A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…

July 10, 2013September 18, 2013 | Anna Cull

No, not really… although I did make these images more than a decade ago! I’d completely forgotten about them. I rediscovered them when I was backing up some of my old computer files. Hands up if you’ve heard of Bryce, the 3D modelling software. Hands up if you knew about it in 2002. Back then, the program was owned by Corel (it’s now owned by DAZ) and I was teaching myself CorelDraw and PhotoPaint. Corel users were offered a free trial and it sounded like fun…

I created seascapes, landscapes, snow-covered mountains and shiny spheres floating in impossible skies. And it was a lot of fun. But rendering the scenes was painfully slow and I seem to remember crashing my computer frequently and often during the process. A month’s trial was quite long enough. Seeing these images again now though, I’ve been wondering about checking out the latest version… but it’s just not possible to do everything — there simply aren’t enough hours in the day!

Dear diary, part five

July 5, 2013September 16, 2014 | Anna Cull

ABN logo – sketches and final design
Visual diary, two-page spread (student project, 2011)

logo © Access Broadcast News, 2011

I worked on this logo while I was at design school and so I included it in my exhibition but, really, it was a freelance project that I did in my ‘spare’ time. Access Broadcast News is a media-monitoring company based in Wellington. They wanted their logo to be vibrant, dynamic and creative. I liked the idea of putting a new spin on the more traditional images of news communication such as radio waves and old television sets (which is why they appear in the sketches). My final solution is a cheeky nod to the RKO radio tower. I brought it into the 21st Century by adding multi-coloured dots to represent modern fibre-optic cables.

The diary pages are from a journal I designed for my Design & Arts College exhibition in 2012. Two years of research, ideas, word maps and sketches had to be reduced to a mere 72 pages. It was no easy task but I now have a beautiful, professionally bound diary that I’ll always treasure.

Fiona’s business card

June 22, 2013June 24, 2020 | Anna Cull

The green background texture is an acrylic painting. The images are ink drawings. I really do enjoy designing logos and business cards!

Dear diary, part one

June 7, 2013September 16, 2014 | Anna Cull

Personal logo – generating and refining ideas and thumbnail sketches
Visual diary, two-page spread (student project, 2010)

Personal logo and business card – recreating the logo using parts of a single typeface
Visual diary, two-page spread (student project, 2010)

A recent blog post by graphic designer Becca Shayne about the value of keeping a sketchbook reminded me of the visual diary I put together for my Design & Arts College exhibition in 2012. All of my course sketchbooks (crammed full of research, ideas, inspirational quotes, word maps, doodles and sketches) had to be edited into a single, professionally printed journal of only 72 pages. It was no easy task but it’s something I’ll always treasure.

These are the diary pages of our very first project: to design our own logo and business card. I really enjoyed the process but I didn’t like the logo enough to use it. I’m still very fond of Helvetica though.

Retro chic

May 25, 2013July 7, 2013 | Anna Cull

This is something I made for one of my best friends ― along the same lines (so to speak) as the image I’m currently using as my WordPress Gravatar. Both drawings are based on a Vectortuts+ tutorial that gives step-by-step instructions for turning a photograph into a digital drawing in the style of 1960s pop artist Roy Lichtenstein. Now I’m wondering if I can convince her to dye her hair purple!

Bagirl photo shoot

April 24, 2013July 7, 2013 | Anna Cull

Meet Sandra Fleck a.k.a. bagirl, maker of bags (and other things). I wrote a post last year about designing Sandra’s logo, business cards and product tags and have finally persuaded her to start a WordPress blog. I only had about an hour and a half for the photo shoot ― and believe me, that’s not very long ― but we still managed to get some good shots. We must remember to put the tags on the bags next time!

Here’s a sneaky preview of what Sandra will be posting over the coming weeks. She has a real flair for thinking outside the box. To find out more and to read the stories behind the bags, visit my bagirl world.

Sandra Fleck bags — © Sandra Fleck, 2013