Design a Day Challenge

So. Smashing Magazine had an article about a daily design challenge. The idea is that an artist should challenge themselves to design something every day, which will increase their creative flow, as well as strengthen their talents; whether it be illustration or design in general.

I was thinking that this is the kind of challenge I would like to participate in. So for the year 2010, my goal is to design something every day (or at least every work day), and post it on my blog. Depending on the type of design, it may not be uploaded daily (I may need to scan it, etc.), but the goal remains the same. I want to be creative daily, in a way to express myself and build a gallery of work that reflects me.

So, in the spirit of creativity - this Christmas had me working to create some truly unique pieces of art for some of my family members, and I thought I would post them here, to get the ball rolling.

Hope you enjoy!



This was a set of camoes of the kids that I created for my mom and step-father. There are five kids in the family, and they helped me out by sending photos of their profiles (no, not facebook profiles) so I could work with them. Each of us has a unique profile, and I think they're all fairly recognizable! I used textured scrapbooking paper for the cameos, and got the background from another set of scrapbooking papers. That section comes in handy for more than just scrapbookers!



There's a blurry and out of focus shot of my cameo. Fun!



Here is the painting I did for my sister. She is always dreaming about something, and she has managed to reach a lot of the goals she set for herself from childhood! Very motivated, I wanted to give my whimsical sister something that encouraged her to continue reaching for the stars. Acrylic on canvas, this is what I came up with.

Halloweenie

A reason to do fun make-up? Yes, please!

I'm a Halloweenie.

Really, I am.

I love Hallowe'en! There is something about the spooktacular holiday that brings me back to my childhood and gets me excited (possibly all that candy!). My goal this year was to throw a party with as many photo ops as possible. Through lots of searching online, the Guy and I found a whole bunch of do-it-yourself projects that were begging for our attention. Specimen jars, heads in bottles, witch finger cookies, toe tags, murder mysteries, IV bags, monster eyeballs... there were so many things to do! Even though I started in September, it was still a rush as the countdown to Hallowe'en got shorter. My mind was racing with new ideas of what to do next!

The party turned out awesome; our friends looked amazing; everyone really stepped up to the challenge! The photo above is myself as "Little Dead Riding Hood" being attacked by a Zombie Bob Ross. Could life get any better?

Anyway, thought I'd share with you my very favourite project; the potion jars. I made about 15 potions; from the labels to the contents and couldn't have been happier with how they turned out.

And voila!



Happy November!

Tingling Teeth

Old news - this package was designed in 2007, and in my last gig as a drugstore sales clerk, I drooled over the gorgeous details of the latest Rembrandt packaging.

The simplicity of this package works - with a flooded market of whitening toothpastes, all claiming the same thing, Rembrandt, an already established brand, had an opportunity to simplify their package in an elegant and clean way - creating visual relief on the shelves. Any merchandising clerk can tell you that the Rembrandt packaging was actually satisfying to stock on the shelves - the clean, streamlined and simple design really commanded attention and had presence on the shelf as a high-end item. It was designed by Little Fury and I think they did a great job.

I posted about this package because finally, after two years of shy appreciation of the package, I picked some up yesterday. Just because it looked so nice and I decided that I would treat myself. I don't know what it means when one of the highlights of your week is that you purchased toothpaste with pretty packaging, packaging that you recycle as soon as you discard the cardboard box (although the stand-alone tube is also an elegant and well-thought out package, the glory is in the cardboard sleeve)... I do lead an interesting life, I swear!

Speaking of interesting life - happy Turkey Day! I was lucky enough to spend Thanksgiving with my family this year, and let me say - there is something very nurturing about turkey and family!

Now - gearing up for Hallowe'en. Throwing another party this year, I hope it is bigger and better than last year. I feel myself falling into a tizzy of unorganized chaos. Sometimes my ideas are more grand than the time I have on my hands to implement them. Hopefully I will have pictures to share!

If you are throwing a Hallowe'en party - check out Dave Lowe's blog
. He's got a bunch of awesome tutorials and ideas.. I'm doing the Monster Eye this year - hopefully it'll freak out the chillies!!! Oh man, I really have to get going - so many ideas,so little time!

Snot Pockets

Wacky Packages' Snot Pockets.

Texting with the Guy today went something like this:

P- "Hey! You know how you thought your deodorant wasn't working? It wasn't. I'm wearing your deodorant and I'm sweating. Weird, eh?"

G - "Haha sweaty pits! How's your day going?"

P - "It's going. My nose is like a faucet!"

G - "How bout "snott face sweaty pitts"? :)"

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Juicy Couture?

Colours, juice, awesome all mixed into one. By caracas, a French Design agency. A la the dieline as usual.

Now I'm thirsty!

