The Concept: Create packaging for three handcreme products for the brand Forget-Me-Not.

Fun, flirty and a times quirky, the designs needed to reflect the brand's personality, without diminishing its quality position. As a brand, Forget-Me-Not represents detailed craftsmanship. The typography, illustration and unique dieline elements help to convey all of the brand characteristics.  

Forget-Me-Not is a conceptual brand created for this portfolio.

Skills used: brand name development, typography, hand-drawn type, original illustrations, Illustrator and Photoshop CC.

The Client Brief: Design brand identity elements for a start-up communications agency including a logo, business card and letterhead. The objective was to create simple and clean designs that focused on the name of the company. The Grain Agency is in the process of trademarking their name.

Skills used: brand name development, typography, logo design, business cards and letterhead, layouts in Illustrator CC.

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The Client Brief: Design a logo for the band Midnight Cruisers, a 5-piece rock band that has been playing to packed venues across Southern Ontario. They specialize in classic “middle of the road rock n’ roll”. Artists include Styx, Steely Dan, Kansas, Beatles, Todd Rundgren, Sugar Loaf, John Cougar, Eagles and many, many more.

The objective was to create a colourful logo with character reminicsent of hot rod cruiser artwork.

Skills used:  logo design in Illustrator CC.

The Concept: Create two product package designs for the Celadon Soap Company. The designs needed to reflect the fresh, modern brand and the bright and exotic fragrances of the soaps. The national flower of Bermuda was the inspiration for the repeat pattern. 

Celadon is a conceptual brand created for this portfolio.

Skills used: brand name development, typography, seamless repeat surface pattern designs, dieline creation, layouts in Illustrator CC.

The Design: Repeat patterns can be fascinating and creating them can be very satisfying. And if they are created to be seamless, they are infinitely scalable and can be used in so many creative ways: fabric, wallpaper, packaging – anywhere beautiful designs are required.

In this example everything started with a single leaf drawn in Illustrator and layered with a watercolour background. Once the feature image was complete, a variety of scalable, seamless patterns was created.

The fifth pattern shown here can be purchased from my Spoonflower shop. It is available in a variety of colours, in a range of fabrics, as well as wallpaper and gift wrap. I have other designs available for sale through my shop on Spoonflower.

To purchase this pattern, and others, in made to order home decor items from Roostery please click here.

Skills used: illustration of leaf, seamless repeat surface pattern design, layouts in Illustrator CC.

The Client Brief: The Midway Diner in Barrie needed some interior signs to let their customers know they would be closed for an entire week in January. 

Since the diner is usually open 363 days a year, their extended closure is atypical. As a result, they wanted to attract the attention of their customers with a bold, colourful sign. Inside, the mood is reminiscent of a ‘50s diner with a distinctive red, blue and yellow colour scheme, and a classically style checkboard floor and tile accents.  The signs provided needed to fit in with the established atmosphere and visual scheme.

To add some character, I wanted to include the diner’s logo. However, the only version available was for web and on their Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/MidwayDiner/ and it would not work well in print, so I decided to recreate it in Illustrator.

Made up of three parts, the type was the most challenging. The word DINER appeared to be an existing font but I couldn’t match it exactly so I started with Unica and modified the each letter as needed. The MIDWAY however, looked to be hand-drawn and replicated the original exterior signage from 1962 – the only option was to re-draw it by hand in Illustrator.

Skills Used: hand drawn and modified typography, logo recreation and layout designs in Illustrator CC.

The Concept: Create packaging for facial tissue boxes using photography that could wrap around a multi-sided box. Photos selected had to have either an overall continuous image as in the cloverleaf, or could be retouched to create a seamless image as in the mountain scene.

These designs are conceptual and created for this portfolio. They are intended to show skill in replicating traditional packaging.

Skills used: typography, dieline creation, retouching and colour adjustments in Photoshop and layouts in Illustrator CC.

The Client Brief: Design and prepare printer files for an Invitation Business Card and Information Book Mark for the Probus Club of Barrie Huronia.

Probus is an international organization with clubs operating in small to large communities. The clubs are made up of retired, professional business people who meet once a month. The Barrie Huronia club wanted some printed promotional pieces to encourage new membership. 

The copy was provided, and as an off shoot of Rotary Clubs, a logo had already been designed. During the design phase the client requested a black and white design for the Invitation Business Card. This posed a challenge as the "black and white" logo available was highly pixelated and appeared to be from a scan of the colour logo. 

The solution was to recreate the existing logo in a proper black and white vector format. This was done using Illustrator's live trace tool as drawing from scratch could have introduced accuracy issues.

The typography for each item needed to be simple and easy to read for the senior membership of Probus.

Skills Used: typography, logo recreation and layout design in Illustrator CC.

The Concept: Design a unique logo for Diadem Jewellers. The icon portion of the design was inspired by a rose gold metallic swatch that could be used online and in packaging. A single colour version was also needed for situations that could not accommodate metallic reproduction.

A typeface exploration resulted in four options that ranged from art deco, to a classic script, and two serifs, one modern and another traditional.

Diadem Jewellers is a conceptual brand created for this portfolio.

Skills used: brand name development, typography, icon design and layouts in Illustrator CC.

The Concept: Create packaging for an anti-aging facial serum within the line of Natural Solutions branded products. This brand is positioned as dermatological and clinical experts in the facial care category and the packaging needed to reflect the serious nature of the brand.

Natural Solutions is a conceptual brand created for this portfolio and is intended to demonstrate an understanding of traditional packaging. 

Skills used: brand name development, typography, icon design and illustration, dieline creation, layouts in Illustrator CC.

The Assignment: Create a 4-page newsletter/brochure in InDesign that demonstrates technical understanding of layout creation, typography using paragraph and character styles, and image placement.

The choice of subject matter, content and design was open for interpretation. Canada’s 150th anniversary was top-of-mind in the spring of 2017 and it became the over-arching theme of the brochure. I wanted to highlight content that drew on both the present and the past of Canada as well as Ontario. The anniversary logo and a story on the fathers of confederation are featured on the front and back cover. Content on the inside of the brochure focussed on local Ontario celebrations and some historically themed attractions.

This Canada 150 brochure is a conceptual project and created as part of an InDesign course.

Skills used: concept development, typography, layouts in InDesign CC.