friday favorites - christmas cards

I love Christmas cards. I love designing them and I love addressing them. I love stamping each envelope with beautiful holiday postage and I love sending them off to sit in frosty mailboxes until they are happily discovered. And I very much love receiving Christmas cards. I love finding a brightly colored envelope amidst a stack of bills, and for that happy moment, the sight of that card fills my whole heart with pure Christmas delight. (If you're reading this, pretty please add us to your Christmas card list.)


If you're on MY Christmas card list (which you undoubtedly are, if you're reading this), lucky you! Because this is my first Christmas designing an "us" Christmas card, and our us Christmas cards are going to be so, so cool. (Yes, I already have them planned out...) Come December, look for a pretty treasure from us in your snow covered mailboxes.

Christmas 2007 card design 

busy.

So, working on 10 projects at once is what I seem to do best…

friday favorites - cranberry muffins

I love cranberries, and I love love cranberry muffins. Vegan cranberry muffins, to be precise. You can love them, too.

(click photo to enlarge for recipe)

peacock card

 

 

friday favorites (3 days late) - autumn

Autumn is perfectly glorious. I love how it is just so easy to take an amazing photo in autumn, because the trees do all the work. Bursting with color, just waiting for you to notice their beauty. So beautiful and really, there is nothing like the smell of autumn. This past weekend was a joyous celebration of love and autumn.

Friday night came cold and blustery, the perfect kind of evening to stay inside, light the fireplace, and bake a spicy apple pie. I absolutely adore foods that smell like fall, and apple pies are truly autumn, through and through. And nothing beats eating hot-from-the-oven pie in the firelight with a handsome hubby.

Saturday. Bundled up in warm layers, we drove out to Treinen Farm and saw oh SO cute baby kitties and chickens and horses! We had great adventures in the pumpkin patch, and found the perfect pumpkins. And our pumpkin choices really did reflect our very different personalities...

And we went home and carved our pumpkin treasures.

On Sunday we drove out to Devil's Lake State Park after church and frolicked, (yes, frolicked), in forests painted with pure autumn delight. The leaves were breathtaking. And my husband has the bluest blue eyes. Autumn is a good season for him, because his eyes simply dazzle when surrounded by fall colors. We took countless pictures, and pretended we were pioneers on a journey to Oregon. Nothing, nothing can beat bright autumn rambles, mysterious and imaginative, with my Timmy's hand in mine.

And when, at the end, I regretted wearing ballet flats to go hiking, Timmy carried me.

One Year.

One year ago today, October 13, 2008, Timmy and I decided to get married. (He did not officially propose to me until December 13th -- but that is another magical story.) We had been dating for four months, and suddenly our relationship became perfectly clear and we both knew. Just knew that when we gazed into each other's eyes, forever was staring back at us.

A year ago today, I began planning my wedding, set for June 20, 2009.

One year goes by so, so quickly... and now I am 4 months married, the happiest I have ever been in my entire life.

Now that the Apple Cafe project is mostly over, I will be putting my efforts back into my freelance design work, and highlighting some of my recent wedding designs.

Apple Cafe - Part Five

We are done.

Saturday, October 10th had been marked for months on our calendar with a huge "REVAMP DAY" across the date. And all of our work and efforts took shape and became something real:

 

 

 

As we stood, looking at our creation, Timmy turned to me and said, "Is it everything you hoped it would be?" And, even though my eyes had already picked up on several things that needed tweaking, I smiled back into his sparkling blue eyes and concluded, "Yes, it really, truly is."

I regularly design logos, greeting cards, wedding invitations, and brochures. Individual pieces of something bigger - it is easy to design a postcard that does not necessarily need to blend into a cohesive theme. But, to design an entire identity. To create a whole marketing campaign. To start from absolutely nothing.

I did it. And now I know I can do anything.

To view all of the revamp photos, go to: picasaweb.google.com/rb.obrien7/AppleCafe#

friday favorites - creating treasures

I love to create treasures for those I adore. I love to create something special out of raw materials - to me there is nothing more satisfying. In my mind, I feel like there is absolutely nothing I can not create, if I really put my mind to it. (This confidence does not, however, extend to baking adventures. I can make anything look pretty, but it may not taste good...)

This weekend is my darling husband's birthday. He loves to wear prettily decorated shirts, so I decided to custom make him one.

