CATEGORY: moodboard
Vokra Trifold
I just updated my portfolio with a new project! It’s always exciting when that happens.
Above is the colourful and friendly moodboard for Vokra, a local orphan kitten rescue association. I got to work with the lovely Tania Hennessy who takes amazing cat photos. I was seriously blown away by the portraits and the amount of detail she is able capture. If you zoom in on the pictures you could actually count the amount of hairs these furry guys have. Not sure what you would want to do this, but it all goes to say that Tania is amazingly talented and it was so great to collaborate with her. Pop on over to her portfolio if you want a quick and guaranteed adorable distraction :p
As for the brand new trifold, pop on over to my portfolio to view the final printed piece here.
moodboard | 17
I’m in the last phase of wrapping up a new branding project for the above featured moodboard. This is another really special one, as I was super into the direction and style the client is going for.
One of the new questions I ask my clients in the initial questionnaire is who their brand would be if it was an actor/actress. As you can probably guess they referenced Tilda Swinton; stylish, sharp, confident, minimal, fashion forward and a tad weird. As if that wasn’t awesome enough already there is also a bit of a west coast vibe in the mix, mostly in the graphics and colours.
Keep your eye out for this launch!!
FYI, if you follow me on dribble you may have already seen a few sneak-peaks :)
moodboard | 15
As I am wrapping up several projects it’s time to show a few more moodboards!
This particular moodboard is for a jewellery re-brand. After being around for quite a few years the founder felt she was in need of a little logo + packaging facelift. The goal was to create a really clean, strong and sophisticated wordmark which would then be accompanied by young and playful brand elements. I really love the simple grey and white colour scheme of this brand, which is contrasted by dainty gold jewellery pieces.
This project was challenging in a whole new way. Although we were on the same page of what direction we wanted to take the brand into we had too many ideas on how to make it happen. Mid-project it was time to revisit the good old client questionnaire and confirm the initial direction without getting distracted by the millions of new ideas. No project is ever like the other, every single one brings it’s own challenges and surprises, it keeps me on my toes!
Now that all pieces have been designed it’s time for the printing process. I am excited to see how it all turns out as we are exploring different paper stocks and printing options, possibly including some letterpress and gold foils.
No matter how much I love my final design pieces on screen there is something really special about holding the printed designs in your hand. I never get tired of that feeling. As soon as I get my hands on the final pieces I will make sure to share them.
In the meantime, if you are looking for a little re-brand yourself I am currently booking new projects for October so feel free to get in touch here.
moodboard | 14
I just launched another very exciting re-brand last week. Before I reveal the whole project I figured I would quickly share the moodboard with you. This particular re-brand was extra exciting because style wise my client and I are like siamese twins, 100% on the same page. For now I will just say this, simple colour palette, clean and airy design with fun and artful patterns alongside some watercolour fun!
Stay tuned for the finalized pieces!
moodboard | 13
I am so excited about this new project I am working on right now! A local business who recently went through a re-brand is in need of a new website and I have the honour of designing and developing it for them! I am taking on less development projects this year, allowing me to focus more on the design process, however when the right project comes around I am happy to get my face buried in a little bit of CSS.
It can be a little challenging when you are supposed to design a website for a company who already has their branding in place. Luckily I am super in love with this new logo my client has and the direction she is heading into and am very excited to further built on it.
Since the client just recently went through a re-brand she handed me over the previous designers moodboard. I contemplated not creating a moodboard for this projects since I technically already had one, however I soon realized that the simple act of creating a moodboard is very much part of my process. Searching for just the right images to include in the moodboard really helps me solidify the relationship with the project. It’s like the process of creating the moodboard are the first few dates and after those all go smoothly you are ready to commit to the relationship, aka move forward with the design.
I have just gotten started on the first design mock-ups for this new website so the relationship is still fresh :) For now all I will share about this project is the above pacific-northwestern-vibe moodboard.
Some of the above photography is by Tomasz Wagner, one of my favourite local photographers, who served as a very big inspiration for the look and feel of this project.
personal branding | braid
Before the holidays (yes, a while ago) I took the Personal Branding class over at Braid with Kathleen Shannon. This particular class was all about defining your personal brand, your professional brand and what kind of magic happens when you get them to mingle and overlap a little.
One of my favourite exercises was the “dinner party”. We were to imagine that we were having a dinner party with six guests, all of which represent aspects of yourself. The exercise really focused on bringing these characters to life, by giving them names, values, a personality, wardrobe and more. I thought it would be fun if I shared some of mine.
The Designer is super detail oriented with a passion for concept driven designs that tell stories and don’t merely look pretty. She loves talking about typography and nerding out about anything design related.
The Observer is a good listener and always eager to learn about people and their passions and experiences. You can usually find her quietly sitting in the shadows soaking up all the surroundings and conversations.
The Business Woman is a topnotch go-getter, always thinking ahead, dreaming up new projects and thinking up ways to monazite them. She’s professional and enjoys talking shop with fellow business owners.
The Hippie Artist is free-spirited, passionate and inspired by all things colourful. She cares about this little planet she lives on and is constantly experimenting in different artistic mediums happily getting her hands dirty in-door and out.
