MB a*d*p Custom designed book sample

One of the great thing about prepping for shows like Bridalrama is you get to look back at your library of images and put together an amazing collection of couples into one extraordinary book.

I’ve moved towards offering these custom designed books to clients as part of my package a lá carte options in 2011, and they seem to be even more popular with the bookings in 2012. It is a natural fit for me to offer this as part of my wedding collections — I love book design and these book albums take the images of a couple’s day and tells the story in a photo retrospective, perfect to hang out on a shelf or coffee table that will last for generations to come.

For those that booked from meeting me at Bridalrama, they will get a book similar in style to this for free as part of their package. What an awesome keepsake of the day. (And I'm happy to have designed my own as a sample and show off some of my favorite images in one book!) Here's a peek of the MB a*d*p studio sample.

I *heart* logos and identity work

Logos are something that you get to do, as a designer, as one of the first projects in design school. Usually it's your own logo, then a big group project for a restaurant (or something like that.) There, you will find if you really dig this thing called identity and branding in the design world, or if you want to run far away from being branded, yourself, as a “logo” designer.

I really enjoy designing logos and identities for others and have grown leaps and bounds as a logo designer since that first logo project 15+ years ago in design school. Logos are one of those projects where you get to study the person or the project that you are doing the logo for in great detail, you get to reseach what others doing the same service or similar service have as their own logo, and then you get to sketching and begin a creative process that takes time and nurturing. In the end, no matter how many rounds or ideas you've gone through with the client, you should arrive at something you, as the designer, are proud to show that you did and something that your client should display prominently and happily as their brand.

My most recent logo project was with one of my peers and mentor, Nathan Peel Photography. Nathan already had an identity with his first photography business, Fyrefly Photography. But Nathan dove into 2011 with a new business model, a new wedding business venture that targets new clientele and builds on his fantastic reputation that he's come to be known from with the Fyrefly business over the last few years.

The finished logo, shown below, with colors chosen for a social letterpress card that we'll be printing soon (shown second, below) and finally the Twitter avatar I created from both designs to re-inforce the brand in social media situations (shown third, below.)

As I mentioned above, the best part of the process of logos is “getting there”, below is a sampling of some of the rounds of logos we went through before arriving at the finished logo.

And I really enjoy seeing logos and identities working hard at welcoming new clients across the brand. I loved working with Nathan in custom tweaking a Wordpress template that we both thought would showcase his photography well for his new website. It is so so important for businesses to be brand consistent along all forms of marketing. Nathan's new business does this so well!

And lastly, here are a few more identities I've created that I think of as favorites.

There are a few more samples shown here on my website of previous logos that I've designed that I love. Logos can be created for new businesses, redone for existing businesses, or to just 'brand' an event, like the one you see in this link for Word Distribution’s trade show booth, where the theme for their booth was beach and the booth looked like a beach house.

I *heart* poster design

{I'm finishing up some more book interior design sample shots (I realized I didn't even cover the gamut of my book interior design on my current samples shown on the site, so I'm adding more!) so I'm going to skip book interiors for the moment and move on to one of my favorite creative outlets.}

I *heart* designing posters. I've got inspiration posters hanging up around my office, almost covering one wall. (If I got my act together and actually tidied up the rest of my office I could hang some more and fill one half of the room with them.) I admit it wholeheartedly — I'm a poster junkie. I dreamily walk into Hatch Show Print in downtown Nashville and could spend hours in there perusing through their posters (much to my husband's chagrin.) I love this series of posters created at a Nashville design studio that a friend of mine worked at, and still love seeing how they are growing this line into new national prints and regionally focused new prints. I'm currently working on my own series idea celebrating the history of the schools in my own town of Lebanon, Ohio.