Jonesing for Jones

No soft drink is cooler than Jones Soda. That's just the way they roll. The cult-following that Jones has fostered creates an illusion of scarcity - my memories of Jones Soda is that finding it in a store was like finding a treasure on a never-ending scavenger hunt! "Look guys! They have Jones!" At that point, we would each pick out and discuss our favourite colour - and then, those who could afford it (usually the ones with part time jobs), would purchase theirs, holding it openly, as it had now become an accessory, establishing coolness in the drinker.

Maybe that was just my friends and I, but Jones Soda always had a unique flair that we identified with. The photos on the front were quirky, flipping the lid to see your "fortune", Jones created an experience for their consumers. And they continue to do so with the new Jones Jumble. The "mixoligist" at Jones has mixed different flavours of their exising product together to create the "Jones Jumble" flavour, similar to the swamp juice of fountain pop machines. Users are encouraged to guess what four flavours have been combined to create this jumble! The awesome graphics of the wrap were created by Super Big Creative. I think they're very current; yet fresh and new. I love the colours and the boldness of the label. Great work!

And I haven't posted for a while, well, no one really reads this anyway - so I figured I could go on hiatus. This bottle wrap really just jumped out and smacked me on the face, so I kinda had to be like "look at this" and blogs are soapboxes, so there you go!

Refreshing

Ballistic over Wine Bottles

Wowza. Student work.
Student work? Really?

Yep - as found via The Dieline, these wine bottles were designed by design student Meeta Panesar. It's well worth taking a look through her site to see the other work she has done. Impressive. She's not afraid of colour, or lack-thereof, she's bold and unique - terrific work!

Oh, student days. There was something amazing about doing work as a student, that I didn't realize at the time. I always thought the glory would be in working on actual product packaging or business cards, for real, legitimate companies. This was so far from the truth! Inventing your own companies, experimenting without client regulations (although my teachers acted as our clients), the "I like blue because it's the colour of my grandson's eye" factor was non-existent.. I wish I'd embraced it more!

Has anyone noticed that summer's kinda, not really here yet? Hello mother nature - it's June now. Bring on the nice weather! Please? I'm recalling the RAIN of last year and hoping for something a little dinner. SUMMER - PLEASE BE GOOD TO US!

Okay, that's all. rant rant rant.
xo

Always Coca-Cola

Anyone who knows me well, knows that I have a but of a crush on Coca-Cola. Well, a bit of a crush AND an addiction. Now, I know Coca-Cola isn't always the most moral of all companies, but I prefer to ignore that information and take the ignorance is bliss approach to the world's favourite soft drink!

I have a slight handle on my Coca-Cola addiction now to the point of the willpower to have only one a day. ONLY one a day, you may ask? Some people don't even DRINK soft drinks EVER?! If you knew how much strength it takes me EVERY day to not go back for 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 or even 7 cans of that sweet, sweet nectar - you would understand that it's a feat of huge proportions! I'm a coke junkie, and like a coke junkie, I'm fully hooked and need my fix!

So, why do I love it? Besides my insane addiction to the product itself? Coca-Cola is one of the most successful examples of branding of ALL time! They manage to maintain their logo, while keeping fresh and current - and always the "Real Thing". They've experimented, made mistakes, and have managed to do all of this without diluting the brand. Success. And they make it fun for collectors, and consumers, by coming out with fancy cans and bottles. The ones above are their latest!

Twitteriffic

Ahahahahahaha. This appeals to me far too much. I may just have to make this a reality!

Pop on over to Steal Our Ideas for some great thoughts, presented in an interesting way, with some humour intertwined!

She keeps going and going and going..

Life is busy! Do I ever wish that I was like an energizer bunny! Or at least one of the toys that seem to last forever in a Duracell commercial. I always liked Duracell the best, but now, quite frankly, it's all Energizer for me. Have you ever noticed how quickly wireless mice and keyboards eat batteries? They're like little energy sucking monsters. They eat through my batteries so fast, I think the blinking "battery life low" is part of my OS design. Energizer batteries seem to last a little wee bit longer, which helps me and my levels of frustration. Oh yeah. Anyway. That's quite a tangent about nothing. I basically am just rambling on. The purpose of this is for me to say - wow. Do I ever wish there were more minutes in the day, more hours to utilize, and for me to be battery powered. I'd use Energizer. Then if I got tired, I could just pop open my mid-section (or maybe my battery pack access would be in the bottom of my foot! That'd work), and pop in a fresh set of batteries. Even if they were rechargeable, I'd get more than one - so that they could charge while I ran around wearing out the juice of the other one. That'd be neat. Imagine if you could duplicate yourself, so that you had one of yourselves on a docking station charging up for the next use. Awesome.

