Sister Haystack Vintage

My newest post is about SISTER HAYSTACK VINTAGE!
Sister Haystack is an online vintage clothing store that I am starting up with my sister Jessica. We both love everything to do with vintage and we're constantly at flea markets, antique stores and consignment shops so we thought, why not!
Want to know why we are called Sister Haystack? It was the name of our planned folk punk band that never got off the ground because, well, we couldn't play any of the right instruments. We had to use the name somewhere, and it seemed just right to sum up our vintage aesthetic. That's why!
I thought I'd share all that info with you as well as show you the graphics I've designed for it. I had to create a whole new brand (FUN) so I went with the "Sister" idea and used some country-esque style.


This is our main logo I created (Not including the barn wood background but that has become part of our brand as well. ) I used the mud flap girl idea (two of them for sisters) and added some cowboy hats for the country style.  

We each got personalized business cards, kinda neat I think.

Our banner for our etsy shop. Again with the barnwood

Our twitter background, which is also in the style of the business cards. 

And that's all I've created so far. I will probably have more graphics coming as our business expands!

SISTER HAYSTACK IS OPENING ON APRIL 20TH. GREAT GIVEAWAYS! BE SURE TO CHECK IT OUT!

You can find us at http://www.etsy.com/shop/sisterhaystack

                              http://twitter.com/sisterhaystack

                              http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sister-Haystack-Vintage/184865991560084 

- Heather

IAAG

Onto my newest project! IAAG!
IAAG stands for Interactive Alternative Art Gallery. If you check out the link I've posted you'll see what it's all about but I'll describe it in a few words. Basically this is started by a collective of alternative artists (alternative art being: graphic design, graffiti, music, tattoo art etc.). Each month we will have a different show with a different theme, put on at a venue. It will be a ticketed event with donations and lot's of fun! The basic idea is to get alternative artists some exposure, as there is not much of that going on for them. Alternative art wouldn't be found in a regular art gallery, so IAAG will help provide that exposure and really help out artists in the community! I've been working with Enigma Agency on this project. (Lexi's idea!)
I've been designing some things for IAAG, such as the logo, so I'll show that to you!
Lexi wanted something a bit futuristic and modern, and this is what we came up with together.

I really like how it turned out, any comments? :) 

Also if you haven't checked out IAAG yet.. you probably should! It's going to be the next big art event in Hamilton, ON!

-Heather 

Logo & Branding

So whenever I get bored I've been working on those pretend businesses my sister, Jessica,  gave me. I was having an especially anxious day, wanting to get some things done but not sure at all what to do SO I worked on one of the logos to calm myself down.

The one I chose today was called Avocado Designs. Here's the logo I came up with for it.

I think it turned out really cool, I like the different styles between the lettering and the actual avocado picture. 

Anyways, after that I was still bored so I started working on a website for the avocado designs ( my fave) And this is the page I came up with.

Also may I just mention it's quite difficult to come up with a look for a business that doesn't exist! I'm not even sure what kind of design this place does :P Haha One day I'll get my sister to invent an entire business for me and I will create something off of that but for now I think I gave them quite a nice identity.

It'd also look a lot nicer with some photography in the spaces. Just picture it!

That's all for today everyone! Keep checkin ;)

-Heather 

3D Books

Hi everyone!

I haven't posted in a long time, and I promise I've been workin' on new stuff.. :P I've just been really busy. Haven't had time to show everyone my new stuff.

Lately, I've been doing some work for Chris Luckhardt of Motionblur Studios. Chris is a Drupal website designer and is getting me to design some graphic art for the websites he creates.
We've worked on two projects together so far and I'm going to share one of them with you!

The one project Chris asked me to do was a vector version of a book icon cover. This was for a website for Dan Falk (journalist and published writer).
Chris wanted the books to look quite real. This is what I created for him at first.

Chris and I talked over this illustration and decided that the perspective was a bit off for what Chris was hoping to achieve. I changed around the perspective a little and added the covers, a bit of a drop shadow and shading and here's what I came up with.

Here's the first book I created in white.

And the second in black.

This was actually a pretty fun project. I'm sure Chris and I will be working together on some more projects in the future, which I will definitely post here! Check for new updates :)

-Heather 

Blog Header- Jess Gets Creative

This is my newest project, a blog header done for Jessica Peter's blog Jess Gets Creative.

She didn't give me many specifications for this project other than she liked the curly pirate type font as well as the quill pen.

