What's been happening...

Goodness, it's been a long (busy!) time since I last had a chance to get my writing hat on; here's a small hint of what's been happening the last few weeks...

Designing, for me is more often than not purely for personal reasons; cards, invitations etc. but recently I've had a few external commissions and it's certainly been a smörgåsbord design-wise.  It started with a company logo which is now on their building's external signage and I can't deny its kinda cool to see your work in 40 foot glorious technicolour. Project 2 was to design some engagement party invitations and all the corresponding paper items: menus, placecards, table number cards etc.  Project 3 is a complete change of pace from florals and creams; a website for a private Respiratory specialist.  I now know more about lungs and the respiratory systems than ever thought I would, its been really interesting work.

The engagement invitations are an iron grey (coincidentally, now also the colour of my bathroom woodwork) design on a very pale cream, pearlised card. The floral design is a combination of two brushes (Blossom and Sweet Pea) from one of my favourite designers Pixels & Ice Cream - their website is definitely worth a look. All names and details have obviously been changed.

The Invitations

 

The Reply Cards

The reverse of both the invitation and reply cards

Table Numbers

Menu Cards (gorgeous menu!), each guest's choice indicated with glued on Swarovski crystal

And finally, a A4 header for additional papers (maps etc.)

The website is a completely different look.  London based, we went for a red, white and blue theme and the dark navy blue works well with the x-ray of a throat and lungs that we chose as the site's main image.  It's very simple, but clean and bold and I'm pleased to say that I have a very happy client.

And finally, in amongst all that, there has been work and coursework, lots of dogs to walk, the Halloween costume (more of that later), handmade Christmas presents and Christmas card designs, and the rather mad idea that I would redecorate around the house "just because".

A new look for MMM....

it was time for a change and I do hope you like the new look, I've certainly had a great time designing and geeking!  I had wanted to expand last year's Christmas card design to include us all (though I've still not found a place for the chooks....) and I love the new photo slider.  

I have a couple more tweeks, but it's nearly 1am and even the dogs are looking a little desperate!

G'nite everybody x

Tinkering...

It's been a great weekend of sewing (more tomorrow), building a new coop for the bantie chooks (more another day) and tinkering on the laptop (see right).  I found out this week how to image map pictures, which allows you to embed more than one hyperlink in an image.  I was thinking primarily of ways to use it on the intranet at work, but couldn't resist a small play here so clicking on "hello", "about me", "elizabeth" or "victoria" on the image on the right should link you directly through to the page of your choice.  It's a quick first stab at the technique but I do love it; I think I'll be playing with it quite a bit more!

Got to dip my toe in the PR pool again...

I loved my days in PR and marketing, as far as I was concerned it was the perfect blend of organising and creating; it was, in hindsight, the perfect job!  So I was delighted when, quite out of the blue last week, my boss asked for some help with the marketing for a charity project.  I was able to while away a couple of hours on a press release and the A4 leaflet above.  Nothing fancy (I wanted to keep it light and summery, with a nod to the waterside theme, and not leave people feeling too overwhelmed by the amount of text we needed to accommodate), but a break from the norm and, as it turns out, the inspiration for this blog's new colour scheme.  We're onto a FB page next, it will be a whole new adventure for the boss, who is not a fan of "unnecessary" tech :o).  He calls me "The Geek" and I refered to his 1990's Nokia (until it's sad demise earlier this year) as the Frankenphone, it was made up of so many refurbed parts...