I bought a pretty, white collared shirt and a packet of iron-on transfer paper. I designed the front, back, and side graphics in a style reminiscent of his very favorite clothing brand, English Laundry.

I then used the iron on transfer paper to transfer the images to the collared shirt. Iron on transfer paper is incredibly easy to use, and really opens up a world of possibilities! (I desperately want a screen printer, Yudu, but until then, iron on transfers work wonders.)

The result? A very happy husband. :)

(shirt design on back)

 

(design on front and cuffs)

Apple Cafe - Part Four

Marketing
When developing a marketing campaign, we determined our different types of customers, and what message would be most applicable to their lives.

Our goal for the first month after the switch was to create awareness of our "new things". In addition to a new look and a new name, we spent hours creating new smoothies, a new line of iced coffee drinks, new advertising, and new promotions.

New Smoothies
Because the original EN smoothie names had been borrowed from a friend, we had to rename all of the Apple Cafe smoothies. I love naming things, and definitely enjoyed some of the name switches. Now, doesn't Raspberry Radiance sound so much tastier than Raspberry Rave?

Additionally, we created three new smoothie recipes. This is not quite as easy as it sounds. Tim is amazing, and spent hours researching popular smoothie flavors, calculating the perfect blend of ingredients. And the result was well worth the effort:

New Iced Coffee
We expanded our coffee line and introduced three tasty new iced coffee drinks:

New Supplements:
Supplement sales account for a huge margin of our profit. Tim researched and found several exciting new supplements to bring in to Apple Cafe.

In addition to bringing in new supplements offerings, we also reorganized the existing supplements, making room for our "shelf talkers". These small signs sit next to the supplements, catching the customers' eyes, and explaining why this particular vitamin or supplement is beneficial. They are meant to entice and create interest. We kept the design simple and clean, with a larger "headline" proclaiming an eye-catching statement.

New Promotions
We spent hours of time and research, coming up with fresh new promotions for Apple Cafe. Our goal was to generate excitement and create interaction with our customers.

New Kids' Menu
Kids love things that are "just for them." EN Organic Smoothie Bar was not at all kid-friendly. No photos, no bright colors. We realized this was a huge market we had not even begun to tap into. So we created a Kid's Menu and Kid's Pick marketing campaign.

EN did offer Kiddie size smoothies, but the kid creativity ended there. So we created an entire Kid's Menu, full of healthy snacks that parents could confidently let kids choose from. For the Kid's marketing, I put a new twist on our apple logo, placing it upside down and sideways on the page. This adds a spark of playfulness and silliness, an element that appeals to children. Bright colors and crisp photography show off our Kid's Menu offerings.

Additionally, we started a new Kid's Pick program. Kid's absolutely love to choose things for themselves. Even if they only have two options. We created options, included a fun toy, and placed it all at kid's eye level.

And every other Tuesday is Kid's Day.

Apple Cafe - Part Three

Photography
Whoever said a picture is worth a thousand words was very, very right. Photographs catch eyes as people hurry by, stirring the appetite and creating a want. Our entire goal is to create that want, that desire for that customer to purchase what we're selling. People may miss words, but they never miss a picture.

And children, well they may not be able to read, but they notice everything. Nothing sells more than children pleading for a treat. But how can they ask for a smoothie, when, to their eyes, those smoothies don't even exist?

We made those smoothies come alive in a grueling 8 hour photo shoot.

When designing the smoothie photography shots, I determined that, to keep a cohesive, modern look, we would shoot the smoothies on a blank white background, with a straight on perspective. Each smoothie was carefully groomed and surrounded by its respective ingredients; strawberries, blueberries, chocolate, etc.

For the rest of the photography, I followed a similar shooting style. Although I did mix up the perspective on some shots, my photography retains the same simplicity throughout.

Sidenote: The best part about food photography? Getting to eat the props. Sometimes I like to pretend that the strawberries and blueberries auditioned for a "fruit modeling" job in my pictures. We picked the very prettiest fruits, shining them up and placing them just so. And sometimes I like to think that these pretty fruit models were just so delighted to live forever in my photographs. Sometimes I think they probably dreamed about this moment their whole fruity lives.

