Amy & Patrick: Wedding Fans

It's been a while since my last post, I have been busy transitioning and creating lots of fun new stuff! I am so excited about one of my most recent wedding clients, Amy & Patrick, who hired me to design and letterpress them some custom Program Fans. Enjoy!

All this gorgeous photography by Azuree Witala

Updates: Coming Back Home

We Moved!

John and I drove a UHaul full of stuff 800 miles from Seattle to Oakland this weekend, officially closing the chapter of our lives in Seattle. The change was bittersweet: We were both so excited to come back home, but also so sad to leave all of the amazing people we met while living there. I know that we will have a lot of life-long friends from that experience.

For now, I'll be working as a part-time Creative Sales Associate at Paper Source, and hopefully picking up some freelance work. I'm also planning to contact some florists to see if I can apprentice with them and help set up weddings. Excited to try my hand at it!

Updates: As Told Through Instagram

A fallen friend on the way to work the other day.

Today was my last day at YIU Studio.

I am so grateful for the experience, and all of the amazing crafty production I was able to do while working there! And it seems only fitting that on my last day, I Japanese bound almost 100 promo books.

And finally, some wedding invites I'm working on this weekend.

They're digital but any wedding is a fun wedding to me! Can't wait to have them all finished to send to the bride on Tuesday.

{All photos altered with the Instagram App for iPhone.}

Letterpress in your FACE!

This past week I've been working on production for Dovely, a new product by YIU Studio. Ariel Nay Nebeker came to take pictures of me while I was working at Myrtle Alley Press, and here's an awesome .gif she made!



BAM!

Busy Bee! {Behance Portfolio Updates}

I have been hard at work editing the photos Ariel took of my portfolio a few months ago, and trying out the new Behance ProSite application (basically a CMS website where you don't need to know any code, which is a thumbs-up for me!)

I'm really excited to finally update my portfolio with new work, and share it with all of you.

Here's a sneak peek of the new site:

I'm hoping to launch it in the next few days. For now, take a look through my updated Behance Profile!

{There is also now a link to it on the left hand side of this blog}

Seattle Chamber Music Society

{I've decided to post past projects as I get around to editing the photos and putting them on my website (the ever-talented Ariel Nay Nebeker re-photographed my work back in March). Here's the first one!}

While interning at Cognition Studio last fall, I had the pleasure of working on the winter festival campaign for the Seattle Chamber Music Society. The festival includes a 4-day concert series at Benaroya Hall, and a concert catered towards families, which had the theme of 'Babar' this season.

Flyer for Winter Family Concert

Because the imagery had to be 'childlike,' but cater to parents, I decided to play with paper-cutting to give the character of Babar a more sophisticated feel.

The look was applied to postcards and bookmarks as well.

And, I made an animated .gif ad! I also got to design a poster to be hung outside of Benaroya Hall, promoting the concert series. On a slightly unrelated note, I also got to design coasters for an SCMS benefit in January, celebrating Mendelssohn's birthday. It was the first time I've done an illustration for a client (with help from Dave at Cognition), and I had a ton of fun with it! All photographs by Ariel Nay Nebeker

Seattle Children's Hospital Poetry Broadside

For the past month, I have been honored to be a part of a project made possible by the School of Visual Concepts and Seattle Arts & Lectures' Writers in the Schools program. Sierra Nelson, a poet with WITS, is the poet in residence at the Seattle Children's Hospital, and has been working with kids there once a week helping to teach them poetry and writing. Sierra picked 12 poems from 12 different students to be turned into letterpressed broadsides by printers at SVC.

We went around the room to pick our poems, and I was lucky enough to end up with 12 year old Emma's gorgeous poem, which is a blessing dedicated to her brother Owen (who I later found out is also her bone marrow donor).

Because there was so much imagery in the words, I didn't want to add any additional imagery of my own. Instead, I decided to treat the poem typographically, and call out important phrases in color and wood type.

The first black layer is all hand-set lead type. I was so excited for the opportunity to hand-set, since I usually end up doing things with polymer. It's good to get some hand-setting practice!

The 12 broadsides will all be collated together into a beautiful portfolio designed by Bonnie Thompson Norman. To unify the different broadsides, we were to print the majority of the poster in black, and then add an accent color of either Process Blue, Process Yellow, or Warm Red (of course, we were allowed to do more than two, but we had to do at least one color).

I chose blue because though my instinct was yellow, I knew the blocks of text would probably start to look like bumble bee stripes.

I added some trans white to the blue, so it wouldn't be super bright.

The star in the middle of the last sentence was the biggest one in the shop, so to fill in the white space around it (and add the yellow I so desperately wanted!) I decided to do some post-printing spray paint to add a shine to the star. I had to make a jig to make sure the spray paint would be the same size each time.

Overall, I'm pretty pleased with how the poster turned out, and I hope it showcases Emma's poem in the best light possible! I can't wait for her to see it!

Emma (on the left), and her brother Owen. Before designing the poster, I had a short email exchange with Emma's father, and he sent me this photo of them. It really made the project hit home for me; I am so humbled by her strength, courage, and beautiful writing.