Tag Archives: design

What I Designed Today: Recreated a Farrier Logo

by Sparkbark | Leave a comment

All design work isn’t fun or glamorous.  Scratch that.  MOST design work isn’t fun or glamorous at all because it’s the actual do-this-to-get-paid variety of work (even if it’s ugly).  Take this project:  I was asked to recreate a farrier’s logo for a 73″ wide banner.  It wasn’t difficult to do but it took time to redraw in Illustrator and get it right.  There was no using any sort of conceptual design skills — just rote recreation of a graphical element.  The project used my expertise of Illustrator but I had no creative liberty whatsoever, which is fine.  It pays the bills.  Just like any other occupation, graphic design is work — and work I’m grateful and blessed to have!  After all, there are worse ways to make a living…

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What I Designed Today: Social Media Contest for Tate Boys Tire

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One of Bartlesville’s finest local establishments, Tate Boys Tire, is running a social media contest and I was asked to design their promotional signs for print and online/web.  If you want to enter the contest, go to the Tate Boys Facebook Page and just like and share the image!

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What I Designed Today: L’Amore D’Italia Program for OK Mozart

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The program for OK Mozart’s L’Amore d’Italia Ball is a smaller, 4-page, 1-fold piece.  I love the interior and it printed nicely on a heavy linen stock thanks to Bartlesville’s best print shop.  It turned out just lovely!  Osage Casinos sponsored the event and the mask picure on the cover was taken by local artist Gary Gibson.

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What I Designed Today: Print Shop Docs with Horrible Fonts

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I’m loving the interesting flow of work coming from Bartlesville’s local print shop.  There is, however, the problem of recreating things to print EXACTLY as a client requests — but that is ugly as all get-out.  It nearly killed me the other day to save a print-ready file using the Hobo font.  The project here called for Rage Italic and a graphic with lines that I absolutely do not understand (It’s so abstract, it could mean anything!).  Kill me now.  But, such is the life of a print shop — the client’s requests always come first!  And if you are the client and you happen to read this:  take it from an experienced designer — it’s time for an update on your logo and materials. You don’t even have to hire me.  Just, for the love of all that’s holy, refresh your brand.

Exhibit A:  Rage Italic in all its horrific 1980s glory — letterhead and envelopes.  Because a small town rec center is nothing if not thorough.
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What I Designed Today: Interchangeable B&W Newspaper Ads

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So, these are quite simple but since they’re only 2″ wide and they pack a lot of info, it is important to make them readable but still stand out on the entire huge newspaper print page full of black and white!  Enter the diagonally cropped picture.  It really works!  It adds just enough visual “movement” to help the ad stand out on the static page and draw the eye of the reader.  Take a look and see which is your favorite.  These 8 ads are being printed in a series in the Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise newspaper, based on which performer is coming up next chronologically.

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What I Designed Today: OK Mozart Kids’ Events Poster & T-Shirt

by Sparkbark | 2 Comments

These are similar to the Fun Run poster and t-shirt because it should have the same look but be independent. The Fun Run T-Shirt is going to be printed on sapphire blue so the t-shirt I’m suggesting here is to be printed on neon yellow. If it’s not in the budget this year, perhaps next. Bright colors are so much fun for t-shirts, especially for kids!

Poster design:

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T-Shirt design:

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What I Designed Today: OK Mozart International Music Festival T-Shirts

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I submitted about 9 different designs and these are my favorite versions.  The local printer prefers one color, so I was challenged to do an eye catching design while only using one or two colors to keep costs low.  Mission accomplished!  Which design would you prefer?  Do you think Mozart actually said these quotes?  Logo front pocket, this design printed large on the back side of the t-shirt design.

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In the end, in a somewhat heated debate, my client chose to print two different designs — each of which was liked by different personnel who adamantly did not like the other design!  Which makes me think of the phrase, “If everybody likes what you’re doing, you’re doing something wrong!” Not a bad motto to live by! I’m curious, though, which of the two below would you choose?

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What I Designed Today: Stake Conference Invitation

by Sparkbark | 3 Comments

I designed this stake conference invitation for the first semiannual conference of the Bartlesville, Oklahoma Stake!  So nice of the stake presidency to put out an official invitation like this.  I hope it helps boost attendance and clarifies meeting times, attendance and info for all involved.  I tried to make it  match the ward mission plan and the stake mission plan that I had created earlier.  I’d better watch out or the stake will have inadvertently created its own press kit and style guide soon!  Kidding…

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What I Designed Today: 2015 OK Mozart Festival Poster

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What I Designed Today (ahem, last week): OK Mozart A Really Fun Prairie Run Event Poster

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I really need to do better at publishing daily so I don’t have to keep backtracking!  But I’ve been working way too much and there’s no way I can post it all.  That’s good, right?!

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What I Designed Today: 2015 OK Mozart L’Amore d’Italia Ball Invitation & RSVP Card

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What I Designed Today (a few weeks ago): Put on The Armor of God for Stake Auxiliary Training

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I used the floral artwork from lenlis at BigStock for the flowers and then added the “Put on the Armor of God” text and made a few changes to use for a themed presentation at auxiliary training. It was so cute, I left it up at home for a week after the event! I’m including pics of the wonderful cookies with labels and chocolate covered strawberries served. I don’t know if anybody else liked it but the strawberries alone were worth it for me!

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What I Designed Today: Ad Revisions for OK Mozart

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So one of my very favoritest sources of income is revising previously created ads in different sizes for different publications. It takes time, but you just have to adjust things without re-creating the wheel, so to speak. It probably takes more time than my client would think it does but it’s relatively painless and a good source of income — I want to say residual income but that’s not entirely correct because I’m still eating up the clock and sitting at the computer. They’re worth it even though I generally charge quite a bit less for them. These ads were for GTR Newspapers, an independent free papers association for Tulsa, Oklahoma Magazine, and Tulsa’s Currentland publication.

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What I Designed Today: Custom Penzey’s Spice Jar Labels

by Sparkbark | 2 Comments

My trip to Omaha over Spring Break was very fun — and very exhausting.  Now I’m back home in Bartlesville and there’s a zillion things I should be doing right now OTHER than making custom spice jar labels.  But I went to Penzey’s.  And I bought these cute jars with yummy spices (e.g., celery salt that actually smells like celery and salt).  It makes complete sense, right??  Right!  It just makes me feel better.  I’m attaching links to the file as a pdf and png, shown below, but if you’d like the original Illustrator CS5 file, just shoot me an email (the fonts used are Alex Brush and Zebrawood).  The PDF could also be edited in Adobe Acrobat. I hope it makes you “feel better” too.  Priorities, people.

PDF DOWNLOAD:  penzeysspicelabels

This pdf file is set up for HP Restickables (a sticker I highly recommend that is more like a post-it note that you can remove and reposition many times) – it’s from a really old stash and I don’t think anyone sells them anymore, but any basic sticker stock would do!  I manually cut out the labels.  Yes, I’m insane.  Who has time to do such a thing?  Certainly not me.  But I did cut them out, one by one, and it totally relaxed me.  The outline isn’t perfect but I’m seriously happy with them anyway.

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What I Designed Today: Table Card for Bartlesville’s OK Mozart

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This table card is part of the March Madness set for OK Mozart’s upcoming event in Bartlesville.  If you’re in the area, take a look at the lovely food and auction items — it will be a wonderful event!

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