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.

Once in a blue moon

February 24, 2013September 16, 2014 | Anna Cull

Lilac Wolf NZ logo design, competition entry, 2012.

I entered this design in a logo competition a few months ago. The brief was to create a logo for dog spa Lilac Wolf NZ that was positive and memorable. The concept behind the brand is that every dog dreams of feeling like a wolf and being treated like a king.

My design shows Lilac Wolf surrounded by bubbles. He imagines they are craters on the moon… or snow falling in the forest. He is howling with happiness — or is he blowing/chasing bubbles?

These are the initial sketches. I really liked the texture of #1 but I decided to work with #2 because of the body shape.

The scanned sketch became a vector trace (flipped and altered slightly).

The traced fur was used as a guide for the coloured vector shading.

I deleted the original fur, continued to edit the shading and the bubbles, and gave the moon a gradient fill. I then redesigned the fur and tweaked a few things for the final logo.

P.S. For those who are curious, I’ve just been told that there was no winning design in the competition.

A pre-modern business card

January 31, 2013June 24, 2020 | Anna Cull

I posted the artwork for Tim Gallant’s business card a couple of months ago but needed to finalise a few details before completing the design. Tim has a longbow-making business and is a talented drum teacher/musician.

The two finger salute included in the design is a gesture sometimes referred to as the Longbowman Salute and may or may not date back to the 1415 Battle of Agincourt. I drew the ‘salute’ as a medieval gauntlet and added a couple of other elements to create a logo that is, I hope, more humorous than offensive. The colours and layout were inspired by the Gallant Family coat of arms.

The background (below) was serendipity at its best. I painted it on a piece of nothing-special cardboard using some acrylic paint left over from another project. I thought it would be quite a smooth surface but, instead, the paint accentuated every little bump and ridge…but it scanned beautifully. I tweaked the colours in Photoshop to better suit the business card and voilà. Where would we be without happy accidents?

Landscape ~ Seascape

December 20, 2012June 24, 2020 | Anna Cull

Artist Rowena Hart has a lovely daughter. Her daughter, Marnie, was one of my tutors at the college where I studied communication arts and design. How amazing to be asked by my former tutor to design a business card for her mum as a surprise birthday present. To say that I feel honoured doesn’t even come close.

Of course I wanted to feature some of Rowena’s art in the design and the white bird is a recurring motif in her work. Rowena paints acrylic landscapes and seascapes (among other things) and also uses mosaic and collage techniques.

Landscape for Rowena #1 – acrylic on card, 150 x 250 mm, 2012.

Landscape for Rowena #2 – acrylic and digital, 150 x 250 mm, 2012.

Landscape #1 is actually two acrylic paintings put together in Photoshop. The white bird was kept on a separate layer so I could play around with placement. The mosaic pattern was drawn in ink and added later.

Rowena said she couldn’t believe that the business cards were so perfectly her!

Happy birthday, Rowena. I’m so glad you like them : )