I'm A Creating Keepsakes Teen Talent Finalist

A few weeks ago, I was informed that I'm a finalist in the Teen Talent Search offered by Creating Keepsakes magazine! 

Out of 500 entries, a mini album I created was picked in the top 10.  Today is the day voting opens for the contest!

Here's one photo of the album I made. 

It's a collage-like summary of highlights of my life as a 15-year-old.  While the information is from a little ways in the past, I still love this album.  It was so fun to create, and it really gives a snapshot of me.

Now for the really important part.

In order for me to win prizes, I need as many people as possible to vote for me.  You have no idea how much it would mean if you took a few seconds out of your life to vote for my project.  You can vote right here.  When you see the list of entries by clicking on "vote," mine is the 7th one.  I'd so appreciate your vote!  And guess what?  You can vote as many times as you want!  If you have nothing better to do, you can just sit at your computer voting for me all day.  :)  Not that anyone has that kind of time, but feel free to vote more than just once!

Voting is only open until October 8!  So please vote quickly.  If I win anything, I'll make sure to announce it here on the blog once I know.

From Photo to Graphic Art: Follow Up

Remember when I posted about my photo to graphic art project?  That was way back here.

Well, I've decided I want to let you all have those art pieces for free!  Here's what they look like:

You can download them right here!  And, as always, feel free to let me know what you do with them...it would be fun to see. :)  So far as terms of use go, just don't sell these to anyone, please, and keep them for personal use.  Enjoy!

Free Basic Patterns

After three sets of Photoshop brushes, I've now tried my hand at making Photoshop patterns for the first time!  I'd love to share my first pattern set with you.

This pattern set contains four Photoshop patterns in one PAT file: flowers, grid, dots, and lines.  Inside the ZIP document you'll download, you'll also find a handy little text file with my terms of use in it.  That will let you know what you can and can't do with the patterns.  I hope you enjoy these patterns!  You can get them right here.

A Giant Mistake?

Every now and then, I like to pick a logo or design item I see around me, and give my thoughts and opinions on it.  I did that awhile ago with the Sunglass Hut logo, and more recently with the SECCA logo.  Today, I'm going to talk about a logo I've noticed for some time: the Giant logo.  Throughout my growing up years, I've shopped at Giant and consumed food bought at Giant.  It's the kind of grocery store that's a fixture in a lot of towns.  And it used to sport this familiar logo.

I've got to say that, even in spite of the stretched-out text, dated appearance, and hideous beveled edges (that I don't recall being present on all Giant's advertising, actually), this logo is completely amazing.  What could symbolize Giant better than the Big G?  This logo is strong and imposing, and it makes everyone completely believe that Giant is big, confident, and will always take care of their grocery needs.  (For those of you who generally don't have such nerdy thoughts, please bear with me.)

Now, contrast that big, strong, faithful image with the new Giant logo.  Oh, dare I even post this?

Now, in terms of the execution of the logo, this new version is far superior.  The icky beveled edges are long gone, the typography is more clean and simple, and the design is, overall, fresh and modern.  Based on the elements alone, this is a great logo, and I honestly like the design.

But what went horribly wrong in Giant's logo re-design, at least in my opinion, is that they lost the pathos, the emotional appeal.  Now, I know it sounds naive and almost cheesy to trust a logo, but if you think about it, the former logo really was very reliable-looking.  Then look at the new version.  It's ultra-hip, which, to some, constitutes unreliability and a constant need to follow trends - definitely not what you want for a grocery store.  There is something to be said for a grocery store that you can count on, and Giant is one like that.  Their old logo showed that; their new one doesn't.

In addition, the new logo is just plain confusing.  What are those semicircular colored items?  Bowls?  Simplified pieces of fruit?  Random flying UFO's?  If someone knows, please tell me, because I think I'm missing something.  Also, this logo seeks to appeal to the "next generation" of shoppers who are super health-conscious and trendy, but the logo could create potential for losing one set of customers in favor of gaining a new one.

