The Warjris

When Freda approached me sometime middle of last year to design her wedding invitation cards, I was ecstatic! Not only I get to design my first wedding invitation appointment, but I also get to design it for my good friend! How cool is that :)

On the design, Freda already knew what she wanted: ’simple’ and ‘elegant’. She was still deciding between blue and/or green for the card then, so I saved lots of pictures that had awesome blue and green shades to ‘pick’ colors later.

The green & blue shade that I used for Freda’s cards

Since she didn’t have any preference on the size of the card, I suggested an A5 size (half of an A4 paper), where we can open vertically (top-bottom). No doubt it would have been awesome to have a custom size, but nonetheless the main reason behind the A5 size is convenience.

Since she planned on printing her own cards, Freda can print two wedding cards (back-to-back) on 1 A4 paper, simply by changing the feature in the printing options ‘2 pages per sheet’.With a paper cutter, she can conveniently slide the paper right to the middle, slice it and on to the next one (though in reality, she cut her cards using a pen knife! Whaaaaaaaaatt).

(side track: if you send a design to an established printing press, you are charged more for having a custom-sized paper. But not if you’re using standard size, like A4, A5, A3, etc.)

The wedding invitation card

When Freda mentioned elegance, I knew that the font will play a huge role in exuding this element. When both of the couple’s names were capitalized, by using the right font (in this case, GeoSansLight), the lean-ness of the letters were fully taken advantaged (in a positive way) to the max!

She also mentioned on having ‘freda heart vaughn’ at the front cover. So instead of having GeoSansLight (I did try…but it looks weird with the love-shape, tsk), I used the beloved Century Gothic to emphasize the circular perimeter of the letters. It worked well and it totally matched with the love-shape, smacked right in the middle! Gives a little ‘awwww’ feeling, don’t you think?

The type of paper is the shiny-kind, so that made the card looked even more elegant. Oh hey, Freda designed her own RSVP cards, how cool is that! :)

When it came to the wedding program, Freda had something in mind which involved 3 layers of papers (one on top of the other); cover, wedding program and thanks.

Click to see a bigger version

and it became like this…

Taken by Nathan Loo Photography

I also had an opportunity to make the couple’s video, shown during the Reception. It was my first time doing a video for a wedding reception (and probably my last, hahahaha…I’m not cut out for videos!).

I’m glad that I was able to help in the graphic design area for Freda and Vaughn’s wedding. The fact that I get to do something that I love for people that I adore is just pure blessing! :)

Hope this will not be my last wedding design :)

When we received news that Matt and Shannon Heaton will be performing at our University, I was given the task to design the promotional materials of the concert.

A3 poster

Concert ticket

The design of the poster was based on a similar template that they sent to us, so I’m not going to dwell on that. But I want to focus on the design of the concert ticket.

Brainstorming & Conceptualizing

The organizers gave me a list of information that they wanted on the ticket, such as date, time, venue and the name of the concert. They basically gave me the freedom to ‘wing’ the design, which I really like (because nothing’s more awesome than having the liberty to experiment a creative direction that you have in mind).

In the brainstorming process, what I usually do is to find out more about the event that I’m designing for.

What is the concert about?

Who’s performing?

What’s the function of this ticket? And etc.

It’s important to know answers to these questions as they helped me to choose or design designs that are relevant. One important factor that I remember during one of graphics classes was that every element/art/design serves a purpose.

Since I worked closely with the organizers, I remembered receiving a concert press release. I immediately retrieved it and took a read.

What struck me after reading the release is that the connection of the couple with the Thai and Irish heritage. FYI Shannon Heaton stayed for one year in Suphanburi, learning Thai traditional instruments and the language. She speaks fluent Thai, I kid you not (she makes all of us who have stayed here more than 5 years to shame, haha). Thus, after reading the release several times, the title right at the top caught my eye.

HEATONS CONNECT THAILAND, AMERICA AND IRELAND

Whamm!

That completely hit home for me. That one phrase summarizes the release beautifully – and I knew it projected well about the couple, their concert in Thailand and in the Uni as well.

Designing

So instantly, I could visualize the image of the relevant flags, and I worked on it straight away. Since it’s going to be a music concert, I decided to insert a G-clef picture as it is perceived as a global icon/representative of ‘music’. Also, there’s a subtle shape of a guitar (which is one of the instruments that was used in the concert), represented by the orange-yellow gradient wave nestled between the clef and flags. Do you see it?

I made sure that the fonts of the Heaton Concert were the same font that I used in the Poster. It’s important to be consistent so you create a cohesive ‘branding’. Don’t you just hate it when you see the same name, all over again but in Comic Sans, Times New Roman and Tahoma? Ugh.

I did do an image Google search on concert tickets, and there was one that had “Admit One” on it. I thought that was a cool idea, so I decided to use that as well. Gotta love Trajan Pro font for that phrase – the x-height for the font are the same for all alphabet characters, and because of that, it exudes some classy feel to it.

(moving on before you think I can hear fonts talking)

What else…ah, yes, I also used the clef as “bullet points” for each info. Cool huh? :)

My autographed tickets by the couple. I know, I know I feel so 14. :)

Two days before the concert, I had to do a very last-minute banner. Totally threw me off the roof because I had to skip the whole brainstorming/conceptualizing and run straight to the designing process. Not only that, designing a big banner requires bigger resolution which means the computer will take more time to ‘digest’ the RAM, etc so I had to think quickly. So I decided to use the same ideas that I had for the concert tickets into the banner – and oh, I included the couple’s picture.

You can say that the banner is a ‘marriage’ between the designs of the concert tickets and the poster. Hehehe. Again, consistency with the same designs from the ticket and poster secure the concert brand. :)

I also included a tagline beneath the name of concert – “a Boston, Massachusetts-based Irish music duo”. This is important especially for visitors so that they can get a gist of the concert, all at one go from just skimming from the banner.

Sidetrack: One day before the concert, me, Julie and a couple of students were giving out the concert posters at the compound of the elementary school. Students were delighted (and attracted!) when they found out the music duo comes from Boston, USA. So that was our marketing line right at the beginning. “…we are having a music concert this Saturday night FROM BOSTON, USA…”

Anyway, I really enjoyed this project – I learned more about drawing curvy sides (the subtle guitar) and to just exploring more creativity with colors and ideas was a given blessing. I look forward for more projects! :)

>>Pre-loved entry from previous blog<<

Sourced from: cooking (mis)adventures with Deanna