I drafted this post earlier today, but given the recent news, it seemed fitting to include this quote from The Genius, himself.

Thank you to all for your support for more than three amazing years with Liz Ink & Paper. It has been a wonderful ride growing this little business and developing as a designer through clients’ amazing ideas. I would never have been pushed to try half of the things I have tried if it weren’t for you all.

I am eternally grateful for the last three years’ experience. And I am looking forward to what is next. And with that, I have an announcement.

I am officially booked with all of the projects I can handle through the end of 2011 and while I have committed to a couple of projects for early next year, I will be closing the virtual doors at Liz Ink & Paper going forward.

I don’t see this step as a sad one – I will continue to create both in my day job and in other side projects, some of which I will post here from time to time. In short, I/we have several goals for 2012, many career-oriented. Those efforts deserve all of my free time and attention at this point and it is a shift in focus I have been anxious to make for some time.

So again, thank you. Thank you so much. Here’s to achieving goals in the coming year!

Yes, I did have design in the front of my brain given I was in Chicago last weekend for a design conference. But even if I hadn’t, you can’t deny the colorfully simplistic and sophisticated design carried throughout the Sprinkles brand.

I have longed to visit this cupcake hot spot for quite some time. Sprinkles is the OG of cupcake-centric shops. The closest location to us is on Walton in downtown Chicago. I made it my mission to visit last weekend.

I arrived and stood in a line that wrapped outside the bakery’s doors. (And believe me, once you’ve tasted the cupcakes, you wouldn’t hesitate to wait in line, either!) Looking at the funky circle design crawling up the storefront and the simple script font of “Sprinkles” covering the storefront window, I was instantly anxious to see more inside.

While taking in the visuals of their brand, my first interaction with Sprinkles came with the friendly and attentive employee whose sole mission was to keep the waiting line happy. He handed out little menu cards of the day’s offerings (also denoted with the signature circles). What a great hook – get customers puzzling over which of the zillions of choices they should go with, instead of focusing on the ten to fifteen minute wait to get in the air conditioned space.

Now, Sprinkles could have sent some mopey teenager out to pass these out and make no eye contact or say a word – but no, your first exposure to the company’s people is someone peppy and upbeat standing in front of that fun circle-filled storefront, handing you a card with too many fun circle-denoted choices to pick from. In short, your brand awareness radar is already thinking – “ooh, circles = sprinkles = happy and delicious and good experience”. Not bad for not having yet set foot in the door!

Once inside the pearly gates – er, bakery doors – I just about began to drool. Can you blame me? (Notice how many of the cupcakes have the two-colored circles from their logo in the middle? Love it!)

Torn between too many choices, I went with a classic – vanilla. I am a LOVER of sprinkles, so I was thrilled that – true to their name – every little inch of my cupcake was covered in them.

I’ve eaten my share of cupcakes, but this was hands-down, the BEST cupcake I’ve ever had! So I suppose you could say that was the final impression in a series of many that will keep me coming back to Sprinkles for the very best cupcakes! Sadly, I can’t get them here at home in Des Moines — good thing they offer the mixes (well branded as well!) to make your own any time you like.

Introducing the new look of Megan Clausen Photography of West Des Moines, Iowa!

My friend, Megan, is an amazing and talented photographer (and all around artist and person!) who was looking to hone in on the essence of her brand and get it captured in a logo and some styling she could apply to other collateral materials. I have to say, this was a bit easier to do than with other clients, because I already knew her. When I think of Megan, I think of colors, beautiful doodly handwriting, optimism, extreme creativity, and a bright and sunny personality. Yes, the logo is about her business, but her business is built on HER and HER WORK, so it made sense that the branding reflect Miss Megan, herself.

Super creative, she gave me an idea of some color combinations to try and sent me the files to a couple of fonts she wanted to play with. She even doodled a few things in a notebook for me to look at. The evolution of a look is always fascinating to me – and the journey of the Megan Clausen Photography logo was no different! Let’s take a look at the process…

Sometimes you just need someone to give you some ideas to start from, and then you can figure out what you’re looking for. It’s hard to know what you like until you see something that you don’t…or you see something you DO like, but want to try it in a new way. Such was the case here. I sent Megan these initial jumping-off points, and asked her to think about a tagline – how she would describe her business, her photography style, her clientele.

The simple camera doodle and the shutter were both a “yes” and she sent me a couple of fonts she wanted to try. It was at this point that Megan shared that she might like to incorporate a play on a rainbow of colors – as in the photography industry (and others I would assume) displaying the color wheel is a signal to GLBT potential clients that you are available for business. It wasn’t essential to Megan, as she said she could find other ways to work that message in through her materials, but it was another idea/direction to think about as we moved forward.

Ooh we were starting to get close. (Or so we thought!) We narrowed down quite a bit from the above options, and tweaked the hues to her preferred shades of green, blue, etc. To play off the handwriting fonts, I tried adding a sketchier edging to the shutter pieces…

It was at this point, we thought we had it. There would be a couple “versions” (depending on if she needed a more square, or more rectangular application) but overall, we were there! Then, Megan shared the logo with a friend, who immediately said… “wow, that looks a lot like the Picasa logo…” Augh! This had never occurred to EITHER of us, but sure enough, we checked it against the Picasa logo (Google’s photo editing software company) and sure enough, it was AWFULLY similar. Just a little close for comfort, and we certainly didn’t want people to think we had tried to copy it!