The Traveler is pretty fearless, curious and always up for an adventure. She loves to get lost in foreign cultures and explore new little corners of the world.
The Photographer makes herself invisible while capturing special moments and memories. She doesn’t believe in posed shots and rather her subject ignore her.
I’m curious, who would you want to learn more about?
Once you really take the time to think of who your different dinner guests are you naturally take it a step further and evaluate how these different personas may be incorporated into your business, your personal life, your blog, etc.
The above moodboard is supposed to represent my six dinner guests in a visual way. I grew up by the beach, love the sun and ocean and now go swimming at the community centre every week. Although my favourite colours are not blue and yellow, without planning for it, most of the images I was collecting for this moodboard ended up having this fresh and bright colour scheme. I guess it is a pretty good representation of me!
simplifying
A few months ago I took the Personal Branding e-course with the lovely ladies over at Braid Creative. The course is all about defining that magical middle ground for creatives where your personal and your business persona meet. I learnt a bunch of little things I can do to bring more of “me” to my business and vice versa. One of the little exercises we were asked to do was to define our personal fashion style. The way you look and present yourself says a lot about your personality, and therefore, also a lot about your business.
Over the past few years I have fully embraced my artsy side, buying brightly coloured items and patterned whimsical shirts to add to my closet. Lately though, I feel a lot more attracted to the simple things. There is definitely a trend towards “simplicity” happening. My pinterest is being showered with both minimalist graphic and interior design and a bunch of bloggers are talking about minimizing their lifestyle and wardrobe. For once it’s a trend I am very happy to be following along with.
I now like to define my style as simple, with neutral and versatile pieces, with a tiny bit of edge/badass-ness (aka boots!!) or an artsy accessory. I’ve slowly started streamlining my closet and everything is starting to fit together much easier. I have not fully given up on colours and patterns, but instead of wearing a bright and busy shirt I am bringing colour into my wardrobe through a smaller statement pieces or accessory.
I’ve never been a huge shopping gal, but now especially I like to really think my purchases through. Does a certain item match the style I am trying to move towards? By minimizing my closet and no longer impulse-shopping I am very happy to spend more money on higher quality pieces, as opposed to buying lots of cheap and low quality pieces. Quality over quantity!
Above are a few pieces that have caught my eye lately that I feel are very much inline with my new personal brand I am building for myself. If you are digging this new trend make sure to pop on over to Cuyana and read through their Lean Closet Movement series. I am about halfway though myself and loving all the insights.
moodboard 10 | paws for hope
Do you guys rememberthese cute illustrations I did before the holidays? After our great first experience working together Paws for Hope asked me to give their brand a bit of a facelift. Yup, that’s right, a re-brand for an animal foundation. It was as much fun as it sounds like. I did indeed spend a few hours looking at pictures of adorable cats and dogs and fluffy bunnies.
We just finished up the re-brand this past weekend and I will be sharing bits and pieces over here soon. Above you can see the moodboard I created for them. I had already created a very similar one for them when I worked on their holiday campaign. It was great to have a solid vision in mind already, all I had to do was switch out a few of the images and we were well on our way.
I look forward to sharing the new pawesome designs with you soon!
moodboard 9 | double exposure
I have another sneak-peak at a project that is launching next week! This time around it is not client work though. I was asked to take part in a newly launched creative community/publication project. Curious? Well, I won’t reveal much else till it goes live next week! But as you can see above I may have used some photography in my submission. And there may or may not be some double-exposure in the works too :)
Make sure to come by next week to see the final piece.
You can scroll through more double exposure inspiration on my Pintrest board “double exposure” and also check out a teeny post I did forever ago on Andre Freitas.
moodboard | 8
As I suspected a few weeks ago the busy time is officially here. Between taking on new clients, launching holiday collections and promotions, wrapping up creative collaborations and planning future ones it’s gotten a little crazy. But a good kind of crazy. It’s probably going to get a little more quiet on the blog until the rush of the holidays passes, however after that I will be back with many exciting projects to share.
As I’ve previously confessed I love creating moodboards, especially if they are colour boards like the one above. There’s something so calming about thinking up a colour scheme or theme, looking for the right images and bringing them all together. I find it to be a very relaxing exercise. I call this one “missing the soft summer greens”.
You can view all my previous moodboards here.
moodboard | 7
During my slow late-summer months Oskar and I have been working on our first app. It was more so an experimental project, for me to get some experience designing for mobile and him to explore Android development. Yes, unfortunately it is only an Android app for the time being (getting your app in the App store is more expensive so we are holding off). The app is a simplified idea of something that is already out there. Yes, being a little secretive, don’t want to reveal it quite yet!
The above moodboard was our direction for the look and feel of the app. I spent a lot of time exploring icon design, various colour schemes and many different apps that are already out there. This is actually a good example of a moodboard where the direction of the design ended up slightly changing down the road, therefore not fully representing the above anymore.
