Studio Elle Designs, LLC

Design Solution: Media Auction

sed-admin — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 16:41:46 +0000

As a person that is always in to something, it’s no surprise that I’m chairing another event for the American Advertising Federation-Montgomery chapter. Event planning is a love-hate relationship. It is fun to put together an event and see the fruits of your labor enjoyed by people, but it is a ton of work and can have lots of frustrating moments. Especially tough for me is getting sponsorships and donations when it is a fundraising event. Fortunately, I have an amazing team working with me to help with that.

Every event needs its own look. The full title of the auction is “Media Mingle and Silent Auction.” Before starting a design for an event, you have to understand what is happening at it and what it is for. This event is for meeting and mingling with media reps and bidding on items in a silent auction. The first visual anybody thinks of when they hear auction is a gavel. But, a gavel is not used in a silent auction. The other problem to over come is how to represent the mingling portion of the event.

So here is the thought process towards a solution. The first direction I thought of was to focus more on the city and location of the event. A stylized skyline with outdoor boards and icons to represent tv and radio. Then I remember this is pro-bono, and it is always better to keep things simple when time is tight (I had to finish fast!). So now I start focusing on mingling. How do you represent people talking with each other without the generic stock image of a group of people? Finally the solution arrived: thought bubbles! Something with thought bubbles and silhouettes would do the job. Then, to work in the auction portion, I included shapes of various media types and dollar signs. Finally, a few martini glasses to represent the cocktails. I chose bright colors to keep it fun, and resulted in the final products (flyer and logo):

A Redesign Story: Tri-State BBQ Festival

sed-admin — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 10:00:33 +0000

The latest website to come out of Studio Elle is a redesign of the Tri-State BBQ Festival’s website. This festival, held in Dothan, Alabama, is a huge BBQ competition. Even though it is called “Tri-State,” teams from several different states come to compete. Teams have already signed up from Minnesota to Florida. Like BBQ? You really have to check this thing out! A whole weekend of sampling BBQ just makes my mouth water. There are all sorts of events for kids, car lovers, foodies, crafters and more.

Before Design:

After Design:

WordCamp Here I Come

sed-admin — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 10:00:15 +0000

I am so excited! I will be attending WordCamp Birmingham in January and WordCamp Atlanta in February. WordCamp is a two-day exploration and sharing of WordPress goodness…just what a growing WordPress designer and developer like me needs to go to to keep on the up and up of WordPress and the awesomeness it provides. This conference focuses on everything WordPress. They are informal, community-organized events that are put together by WordPress users. Everyone from casual users to core developers participate, share ideas, and get to know each other. These camps are extremely cheap when it comes to continuing education events in our line of work. For only $35-40 bucks, you get a full weekend to mix and mingle with other people in your line of work, get answers to your questions and learn from your peers. I will most-likely be tweeting and Facebooking during both events.

Wanna go? Linkage: Birmingham Registration :: Atlanta Registration

Infographics Rock My World

sed-admin — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 10:00:39 +0000

As a designer, I LOVE infographics. The mere essence of their beauty transpiring information is what we strive to do everyday as designers: take something not so interesting and make people WANT to look at it. One of my favorites lately is this history of fonts posted on Mashable. The infographic presents a history of typefaces, incorporating fun tidbits from tech, pop culture and the web.

A client that knows I like them recently sent me two with quick keys for design programs I use. These were created by Business Stationery. Click to enlarge:

Another fun graphic:

Infographic by: GO-Gulf.com Web Design Company

Inspiration Rocks

sed-admin — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 10:30:51 +0000

Are you short on inspiration? Or just looking for some eye candy? Check out these awesome sites:

Lookwork
Inspiration for everything from illustration, architecture and design to industrial design and typography.

Dribbble
Fellow designers post what they are currently working on to their account and you can follow people or just peruse the vast mass of submissions. My account is here.

CSS Remix
This is perhaps my favorite website inspiration site. Also based on submissions, it contains some primo design.

What Good Does Design Do For Business?

sed-admin — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 06:20:09 +0000

It’s not always about good design, but good design does help. People love things that look great. Apple is a prime example, and many companies have tried to mimic them. Design helps you differentiate, communicate, and simplify…”laziness is the mother of invention”, after all. Check out this article by Thomas Lockwood posted on fastcodesign.com.

Oops

sed-admin — Sat, 22 May 2010 02:17:32 +0000

I am so sorry. I have severely neglected my blog! I have been so uber busy I have just not had the time! Freelance has been crazy, and I am also chairing a Leadership conference in July, becoming the president of AAF-Montgomery June/July, and trying to find a new house so we can move. I have been doing sketches, but sadly not every day. So, I have changed my Make Something Cool Everyday goal to just 365 sketches. I’ll do a sketch to equal every day this year, but there won’t be one a day. I have been doing seven one day, take a break, then 5 or 4 in a day, etc. I promise I will catch up. And I will post the sketches I have so far soon. I am currently planning a redesign of my site. It is not as easy to update as I’d hoped, so I am going to redesign it to hopefully better fulfill my needs as well as my clients’/potential clients’ needs. I would also like to start posting some of my crafting projects. Here is a link to a costume I made almost three years ago. Birdo is a Nintendo character that made her/his/its debut in Super Mario Brothers 2. (I don’t think anybody fully knows the real gender of the character) It has continued into other games such as Mario Soccer, Mario Party and Mario Kart. I don’t have any progress pics, but my friend Techie does. Maybe I can get those and post those as well. I made it using plastic netting, foam, lots and lots of wire, fabric, hot glue and fun foam paper. The head is supported by a helmet on the inside, and the shoes were constructed on top of a cheap pair of flip flops. There’s also a big fake diamond ring.

Anyway, that’s all for now. I will try my best to post more. I’m working on tons of things right now!

Second T-shirt Print!

sed-admin — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 14:50:50 +0000

Hey folks…no, I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth. I did finally get behind on MSCE, but I’m not quitting. I’m still working on it and catching up; I will post progress later. But, to the real point of this post:

NOW AVAILABLE! “The Gift” at Tilteed.com!
My second-ever shirt print, “The Gift”, is now available for purchase here. Show some love and comment, or really kick it up a notch and buy one for yourself, friend, kid, whoever!

The Gift

MSCE Day 11

sed-admin — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 23:35:56 +0000

How am I going to know what day I’m on when I get further into the months? This ought to be interesting. I can’t believe I’ve kept up with this for almost two weeks! Today’s sketch is a type of white flower. I thought it was the Spathiphyllum flower, but upon further inspection, I’m not so sure now. The photo I drew from was not labeled. So, I’m just going to call it “White Flower” for now.

White

Day 10!

sed-admin — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 00:00:54 +0000

I can’t believe I’ve kept up this long. Maybe I’ll actually make it a month!

Today’s sketch is of a Moon Flower.

Moon

Yesterday’s sketch was posted via Twitter only, so here it is to update the blog. It is of a burnt-out bulb. This is the blub that helped knock out the house’s electricity last week.

Bulb

On the freelance front, I’ve been working on two big projects for Fort Dale Academy in Greenville; their newsletter and basketball programs have new looks and I hope to have them wrapped up and to the printer soon. An interactive PDF project for Tuskegee University will hopefully be finished up soon. I also have a website and logo in the works for some undisclosed clients. I have been really busy with these projects and Ad Fed…2010 is flying by so far!