Giant's logo needed a re-design, there's no doubt about that.  But why did the facelift have to be so drastic?  The Big G logo could've easily be modernized a bit (perhaps the colors changed slightly to reflect more modern hues, and the typography updated) without totally changing the design.

What I'm learning more and more, and what the Giant logo progression illustrates, is that logo design - and graphic design in general - isn't all about how the logo looks or even how hard it was to make it, but what the logo or design item says.  And they can say a lot!  Don't forget...a picture speaks a thousand words.

Okay, now that I've given my opinion, it's time for discussion!  What do you think?  Was the Giant logo re-design a brilliant marketing plan or a giant mistake?

Giveaway Winners

Thank you all for entering my very first giveaway.  It's such a fun thing to do.  Now, I was having so much fun reading all your responses that I decided to pick two winners, not one.  Yes, yes, yes!  Two people reading this will get $5 Starbucks gift cards.

Do you want to know who they are?  Maybe?

Well, Random.org told me two numbers... and those numbers are...

Which means that the two winners are...

Mariah and Chichi!  Congratulations, girls!  Please contact me with your mailing addresses so I can send you your prizes.

This was such a fun giveaway!  Thank you all for participating!

Giveaway Ends Soon

If you haven't entered the Starbucks card giveaway yet, now is the time!  The giveaway ends tonight at 11:59:59PM.  The winner will be announced tomorrow.

Free Little Doodle Brushes

I'm finally out with another brush set for Photoshop!  For all you Photoshop-ers out there, enjoy this little present from me.

You might recognize some of those little doodles from the recent fun design projects I've posted on the blog lately.  I want to share them with you!  In the ZIP file you can download, you'll get a Photoshop ABR file, as well as a text document with my terms of use.  I'd appreciate it if you'd take a second to look over those.  You can download the brush set right here.  Brushes are a great thing to add to any little fun Photoshop project - I like using brushes I've downloaded from other websites, too!  Sometimes they can even look neat on top of a photo.  So feel free to play around with them!  If you do anything fun with them, I'd love to see, so feel free to share it with me via email: carrie[at]carrieannedesign[dot]com.

Friday Finds: Amazing Staircases

Super creative staircase ideas to be found here.  This one's my favorite.

HT: Write. Click. Scrapbook.

Answering Your Questions

Okay, so now that you all have asked some questions over at this post, I'm going to answer them!  I will go in chronological order of when I received them.

Q: Do you have a free stuff section with all of your free downloads in one place?
A: I didn't, but now I do!  You can find it up on the menu bar by clicking the "freebies" button.  And I have some more freebies in mind to share with you all, so keep your eyes peeled.

Q: When do you do most of your design work?  (Morning, lunch break, evening after school is done...)
A: I do most of the work in the evenings and on weekends.  Occasionally, I take some time for design work during the day, but usually that time is occupied with schoolwork.  Generally, the same goes for blogging.  When I have the time, I stockpile posts for future days.

Q: Do you ever come up with an idea while you are out and don't write it down, and then can't remember it later?
A: Good question!  I can't remember a specific time when this happened, but then again, I usually don't think about design ideas when I'm out running around.  In terms of finding inspiration around me, though, I think it probably would be helpful to write things down or keep a camera handy.  I did this on a trip to Ikea, and I actually found some neat inspiration!

Q: I have a question on the music post you did.  How did you make the names into the links like that?  I am about to add a music page to my own blog, and I've been trying to figure out how.
A: Oh, this is one of my favorite things about blogging - links!  In my post editor, there's a button along the top that says "link" with blue underlining on it.  If you highlight the text you want linked, and then click on that button, a box will come up where you can type in the link.  There's probably a way to do it with HTML code if you don't have that button, but I don't know how that works.  I'd Google search it. :)  Oh, and about the Grooveshark links, if you click on a little arrow icon on the song box (assuming you're going from your "now playing" menu), there should be a button that says "share," and then one that says "friends."  If you click those buttons, another box will come up that gives you the direct links.  I hope that helps!