We’re currently fixing the last few glitches and adding a few more design elements to launch before 2014 gets here. Stay tuned for more :)
underwearables
I’ve been a fan of danish Underwearables soap packaging for quite a while. I recently came across more of their beautifully patterned soaps and felt instantly inspired and in love. While I am a huge fan of colour I do also have a very big soft spot for some good looking black and white designs. Underwearables patterns are so raw and perfectly imperfect with that hand crafted illustration style. The bold graphic patterns are perfectly contrasted by the delicate type treatment on the minimalistic white wrap-around label.
Inspired by that first dotted and bean-shaped pattern up above I created a little inspirational mood board. Keep scrolling to see more of underwearables awesome packaging. Make sure to check out their website too. It’s clean and simple just like their products.
I’ve been working on a lot of christmas themed packaging lately. I look forward to sharing it all once it launches in a few months. It’s always weird drawing snowflakes in the middle of summer…
moodboard | 6
I’m having one of those afternoons. You know, the one’s where you stare at your to-do list and can’t decide which project you should tackle first. And then instead of actually getting started you feel unmotivated and distracted by every teeny tiny little thing. I decide to give myself a little break and made a colour moodboard. I’m not a huge lilac/purple fan, however I’ve been working on this promotion + this pinterest contest for the past few weeks so…I kinda got my head stuck in the lavender fields.
How do you give your brain a little break?
moodboard | 5
Working on putting final touches on yet another freshly launched project. This client already had a logo in place and simply needed supporting branding graphics and a blog design. Using raspberry colours from the existing logo we focused on keeping the design simple with clean lines accompanied by some fancy feminine type. Stay tuned to see the final project soon!
moodboard | 4
I have another moodboard to share! My client was looking to get some elegant event collateral done for an anniversary + fundraising party for a school. The dark navy blue is sophisticated and royal, while also representing the jewish background of the school. The main purpose of the event is to raise funds, therefore the look and feel is very expensive and fancy, yet still approachable. I’m taking a lot of inspiration from Jessica Hische’s Daily Drop Cap project, since the main element will be typographic and include some minimalistic nature ornaments.
The project is near completion and I’m excited to share the final outcome with you soon!
moodboard | 3
I’ve been working on updating my portfolio with some new projects and realized I have quite a few moodboards to share. So before I show you all my final projects I will give you a few sneak-peaks.
I don’t want to reveal the whole project yet but the theme of the campaign is a very sensitive one. There is a big emphasis on women who have come out of troubled situations but are now regaining their strength and hope. I found a lot of inspiration in ballet photography – expressive, fragile yet strong and feminine.
I am very excited to share this with you soon!
moodboard | 2 – sia
I’ve had Sia on repeat lately, especially this song. I usually listen to her while working on client work; she puts me in an energetic and motivating mood with some songs, a calming and focused state with others. I decided to dedicate a fun, quirky mood board to this eccentric, bold and bright artist.
crazy colourful geometric patterns on a jumpsuits| lots of pink, lots of bold | glitter ban.do smoke & kiss bobbi set |
loud, fun and not shy | disco fruit | love for pups
Random Sia Facts: originally from australia, discovered her voice while in a karaoke bar in italy, studied politics, is bisexual and vegetarian, owner of a doggie named Pantera, activist for PETA and other animal rights organisations, performed and collaborated with artists such as Zero 7, Christina Aguilera, David Guetta, Shakira and Rihanna.
Although not shown above I bet you she would totally travel with this new Kate Spade Saturday weekend bag.
moodboard | 1
Above is a mood board I recently did for a new client. She contact me to design branding and marketing materials for her new online magazine & fashion boutique. I was very excited to get started on this one! Her boutique is very upscale, expensive and elegant, with carefully curated pieces from around the world. Inspired by Vogue Magazine it was important for us to use some bold typography with an overall clean and simplistic design, using predominantly black, white and grey to allow the merchandise to shine. The website will be launching shortly, at which point I will share all the finalized designs with you! I hope you enjoy the mood board as much as I do.
process
In the past 6+ months I have been expanding on my freelance work, getting a lot of new clients, as well as improving my design-process. For one my proposals and estimates have been re-developed. They are now branded and detailed, explaining the project scope, details, budget ranges, deadlines, revisions, client responsibilities and process in more depth.
Every project is different, with unique needs, sizes, content, complexity and budget. In order to get a clear understanding of my clients vision from the get-go I have started creating a mood board for each project, showcasing the general look and feel of the concepts to be developed. I have always done these for myself anyway, but now they are a key part of the client-designer process, included in the project specs for the client to revise.
Although I love doing mood boards I did struggle a little initially. The mood board should evoke the look and feel of the designs immediately by showing very few, but key images, for example a photograph, a type example, colour palette, illustration style, similar design pieces etc. I tend to get overly excited and attack pinterest, grabbing five handfuls of images which all seem perfect. The tricky part is narrowing down the selection to a few key images which make you “get it” right away. Once you have these key elements together it is so exciting to share them with your client and see if this is the same vision they have in mind. Needless to say, doing mood boards is one of my favourite things. If it was a full time job on it’s own it would be all I do. In the future I will be sharing some of my client mood boards, I hope you enjoy them!
With valentines day coming up I decided to make a random pink inspired board with some of my latest pins.
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