In honour of the hail today, I’m posting a recent poster I did for the North Shore Chorus’ spring concert! They wanted something with riotous spring colour, but rather than go a literal route of flowers I found this gorgeous painting to use as a background. I hope the cherry blossoms that have been peeking out this week survive today’s weather!
I’m so excited to be able to share the project I’ve been working on this January! Local Vancouver band, The Argyle Embargo, released their first album last night, and took me on to do the CD and jacket design. It was one of those lightning fast projects, where I had to collaborate with the band and the photographer to get everything done in time for the release, and we all pulled together to make something awesome. I’m so happy with the experience and the final product!
They also had me do a campaign of social media images to promote the album and the show. I love the challenge of translating a look and feel across different dimensions and platforms. Here are the ones I did for Facebook, Soundcloud, and Twitter.
A huge congratulations to the Embargo on a packed show and a rocking first album! Looking forward to the next one!
I can never resist a good pun, but music jokes are especially gratifying. Maybe I’ll make nerdy t-shirts out of them, or something!
I’m so excited to be working on the Cor Flammae 2015 marketing materials! Using this year’s lovely image photographed by belle ancell and designed by Adam Dickson and Missy Clarkson, I’ve created YouTube, Facebook and flyer images utilizing a consistent look and feel across these different mediums, and made dark and light versions with a related aesthetic. I’m looking forward to getting the poster out in June!
The YouTube, Facebook event and flyer graphics for the 2015 Cor Flammae summer season.
Recently, I got to work on logo creation again, this time for Studio 209 salon! Since the salon is in a heritage building, we wanted to pull an antique feel into the logo, going with a beautiful serif font, a soft grey and inverse rounded corners. I created a square and long version, since a logo needs to be flexible and translate regardless of size or where it’s being used. So far they’ve been used in a window cling for the front door, the website and the business cards.
In my designs everything should relate to a single idea or inspiration, and for Studio 209 that cornerstone is the physical space. Every business in this heritage building has gorgeous frosted glass doors and hallway walls, each with its own unique pattern. For the business card, I took a photo of the salon’s door – its luminous champagne coloured “fingerprint” – to use as the background, welcoming you in to the warm environment inside.
I just did a poster and flyer for the Ayden Gallery’s upcoming exhibition, Neither/Nor. It was a total pleasure working with the gorgeous images of these wonderful artists:
CHRIS ANDERSON / AMANDA ARCURI / MARIANE BOURCHEIX-LAPORTE / EMILY COOPER / BRITTA FLUEVOG / KATY HUCKSON / ROKSAN KOHEN / TONI LATOUR / MARYAM SAFA / LISA SIMPSON/ DEREK VON ESSEN / KATJA ZUBROWKA
The opening reception is July 4th, 7-11pm, and will feature performances and live music. If you’re looking for something to do this coming Friday, wander down to the Ayden Gallery (2nd Floor, International Village – 88 West Pender Street) and check out this great show!
I have the great pleasure/extreme temptation of working very close to Opus Art Supplies. Last year, they moved their North Shore location to a building just behind Capilano Mall, and I have, for very good reason, not visited them until now. Opus Art Supplies is the most beautiful and extensive collection of everything you could ever want for making art. Everything there is sexy, and I know I will inevitably walk out with something. On top of that, my goose was double cooked, as they are in the middle of a sale. And so, with great elation and no regrets I brought home this gorgeous creature:
Garibaldi Sketchbox Easel
Right now I don’t have a lot of space for a studio – and this has been fine so far as my work is mostly digital – but I want to hone my handmade skills and bring more of those elements into my designs. Enter my dream easel: it folds down, has space to store my supplies, and is made of beautiful beech wood with shiny brass hardware, a leather handle and canvas strap, so you can take it everywhere. Everywhere will be my studio!
The sale runs from May 1st to June 19th, and Opus has several locations, the famous Granville Island shop (1360 Johnston Street, Vancouver) and the accessible downtown store (W Hastings Street, Vancouver) being the easiest to get to for Vancouverites. They also have shops in North Vancouver, Langley and Kelowna, so if you’re near any of those places and you need some new beautiful things to make new beautiful art with, check them out (www.opusartsupplies.com)!
Yesterday I finally packed up my pencils and charcoal and made it down to Blim for their Tuesday night life drawing drop-in session. I haven’t done life drawing in ages. What generally passes for life drawing in my life involves taking my sketchbook on the seabus and pretending not to stare at strangers, so naturally I was thrilled to have two hours and an actual model. It was a quiet but casual atmosphere, perfect for dipping my toe back into this estranged activity. I’m planning on going every week, if I can make it!
Blim’s life drawing drop-in is every Tuesday from 7pm-9pm, for $10. Blim is located at 115 Pender St. E, Vancouver in the physical world and http://blim.ca on the internet!
Half of creativity for me comes from enjoying other people’s art. These days I’ve been really inspired by album covers. The challenge here is in articulating the essence or feeling of music visually, and it can lead to some wonderfully creative stuff. I love album covers with storybook illustration qualities, colorful and busy expressiveness, the surrealist takes, and the spare minimalist styles. A quick google search brings me a wealth of all of these. Here are just a handful of the great images I’ve encountered recently:
designAPB 