Extra Black

I am happy to announce that the website for Brandon’s Buddies Foundation has officially launched! I hope you’ll click on over and check it out – and maybe even feel compelled to purchase a stuffed animal buddy to help a child battling cancer.

It has been a really long time since I last updated and I’m sure that at this point, no one is really checking. Between raising our daughter (who just turned 1, by the way) to several pretty cool projects, things have been pretty busy. I will momentarily be adding some of these to this so-called blog. Check back in a bit for updates!

The Addy Awards Gala has come and gone and I am pleased to announce that my design for Appalachian Hardwood received a ‘Silver’ in the competition! It’s always nice to be recognized for your hard work and I’m happy to have received this honor.

It’s that time of year again; a time when we are surrounded by the eye-candy of the season. From Christmas decorations to houses brightly lit with festive lights and holiday yard statues to slick advertisements for multimillion dollar corporations; we are bombarded with sights and sounds everywhere we turn.

In the midst of all of the over-stimulation, the designer in me gets excited and looks forward to this time of year. I can’t wait to see all of the patterns that were created for wrapping paper, the holiday cards, the signage, posters for local holiday productions…all of the things begging for attention but in a quiet manner.

The world is a playground at this time of year and I can’t wait to get out there and enjoy it!

There are many differences between designing for print and web. While there are things about web design that I truly enjoy, my heart will always belong to print. There is nothing like creating something that you can hold, feel and physically interact with….oh, and the texture of paper! The subtle nuances of a lightly textured paper or soft sheen of a smooth paper – the substrate alone can elevate the most simple design from great to extraordinary. Not to come down on web too hard though, there are things about designing for digital delivery that just can’t be matched in print. Depth, for example. The screen allows us to reach levels of depth in our designs that we just can’t mimic with ink. That’s never really meant  much to me, though. I have never been the designer that works with depth so much.

Maybe it’s the fact that it has been a little while since I last designed something for print, but in this moment, I am really missing paper.