- Brochure, business card, logos, pre-press, graphical design

Sunday, June 28, 2009

Recruitment company business card design

























This recruitment company had some clear ideas on where they wanted to go with their design. They had created a logo design and colour scheme of black and cream/gold.

The logo design was not created in vector format, so I recreated it and then added the shading or embossing effect in InDesign afterward on the 'me'.

The client had chosen the wallpaper like pattern that they liked and I found it under 'damask wallpaper' in a stock images site. The difficult part was getting it into the right colour and screen strength to suit a black background.

The problem with using a subtle screen image or pattern on a solid black background is that the black ink tends to overwhelm the subtle pattern when on the printing press, and there is a great risk that the pattern could disappear altogether in print, not looking at all like the screen proof. So I had to lighten the pattern on screen about 15% more, to accomodate for the fact it would darken in print amongst the solid background.

The back of the card was a bit easier, because on a light background, the darker coloured pattern tends to darken and show up more rather than disappear into the background.

In the end the print result was great, with a nice subtle result for the damask pattern against the black background, while still maintaining a clear image.

Life Changes Logo Design














This logo design was created with a specific target audience in mind, with a particular feel to it as requested by the client.

The client for this design has a start up business with the wonderful idea of a service to facilitate care for the elderly by consulting with the family to come up with the best possible recommendations on what type of care they should receive and where they should go to get it. Their target audience was an upper class market and the design needed to appeal to both the elderly and their families, invoking a feeling of trust, through elegance and class.

The theme was autumn, and the changing seasons and colours that autumn displays, as this seems to represent a natural change of life.

I did three original concepts, but they were thought to be a little bit feminine, so we went more with the browns, away from flowers in more focus on autumn leaves, while keeping the elegant font style from one of those initial concepts.

I created individual illustrations for autumn leaves, which eventually led to an illustration of a tree featuring those leaves with changing colours, and the leaves in motion as they fall, as they wanted an active looking illustration.

Butterfly business card design













With this business card design, the request was to keep the text small and simple and feature a large butterfly, with the colour blue in mind.

In this case I think simple but effective has really worked for the design. The printed product came out great too. I've always liked the clean white look though it has to be done with the right image or it can fall really flat. Generally isolated images work best when you want to retain a lot of white space.

Having seen how this came out I'm inspired to do more designs like this. Often I spend quite a lot of time on headers and logos for company names, but I think that it is not always necessary to have a lavish header. Sometimes the focus can be more on the imagery and that works.

A4 flyer design for crane trucks



















One of the most recent design jobs I did was a full colour A4 flyer for a crane truck company. They had an existing logo which they wanted to feature in the header of the flyer, though it had to be re-created as they couldn't supply the logo file. Then they had a whole heap of photos they wanted to include on a single page layout.

Some of the photos were quite dark, taken early in the morning I suspect, so each photo had to be individually treated in Photoshop to try and get a reasonably consistent level of lighting throughout the page. It should be noted though that if a photo is really dark, too much lightening can affect the quality of the image. Ideally you would have plenty of light on the raw image to begin with in most cases.

A little bit of Photoshop work was also required on the bottom image to remove signage from a company they no longer work with. See if you can pick where that was altered..

Friday, June 12, 2009

Best Looking Logos Website launch








Announcing the launch of bestlookinglogos.com

Bestlookinglogos.com offers professional pre-designed, exclusive and original logos for a fraction of the cost of a new custom design. Our logos are all designed by professional graphic designers and once purchased, are supplied in vector format for print and signage as well as standard formats for website usage.

As our logo designs are exclusive, they will be removed from the site once purchased so that your unique logo design will remain one of a kind.

Simply supply your company name as you wish it to appear on your new logo, and we will customize the design with your company name inserted. We will then email you the finished files generally within 1-2 business days*

We are just about ready to get up and running, and hope to get a lot more designs to choose from up there very soon. But please check out our start up designs and bookmark to come back and visit soon.

We are also looking for graphic designers to submit their logo designs for a 65% commission on any sale. See the submitting logo designs section of the website on more information on how to go about it.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

Spiritual Logo and Business Card Designs

Lately I've been working on a couple of business card designs for the more spiritual type of businesses with colour synergy, meditation and counselling/healing. With this first one I created a soft effect in the background with Photoshop, and incorporated her ideas of lotus flower, and new growth leaves. The client also specifically wanted to use a salmon colour in the background, so I trialled a few different colour schemes to compliment the salmon, this seemed to be the most soft and feminine colour scheme to suit it. I didn't want anything to bold or harsh.




After completing this card, her good friend was referred to me so I needed to set up a card for colour synergy and balance, with a specific request to use a marrone colour and to feature 'chakras' with an aura in the logo. The main challenge though with this card is that the client really wanted to see an 'old gold' effect on her logo. She had these very specific colours in mind, as I suppose colour synergy is her business after all! For the back she also wanted to see a yin yang symbol in gold and marrone. So this is what I came up with..




I achieved the old gold effect in Photoshop using layer styles such as colour overlay, texture, shadow, gradient and pattern. Generally I would always set up logos in vector art/Illustrator, but the only way I could get this effect was in Photoshop, so I set up the logo at a really large size in case it needs to be used later in larger print, the reduced it for the business card.

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Football / Footy Vector Art Illustration - Royalty Free

Following my recent upload of the Puma vector art, I have uploaded a couple of good football (Australian) illustrations and icons which can be used for logos for Aussie Rules Footy (AFL) clubs or websites.

There are two variations, both available for just $1.



The second set of 4 are icons designed to be used with logos. They can easily have text added across the football with your aussie rules league or club name.


You can download them here:
http://graphicriver.net/item/football/40219

and here:
http://graphicriver.net/item/football-and-sports-icons/40970