And that is what I thought about as I ate my fruit models.

friday favorites - Paris

Paris is beautiful everywhere. Every building is ornately carved and adorned with statues, every street is lined with cafes and flower stands... and the Parisians are just so, so beautiful,too. It smells beautiful, sounds beautiful, and feels beautiful. The air is heavy with romance and magic, full of a bright expentancy for beautiful happenings. Even their language is beautiful. "Bonjour!" rolls off your tongue so smoothly, like a musical score.

Tim and I spent four beautiful days in Paris on our honeymoon, surrounded by flowers and French. Notre Dame was just as magnificent as the photos promised, and we picnicked on the lawn in front of the Eiffel Tower.

In London I felt like a tourist, in Ireland I was a fairy, but in Paris, I was a princess.

P.S. I had been warned that sometimes the French are a tad unfriendly to bright-eyed American tourists. I did not meet ONE unfriendly Parisian. They are perfectly lovely, and beautiful.

rose card

poster design

flatfoot 56 is coming to Prairie du Chien, WI
I got to design their poster. :)

Apple Cafe - Part Two

Logo
When creating our Apple Cafe logo, my biggest obstacle was to find a way to create a new, fresh logo using an often over-used object: the much loved apple.

I solved this problem by forgoing the typical red, and going with a bright yellow-green shade instead. Also, by halving the apple and exposing a scattering of seeds, I found a way to show off the apple in a new, unusual form. When drawing the apple shape, I drew clean, curved lines, skipping outlines and creating deliberately simple shapes. i wanted the apple in our logo to be able to stand alone, without the need for words.

When adding words to my design, my goal was to maintain the simplicity of the logo. I chose a simple sans-serif typeface. Because this will also be the logo of our Apple Nutrition store, I created a logo that will be easily interchangeable between the two businesses. I placed the word "cafe" in small caps, a contrast from the lowercase letters of "apple". I did this deliberately to create a visual separation of the two words. The Apple Nutrition logo will be exactly the same, only with the word "nutrition" replacing "cafe".

And so, after much research, many sketches and thumbnails, the Apple Cafe logo was finally born:

Design
After creating our logo, everything else began to fall into place. We had a definite color palette, a logo, a sans-serif and script typeface, and had established several repeating design elements:

Menu Board
The visual center of Apple Cafe is the menu board, and everything pretty much revolves around that, as the most prominent design piece.

The biggest, most obvious problems with our current menu board was that there are no pictures, and it is very hard to read. Nothing about it says "smoothies", and it is very dark and boring.

My initial plan was to create something similar structurally wise to the existing piece. But, after much thought and research, we decided to head in another direction. And this is what we created:

It was different from anything we'd seen, but very modern and fresh -- a series of wooden hanging frames, painted Apple Cafe colors, and matted with the much loved Arcadia fabric. We wanted to keep the menu boards themselves very simple and easy to read. So, the added fabric would give the entire piece a bit of pattern, texture, and added visual interest. Also, dividing the sections into different frames gives us the ability to switch out new pictures easily as promotions change.

Now it was just a matter of taking all our ideas and inspiration and making it a reality…

puddle jumping

I can't help it... I love rainy days. There is something about them that makes me feel refreshed and so, so happy. I almost love rainy days more than sunshiney ones. Mysterious and soft, like a kitten padding across a bed, gentle summery rains are so soothing and delightful. The sky lowers and heaven is merely inches away. Colors are vibrant and the whole world is misty and glowing with dampness.

I love it.

Timmy had never gone puddle jumping. This was remedied.

Apple Cafe - Part One

New Look
EN Organic Smoothie Bar is getting a new name and a new look: Apple Cafe. Compliments of yours truly.

EN Organic Smoothie Bar is a smoothie bar/cafe, located in Harbor Athletic Club. It's menu boasts over 20 different smoothie flavors, all divided into handy categories like 'fat burner' or 'protein' or 'just fruit'. Best. Smoothies. EVER.

It also offers delicious coffees, hot chocolate, and teas. Additionally, there are rows of shelves full of the very best nutritional supplements, vitamins, whey protein, etc. And the customer service is amazing.

Have I mentioned that the owner/manager of Apple Cafe is my husband? And I am oh, so proud of him. Yes, he is a 24 year old entrepreneur extraordinaire.