And the purpose of all that is to say, well, hmm.. how am I ever going to get people interested in a blog that I rarely and infrequently update? That sucks. If one of my favourite bloggers goes MIA for a DAY I just don't know what to do with myself. Then again, people like Dad Gone Mad are more entertaining than me anyway. And I'm not feeling sorry for myself, they're super talented! When I found Dad Gone Mad, it was like crack! I went years back in the archives, totally addicted! Note to self - next time you get caught up in a blog, go to the start and read forward; imagine trying to read a book backwards.. it doesn't have the same climactic effect!

And so, I apologize, if there is someone out there lurking about looking for a post. Here you go!




Batteries? No! Try SALT & PEPPER SHAKERS!!!!!!!! Cool, eh? Found on the always inspiring Lovely Package, these puppies were designed by Antrepo. Neat idea, eh? They're the same size as a D battery and even indicate how full they are with their "power indicators" on the side. Awesome.

Hope you like!

Beer?

As found on Lovely Package, this Pomegranate Wheat Beer from Toronto firm,Brand Tonic is a new (lovely) way of thinking when it comes to beer packaging!

Brand Tonic handled the whole identity - from logo to label, in the design of the whole line of beers - the most unique, of which, is this Pomegranate Wheat Beer. It has been treated in a non-traditional way, yet has an old-school vibe about it. At first, I thought, will anyone buy this? Your typical beer drinking hockey lover isn't usually exactly embracing of pretty things like this. But this beer is different, it has fruit flavour - so they're not appealing to that audience anyway, this would be for those who want a flirty drink in a beer. And this package is nothing, if not flirty!

Enjoy!

Holy #@$#!

Hattomonkey, a firm in Russia, designed this packaging for Hot Sauce. They have a lot of REALLY awesome work (check out their blog!), I just wish I could read Russian!

Luckily for me, Lovely Package somehow got a translation, so here it is (which makes this package even better, in my opinion!)

"Hattomonkey has created a packaging design of hot sauce “Hashi” based on unique “non-censored” view. There is a huge selection of “Hashi” hot sauces: a very hot “Halapenio”, extremely hot “Habanero”, unbearable hot sauce “Cayenne pepper”, as well as wasabi and mustard. That special look #@$#! was created just as soon as we tried this hot sauce at the studio. It’s a comic stylized pack with logo consists of only symbols. So the exclamation balloon is to show an emotional wave. Designers have adopted a comic method. When it’s hard to express feelings through words they supplement text by pictures. Thereby the sauce pack content is reintroduced by shout balloon with jagged edges. Hattomonkey informal packaging design is hot and excited. This is not just a simple sauce on a store shelf, it shouts the same language you do “#@$#!”.”

I also just love the packages that they have chosen for their sauces - pretty great! Although I don't know how functional the peel-tops would be, I guess it depends on how you use it! AWESOME.

Wry Baby

What is it about anything baby turning completely normal, rational, articulate and successful adults into cooing melty pods of goo - who say "cute" way more often than necessary (reminds me of that episode of Newlyweds where it follows Jessica and her mom shopping and they do that "cute" montage. Now every time I go shopping I am SO aware of how often I say cute! Ah! But I digress!)?

I, myself, hear my voice rise in hysterical tones when around the miniature! Especially clothes! But really, some of the clothes are so cutesy and ruffled, I feel like we're all 6 again, dressing up our dolls as cute as buttons. I want a cool kid. And could anything be cooler than these Mysterio Future-Predicting Tees from Wry Baby? Pretty awesome! And, having had my fortune read by Zoltar himself last weekend, I'm feeling like Mysterio's chances of predicting the future are very high!



Awesome, clever, funny, and teeny tiny. Wicked!

From trees....

A relief print made from cross sections of actual TREES, Bryan Nash Gill is way awesome, and I want one! Except I would have no where to put it. But I do want one! How cool is this? Simple and neat? And what a story!

From your Monkey

I didn't get to my blog yesterday, but a very special RyGuy celebrated his 26th birthday yesterday, so HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BABE!

I can't take credit for this image, it was drawn by Rosalind Wilson, and it's pretty cute, I think!

Anyway - after a terrific weekend with Ryan in Niagara Falls, hitting Buffalo - now it's back to work! I took some pictures of pretty packaging that I felt was blog worthy, but we'll see how long it takes before I get the photos loaded off the camera!

Anywho - Happy Birthday RyGuy - someone was totally rockin' it when they designed you :) xo

Hanker Chiefs

I got a chance to work with the wonderful Mike Erb again, and JUMPED at the opportunity! Here is the poster I designed for his Classic Country & Western band, The Hanker Chiefs using old posters for land in the states as inspiration. It was fun! I love working with Mike, it's always good times.

Creative flow = Happy Patti

Besides that, life's been hectic and busy! I've got to post a whack of posts, of all the fun things I've been seeing. As always, hop over to the dieline if you're looking for something to peruse!

Take care, chickens! Get out there and enjoy some sunshine!!!!!!

