My Cute Dog Character

Here's a cute dog character I've worked on called Rufus. I've tried to go for a more cheeky and mischievous cute rather than a very sweet and cuddly character. I thought this would give greater scope for the character to be doing more contemporary things such as listening to an ipod or riding a scooter. I can imagine him running off the page and hiding your pens and pencils just for a giggle. Hope you like him : )

A bit more Christmas

Here's a sneaky peek at the looser water colour style I've been developing. It's actually a section of a Christmas wreath which is available for license via Advocate Art. I'm rather chuffed with it!

The world of corporate identity

I've been dipping my toes back into the world of corporate identity of late. It was quite a nostalgic design experience as I started my career in design and advertising agencies in Liverpool and Manchester. I've looked at an identity for Scout Moor Wind Farm, where I wanted to push the eco credentials of the site.

Re the Lakes PR logo, the client wanted the logo to capture the mountain range and lakes of the Lake District, which you can see on the stationary image. I looked at a few from the point of view of highlighting communication in the logo too (on the pink background). Lakes PR caters for PR needs of companies primarily in and around the Lake District, in particular those that deal with tourism such as B&B's, restaurants and hotels. Contact julie.darroch@lakespr.co.uk if you need some professional and expert PR.

Hanukkah Greetings Designs

I've recently worked on some Hanukkah greetings card designs. The project required a little research into Hanukkah, also known as the Festival of Lights. It's always challenging to work outside of your own culture in terms of understanding the symbolism of various elements and colours you may want to use. I was lucky enough to visit a local Synagogue as a child and learn a little about Judaism, so it was great to spend some time reading about Hanukkah and it's meaning again. Every day is a school day as they say..

watercolour designs

I've completed some watercolour based designs so thought I'd blog are couple which are available through Advocate. I imagine them to work with touches of flitter, tip-ons and even the odd bow to help them appeal to a more traditional market. I'm also currently looking at working style that's more loose, which you can see here on an acorn I played around with. It's all in it's early stages at the moment, but hopefully from small things something bigger may grow... just like my wee acorn.

Featured on Print and Pattern!!

WOW!! I'm hugely excited to have been featured on the amazing Print and Pattern website!! It's a fantastic blog which has been instrumental in terms of keeping me inspired and feeling connected to my fellow designers. I'm simply over the moon!!

cute

I've developed some cute characters for Advocate, one of which is this cute mouse. I've tried to freshen up the cute aspect of the designs by incorporating a vintage aspect to items that surround the character, like the telephone. There's a real challenge to creating a cute character that is different enough from many of the amazing soft, hand finished characters out there, but retains commercial appeal. I'm not sure if I've succeeded, but here's my mouse anyway : )