Vacay Awhile, a short-term rental company

I recently had the opportunity to create a logo, website, and literature for Vacay Awhile, a short-term rental company with homes in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Georgia. They were looking for a relaxing, calm, and inviting logo that would show the beauty of their local landscape.

For their logo concept, I was drawn to the idea of watercolor imagery that had just a hint of a cool green hue.

Above is the final product. The watermark border of the logo is intended to be soft and subtle, and helps this bear and trees look crisp and fresh on a clean, white background.

Next, I tackled all of the needed house documents for their short-term rental properties. I wanted to incorporate a typewriter font to give a cozy, yet vintage vibe to their branding.

I created all of the welcome and information documents for their short-term rentals, as well as floor plan maps of each home.

Finally, I created a website for them in Squarespace, which will be easy for them to update on their own in the future. I used a large typewriter font for all of the site headings, which I think gives is a bold and catchy look. I also gave the images a green-tinted black-and-white effect so that the website would have the same look and feel as their other brand items.

Now they have a brand that reflects their cute, cozy, and inviting short-term rental homes.

A Refresh for Simply Spoken Therapy

When I was hired to redesign rack cards and business cards for Simply Spoken Therapy – a speech therapy clinic for children – I knew I was in for some fun. Not only did they already have a playful color palette to work with, but their target audience is parents of young children… so, basically me. :) They wanted to maintain a fun look and feel, but also convey professionalism.

I knew we could have the most fun with their business cards. I loved the idea of making them round and having them printed on a premium linen stock… this would make them really tactile, which I thought was great for a children’s speech therapy clinic.

After I finished the rack cards and business cards, I created social media post templates in Canva for their Facebook and Instagram accounts focusing on their vivid brand colors. I’m happy to say the client is pleased with this refresh as they grow their business.

Lofty Dreams

I recently created a logo for a gorgeous cabin overlooking the Smoky Mountains in Gatlinburg, TN. The couple that purchased this home wanted a vibrant and modern sign to greet their guests. They didn’t want the traditional carved and lacquered address sign that would typically hang outside a rustic cabin.

This cabin not only functions as a vacation home for the owners, but also as a short-term rental property. The owners wanted to utilize this logo in their promotional video as well as the house instructional documents. The decor of their home features modern, clean, bright accents so the color palette of Lofty Dreams’ logo comes from both the home’s aesthetic as well as the vibrant colors of the mountain scenery.

Mood Boards

Why do I love creating mood boards? Nothing is more exciting than creating a cohesive collection… except creating many! Working on these Inspiration Boards for my client, Dance Floor Decal, felt a lot more like fun than work.

These mood boards were created to help their clientele land on a color scheme that would perfectly coordinate with one of Dance Floor Decal’s collections. Here are a few of them…

A Classic Tale

When I was asked to recreate the cover of A.A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh for a family baby shower invitation, I thought it would be simple enough. I figured there was stock artwork all over to pull from and it wouldn’t take much time at all.

What I discovered is that I was wrong.  Ultimately, all I could find online were low-res images of the original cover that I could only use as a reference to create my own illustration.

I brought a low-res b/w illustration into Photoshop and cleaned it up til it was usable. Then I used the paintbrush tool to softly color in the drawing.

Next, I needed to match the original font as closely as possible. I felt Adobe Garamond Pro was a good option with the same classic details in the W and S.

Ultimately I was very happy with the final product and also ended up loving the soft salmon color and bumble bee pattern as the background.

Fiesta Time

The only thing that makes me happier than attending a party with guacamole and margaritas is designing the invite for that party.

I don’t always get ‘unleashed’ to use bright, bold colors and playful fonts. I had to be careful not to let the color palette become unfocused or too rainbow-looking. I chose a chalkboard background to help the colors radiate off of it. All in all I was really happy with the final look and feel of this piece… and the margaritas were delicious too.

Belle of the Ball

It’s not often someone asks me to do work with a Disney theme. So this bridal shower invitation was definitely something different and fun for me to take on. It was important to me to give the Beauty and the Beast theme a mature spin and get away from any sort of cartoony look. However, I didn’t want it to feel stuffy or boring.

I drew Belle by hand with black ink, scanned her in, and created the finalized look in Photoshop.

Then I looked for fonts that would feel whimsical enough to evoke an appreciation of this child’s movie, but for grown-ups. Ironically enough I landed on “Fairy Tales” as the whimsical serif font. Bombshell is the accent script font, and Capitals is the smaller detail font.

Something Fresh

I’ve done so many wedding invitations that sometimes it can feel like it’s all been done before. And then I get projects like this where I get to really wear my creative hat.

The bride wanted the info card to include a map of the wedding ceremony and reception locations that was hand drawn.

I executed this by first drawing out the venues in my sketchbook and scanning them to my computer. Then I cleaned them up a bit in Photoshop before bringing them into Illustrator to utilize the live trace function. Once they were vectors I smoothed the strokes a bit to get a sleek, uniform look.

Overall I was very pleased with the whimsical, yet dramatic look of the 90% black ink drawings on ivory stock.

The Labor Lady Branding

In 2014, I became certified as a birth doula, so that I could help support women during labor in either hospital and home settings. I wanted a catchy name and brand to reflect my personality. Because I love all things alliterative, I landed on The Labor Lady.

Next came the fun part: logo design. The pressure is on for a graphic designer to design their own logo. It can be really hard to define and execute for your individual brand. It’s similar to when someone asks you to tell your life story or write your own bio – it is HARD.

However, as hard as it was to hone in on what I wanted, it was also really fun. I was able to incorporate all of the elements I wanted, including a subtle abstract silhouette of a pregnant belly, if you study the logo close enough.

I knew I wanted to incorporate florals into my branding, so I feel like this logo has just the right amount of femininity and whimsy to complement a floral background.

Here is how it translated to my website and social media:

A Simple Save-the-Date

My niece approached me about designing a save the date for her wedding. She wanted something clean and modern, and shared their engagement photos with me. Right away it was clear their gorgeous photos would steal the show in their save the dates, so it would be my job to keep them as simple as possible so as not to take away from the artistic composition of this photo.

Floral Triptych

I was commissioned to paint a large floral painting with warm, vibrant colors. I chose to turn it into a triptych to make it more dynamic and play with the proportions a bit. The overall width of these three canvases is over 50 inches.

I began playing with grids in one of my college painting classes and am still exploring different takes on this concept of creating a digital/pixelated look through the use of a square grid. It is also a nod to cubism since the different gridded squares can show different aspects of light vs. shadow.

Passport to Paradise

With a destination wedding in Mexico planned, this couple wanted a unique save the date. We decided to create a save the date with a postcard theme, complete with custom ‘stamps’. I also spent time to make sure I could find Mexican stamp images to use, as well as typefaces that had a handwritten look.

Crosstown Classic

Ashley and Jason met at the Crosstown Classic: White Sox vs. Cubs, began dating, and are now getting married. This cute couple wanted to commemorate their unique meeting by giving their wedding save the date cards a vintage baseball ticket look. Their wedding colors are deep purple and golden yellow, so I incorporated those colors in a classic way. I had so much fun working with them on this and can’t wait to make their wedding invitations.