Design + Memories

In a big way, digital scrapbooking was my avenue into an interest in graphic design.  I started doing paper scrapbooking about five years ago, and as I explored what my computer software could do more and more, I began to enjoy scrapbooking's digital cousin as well.  Even though I have a graphic design business now, I still like doing design "just for fun," and digital scrapbooking is one of the ways I can do that.  I thought I'd share a few recent pages.  Please excuse any typos that you see...they are a result of Photoshop not having a spell-checker and of rasterizing type layers too soon. :)

I made this page about a little friend of mine named Carter.  He is super fun.

And he has an adorable little sister named Amelia, who is the subject of another recent layout...

I also made this page about a summer visit to the county fair.

And here's one about my recent adventures with self-portraits.

Notice the prominent use of red and turquoise in the last two layouts.  I get the feeling that maybe those are some of my favorite colors.  Do you? 

And here's one more scrapbook page, just for kicks, about the cool signage in Nashville, TN.

Most of the items I used on these pages were from Kitschy Digitals, my favorite digital scrapbook shop.  For any of you font nerds out there, the ones I used on these layouts are CK Becky, Georgia, Hypatia Sans Light, Lane - Narrow, Chunk Five, Another Typewriter, and Daniel.

A Moving Logo

Take a look at this logo for a couple seconds, and consider what your response is.  Do you like it?  Do you not like it?  Why?

It would be extremely difficult not to notice something very pronounced about this logo.  It moves!  Can you believe that?

Now, when I first saw this logo in a Brand New post, I thought it was outrageous.  A moving logo?  That walks all over every established archetype of what logos and brand identities have been over the past several decades.  How could SECCA (which is an art gallery in North Carolina) be so audacious as to challenge the very standard of what logo design is?

Then I actually read the Brand New article.

I was pretty shocked to find that it was a very positive review of the logo.  And as I read more and looked at the logo more, I decided that I actually liked it very much.  Yes, it does challenge the established archetype of logo design.  But maybe that's not a bad thing.  Here are a few reasons why I like this logo.

• Color.  The green shades are pleasant, fresh, and modern.  They compliment the font choice well, and they also seem to represnt SECCA's mission as a contemporary art gallery.
• Typography.  The font choice is simple and memorable.  Sometimes, basic sans serif fonts like the ones used on this logo can appear bland or boring, but the designer of this logo really used the simplicity of the font to their advantage.
• Motion.  Even though this was the element that turned me off at first, I've come to really like the motion.  Just like the color and typography, the animated element of the logo is very fresh.  I've never seen a moving logo before.  Also, with the increasing domination of the internet, maybe moving logos are going to become the new trend.  Stationary logos, even though they're the norm and can be very well-designed, are at the most basic level, leftovers from the days when all we had was print design.  Now, websites are seeping into every corner of marketing, and maybe that calls for a new kind of logo.
• Flexibility.  Amazingly, this moving logo actually still looks great when it's forced to be still.  It still retains the fresh, modern, look, and the irregular character spacing makes it all the more interesting.  Check out this picture from the Brand New blog.

So, what are your thoughts on the moving logo?   Or what are your thoughts on my thoughts on the moving logo? :)  I'd love to hear, so comment away!

This post is inspired by the article on Brand New about the SECCA logo design.  That article was written by Clinton Duncan.

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P.S. Don't forget to enter yesterday's Starbucks card giveaway!  Also, you can still ask questions on this post, and I'll answer them in a couple days.

It's Giveaway Time

I'm doing a giveaway.  And you could be the one to take home...
a $5 Starbucks gift card!  (Commence yelling and cheering.)

You know, I wish I could give away a million dollar Starbucks gift card, but since that's clearly not possible, $5 will have to do.