Most of my own poster samples you’ll see showcased in my portfolio is work that I’ve done since moving to Lebanon in 2003 for their local theatre company. You see, I was a thriving thespian in high school and immensely enjoyed the time I got to spend on stage and off (yes, stage production rocked it in high school, too!) I thought about rekindling my love of being on stage by trying out for actual acting parts when we moved back, but I am not sure I am confident enough to do that in my own appearance just yet, so what better way to be behind the scenes than to design the posters, I thought. I have gotten to design so many great posters for so many great shows. I’m celebrating my eighth year of designing posters for them, man how time flies by. You can see my favorite samples of my poster designs here. And below is the one I just finished up last week for their upcoming show, 12 Angry Jurors. Instantly a favorite among the theatre company directors and myself!

I *heart* art direction

Along with book cover design, that I blogged about loving first and foremost, art direction is another thing that I love about what I do. Art direction and design go hand in hand, but in book design it is especially important that they hold hands all throughout the process of designing the book. For the particular books I have designed most of my career (craft how-to books,) art directing the photographs that are used in the books to showcase projects you can make, or artwork of the authors showing you their technique, is the key to making a successful book that the reader enjoys. Without excellent photographic art direction, these books just skim the surface of how-to and give the reader “some” of what they want to learn about the craft, but not all.

Of course, all design that I've done in the past involve some semblance of art direction (for instance, working with illustrators on children’s books, picking art from stock sites for covers or catalogs or brochures) but working one-on-one with a team of people that includes the designer, photographers and the stylists chosen for a book has become one of those things I am thankful for have gotten the opportunity to do, and am always excited about when I begin a new project that involves art directing the photography for a book.

I think this focus on the details aspect of design and showcasing them in an effective way is what has boosted me as a photographer as well, but more on that later when I talk about how I *heart* photography. Below are a few of my favorite photographs I've art directed from books that I've also designed, or had a part in designing. Some use props, some use models—but all came from a creative process of myself (the art director), a wardrobe stylist, makeup/hair stylist and/or set stylist, and the photographer. Some were done in-studio, some were done on location, all things the art director has to decide on that would be best for the book.

A chapter opener for Kelly Rae Robert’s book, Taking Flight:

A project shot for the book All Dolled Up, projects for girls and their 18-inch dolls (think American Girl dolls):

Cover and project shot for Fashion Geek, a book with projects that use sewing and technology hand in hand. This particular project has the connection that plugs in to your iPod and has headphones in the hat.

I *heart* book cover design

Since February is the month of love (and in an effort to get me to blog more frequently) I am going to *heart* each area of my business that I love and go over some things that my blog/website features that a lot of my blog frequenters or new visitors might not know exists over in the right hand column of my site. One of the great things about Squarespace is the ability to show your images big and large and in a nice portfolio style for the whole world to see. I've got areas for my mixed-media artwork (kind of lacking samples at the moment), my design portfolio, and my photography portfolio.

Today I'm highlighting my book cover design area. For seven years prior to 2011 I worked at a craft book publisher and did many, many book covers. The book covers in this area are some of my favorites that I've done and you'll see a lot in a style I do best, photoshop “collage” of the particular authors artwork or imagery. It’s fun to take the vision of an artist and make a cover for them that showcases their art and style and makes a reader intrigued enough to pick up the book (or click on it online) and see what the author has to offer in their book. An example of this is shown below with author Kelly Rae Roberts book, Taking Flight. Kelly Rae is a fantastic artist that has her own unique style (although I’ve seen it emulated a lot lately online!) Her artwork is distributed worldwide by Demadco now in several different styles of products. When I worked on this book, her popularity was trending but I still wanted to create a book cover that was the true essence of Kelly Rae and would stand the test of time, even as she emerged as a popular artist. I couldn't accomplish that with a staged photograph or just one piece of artwork ... her cover called for a collage of her body of work to entice a reader into knowing they were getting a full book giving insight into all of Kelly Rae's creative process. It's been a top seller for Kelly Rae and the publisher and continues to sell well.

Of course, I don't just do “collaging” (although I really really enjoy it and think I do it very well.) There are book cover designs that call for simple, to the point, focal imagery and impactful typography that makes a big impact at first glance. A book cover designer strives to do both styles well, and I'm proud of all of the covers I've done over the course of my almost 14 years in design and working on books. Click on over here to take a look at all of my book cover design work I have up as samples.

What makes you pick up a book, and “judge it by its cover?”