Category Archives: Graphic Design

For “Special Days” Word Design

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Have you ever had one of those days? You know, those days where nothing goes right and it seems like everyone wants something from you. Those days when you want to tell everyone where to go. No matter how hard you try to ignore, justify or avoid, the mood still lingers. Sometimes you just have to stop what you are doing, take a break and do something to get your mind back to it’s normal lovely place. Sometimes it is getting up the courage to stand up for yourself, or to say no to people. That is a really hard one for some. Sometimes its simply taking time to do what you want instead of what everyone wants you to do. Luckily for me, I know what helps to bring me back to a place of happiness and that is designing. I created this word design to let me know that on these “Special Days“, I am allowed to take a break from everyone and I can say it in a semi-polite way.

I start off by typing out each word in a separate text box. I then play with fonts and sizes and drag each text box in place to create movement and space.

 

Once I like where the words are sitting, I then add a colour to each word. I print off a copy and slide it into a frame.

 

Now I have a little piece of art that reminds me that it is ok to have a “Special Day” every now and then.

Linked up on The Shabby Nest.

Autumn Subway Art

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With the cooler weather, the colourful trees and Thanksgiving right around the corner, I was feeling a bit nostalgic. With the help of my kids, who came up with some Autumn-like words, we put this subway art print together. The muted orange-brownish colour that a graphic designer friend and I came up with back in the day is called “dirty pumpkin” This makes the traditional patterned backround pop and creates some warmth against the hard black border of the frame. For this artwork I used an inexpensive Ikea frame and printouts glued to bristol board. You could also use a patterned fabric, wallpaper or wrapping paper for the backround.

Find a pattern that your like and bring it into photoshop. Convert the image to grayscale and save it as a tiff file. When you bring it into your design program, you can change the black and white image into whatever colour you choose. Once you have your pattern set up you can print. In the print settings select the option to tile your printouts. With an exacto knife and a ruler you can crop accordingly. Line up the printed sections and glue down the pieces onto a cut out piece of bristol board that fits your frame. My frame size was 20’x20’. You will slightly see where the pieces meet but will not be as noticable once in the frame. Type out the words that you want and place in a coloured square. I chose 8’x8’ so that it would print as one piece of paper. I also added a black border around the coloured box so that it would tie into my frame. Make sure that all of your words line up on either end.so that it leaves a clean finish around the box. Print, crop and glue the word printout to the centre of the patterned bristol board, then insert into your frame and enjoy your bold Autumn Subway Art with a patterned backround.

This project was linked up on the October Before and After Party at Thrifty Decor Chick.

Autumn Print

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Now that it is Fall and the trees are just starting to change colour, I was inspired to design an Autumn Print. I have a love of typography and used the letters and the shapes in between the letters to create a colourful graphic print. I placed it in a shiny mirrored frame and love how the colours contrast with the modern style of the frame. I displayed some rustic raffia and wicker pumpkins as well as a large wheat sheaf on either side of the frame to create a colourful Autumn nook in our family room.

In your design program, I use InDesign, set your page up for the size that will fit in your frame. My frame is 7”x9”. I separated the page into 6 boxes, one for each letter. I turned each letter into outlines to become a vector. With the black pointer tool, I dragged the sides and bottom of the text box to fit the space. I did this for each letter. Once the letters were all in place, I used the white pointer tool to drag some of the corners of the letters so that they would touch each other, creating more areas to colour in. With the pencil tool, I drew a shape around each area and filled them in with various colours. I then sent the coloured area to the back so that the colour sat behind the letter. You may have to play around with the colours until you get your desired look. Then print, place in your frame and enjoy your new colourful Autumn Print. You could also print this and stencil it onto a canvas or board and paint it similar to the Citrus Artwork craft.

This project was linked up on The Fall Mantle Parade at Centsational Girl.

Summer 2012 Poster

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This was one of the best summers that our family has ever had. We were so fortunate for all four of us to have most of the summer off this year. The weather was exceptional, with so many beautiful hot sunny days, we spent most of our time at the beach and touring around our area. We visited wineries, cheese factories, numerous vegetable and fruit stands and country markets. We enjoyed local faire with artisan prepared meals made with local ingredients. We even tried windsurfing and paddleboarding, which was so much fun. I wanted to place our memories and beautiful photos onto a poster so that we could see the whole summer at a glance.

I chose 30 of our favourite photos and altered each one in Instagram. You could also use Photoshop and play around with the colour balance if you don’t have Instagram. I set my page size as 11”w x 14”h. I imported a frame from google images and copied and pasted 6 rows of 5 frames, equally spaced. I used a casual script to title the poster “Summer 2012”. I turned the file into a jpeg and then sent it off to the photocenter at Walmart. You can do this online, and pick it up in an hour. So convenient, and the cost was only $5.00 for the print. I found this great white frame from Michaels. The beadboard detail really compliments the beachy photos. Once the corners are taped and the poster set nicely in the frame you can now enjoy your summer all in one glance.