Seriously, though, I really like you all, my blog readers.  And I want to say thank you for reading my blog and commenting and being very nice.

You can enter up to two times.  Here's how:

• For your first entry, just leave a comment below telling me your favorite Starbucks drink (or lack thereof, if you don't have one yet).  You don't have to have a blog or a Google account or anything to comment - it's fine to comment as "anonymous" and then sign your name.
• For a second entry, go follow my blog with the gadget on the right side, and come back and leave a second comment telling me that you followed my blog.  If you're already following my blog, you just have to leave a second comment letting me know that.  For new followers, you do have to have a Google account to follow my blog - if you don't have one yet and would like to follow me, I believe you can sign up for a new account by clicking on the "follow" button in the gadget.  Google is so smart that it should take you through all the required steps.

The giveaway closes on Saturday, the 25th, at 11:59:59 PM.  After that, I'll pick a random winner and announce it here on the blog!  Stay tuned!  And comment and/or follow for a chance to win the gift card!

Sweet Sixteen Party Favors

Recently, I had the opportunity to design party favors for Kathryn's 16th birthday party.  It was a fun project, especially since it gave me a chance to try something that I hadn't designed for a client before.  For the party favors, Kathryn gave her guests a handmade bag full of mini chocolate bars, and my job was to design candy wrappers for the chocolate bars and a tag for the gift bag.  Kathryn wanted the colors to be pastel tones, especially pink, purple and yellow, so that's what I went for in my designs.  Here's the tag Kathryn chose.

The candy wrapper had different font choices and a different style, but the colors were the same, which made it work!  The swirl is something I drew myself using Adobe Illustrator.

The wrapper stretches out far enough to wrap completely around the little candy bars to give them a more personalized look.  It was great to be able design the party favors for Kathryn's party!

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P.S. You can still ask me any questions you want by clicking on this post!  I'd love to hear what you have to say!

Christian Music I'm Enjoying

This is just a quick little list of some music that's been encouraging my soul lately.  I hope some of these songs will encourage you, too.  Each song title is linked to Grooveshark, where you can listen to them for yourself.

Soon | Hillsong United
Lead Me to the Cross | Chris and Conrad
You Alone Can Rescue | Matt Redman
Shadowfeet | Brooke Fraser
Let It Go | Tenth Avenue North
Desert Song | Hillsong
I'm Letting Go | Francesca Battistelli
Reign in Us | Starfield

Friday Finds: Camera Lens Mug

I love this.

HT: Write. Click. Scrapbook.

Ask Me Anything

Time for a little Q & A here, folks.

Here's how it works:

• You ask me questions in the comment section about anything you want, design-related or not.  Or, if you would prefer, you could email me (carrie[at]carrieannedesign[dot]com) or contact me with the form.  Just know that your question might be posted on a blog post.  I won't put any names with questions, though, just for privacy's sake.
• I will do a post answering some (if not all) of the questions you ask!

It's that simple!  Are you ready?  Okay, go!

From Photo to Graphic Art

I had the idea to use some photos I've taken as inspiration for graphic art, so I tried it!  Here's one photo I started with.

It's a photo of a railroad crossing signal with a kind of vintage feel to it.  I tried to translate some of the elements of the photo into graphic art in this piece.

I'll admit right off the bat that this piece of graphic art is a little bit random and a kind of...interesting collage and conglomeration of things!  But hopefully, you can see little glimpses of the photo in the piece, like the blue sky vs. the blue background, the criss-cross design on the graphic art piece that is similar to the pattern on the yellow box in the right side of the photo, and the X shape that mimics the railroad crossing sign.  I also put in the mustard yellow boxes in hopes that they'd look similar to the speakers (or whatever they are...) in the photo.

Okay, next up... this photo I took in Nashville, TN.  I just loved the color combination of all the newspaper boxes, and also the colorful wall.