I know she likes vintage maps, so I added that as a background overlay/gradient. She has a published article about Van Gogh, and he is one of her heros so I thought that would be appropriate for her header.

She is also looking to publish a YA fiction novel about the Wild Hunt so I also added that to the header. 

She really liked how it turned out, and probably will soon be putting it up on her blog. What do you think?

-Heather

Creative Allies

I was recently referred to the website Creative Allies by my boyfriend Dan Auld and thought it was a really cool idea. Basically the whole idea around it is people post design contests, such as a logo, a poster and whatnot and get designers to compete for the winning design.
If you win you get prize money and sometimes a prize pack, depending on the contest, if you don't.. oh well at least you have some new experience and a new portfolio piece!
The contest I decided on was a static webpage design for Quannum Projects. I haven't posted it online yet, still have a full month, but I decided to show it off on here and see what others think of it.
That way I can still make changes and whatnot. For the project they asked for a static homepage as well as one template for the inner pages, they mentioned keeping the wordpress themes in mind.

This is the homepage of the website.

This is the inner page template of the website.

I'm not sure if I kept the wordpress theme in mind enough but I still really like how it's turned out so far. What do you think?

-Heather

Invitations and Blogs

Hello again everyone!

I haven't posted in a while but I've been working a lot on some graphics for Christy and I thought I'd share them with you guys!
Christy ( the chocolate maker - check out her website here ) had the great idea of having kids' parties now that she has a big kitchen to work in! She has four different party packages: Wacky cake and cookie decorating, pizza cookie fun, digging in the dirt brownie adventure, and dippity do chocolate I love you. For her website she was thinking of having some fake polaroid graphics that you could click on for each of the four birthday packages. Here's what I came up with for her.
So far it is just a google image in there, not one of Christy's but you get the idea.

Looks great doesn't it?! 

Another thing I've been working on is the invitations for her birthday parties. The idea behind this is that the mom's would go on her website, print out these invitations for the kids to bring to school and hand out to their friends. Here's what I came up with for the older female group.

This is the front of the invitation

And this is the inside of the invitation

The back of the invitation would have her company address as well as the map to the shop. My next steps will be to make a boy version of the invitation, as well as an invitation for younger girls.

I've also been working on Christy's new blog! Hasn't been ready for action at all yet, no blog posts, but I'm working on the design and the separate pages. 

One of Christy's pages is a recipe page. Her idea was that for each recipe she posts, she will create a recipe card. Her "Recipe" page would have several different images of recipe cards posted to it, so everything will be right there and easy to find. Here's what I created for the recipe card.

I love how it turned out, it looks so cute!

That's all I've been working on as of lately.. I will have some more graphics coming up, and I may have a post of "fall finds" clothes, keep checking!

Comments welcome

-Heather

Web Pages

Hi everyone!
Disappeared for a while there. Been working really hard on the graphics for a website. I did this for a lady, Christy, who makes her own chocolate gifts, specializing in corporate gifts.
For this project I was doing all the graphics, sending them over to a web designer and he was putting them all online and adding in e-commerce.
The web designer already had a few pages set up I was just changing them up and adding different features and what not.
Christy wanted her website to be pretty and girly with lots of photography to entice people.

Here's the main home page we came up with as a collaboration.

This second picture is a view of what the buttons would look like when you scroll over them. They would be linked to different pages on the website.

Here is a layout of one of the pages her main page would link to. 

Each page would have a different picture on the top as well as the side. These pages have the same tiled background as the main page, it is just a creamy-type colour.

When you click on the product link on the top home bar, this is the page it would take you to. Each picture of product would take you to a separate page which is seen in the second image I have posted. Each top of the page would be different according to what product it is.

A few things have been changed on these webpages since going online. As some of my pages didn't work properly with the way the e-commerce was designed, it had to be tweaked a bit but otherwise I am very pleased with how it turned out :) I will post the link to the website once it is online and ready for the public to view.

Comments welcome!

-Heather

Twitter Background

So I was working on a Twitter background for myself, check it out here, and my sister mentioned she would like one for her blog as well. We didn't really speak about it at all yet but I made her one for now, just for the sake of it.

She's a writer and a crafter so I decided to do things that related to that. Here's the background I created for her.

Not sure if it would be tiled or what but I tested it out on my own Twitter account and it looked pretty neat. We shall see if she likes it or not ;) :). You can check out my sister's twitter here.

Thanks for reading, be back with some more graphics soon!

-Heather