Vintage Inspiration

I like to look at a lot of vintage ads when I need inspiration for something at work, so of course when I'm told to do a 50s themed ad for an ice cream parlor I'm going to look for 5os Ice Cream ads.

I stumbled across this one and loved the colors, so I decided to design the one I'm working on like this vintage one. This is what I was told to do, so I'll be designing another one, but I needed to do something fun this afternoon!

Gift Guide Ads! (aka I hate spot color ads!)

Blogspot still won't work on my home computer, so it's been a while since I've had a chance to update. Currently working on ads for the Christmas Gift Guide. Spot color drives me nuts.

Fall Dining Guide Pt. 4

The top ad is from yesterday from before I had any of the images for this place. The bottom image is from today. They requested it be designed like the IHOP ad from our last dining guide. I made it similar but took some liberties.

Fall Dining Guide Ads Pt. 3

Or the edition I like to refer to as "The Client From Hell".


I loathe working on ads for Laughing Sheep Farm and Restaurant. Not only does the mere idea of their food make me a little queasy, the owner is a sadist. She hates everything I design. She will tell me it only needs a few changes which, in summation, ends up being the whole ad. She always sends a novel to put in one small ad, and then tells me it's too crowded. She hates the colors I use, etc, etc.

THIS specific ad, I have already redone FIVE TIMES.

If I didn't think it would cost me my job, I'd tell her to stuff it. Or at least tell her that we gladly accept ready-made ads from our clients.

Fall Dining Guide Ads Pt. 2

Fall Dining Guide Ads Pt. 1

This guy asked that he have the coolest ad in the new dining guide....
Not sure I achieved that, but I still think it's pretty cool.

The original was shot at night so it didn't have a ton of color in it. I went ahead and made it black and white, added a golden color to the windows and their light on the sidewalk. Made the sign neon green because he likes the neon green of his menus, and added some stars, etc.

Keith Bell Wins At Life!

I work at a desk right next from the cartoonist for the newspaper, who also happens to be an ex-instructor of mine from college. We've always gotten along really well and, not to toot my own horn, I've always been one of his favorite students. We recently had a conversation about a monkey trophy which turned into an inside joke. I looked for an actual monkey trophy for him, but the only one I can find costs too much for me right now, so I drew him this lastnight and left it on his desk.

He was really excited about it today and hung it on his wall next to a bunch of prints of his from the paper. My artwork pales in comparison to his, but it's still really awesome.

Fake Coupons

I haven't really felt like posting my work-work lately... mostly most of it has not been posting worthy, but here is a "coupon" I made today. Work is such a drag lately!

Productive Day At Work

Searching the internet at work for yarn pictures for ideas for an ad. Came up with a whole lot of great stuff I can't use, but is fun to look at!

Alas these images remind me of how undproductive I'm being in my own crafting life. I have about a month to secure my booth for the craft fair and about the same amount of time to produce ALL of my inventory. I just want to curl up like the kitten in the last picture!

For the rest of the week I need to focus on making 16 calaveras. (That's just this week's task)

Daily Drawings: Note To Self

Left myself a note before bed so I wouldn't forget what I needed to take to work.
Tuna - for the third day in a row because I don't really know what to eat with my diabetes yet.
Whole Wheat Crackers - To eat with my tuna cos I'm not really supposed to have bread
The rest of the Guinness Cake - so it won't rot in my kitchen
3 bottles of water - because my place of employment only sells sodas. The two I put in the fridge got stolen. WTF co-workers?!

Craftastrophe

I feel like it's been months since I've been able to sit down and craft. While that's not entirely true, it's somewhat accurate. I started my job in July and since then I haven't really had a whole lot of time, or energy, to sit down and sew.

I have something like 20 orders to fill, or at least 20 or so items to make, plus I have goodness knows how much to get done for the county fair and for the arts and crafts fair I'm selling at in October. Deadline for the fair is the end of September, and I'm only submitting a few things, but I will need to restock completely on merchandise for the arts and crafts thing in October which will take me pretty much the whole month of September if not longer.

NOW my boss is thinking about trying to get me to work full-time a loooot sooner than she had originally planned. When-oh-when will I fit all of this into my life? Why can't I make enough from sewing to quit my job?!

Mi Vida Logo (Honey Depot).

Even though I turned in the ad yesterday, and I'm pretty sure it's going to be liked by the business based on Christina's reaction, I got a random idea for this design earlier this afternoon. Haven't done much of anything today. I just got done re-designing an ad for a business I hear is very particular about their design. They've apparently been using the same ad for a really long time and I basically did the exact opposite...as per my boss's request... we'll see. I'm just glad that as a designer I don't have to deal with the public and that everyone I work with seems to think I'm ridiculously talented, haha. :)

Pretty In Magenta and Black?

I'm only allowed to use black and magenta on the coupon for this salon. Would it be pushing it if I just made it look like the Pretty In Pink cover?

....probably, hahaha.

Even MORE fake coupons!

More mock coupons!

There are a bunch more, but these are some of my favorites I've done this week.

More fake coupons

Work work work

I sort of like this. Wish this was the kind of thing I got to do at work every day. In fact, they probably won't even let me use this. Wah wah wah.