I used a similar background idea on the graphic design item I created, and I tried to incorporate the colors of the newspaper boxes into the multi-colored dots on the art piece.

And yes, that flower pattern is the same as what's on my current blog header.  Just getting extra mileage out of things there.  But back to the design... other than the dots and the striped background, I pretty much just added the words in to match.  There wasn't any real correlation in the photo for the words, but that's okay. :)

My next piece comes from a closeup shot I took of the fringe of a scarf.  I love this shot because it was one of the first times I really experimented with focus effects after I got my new camera.

I used a pretty similar overall color scheme on the design project, but I used a minor magenta color for the background.

I also drew little doodles that are wispy looking like the fringe on the scarf, and then added in words in the blank space.  The composition of the graphic design piece is actually pretty similar to the photo.

The last photo I used for inspiration is a beach photo.

The resulting graphics project is a pretty loose interpretation of the photo - it has a similar set of color choices, though.

I like the colors in the photo, though, and I think they give the graphic design piece a soothing feeling.

This ended up being a really fun little self-challenge!  I'd love to hear your thoughts on my designs!  Do you have any comments or suggestions for me?  Just leave a comment and I'll be thrilled to hear from you.

Martin Lloyd-Jones on Thinking

Tim Challies blogged this quote from Martin Lloyd-Jones recently, and I heard about it through a post on Justin Taylor's blog earlier this week.  I thought it was a very insightful analysis of what part thinking should play in faith and in the Christian life.

Faith according to our Lord’s teaching in this paragraph, is primarily thinking; and the whole trouble with a man of little faith is that he does not think. He allows circumstances to bludgeon him. … We must spend more time in studying our Lord’s lessons in observation and deduction. The Bible is full of logic, and we must never think of faith as something purely mystical. We do not just sit down in an armchair and expect marvelous things to happen to us. That is not Christian faith. Christian faith is essentially thinking. Look at the birds, think about them, draw your deductions. Look at the grass, look at the lilies of the field, consider them. … Faith, if you like, can be defined like this: It is a man insisting upon thinking when everything seems determined to bludgeon and knock him down in an intellectual sense. The trouble with the person of little faith is that, instead of controlling his own thought, his thought is being controlled by something else, and, as we put it, he goes round and round in circles. That is the essence of worry. … That is not thought; that is the absence of thought, a failure to think.  - Martin Lloyd Jones

This quote speaks to so many things, at least it seems to in my opinion.  It has something to say about complacency, my thought life, worry, how to apply academic skills to my Christian walk, and what faith is.  It's definitely a "keeper" quote.

Favorite Design-Related Websites

I thought you might enjoy some of my recommendations for design-related websites.  I'll do a couple different categories to keep things organized.

Photo printing
RitzPix | The quality is unbeatable!  This is the company I use for most of my photo printing.
Scrapbook Pictures | I just used this company to order 12x12 photo collages.  The prices were the lowest I'd found anywhere, and the quality was still good.  I highly recommend it for large photos.

Photoshop brushes
Brusheezy.com | Lots of various Photoshop brushes!
MyPhotoshopBrushes.com | Another site with lotes of brushes.

Fonts
Dafont.com | Great selection of free fonts!
FontSquirrel.com | All free, commerical-use fonts.

Tutorials
Adobe TV | Comprehensive free tutorials for Adobe programs.  I haven't seen any for Photoshop Elements, but this website has learning resources for the all the Adobe programs I have.  I haven't used it very much so far, but it's a great resource.
Jessica Sprague's Photoshop Fridays | A great free resource for learning Photoshop Elements.  It's mostly geared towards digital scrapbooking techniques, but it's great practice for any Elements user, even if you're not interested in digital scrapbooking.

Online tidbits
SurveyMonkey.com | This is what I used to create my survey.  It's easy and effective!
MediaFire.com | A great website for file sharing.  It's what I use for my freebies.

