Sugar Glider Stories

amy — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 10:49:58 +0000

Not that long ago I was involved in a some artwork for Sugar Glider Stories 2. This is a comic which accompanies the main Sugar Glider comic – it’s all about Susie, who’s a bit bored of her life – college, work, hobbies… so she becomes a superhero. As you do! They’re a great read, with words by Daniel Clifford and art by Gary Bainbridge, each with Sugar Glider Stories alongside to fill in the gaps and add a bit more depth to the main story. These are written and drawn by different people, so you get a lovely mix of different styles.

Daniel saw a piece of work I did at university (a colouring in book for Barcelona) and asked me to do some work in that style to contrast with the amazing work by Jack Couvela who draws the flashbacks that go with the story. So I did, and it was a lot of fun!

You can buy the comics here.

More than a logo

amy — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 15:31:01 +0000

Last week I had a brief chat with Joanne Dolezal of Dolezal Consulting about ‘More than a logo’, which is a programme she is running with Horizons Life Coaching to help business owners develop a strong corporate identity for their company. Except it’s not. It’s more important than that. It’s about helping business owners truly understand their company, get into the nitty gritty of it, develop an action plan and know how to talk about it BEFORE they go ahead and commission their corporate identity.

I’ve written a very short post before about the kind of things I like to know about a business before I go on to create a logo, things like what the vision and values of the company are, what they actually do, what the objectives of the work will be. I’ve certainly felt that although my list of questions is good, and I’ve been told from various sources that they are and that clients find it helpful to be asked these things – the sheet I use could do with a bit of a re-vamp, more targeted questions, to help me really get my head around the business and ensure that I produce something that really works for them. Something I’ll be working on.

I’ve also been told that not everyone who produces design work bothers to ask these sort of questions. Which I don’t get. How can you design something effectively without understanding as much as possible where their business is going and what it’s about? Surely knowing the aims of the business, the objectives of the work and who the audience are, are crucial to designing anything so that it works for the client and does what it’s supposed to do?

How can a business expect to go to a designer and say “create me a logo!” if they don’t provide the designer with enough information? Of course I could design a logo based purely on what the business is, but in order to design one which really works for them, which shows their values and indicates what sort of company they are, I’d need to have a bit more to go on.

Of course, you might think that you understand and know your company, but just think about your business values. This seems to be the hardest thing for anyone to answer from my list! Some people just know, and their answer is wonderful, however, most people umm and aarr for a bit before coming out with the same answer as everyone else. “Quality.” It can be harder than it looks!

More than a logo covers the values, vision, goals, messages, tone of voice, branding and logo for each company that takes part, helping them to understand the ins and outs of their company and each of the six aspects identified so that ultimately, if they need to, they are able to give a thorough and complete brief to a designer which WILL be more than a logo, it will be, in the words of the programme, “the heart and soul” of their company.

And the winner is…

amy — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 09:00:53 +0000

Nicola Foster

Congratulations!! I’ll be in touch about getting your prizes to you.

Here’s a roundup of all the songs with the correct answers:

White Christmas

The Holly and the Ivy

Rudolph the red nosed reindeer

Go tell it on the mountain

Frosty the snowman

When Santa got stuck up the chimney

The drummer boy

O Christmas Tree

We wish you a merry Christmas

All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth

Christmas Alphabet

Driving home for Christmas

The red red robin comes bob bob bobbing along

Good King Wenceslas

Little Donkey

O little town of Bethlehem

We three kings

While shepherds watched

I saw three ships

I saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus

Away in a manger

Thank you very much to all those who took part. The winner was chosen using random.org.

If you would like to receive my newsletter then you can do that here.

Advent: December 24th

amy — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 07:55:15 +0000

This is the last song! I hope you’ve enjoyed guessing what they are, you can still go back through all 24 songs and guess the answers to get more chances to win.

The winner will be announced at some point – by the 3rd at the latest (I am on holiday now after all) and then I’ll be in touch to work out how to get your prize to you.

The rules.

Advent: December 23rd

amy — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 10:32:33 +0000

Here’s today’s Advent song. If you know this, please pop your comment below and your name will go in the hat to win some prizes.