The original design work for the smoothie bar was created before I came along, and there really wasn't any sort of consistent theme, just a bunch of mismatched signage -- and lots of red and black. So, the first step was to determine a cohesive theme for Apple Cafe.

We analyzed our customers and age demographics and determined that we wanted Apple Cafe to emanate a trendy, modern feeling, while still being warm and family oriented. This was especially important, as we realized that our audience ranged from toddler to senior citizen. Harbor Athletic Club is a very family oriented gym, and not overly frequented by hard core muscle builders or professional weight lifters. Our look needed to appeal to men, women, and children. Our goal was to find a way to mesh natural and modern; classy enough to appeal to Middleton adults, but bright and colorful enough to catch the eyes of kids walking by. Our business is located in a gym, so we already have an advantage. Our problem is not how to get the customers IN, but how to catch their attention as they hurry in and out.

New Name
Wait a second... you're probably wondering, why Apple Cafe? Well, we chose the name Apple Cafe for several reasons:
1) Apples have a very healthy reputation, and we want everyone to know that Apple Cafe is healthy, too!
2) Apple Cafe indicates that there is more to our business than just smoothies, with the name pointing to the other items on our cafe menu.
3) We are planning to open a nutrition store named Apple Nutrition in 2010. We want Apple Nutrition and Apple Cafe to be a unified chain, sharing the same name and look.

Inspiration
Sometimes all it takes is one glimpse of an object, brimming with inspiration, and you know, just know that you've finally got it. And by "it" I mean, the completion of all the mismatched design thoughts whirling around your mind.

I found the perfect fabric.

This perfect fabric line is named Arcadia, designed by Moda fabrics. It is deliciously unique and modern. The colors are perfect. And, in an instant, I had the entire Apple Cafe look planned out in my mind.

When I came home, clutching several yards of Arcadia fabric, I proudly showed it to Timmy with a huge smile, full of ideas. He stared at it for a while, but didn't really understand how a pile of fabric could become anything very wonderful. I guess it is something only a designer can understand, although I will try to explain it the way I explained it to Tim.

Every design starts with an idea, and every idea starts with something to inspire it. From that first spark comes a series of sparks and thoughts, but all you need is that first spark to get the chain reaction going. So, when I look at this fabric, I see more than just a bunch of material. I see clean lines and geometric shapes, mixed in with natural silhouettes. I see a beautifully harmonized color palette that perfectly shouts "nature! apples! modern!" I see simple color and shapes, curved lines and repeating patterns. And this is all a starting point, leading to where my designs will eventually end up. I may not even USE the fabric for anything other than inspiration.

But it is a good starting point.

To be continued...

friday favorites

I love the color pink, and I am obsessed with raspberry smoothies and hummus. Autumn speaks to my heart, and flip flops make my toes giggle. Pinklepurr is my favorite fuzzy orange kitty who is currently living with my parents (because her fur makes Timmy sneeze). I love picnics in the sunshine, (especially picnics accompanied by cute husbands and peanut butter sandwiches). I love rainy days and operas, reading and traveling. I love creating and designing. My favorite flowers are forget-me-nots, and my favorite place is home. I have absolutely amazing favorite parents, and two favorite sisters.

But my very favorite favorite is my sweet Timmy. Truly, he is my best friend. We have the most marvelous adventures together, and I get tummy tickles when I look into his amazingly blue, blue eyes. Nothing else in the world matters when he is holding my hand. We are SO happy. And want to know the very best part? The Lord is SO happy, too. He brought us together, and constantly blesses our union with big God smiles from heaven.

(isn't he just, SO darling? I love this boy.)

just because.

I tried and tried to come up with a clever way to introduce myself into the world of blogging. I COULD tell you that I started this blog as an outlet to my creative passions. I COULD mention that I decided blogging would be a good excuse to talk about my darling husband (my all time favorite subject), and keep in touch with beloved friends and family. Or that I fell in love with blogging when I first "met" Design Mom (www.designmom.com). I could even say that a teeny part of me hopes to eventually use my blogging to promote my freelance design business.

But really, as I type this, nobody even knows this blog exists. (Except my previously mentioned darling husband, who I will read this post to later tonight. I love you, sweetest!)

In the end, I created this blog just because. Just because I love to write and share my art. Just because there is something glamorous about having a BLOG. :) Just because I know it will make me happy.

Happily, Becki