Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Happily Ever After


Being a hopeless romantic, I love the idea of happy endings, no matter how often they do or don't occur in real life. When I created this poster, I was thinking of all those old Disney films where they start the movie by narrating out of a huge, fancy, bedazzled book. I wanted this poster to have an illuminated feel. Of course I made a few different colored versions (Although I think the blue and the orange are my favorites):




Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Brush your teeth.

"You don't have to brush all your teeth. Just the ones you want to keep."

You know what I love about type posters? Well, I guess technically this isn't a type poster because it does have a teeny bit of illustration, too. Anyway, what I love about typography posters is that it's instant gratification. You don't have to spend weeks drawing and redrawing and refining. What takes me the longest is trying to find the perfect combination of fonts to achieve the look I want.

Today's poster is in honor of this little guy:
My son got his first tooth just recently. It's not very visible yet. Finally all the weeks of orneriness have paid off and he's got a tooth to show for it! I want to put this poster in our bathroom as a friendly reminder to avoid tooth decay.

That I am even worried about my baby's teeth gives me heart palpitations as a mother. I can't believe my baby is old enough to have teeth. I can't believe he clapped his hands for me the other day. I can't believe he can crawl! Wasn't it yesterday that I was holding him in my arms just after giving birth?
Um... about this photo. While my child is beautiful and perfect, I was bloated and sweaty and emotional and had just barfed all over a nurse about 2.5 seconds before this photo was taken. So cut me some slack, dear reader. Thanks.

I digress. As I was saying: Child. Growing. Fast.

Tomorrow he's going to be asking me for the keys to the car and filling out college applications.

At least he'll make it to adulthood with all his teeth, if my poster has anything to do with it.

Friday, July 23, 2010

A Habit...

This is really getting to be a habit...
But I'm just getting so much enjoyment designing something and then making variations on the color.
I have more in my arsenal. I'm not sure why I feel the need to make the same thing in a bunch of different colors...Indecision, maybe.
Indecision, plus it's just too much dang fun. Deal with it.

Thursday, July 22, 2010


As much as I hate to admit it, the little saying on this poster describes me perfectly. And the sunburst... Well, that's what I see emanating from a cookie when I'm really hungry, so I'd say this poster is pretty true to life for me. Which is why I designed it. Enjoy!

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Variations: Drop your drawers!

There's something just so satisfying about designing something just for fun, and then changing colors around to see all the different variations.


This sign was inspired by vinyl... You know, those vinyl rub-on signs with all the cutesy sayings?
I saw this saying on a piece of vinyl. I thought it was fun and humorous, but I also thought it could be SO much better than what the vinyl and Papyrus font was doing for it.
So here it is! If you love the fonts I used (I know I do!), you can get them for free! The white font is called Diner-Obese, and you can find it here. The script is called Marketing Script, and you can get it here.

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Variations

Today just for fun, because my baby took a long nap, I brought out my sketch book and rendered one of my little sketches in Illustrator. It turned out great! I'd say I have a pretty graphic style. Clean, simple shapes just appeal to me.

I did a few variations of this. I love how they each turned out. So different and fun! The one above is the first try. Here's the next, simple, clean, neutral...



Black and white, which I LOVE. The first half of one of my design classes in college focused just on designing in black and white, and I had so much fun with it, so now sometimes I'll do black and white just to remember the good old days.

Blue...Watery, pretty...

And my favorite. The color palette reminds me of the saris they wear in Bollywood movies. The bright, bold color is so much fun!

Monday, July 12, 2010

Free fonts!

Ok, so my little weekend getaway to Bear Lake was SO fun. What could be better than getting away from the computer, the phone, and TV for a few days to go four wheeling, roast marshmallows, swim, and come home absolutely filthy? I enjoyed myself very much.

I'm working on a little pattern for y'all. Baby clothes! I love sewing baby clothes because it's usually pretty economical and usually they turn out pretty cute. But I don't have that pattern finished yet. That's OK, because I've got something else equally exciting!

FREE fonts!

I've been thinking about fonts all day today because I found an article about how LeBron James' owner or manager or whatever he is, wrote an angry letter and set it in Comic Sans. This just fills me with delight.

Anyway. Moving on.

Have I ever told about my love of free fonts? They're the best. The absolute best!

My problem is that for some reason I am unable to harness the power of Google for my own benefit, and the only halfway decent free font site I've ever used has been dafont.com. That's why I was so excited when a relative told me about two web sites, fontsquirrel and fontdiner. You might already know about these. I don't know why I didn't, because they're both packed with GREAT fonts. Not all the fontdiner ones are free, but worth a look anyway! If you have a download-happy mouse clicker finger, you will love these websites.

And finally, while we're on the topic of fonts...



Here's another monogram. Sometimes that hand-drawn feel is kind of refreshing. And I am always a sucker for a green/orange color scheme... not sure why.

And now, off I go to exercise my downloading finger on those free font sites!

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Bear Lake or Bust

We're taking a much needed vacation the rest of the week. We're camping near Bear Lake. I'm so excited to get away for a while, especially to Idaho where it is so beautiful. Not to mention affordable.



Hallelujah.