Anything else you're wondering about that you'd like me to talk about?  Or, what are your recommendations for these things?  I'd love to hear - just leave me a comment!

For Fun Design

I just got a new bulletin board for my room that I really love a lot.  I've been playing around with some design things to put put up on my bulletin board, and I thought you might like to see!

I made this using screenshots from the Converse website.  I really like Converse shoes, so I knew I wanted pictures of them on my bulletin board.

I also made this little type-based design with a Scripture verse.

I made this tag just for fun.  It's kind of based on another gift tag I had seen.

And finally, I made this to remind me to take my eyes off myself and my circumstances and think about God.

I really like the red in this one (red is a favorite color of mine!), but I'm still not sure about the purposely unreadable words in the background.  On one hand, I like the way they look, but on the other hand, it seems a bit distracting that you can't read them.  What do you think of the "look up" design?  Also, what do you think of my other little creations?

Two Posts in One Day

...but this one will be a short one.  Please go read one of yesterday's posts at Justin Taylor's blog.  It's about C.S. Lewis' advice on writing, and it's brief but very good.  It's a great, helpful summary of many important characteristics of what good writing is.

The Magic Green Bar of Manual Mode

Ellie told me something recently that is so amazing.  She told me the secret of how to shoot photos in manual mode, and the secret is what I'm calling "the magic green bar."

So, do you want to know the secret, too? 

Of course I'll tell you.  But not until I explain what manual mode is...for those of you who may not know.  Basically, manual is a camera mode (symbolized with an "M," quite predictably) that lets you choose all of your own settings, namely shutter speed and aperture.  Those things are just a little confusing, so I'll send you over to The Pioneer Woman to learn about them.  She has a great series on what shutter speed and aperture are.

Okay, so now that you know what manual mode is, I'm almost ready to tell you about the magic green bar.  But first, before you get into shooting manual mode, you need to actually set your camera to manual mode (surprise, surprise!).  If your camera is capable of shooting manual, you can change the mode to manual on the round dial thing on the top of your camera.  If you don't have a top dial thing, chances are that you can't shoot manual.  I'm very sorry.  But assuming you can shoot manual, the next step is picking an aperture.  If you don't know what that means exactly or what aperture you want, that's okay - just pick a medium-sized number, like, say f/4.0.  If you don't know how to pick an aperture number, I'd recommend checking that handy dandy manual that came with your camera, because different cameras have different ways of picking apertures.

Okay, now that you've got your aperture number (we'll call it an f-stop because it sounds cooler), you can learn the secret of the magic green bar.  It works like this.  You look through your camera's viewfinder and hold the shutter button down halfway to focus.  Do you see some green lines and numbers and stuff in the viewfinder?  No?  Try again.  Hold the shutter button down, and look for green stuff.  Found it?  Good.

Now, for what all that green stuff means.  You should see a green horizontal bar.  Do you see that?  Along the bar (or line) are little dashes.  Do you see them, too?  Okay.  Now look underneath the horizontal line.  You should see a little upward-pointing arrow.  This one is really important.  Found the arrow?  Great.  Now what you need to do to pick the shutter speed (which makes the settings "right" to take a picture), is change the shutter speed until the green arrow is right in the middle of the green bar.  Ususally, you change the shutter speed by rotating your camera's little wheel.  If you don't know what little wheel I'm talking about, or your camera doesn't have a little wheel, you should probably check your camera's manual, since different cameras also have different ways of picking shutter speeds.

Okay, now that you've got your aperture set and your shutter speed picked using the magic green bar, all you have to do is - click - press the shutter button to take a picture! 

That sounds easy enough, right?

Well...I've got to tell you from experience that it takes practice.  I'm still practicing, and a lot of my pictures don't turn out right when I try to use manual mode.  The magic green bar is great, but it doesn't always make your pictures exactly the way you want.  Sometimes you have to play around.  Also, it's so easy to forget you're on manual mode and take a picture with the wrong settings.  I've done this before, and ended up with some pretty cosmic results.

