Saturday, October 9, 2010

Portfolio Update: Wildlife Commission and Flavorstitch

My husband, Jeff, has served on the Sonoma County Fish & Wildlife Commission for close to 5 years now. So when the board recently discussed the idea of having a logo created for the F&WC, guess who raised their hand.
Being sure to illustrate the deer silhouette with the correct antler style of those native to our region, I also designed a mirroring fish and duck as well. This logo will be used on various signs for grant recipients, apparel and more.

Good friend and popular blogger, Selena Cate (aka Apron Thrift Girl) has a wonderful new food blog, Flavorstitch. Selena shares everything from product and store reviews to shopping and serving ideas as well as great recipes. You can’t help but appreciate her authentic mid-century modern style. And, if you have a gluten-free household, you’re going to especially love her new blog.

Monday, August 30, 2010

FREE CLIP ART: Typographic Elements- “The” and Ampersands


Vintage typographic elements taken from a 1920s-1930s advertising art source to add to your clip art files for future design projects- Enjoy.

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Header/Banner Designs

A couple of new blog and website header designs to share-

TidyMom.net, a wonderful resource for food, family, photography and fun. Logo, branding, website banner, social network button designs and website design elements. And a header design for Paper Friendly, a craft resource blog.

Design Recognition & Resource

What designer doesn’t love being recognized by the design industry for their work? When I ran the design firm, Holden & Co. in the 90s, many of my design pieces were chosen for inclusion in trade books ranging from Business Card Design & Eco design, to Package & Label design. My work has also been published in a few trade publications such as HOW, Print, and Communication Arts. I entered my work locally as well and won several Sonoma County Ad Club awards in the form of beautiful bronze trophies, referred to as Sadie’s. There are a few other award certificates around here in boxes from print shows or other competitions, but one of my favorites came directly from French Paper Co. for my Holden & Company holiday wrapping paper & gift tag self-promotion mailer. French Paper was by far the most exciting thing to happen to paper in that day and still to this day, thanks in part to Charles Anderson Design, one of my all-time design heroes.

Since scaling down my design work and working from my home studio while raising my children, I haven’t submitted my pieces on a regular basis like I used to. However, a few years ago I purchased membership into one of the best design and design-information sources on the web, LogoLounge.com. Membership in LogoLounge allows you access to an online library of thousands upon thousands of other professional logo design members’ best work for study and inspiration. There are excellent search fields, with logos linking to design firms for checking out their other work. One of my favorite features of the LogoLounge.com site are the articles, especially the annual Logo Trends.

LogoLounge also publishes beautiful books showcasing the best of their members logo designs, of which, naturally, I own every copy! They have stepped it up even higher by creating an additional series of category specific source books, the LogoLounge, The Master Library. My logo designs have been published in 5 of the LogoLounge books over the last few years, including my own Home Grown Logos logo. Here are the others:3 more of my logo designs have been chosen for LogoLounge 6 due out in February of 2011.

If you are a graphic designer of any style, niche or level, I encourage you to add LogoLounge books to your inspiration library and membership to their online resources to your annual business budget.

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Recent Logo Designs: Near and Far

One of my favorite things about designing logos is the opportunity the internet has afforded me in creating for clients all around the world as well in my own town. Here are a few of my recent designs and wonderful clientele.

MeMaw’s Cookies for every occasion can be ordered and shipped from Kansas City straight to you!



Julia Made header for Julia Down’s hand printed recycled paper cards and stationery out of Australia.



Beltane Brewing
is a home brew start-up out of Marin County, California.
Still in the beginning stages of set-up, Something We Made was created to inspire, encourage and enable their fellow Brits in the UK to make and give more handcrafted gifts from the contents of their own gardens.



Having created their new logo design 5 years ago, PromoCo, a local Petaluma, California company, celebrates their 25 year anniversary with this new graphic.
San Ramon in Matagalpa, Nicaragua, Central America is a not for profit organization that helped begin a cooperative working with poor farmers for the past three years teaching them to use tropical plants that contain high amounts of protein. With this system, their milk production has increased 50%. (San Ramon is the small rural town where they help the farmers.) They are also teaching them to reforest their pastures to conserve their soil/water and the tropical ecosystem. Their gourmet artisan cheese, includes Gouda, Edam and Mozzarella. All design work by me for San Ramon is pro-bono.


Monday, January 4, 2010

Recent Logo Designs

A few of my latest logo projects-

Once Upon A Nest
Home Staging and Redesign Services.C Casa logo for Napa’s fabulous & famous Catherine Bergen in the Oxbow Public Market, Napa California.
Empower Your Shower logotypes for a company specializing in motivational clings for your shower.The Graphics Fairy is the web’s best source for free vintage images and craft projects.