I’ve found some particularly good articles on design and creativity this week that I figured I would round up and share.
The New York Times: This is 18
This scrapbook style feature on girls around the world turning 18 in 2018 is fascinating, and really illustrates the different lives of these girls.
Inside Design: Sprout Social
This article from the InVision design blog has some great tips about growing a design culture within a company that I definitely want to try to implement.
Adobe Blog: Avoid the Subtle Art of Style Bait
I had never heard of ‘style bait,’ before, but it’s something everyone who has an Instagram account has seen and been victim to before. As a designer of B2B marketing materials, this is something I’m going to be more cognizant about avoiding this.
Sans Forgetica
This is so cool! A team of designers and scientists from RMIT designed and developed a font that is formulated to help you remember your study notes. Where was this when I was in college?! And, you can download it for free!
A few months ago, my friend Julia, who I met while adopting our cat from the Fairfax County Animal Shelter, contacted me about doing a logo design for her. I was pleased to hear that she was starting her own strategic marketing service (and blog) for shelter cats, hoping to not only increase adoptions for hard to adopt cats, but teach others how to do so through marketing—Cat Hustler.
Julia had a very clear vision, and wanted something that was unique, eye-catching, and to the point. Not only would it need to meet traditional logo requirements, but since she is very into DIY and really creative, it would have to work on lots of different media. After we met to talk about the logo and her goals, I did some preliminary sketches.
After confirming that I was going down the right path, some preliminary logos were developed (a few below):
Julia really loved the middle one, and we refined it a little further.
Julia didn’t need much in the way of branding guidance, but we decided on fonts (Overpass, with Gill Sans as a secondary) and a color palette.
Client Testimonial
I’m really happy to report that the Cat Hustler loves it, and it has had great reception. Julia says, “It’s a perfect logo and people love it, but it’s also an exceptional specimen in the way of design. You knew it would be used beyond printed and digital applications, and made it work perfectly for a finicky DIY client.”
“I still can’t believe how easy Regina is to work with. She listened and advised with equal skill, cranked out mock-ups at record speed, humored the back-and- forth between details and minor edits like ear shape, and the timeline… just wow. Coming up with a clean, seal-style logo for cat stuff that hasn’t been done before is a challenge, and she knocked it out of the park.
Our two primary goals were met and exceeded. The first was to create something with such a clean, simple look that would 1) portray cat hustling as something that’s easy and 2) at least partially negate my large, unpolished presence when meeting people face to face. The second was to accommodate my DIY approach to everything. We didn’t know exactly how the logo would be used when designing it, but were sure that it would need to have lines and lettering thick enough to be cut with a Cricut and other untraditional (other than print & digital) applications. Thanks to the multiple files formats Regina provided, getting stamps made was easy. The design scales so well that a ¾” stamp was possible.
The second goal was a marketing objective; I wanted to make the branding inclusive rather than authorative. In other words, I want Cat Hustler to be a collaborative community, not a single person dictating best practices. Cat Hustler is a title one can give themselves, and that’s the make-or- break point in the branding. It’s what makes the logo desirable and why merch like t-shirts and decals will make effective tools for fundraising.”
It’s really nice to have a client that you can trust with taking your work and applying it properly.
Photos courtesy of Julia Grosz
It’s gone even further, and the logo can be found on a lot of places:
Photo courtesy of Julia Grosz
Photo courtesy of Julia Grosz
Photo courtesy of Julia Grosz
Photo courtesy of Julia Grosz
Photo courtesy of Julia Grosz
Photo courtesy of Julia Grosz
Photo by me
And that gorgeous gold foil black tote on the bottom? Julia very nicely made and gifted that to me! It’s so cool to see my work on so many different things, and with so many people!
I’ve been trying to get back into the habit of sketching on what will be hopefully a daily basis, and I did this quick hand lettering sketch at work the other day—later it may turn into something more fleshed out.
Regina Ball Design 