Blog

I started working on a design for the Christmas card… but I did not like it so I scraped it. I was going to go for a close up of ornaments with intricate designs in foil hanging in a Christmas tree, but I could not make the tree branches sit the way I wanted without it looking too busy, empty, or heavy. I started looking up Christmas cards to gain inspiration. I am drawn to vintage designs in general so I started to search for vintage Christmas cards. I found some of Christmas trees and decided to go in that direction. I am doing to make the ornaments straight gold foil, along with a vintage font saying “Merry Christmas” on the front. I also am thinking of using a parchment colored paper to keep with the vintage feel. I will have to make a document with what I want the card to look like and one with the spot color for them to use in production with the foil. I hope it turns out!

I was able to meet with Panther’s Director of Operations to go over what he is wanting for the Panther Christmas Card! It was nerve-racking and exciting! He gave me a lot of freedom for the design and copy while also including required aspects such as “Merry Christmas” instead of “Happy Holidays”. He said the copy could be short, sweet, and generic or could be sappy (which he said he is more on the sappy side), which means the copy should definitely be sappy! He also wants foil or embossing to be incorporated into the design to show that Panther can do that and highlight their skills! I have never made a project with foil or embossing so I asked one of the graphic designers how to show that on an online document. She said to make it a very distinct color so that is what I’m gonna do! Now it is time to try to make an impressive design!

I took my cousin’s senior photos this summer and have been working on editing them for her. I was super nervous to take them because I am not a professional. Overall, the photo taking process was good and fun (kinda buggy though). The editing was the hard part and it was difficult to balance planning a wedding, school, work, and looking at the photos. The Photoshop class from last year really came in handy as I had to smooth out acne, brighten teeth and eyes, and remove fly-away hairs. I also removed some cars, poles, etc. from the backgrounds. I hope she likes them!

Working at an actual internship makes me want to do my best. I want to leave a good impression and show that I can succeed in this industry. I have to be the best I can. I left pharmacy school to pursue design as my career.

I got an email back from my supervisor saying “The poster looks good, thanks!” To me, that means the poster was good, not great. I was a little disappointed to read that. It is okay though, it will push me to be better and improve my work. This was my first project so I will definitely work to improve and show my worth!

I finished the flyer and sent it off! I thought this was a really fun project to work on! I added the food elements (making a ham was a little more difficult than I expected). I used the same gingerbread man from the man’s sweater to be the cookies on the table. I really like the eggnog whipped cream I made, it looks delicious and I don’t even like eggnog. I sent the design off to my supervisor and I can’t wait to see what she says!

I started designing the flyer for the Ugly Sweater Christmas Potluck! I am excited to be designing at my internship! I do not think I can post pictures of the flyer on here though since it was made at Panther and I think it is technically Panther’s property. I will just explain my idea.

I made two people (a man and a woman) looking at each other wearing different ugly sweaters. The man is wearing a red sweater with a gingerbread man whose leg was broken off. I added some words to say “Oh Snap!” I thought it was kind of funny. The woman is wearing an ugly sweater that looks like a Christmas elf uniform. Both people have their elbows on the table of food which will include a ham, eggnog, and cookies. I still have to make those elements yet.

My first project at Panther is creating a poster for their annual Ugly Sweater Christmas Potluck! It is a fun project and I have a lot of freedom with the design. Of course it has to include ugly sweaters and food! Right now I am just brainstorming ideas of how I want it to be laid out.

It must include the title of the event, the date, the location, and a sign up sheet for who is bringing what item. They gave me a Thanksgiving event flyer to look at to see how they designed it before. The Thanksgiving flyer was set in landscape orientation and I think I want to make mine portrait with the sign up at the bottom. We will see how it turns out!

I asked people around church about how they liked the new logo and was met with very positive feedback. I also learned more about the design of the logo and why they chose specific aspects. The logo has a gold cross in the middle to stand out and identify the church. The letter ‘G’ of course stands for Grace and makes up part of a double circle, which gives it movement. They said the circles represent both the world that the church serves and indirectly references the ELCA logo. They chose burgundy and gold colors to match the primary colors inside the Sanctuary and exterior of the building. I also included burgundy and gold in our wedding colors for those reasons. I really like that they explained the reasons for the design and I think it really works well together.

For our magazines, we had to interview a media industry leader and a small business. For my small business, I chose to interview Shania Rozeboom, the owner of Rainy Day Coffee Co. She is from my hometown and has made a successful business selling coffee and treats out of her truck “Lucille”. She has also just opened up a brick-and-mortar shop in my hometown too, complete with a drive-thru. I really like her products and it makes me happy to see her so successful! The interview went great and I was able to get a lot of information! I just hope I can fit it all in two-pages in my magazine.

This week, my church introduced their new logo. I go to Grace Lutheran Church in Luverne, MN since that is my husband’s church. We actually just got married there in October. Anyways, the new logo looks really nice and they have implemented it a lot of places already. I first noticed it when I wanted through the doors because they put decals up.

They hired McQuillen Creative Group of Aberdeen, SD to do the logo. I was surprised they did not hire Quality Printing in Luverne, but maybe they don’t do logos? They said they wanted their logo and branding to be both modern and forward looking, but also classic and simple. They wanted the logo to connect with their Christian identity first, their name, and their church home. I think it looks really nice!