The entire story about Sho & Mo’s Cafe revolves around, yes, cats. Cats do take their naps, but if you’ve ever owned one, or seen the viral videos on Youtube, you would know that they are wildly unpredictable, goofy, energetic creatures. My client and I agreed that antics had to be portrayed, and that we needed movement in this design. I designed the logo with a focus on creating a solid silhouette, while also telling a story of playful cats and coffee mugs, leaving their pawprints everywhere. You have to turn the business card to see more of this story pan out, which is where you see these kitties go haywire. With all this action, I decided the brand would do just fine with a classic grayscale colorway, using contrast as a defining element in their designs.

Fantastique came to me needing business cards, but they were intent on these cards being UNIQUE, and visibly touting their out of the box manner. Furthermore they wanted their logo to be highlighted with text explaining their services. First, I thought, let’s get creative and modern with the business card shape. A rounded square design is sleek, fits easily in wallets, and looks less economical in my designer’s opinion. This meant I had even less space to work with. Looking at the Fantastique logo I particularly loved the angle at which the horse’s neck is craned. If anything can make 2D designs look interesting, it’s the illusion of movement. I thought to myself, this horse needs a luscious mane! Taking the brand colors, which at the time were only red and blue, I added some intermediary shades to add depth and softness. I found that the “strands” in the mane had ample space to contain text, and that the contrast of white on color worked harmoniously with the whitespace around and in the horse itself. After designing the front, the back was a piece of cake, using a font with the same strong vertical as the logo, I found it made the owner’s name look impactful. I created custom icons to rest next to the info text, just for added flair and uniqueness.

Fantastique wanted to gift their clients with custom branded notebooks. Considering that a major part of their clientele at the time were a younger audience and skewed feminine, I proposed that we get artsy with it to appeal to the young people’s creative eye. Growing up I knew personally that I was always looking for notebooks with beautiful, vivid cover art, so I drew from that personal experience. I created the watercolor background in photoshop using the brand colors which melted seamlessly into each other. I used a medley of brushes and effects to create the painted effect. After which I took the design into Adobe Illustrator to add the logo, with it’s gorgeous silhouette being highlighted through the contrast against the background. On the back I included business details, the logo text, and flowing graphics reminiscent of a horse’s mane. I found the differentiation between the back and front covers important because: 1. Very young audiences will have an easier time locating the front. 2. Details prevail and branded products should look appealing and customized from all angles, otherwise it becomes evident that the logo was slapped onto another wholesale .99 cent stack of papers without much thought or care.

Tee & Gee came to me needing a new brand colorway, and business cards to boot. Tee & Gee was adamant about having unique, expressive business cards, and mind you this is a risk assessment consultancy agency! I needed to get the audience excited about a company who’s services people tend not to want to think about. The original brand colors were a simple blue and green that clashed due to the saturations being the same (not a relaxing color combination). As a company in their line of work, I knew that they had to promote a sense of comfort, peace, and safety with their audience. I explored softer and gentler shades of artic blue and sage green and aqua, and we settled upon the ones you see above. Creating the design itself was a whole 'nother animal. I created dozens of mocks, playing with textures, playful imagery incorporating the umbrella, and diagonals to direct the eye and create movement. Ultimately, I looked at the rounded strokes on the logo and found that we could create a strong round silhouette while exploring the soft roundness in abstract shapes, keeping the aesthetic modern but artistic. On the back I reiterated the circular design, drawing the eye inward towards the owner’s name and outwards towards the details.

I purposefully chose the sunstruck colors to look like the sands, waters, and the sun on the horizon of a beach. Using these variegated stripes I imagined fluid movements like that of the ocean or sun rays, and continued that motif into other branding materials. This created movement, depth, and was faintly reminiscent of the retro looping stripes commonly seen in 70s graphics.

Empress Glam was a beauty company seeking to release a new makeup palette, Royalty. The owner wanted the logo and packaging to look purely feminine, luxurious, and sparkly. What’s the difference between an artist palette and a makeup palette? I’d say not much, having used both. So I wanted to incorporate flashes of rose gold in the form of a brush stroke. Empress Glam, the company itself, must look timeless, so I opted for a san-serif font with a lean look and strong vertical so it would stand tall. I could contrast that with Royalty, which would look fit as either a strong rounded serif or hand written note. To create the sparkles that would later be implemented in the printing process, I mocked them with commercial free images and changed the color tones with blending modes. The gold accents in between the titles are meant to create a dainty transition, also in a sleek gold overprint. To prevent white space from overwhelming the logo I created a pink transparent watercolor to emphasize the artistry of this brand, and to give the logo a foundation.