But I'm learning, and practicing, and practicing, and practicing some more.  So hopefully it'll get to the point one day where manual will be automatic.

Friday Finds: Converse Designer

You can make some yourself.

It's pretty fun.

Free Art for You

Remember when I posted about Ikea and about the art I made based on some Ikea designs?  Well, I've got news for you.  You can have all the Ikea-inspired art I made for your very own, to use for whatever personal purposes you want!  Here's a quick review of what I made:

You can download a ZIP file with all three art pieces if you click right here.  Please keep in mind that this is for personal use only - I don't want you selling these to people, please. :)  But feel free to do whatever you want with them for your own use - print them out for walls or bulletin boards, make notecards, etc.  If you do something with it and want to show me or let me know, please feel free!  You can use the contact form, email (carrie[at]carrieannedesign[dot]com), or comment on the blog.

P.S. I also want to give credit to Joanne Brisebois, who designed the gray frame in the back of the number art piece.  My art piece is offered for free download with permission from her.

Self Portrait Tips

Taking self portraits always seemed like a really hard thing to me.  I would see amazing self portraits by other photographers, and wonder how in the world they got their eyes in focus, and how they got the photo to look so...well, so much like someone else took it!  Taking self portraits was an unknown zone for me.

Then my friend, Jalynn, suggested that she and I each take a self portrait and put them together side by side.  At first, I wasn't so sure about this idea, since I really didn't know how to take a self portrait.  But Jalynn helped me out, and gave me a couple tips.  Here are the things she told me:

• Stand or sit in front of a window.
• Hold the camera out in front of you at about nose level.
• Try to focus the camera on your eyes.

So I tried it.  And even though most of my self portraits were way out of focus, at least I took some, and I've been enjoying experimenting with self portraits a little bit after that.  I also found a few of my own tips.

• If you have a windowsill on your window, you can set the camera right on that.
• Usually, you can see a reflection of yourself in the front of your camera lens.  What you see in the lens is roughly what you'll get in the picture.
• Just like any type of photography, take lots and lots of pictures.  The more you take, the more chances you'll have of getting an in focus one. 
• I seemed to like the results better at a lower f/stop, perhaps f/1.8, f/2.2 or thereabouts.

Here are a few examples of self portraits I've taken.  Most of them are out of focus, which is why I made them thumbnail size so you can't see how unfocused they are!  All of these were taken in one little 10-minute or so "session," and this is probably only about half of what I took.

I used my Canon EOS Rebel XS and my 50mm f/1.8 lens to take all the pictures in this post.  They're all sooc (unedited).

Business Cards

The first person to contact me and ask me to design something after my business officially opened was Gary Clark.  He asked me to design business cards for him, and since he lives in Japan, he needed a card design that was in English on one side, and Japanese on the other side.  This was definitely different than anything I'd designed before, but I'm so glad I took on the challenge! 

Gary requested that my design reflect the friendship between the USA and Japan, so my idea for the design consisted of the abbreviation USA paired with the Japanese letters for "Japan."

The back followed a similar pattern, but the colors were reversed.

Even though Gary liked the design, there were a few things that needed to be changed for cultural sensitivity reasons.  The colors were made a little less intense by changing the black to blue, a few of the characters needed to be corrected, the logo for Gary's work needed to be incorporated, and the graphics on the left were changed a little bit, too, so that both countries' names are in English on one side, and then in Japanese on the other side.

And the other side of the card...

The second design ended up being just right, and I'm so glad that Gary likes his business card!  It was a great and very educational project for me, and I'm happy I was able to work on it.

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And a quick little postscript - I now have a follwers gadget on my blog!  Scroll down, and you'll see it on the right sidebar.  You can follow me with your Google account if you want.  And I'd really love it if you did, because right now, I only have one follower (hi, Rachel! Thanks for being the first one!).