town. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

In the spirit of things, I want to share a great online resource: The LogoPond Gallery. Browsing through the pages really made my gears turn - it was neat seeing how different designers managed to fit certain images and concepts together. It turned me on to new ways of thinking, which led to many new ideas, which led to entries I'm proud of. These are a few of the (geekier) gallery images I really took a liking to:



This week I was able to take a small peek at the world of logo design. I can't wait for my next opportunity to dive right in.

Guess What?

Find Supplies Outside the (Big)Box

Take a trip to almost any stripmall in North America and it's plain to see: craft supplies are a huge industry. I've even noticed that scrapbooking materials are starting to crop up at home goods stores and dollar stores.

Although this new accessibility is great for crafters who previously had a hard time finding the tools and supplies they need, it does come at a price. It's dangerously easy to get into the mindframe that everything you need can be found at a big box arts & crafts store – and when that happens, people tend to get a little less environmentally friendly and (dare I say it) a little less creative.

The best way to overcome that mentality is to be open-minded when looking at, well... stuff. Look for uses outside the obvious - chances are you'll come up with some great (and super affordable!) project ideas.

For example: This was left on the "take-what-you-can-we're-throwing-the-lot-out" table at my film school last year. It used to be a sampler-pack of different camera filters. Now it's my little reservoir of colored cellophane and metallic papers - perfect for embellishing cards and other paper projects.

Another great example comes from my friend Keri who re-purposes old film slides into greeting cards.

So keep an open mind. Look at your favourite projects: is there a material you currently use that can be substituted with something more eco-friendly or less expensive? Hit up garage sales and thrift stores, do the occasional Craigslist or Kajiji search... you might surprise yourself.

Here are a handful of wonderfully upcycled Etsy goodies for a little inspiration. Slides as pendants, sweaters as plushies, china as nightlights, bottlecaps as earrings... Man. People are clever:

1,2,3,4

8-bit Cross Stitch

I forgot to mention last week that I added a entirely new medium to my Etsy store: cross stitch!

I created three 8-bit samplers based on videogame characters all oldschool gamers know and love: Link, Mega Man, and Mario.

I've had some experience with geeky cross stitch already - this Christmas, I made my sweetheart two framed cross stitch pieces (a Mario triptych and a Space Invaders sampler). The reaction to both pieces was positive - and so I thought I'd make a few similar projects to feature in my store.

We'll see what happens!

Holy Cow

A new Paypal receipt just arrived to my inbox & it makes me very happy: 50 Moo cards for only $7 shipping!

Moo & Etsy have teamed up to offer a pretty sweet deal. If you're an Etsy seller, you can get 50 Moo cards for free (all you have to do is pay the S&H). The trade off? Your cards get printed with a little white bar along the bottom that features the Etsy logo and a discount code for Moo. As far as I know, the offer expires April 30th, so hop on it!

I had a lot of fun designing my cards. Although I could have uploaded 50 different images if I wanted to, I stuck with 4 final designs (and one "info side" to go with them). Two featured product shots; the other two were very simple and text-based. Here's a little sample (front + back):

I'm pretty pumped to see how they turn out!

Luxe Leather

I recently came across Welshman & artist Mark Evans' incredible leatherwork. Using a couple different knives and scalpels, he manages to etch gorgeously rendered portraits into huge leather canvases.

I've always thought of leather as a very wholesome material - and a quick Etsy search revealed in just how many ways leather can be manipulated. Etching, burning, carving, cutting, binding, shaping... here is a selection of leathery goodness:

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Deer Friend & Mario Kard

This past weekend I had tons of energy and managed to design and produce two new greeting cards to add to my Etsy store! Meet 'Deer Friend' & 'Mario Kard':

Though the two cards make an odd couple, I feel that together they represent who I am as a (unsubstantiated) designer. I'm as partial to classic motifs as I am to geeky ones – but no matter the subject, I'm a stickler for clean lines and smart colours.

Anyhow, I'm just happy to be devoting more time to creating again.

Home Sweet Home(page)

Allow me to be the first to welcome you to the new SUNNYsidenotes blog!

This blog is a hodgepodge of behind-the-scenes updates from my Etsy store, creative projects/resources I stumble upon online, and fancies for the eyes & ears.

Have fun!