Brown paper packages tied up with strings

You know my favourite things include but are not limited to, raindrops on roses, whiskers on kittens, hand drawn lettering, exciting fonts, maps, birds, fish, old cameras and people asking me to design their wedding invites using some or all of the previously mentioned. Horay!

Katie and Elliot came to me with the concept of the brown paper and mix of hand drawn fonts, and also with a lot of cute ideas for fitting in mini illustrations that relate to them and their interests - like the SLR camera film venue name because Katie is a photographer, and the oar and brown trout that reflect Elliot's rowing and fishing. I sketched out all the words and pictures separately, which made for easy editing to make different versions for the different time slots on the day.

some of the original drawings pre-photoshop.

I also got to do this great map design with detailed ink drawings of the key venues, hotels and local landmarks (like the pub where the couple met)

Some of the original drawings for the map. 

And here's our invite package unpacked, the concept for the talking heads image was slightly cheekily lifted from this design, but I replaced the 50s illustrations with portraits of Katie and Elliot, to make it more personal again. 

In fact the best thing about this project (apart from getting to do all of those favourite things) was how personal to the couple the designs were able to be. It was a great working process and we chatted a lot about ideas and layouts. Apologies for obvious sales spiel - but that's what you can get when you work with someone to design your own unique stationary rather than picking an existing template. 

IF you know what I mean. wink wink.  

The invites came out really well and I'm looking forward to doing some more work for this lovely couple for their big day this summer. In some ways similar, but so different from the designs I did for my own wedding stationary, which were also grounded in a big mix of lettering styles, but much more collagey and colourful:

If you think you might be interested in having me design some celebratory stationary for your event, please do drop me an email with your ideas and I'll make you some quotes. 

Strangely, I'm not that big on bright copper kettles or warm woolen mittens. 

Also, if anyone actually wanted to commission wedding invites that included drawings of kittens and roses, that actually would be the best commission ever. 

Honeymoon pics

I will resist the temptation to show you ALL of my honeymoon pics. But fyi, in real life, those idyllic photos of palm trees and white sands you've seen on motivational posters and adverts all your life? That's an actual place you can go to. I know, weird right? 

This is my fave because I photographed someone else's photograph. And I'm a bit obsessed with people posing for photos and how weird that actually is. There's a few videos out there like this:

   

 There's a future illustration about this brewing in the back of my head somewhere. 

Idyllic N'est Pas?

 I may also be a little obsessed with mirror sunglasses selfies. It just adds that extra dimension of eliptical narcissism you know?

Oh also I drew some pictures:

Ink and wash isn't it? Because if you spend enough time teaching secondary art, you start thinking like a gcse project and using 'a variety of media'. 

Oh dear. 

I'm having too much fun writing fake editorial blurbs for my ideastap portfolio. Here's one I made just now:

There will never ever be such a thing as too many pictures of your cat on the internet. To deny the undying appeal of kittens, and while we're at it, puppies, branches of blossom against blue sky, cunningly decorated cup cakes, and most importantly, animals of different species who are inexplicably friends, is futile. This illustration was actually part of my facebook portrait project. But I think it addresses a very important issue for creatives and all dwellers in contemporary cyber space. Basically - why aren't there more pictures of your cat on the internet? Have you really invested enough money in camera equipment for providing these pictures? Etc.

If you want to see the rest of them they are here. If I don't win the brief and get the job I will post you some more of them later.