On the flipside, I certainly didn’t feel like Picasa owned the idea of a shutter altogether – hello, it’s the essence of a camera! So I tried some variations….

Finally, we sat down together, and played with new color combinations for the shutter. Red and blue, red and white. orange and turquoise. After a while, no matter WHICH colors we used, it continued to look like a life preserver. We decided that it was the full color spectrum that made the shutter effect so cool, so we abandoned it altogether. And lonnnnng story short, we went in an entirely different direction, inspired by one of Megan’s many doodles, and here you have it folks! TA DA!!!

It officially passes my own little test of a good logo, (she can use just the little red element if need be, or use a version without her tagline and only the biz name), and after we both spent a lot of time picking at the final layout, we were both in love with the final product. I’m very happy from a design standpoint, and she’s happy because it’s HER – the true measure of success!

This won’t be the last you’ll hear me speak of Megan…I’m anxiously awaiting a photo session with her in August and will have amazing pictures to share!

I recently came across the above logo example, and it was a perfect complement to a post I’ve been writing in my head for a while. Above is a logo designed by Malcolm Grear Designers, for their client, Veterans Memorial Auditorium.

For you design geeks out there, I’m certainly not telling you anything you don’t know. But if you’re even thinking about starting a business and, like most shoestring budget entrepreneurs, are thinking of designing yourself a logo, let me give you a couple of tips to build maximum strength and impact into your company’s visual signature. After all, you want to come up with something you love now and will love for many years to come as you build your brand, and you want it to work for you and reach your customers, even when you aren’t there.

There are many out there who can speak volumes more about this than I can, but to me, in my own experience, a logo should be two things:

#1. A logo should be CLEAN. (Note: This does NOT mean boring.)

A logo is just that – a logo. Not a whole brochure of everything about you and what you do. It doesn’t have to say and show everything that you might mention in your company’s elevator pitch. Use an image that relates to your industry, or a totally abstract one that is unique and all your own, but keep it simple, include the name, or the first letter of the company – whatever works for you. Even include a tagline that you can use in certain applications, and leave off on others. For example, a wordy tagline like, “Showing you how much we care” might look great under the logo on your letterhead, or better yet, on a billboard where space and scope is abundant. But try and wrap all that text AND the logo image around a skinny Bic pen, and it will be wayyyy too much (not to mention the type won’t be legible). So, if you do have a logo with more than one or two elements, make yourself a couple of versions so you have options for various applications.

#2. A logo should be VERSATILE.

Aside from having elements you can take or leave depending on where you’re using it, your logo should work no matter “how” you use it. Everyone (including me) originally wants to design a logo on a huge blank canvas and in full color. In most cases, this is how you’ll use your logo – in color and on a reasonably sized space.

But let’s say your company sponsors an event and the event wants to put your logo in a pamphlet as a thank you gesture…and the pamphlet is in black/white printing only…and your logo will be next to zillions of others, so it will only have about one square inch of space on the page. Get my drift?

A solid logo needs to be sizable and look just as sexy as a thumbnail as it does on the big four-foot sign in front of your store. Furthermore, that flashy color version needs to have enough contrast that the design still translates when printed in greyscale on a crappy black and white copier. We can’t always control how and where our brand identity is reproduced, so taking these steps with your logo is the best way to protect your brand.

So there’s my little two cent ditty on logo creation. And speaking of…I’ve been finalizing one myself this week. Will be back soon with a post to share the process and, of course, the final product!

Meet Buddy, my latest client!

One of the driving factors for me when designing is the push I get from “out of the norm” requests from clients. People have such amazing ideas, it never ceases to make me laugh, smile, or squeal with glee at what they can come up with! It still kind of amazes me that people trust me to help them bring their ideas to life.

This request is a perfect example. My friend, Micole, and her husband, Jason, have a Scottish terrier, Buddy, who they openly claim is like a child to them. Hehe. How can you not love this face?

While they don’t know Buddy’s actual birthday (circa April 2010), they have decided to celebrate the day they adopted him, one year later. I love people who use any excuse to host a party – and this one is going to be a blast! Just take a look at what Buddy’s super-creative mom sent me for inspiration. Gotta love inspiration boards!

Playing off of Buddy’s Scottish heritage, Micole’s goal was to host a get-together for Buddy’s four-legged pals, as well as their respective humans, who could participate in the pub-inspired celebration. Here is what we came up with!

Happy partying, Buddy!

When my oh-so-creative friend, Amy, asked me to design a shower invite based on some paper plates she had purchased, I was so excited. Look at all those fun colors and possibilities!

She had already worked out the verbiage (a play on baby’s last name, Blum – pronounced “bloom”) and how cute is their idea to compile a playlist of lullabies for Mom to play in the nursery? Love it. In the end, here’s what we came up, complete with a seal that she printed at home on full sheet labels then cut out with a circle punch.

Don’t you love those little striped straws in the background?! They’re one of my latest hostess obsessions, from Shop Sweet Lulu. I’m off to order more colors!