Happy Birthday Dad

This is the invitation that I designed for Dad's last birthday (the BIG 5-0). It was fun to take my mom to Paper Depot to pick out paper, and isn't the picture of little Kenny so cute?

 

Happy Birthday Dad, love you!

Read more about how to do your own invites here.

Recollections—Alumni Juried Exhibition

A new show in both campus galleries features the artwork of Auggie alumni. The collection is a great mix of style, medium, texture, and subject.

 

The postcard announcing the juried show was a recent project of mine. Usually designing a postcard with multiple images (that typically don't work well together) is a huge challenge. The art for this show varies in color and style which can make the design process even more of a struggle. However, using small thumbnails of the many images and choosing a highlight color that can be found in many of the thumbs worked well. Even better, each artist in the show has at least one image featured on the postcard and the final product gives the viewer an idea of what to look forward to when visiting the exhibition.

Stop by if you get a chance. The show is open until late October. More information about the exhibition can be found here.

Another T-shirt Design

This one is a bit of an old project, but I was waiting for the event to pass before posting and instead forgot all about it. This spring, I designed a t-shirt for the Big Lake High School Grad Party.

 

 

I presented two designs on the theme "Round 'em up, Move 'em out" and the sheriff's badge was the one the committee chose. I haven't had the chance to see a final t-shirt because I didn't coordinate the printing, but I hope to see one walking around Big Lake soon.

Twin Cities Tandem Club

I'm ready to share a freelance project I have been working on lately. It's a bike jersey for the Twin Cities Tandem Club (TCTC)! I have done a few jerseys before using a semi-custom design option with ATAC bike, which really just involves gathering logos and figuring out where to put them. This full custom design for the tandem club was much more fun.

 

 

It was the club's idea to incorporate the "TC" logo of the MN Twins baseball team, and it was fun to give it a biking spin with handle bars and a bike tire.

Below is a photo from this year's MS150 ride (a 150 mile ride from Duluth to the Twin Cities to benefit the National Multiple Sclerosis Society) where you can see how nice even the semi-custom designed jerseys turned out. I can't wait to see the TCTC jerseys!

Happy 80th Grandpa!

This weekend I was in Illinois celebrating my Grandpa's 80th birthday.  He had a huge party and my uncle (who works for a water bottling company) and I worked together to make custom water bottles for him! Unfortunately, I forgot to get a photo of the actual water bottles—too busy eating yummy picnic food. Luckily my aunt had her camera out and I was able to find a few photos with the bottles in them. So here is a shot with my hand and one of the bottles ...

 

Let this be a lesson to me to remember to photograph more "final products."  I will share a photo of the finished Lakes Run shirts later this week when they arrive.

Minneapolis Map

I finally found a Minneapolis map that I love... now if only I had a place to put it!

From Ork posters

Read more about my map love here.

A Map of My Own

Finally, a map of my own to share, although not nearly as pretty as these.

Recently I worked on maps for one of our campus buildings and they are now up on the walls and ready to help people find where they are going.  It's so satisfying to see a highly visible project like this come to completion.

Hop on the Auggie Train

A few years ago, I got the awesome opportunity to work on a design for the lightrail train wrap to market Augsburg College. I worked the project collaboratively with the Creative Director and it was one of my most memorable creative experiences for a couple of reasons.

1) What is cooler than having creative control of a 90 ft. long train?
I so appreciated that my colleague and I were trusted with such a huge, important branding and identity project. In fact, the college had given a branding firm a shot at the design first and then decided that the project should come in-house. And we knocked it out of the park!

2) The only thing cooler is working on a fun project with a great partner!
We truly do our best design when working collaboratively, and honestly, it's the most exciting way to work. When you tackle projects in teams not only do you have double the creative power, you also have the support you need to be innovative. Trust in your colleagues enables you to push the limits of your creativity.

 

I will never forget the satisfaction and sense of accomplishment I felt when I saw the Auggie Train roll into the station for the very first time. We held our breath as it came to a stop and we got our first close look and then with a sigh, thought "Wow, that's one big Auggie."