My Curb

I got another opportunity to work with the talented Mike Erb again, working with him is always such a pleasure. He gave me, basically, free reign on the creative - which is ALWAYS a terrific chance to get those creative juices going - and so, this is my result.

It's really nice to do work like this, poster art has always been my favourite of all design (with packaging a very close second) especially the posters of the 60's and 70's - how much cooler can art be?
Super fun job, amazing client - one of those magical moments a designer dreams of! :)

Great Sentiments!

Good to know that someone's putting that thought out there. See that someone's other work:
Mike Monteiro is that someone.

Hand rendered, no less! (gotta love that hand rendered typography!)

Happy Friday the 13th, ladies and gents! Hope your weekend is inspiring!

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreat

Today is one of those days. Sometimes it feels like for every step forward that you take, you end up taking 3 steps backwards. In this time of messed up economies and the drizzle of dread that has been surrounding 2009 so far, I suppose I'm not alone in feeling this way!

I love deviantART. It's a great source for inspiration, and to see what people are doing! There is a LOT of talent at deviantART, and most of the people are doing it just for the sheer satisfaction of creation. That's the best kind. So, I stumbled upon the photo above when I searched "anger" at deviantArt, because, I was angry. And then I came across the beautiful gallery of Protogeny, the one that took the above photo. That made me feel better, at least a little.

So here I go, heading off for my afternoon nap. Hopefully this year will start to turn around for everyone! In the meantime, why don't you take a stroll to deviantART and let me know what YOUR favourite galleries are!
P.

That Thom, Thom, Thom, Thom, Thom!

I was thinking - if there is a weekday that is awesome, even though it's a work day, and not including Friday, because that's the weekend - well, it would be Wednesday. It's kind of like a little pet that is, you know, something to be looked after and everything, but is boundless with positive vibes and wonderful things to experience. Wednesday is totally the best pet of the workdays. Yep.



Thom Yorke. Not the most handsome devil in the world, but talent which exceeds that of a 'normal' being. Radiohead's awesome, and Thom is, too!
For the Grammy's this year TWBA \ Chiat \ Day created this beautiful poster, as well as some others. Beautiful, inspiring, creative.. just like the music of Thom and Radiohead, alike!

Hope you enjoy it - Happy Hump Day!

I'm Back?

The good people at The Dieline piqued my interest, once again - sharing with me, the world of Aesthetic Apparatus!. They created these tea canisters for Andrews & Dunham's Damn Fine Tea.
Quirky, fun and unique, Aesteic Apparatus' portfolio is a kaleidoscope of colour and fonts - check out this poster for The Talkies.


I know it's been a long while since I posted - and I'm going to work on that. Who wants to read a defunct and never posted on blog? Like no one in the world. I think, also, that since my life is so freaking hilarious - I may begin sharing some of my antics with you - I think you'll laugh!

Have a super day!

I love hand rendered typography

Today was one of those days where the filesizes I've been dealing with are massive - so I took some time while watching that blue progress bar, slowly torture me by creeping to the right at a snail's pace - to doodle. And that's something I love to do, but don't get to do very often.

So there yo go, folks - shot with my new phone - not great lighting, not great colour, not great resolution - thought I'd share what I've been up to!

Do you love hand rendered typography?

The real McCoy!

I just about flipped my lid when I saw this bourbon packaging by The Creative Method. This blog is turning quickly into a packaging fan site - what can I say - I like packaging tons and tons and tons!
And here is a gorgeous example of packaging that really works - and really creates a character for a product. The typesetting is great - current, but with some nostalgic air - especially in the distressed treatment. The wood box is great, simple, but effective. I really like the added touch of the die for the label, those rough edges really make it look like it's travelled through time. All together, it sums up (to me) a bourbon that is tried, tested and true - and a real treasure.

Love!

On a side note - I've fallen in love with the blog Petunia Faced Girl. You really should pop over and take a look. Maybe I've already tried to send you over, I don't know - but it's worth checking out FO SHO!

Also - my firm has finally gotten around to writing a bio about me for the website. When it's up, I'll have to post it. I know that my boss HAS to write good things about me because, really - we're selling ourselves, right? But it puts a smile on my face either way!

Peace out!

Breath of fresh air

After a break from posting, due to the absolute MAYHEM that is Christmas, I bring you:


I am loving patterns right now. And I am loving the rich look of these Stussy air fresheners.
I always remember Stussy as being more of a fashion line - but who knows! I like how the packaging is like that of spray paint. I think that's neat. The design itself takes it to a whole new place, it's somehow old fashioned looking - with an urban edge.
Thoughts?

Thanks to High Snobiety for finding this first!

Also - over Christmas, I was so lucky to receive the "Designers are meant to be love not to be understood" poster that I blogged about here. I think I'm going to Plakkit - it's headed for the studio.
Thanks mom & Denis - hope your flight back to France today is quick and painless!