I've mentioned how much I love when previous brides call for baby shower & birthday papery for their growing families ... and Lainey's parents are no exception!!! Love them!

Ladybugs set the stage for Lainey's first birthday celebration this past weekend. I had the pleasure of creating invitations, pennant and {Yes! You see them!!!} a tissue pom pom party-pack complete with custom Ladybug poms!!!

Our Ladybug PomThingy's are up on my Etsy shop now!

These tissue ladybugs are the first of their kind and can be found only at SJD!! Yep we're the first to take tissue pom poms to the next level ... and we've got lots more PomThingy's {that's what I'm calling these little critters!} to post over the next several weeks.

Happy, Happy 1st Birthday Lainey!!

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As promised cute little pics of Miss Mila with her cute Rainbow & Cupcakes pennant ... courtesy of the all awesomeness Jacqueline Photography. Pennants are such a fun way to bring some whimsy to any adorable little photoshoot!

Happy, Happy 1st Birthday Mila!

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jess + doug are getting married in philly this fall. they have a lot of friends and family on the west coast from living out that way, so they wanted to have a little fun with the save the date. we designed 2 different vintage postcards. both have the same US map line drawing depicting the main highways, but differ with light-hearted sayings specific to the guests on each coast.

4" x 6 ", double sided, flat card, digital on french's speckletone kraft paper

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we just wanted to share some photos from laura + lee's wedding day taken by the talented ladies of lovemedophotography. the pastel hues and soft sunlight truly compliment their romantic-vintage theme. check out the rest on their blog!

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We were on Style Me Pretty's Little Black Blog yesterday!! Yipppeeee us. :) View the feature here.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY: TINYWATER PHOTOGRAPHY

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“The stubby beer bottle was Canada’s national beer bottle from 1961 to 1984. In 1961 the Dominion Brewers Association (now the Brewers Association of Canada) replaced the heavy, bulky, non-standard 12oz “pint” and 22oz “quart” beer bottles with a new more efficient designed “stubby” bottle to be used by all Canadian breweries.” Enjoy

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Albanese was a lettering project for a local client at the beginning of 2011. This was a project which required a lot of sketching in a quick time frame to develop a brandmark for a chocolate product.

I often tell people that that drawing skills are essential. When I start a project I do a lot of preliminary studies to learn the letterforms. I am not creating detailed drawings as all the precise draftsmanship happens while drawing in Adobe illustrator. I rarely spend more than a couple minutes per sketch. Basically a lot of quick investigation of what may work for readability.

This series of sketches was done with a PITT marker on sheets of 9" X 12" layout paper. I drew these studies while sitting at the kitchen table eating lunch. Only had a couple hours get some ideas together on paper for a quick presentation with the art director. After all the trial and error studies I picked versions which had some potential for further development, traced them while adding notes for the AD to read. After sacnning the layouts I e-mailed the files for presentation.



These are the images sent to the AD. After he reviewed everything we discussed which versions to develop in Illustrator.















This image shows the vector versions created from the sketches.



After sending the vector art files to the AD I created one more version that had nice flow and contrast. Something extra as another option for the AD.

Overall, this was a very successful project. The images show that drawing is an important part of the lettering process. Sketching is the way to find out in a very quick time frame what will and will not work. Concept sketching also allows the opportunity to show a client what is possible instead of guessing what finished art might be.

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