521design, bellingham WA, Boundary Bay Brewery, brand identity, branding, creating, creativity, designing logos, designing posters, drawing, drawings, figure drawing, graphic design, illustration, in-house design, in-house designer, WA
In design, illustration on September 24, 2009 at 1:06 pm
the Whatcom Land Trust is celebrating their 25th anniversary and are collaborating with Boundary on a special brew to commemorate the event. i’ve been asked to design the logo for the event overall…something that could work for the brew label, for event promotional materials and for advertising. i’m about to submit my first round of comps, but thought i’d run it by my blog world first. they specifically asked for imagery to represent tree planting and referenced beer labels when we discussed design ideas they had. here are the two options i am sending them…one illustrated by myself and one illustration by tammy, the other designer at boundary bay. will be curious to see which they like better. i’d love to hear from you readers too!

521design, bellingham WA, designing posters, eyepatch, graphic design, in-house design, in-house designer, parrot, talk like a pirate day, WA
In design on September 23, 2009 at 1:22 pm
what to do when you’re an in-house designer working for a company that is run by someone who LOVES the idea of Talk Like A Pirate Day? well, you grin and bear it…make a poster that garners a second look…and thank any and all gods that you, yourself, are not working that saturday.

521design, bellingham WA, creating, creativity, designing posters, drawing, foliage, graphic design, illustration, in-house design, in-house designer, nature illustrations, Oktoberfest, paper cutouts, WA
In design, illustration on September 21, 2009 at 5:07 pm
i love graphic design, don’t get me wrong. but sometimes, i long for creativity that is not connected to a computer. i know it’s idyllic romanticizing on my part, but there is this side of me that hears about how the business of graphic design USED to be and i wish those days were here again. i want to hand cut type and have to place everything manually. i want to disconnect from my mouse and keyboard. i want to turn my mac off. but, so often, i choose digital to satisfy time constraints and laziness. when you have the convenience of command-z how can you resist?! but, last week, resist i did…
fed up with my digital way of life, i sat down to make a poster of paper cutouts. granted, in the end, i did succumb to digital type (and, truthfully, only made 3 leaves and digitally copied them) but i still got that rush of satisfaction from creating something with my own two hands. taking scraps of paper and watching this new thing rise into being out of pretty much nothing.