The rules.

Advent: December 22nd

amy — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 07:58:02 +0000

Here is the 22nd Advent song – do you know it? If you do, please pop your answer in the comments and you could win some prizes.

The rules.

Advent: December 21st

amy — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 08:46:56 +0000

I ran into the living room today ahead of L and switched the tree lights on. She came in and stood still for a bit staring and saying “Wow! Pretty lights! Tree!” and then she was pointing at things,”Star! Sock! Mammy – what’s that? Snowman!” absolutely brilliant. I showed her all the decorations and moved a bell to a lower branch so she can make it jingle. She loves it and now she’s playing under it with Upsy Daisy. Isn’t Christmas great?

Here is the Advent song for today. If you know it, then comment below and your name will go into the hat to win some great prizes.

The rules.

Attention to detail

amy — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 16:43:23 +0000

Tonight we are decorating the tree. I love putting each thing up and remembering where they came from. Some things were decorations on presents, some things were bought and I can remember where – like the blue and white china decorations we bought on our Honeymoon in Amsterdam, some things were presents like the glass sweets Mam and Dad brought back from Venice, some things I’ve had from when I used to decorate my own room when I was little – including some angels my Mam made from paper, pipe cleaners and mini baubles. My parents have kept the four wooden angels for me to hang on their tree because I always hung those up. My Mam made the angel that goes on the top of the tree (and I made ours) there’s a big heavy ornament that goes near the bottom that was one of the first decorations that they ever bought, and a purple fish that used to belong to the cat. Decorating a tree is like displaying a collection of memories of places and people. I love it.

Later this week I’ll be decorating the cake. I’m not so keen on decorating the cake. I quite like deciding what it’s going to look like and I like cutting out the icing BEFORE it goes on the cake, but it’s a bit of a skill isn’t it? Takes me ages. I also find that I’m never 100% happy with the result, although I feel pleased that I made the effort and did it myself. One day I am going to be great at decorating cakes! Practice makes perfect.

There’s all sorts of decorating takes place at Christmas. Lights, baubles, inflatable snowmen, trees, ribbons, garlands on staircases, presents need to be decorated, the table is decorated, the cake – EVERYTHING has to look just right doesn’t it? There’s so much attention to detail and so many things to consider. Christmas doesn’t just happen, it comes out of several boxes, is the result of much list making, diary organising and money spending and it takes a lot of time to put together.

Recently, have you looked in detail at your stationery, brochures and website and made sure that every word is still relevant? If you’ve had the same materials kicking about for a long time, then things are bound to have changed – once you’ve commissioned your design, print or website, the hard work doesn’t completely stop. Unlike Christmas you can’t just pop them in a box and forget about them for a year. A lot can happen that time – a change in premises, a new employee, a new product, an award win… after you’ve packed Christmas back up again, recycled your Christmas cards and finished eating that enormous turkey, maybe it could be worth having a thorough look over all the communication materials you have and ensuring that they are bang up to date to start the new year. Check that the information and the contact details are right and that there’s no glaringly obvious mistakes. Do it twice. Use a fine toothcomb to make sure you don’t miss anything. It might be about as much fun as cleaning the oven or defrosting the freezer, but it could be worthwhile, especially if you’re considering a re-print of anything. Here’s a list of some of the type of things that you could check (once Christmas is out the way of course):

Business cards
Letterheads
Compliment slips
Invoices
Receipts
Brochures
Banners
Website
Leaflets
Folders
Information sheets
handouts
Postcards
Adverts
Newsletters
Posters

Advent: December 20th

amy — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 08:49:30 +0000

How are your Christmas preparations coming along? We bought the tree on Sunday and what with one thing and another, it didn’t get decorated, so we decided to decorate it last night and discovered that we’d chucked the lights out last year. Ooops. That’s my mission for today so that we can get the decorations up!

Here is the picture for you to guess today, please comment below and you might be lucky enough to win a great selection of prizes.

The rules.

Advent: December 19th

amy — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 08:00:05 +0000

This one is reeeeally easy. If you know it, comment below and you could win some lovely prizes.

The rules.