Inspiration

Over the last few months I've been designing some share images for one of my clients. They post these inspirational quotes on Facebook for their fans to share. It's a fun way to engage their audience through social media and hopefully it will lead to greater brand awareness and business for them.

This is a fun project for me because there are few restrictions other than including the quote. Most of the quotes are thought provoking and don't necessarily conjure up a particular image so typography becomes the main element to convey the message.

Enjoy these examples and become a fan of Accepted.com to see the latest on their Facebook page. (Or see them when I remember to pin them here.)

fabric effect

I follow a number of different blogs that have great graphic design resources, tutorials, advice and inspiration. Every so often I pick one of the many tutorials and see what new skills or tips and tricks I can learn from it. One I did last week was a super easy effect - stitched fabric type style done in Photoshop. Tutorial can be found on WeGraphics (here - thanks!) and my finished product below, it only took minutes for this great effect!

small but good

Just a nice little reminder that no matter what is going on in your life to always appreciate the good, however small because sometimes it's easy to overlook them.

Contact me if you are interested in a poster print of this design. Or download the desktop wallpaper here, free!

Want more like this? Let me know in the comments!

oh, hey, sunday

Yesterday we went with Plan B outing with friends. It wasn't Disneyland (Plan A) but it sure was a nice day!

We leisurely made our way up to Ojai after a tasty pizza lunch. I'd never been to Ojai so enjoyed seeing the area, the green hills, little houses along the main road, nice town area, old-style street signs and all the little boutiques and galleries and shops. We spent a good amount of time in Bart's Books, an outdoor  book store with heaps of used and some new books, meandering in and out of the indoor and outdoor areas, browsing the thousands of books. We all managed to find something there, a very eclectic collection.

After a few hours in the town we stopped in Oxnard for a tasty dinner (I'm still full) and a little wine tasting.

Fun, relaxing day! (Very necessary, it will get me through this busy week.)

L: Great street sign, if a little hard to read from the car.
R: Bougainvillaea outside the tourist info and town museum

L: Bookshelves all around the outside fence of the store!
R: Heaps more inside, most are 'outdoors', covered by simple corrugated roof.

L: Vintage Yashica camera at Bart's Books.
R: View through the 'viewfinder' of the camera.

L: Wall inside Bart's Books papered with illustrations from books.
R: Handwritten signage over each section and more books!

central coast beach

One of the places I wanted to explore a little on our recent trip to the Central Coast was Pismo Beach. I'd only ever seen it briefly, driving through on the way to San Francisco and it looked like the kind of relaxed, beach town, the type similar to where my parents would sometimes take us on summer holidays. That worn, salty feeling that happens by the beach, the slight bit of rust on signage, the aged feel of the wood on the pier.

We wandered around the streets near the beach a little (plenty of bars, gaming places, casual eateries, and oddly enough, tattoo parlours), walked down the pier to watch the sunset, felt the waves as they crashed into the wooden pylons of the pier, quite far out from the sand! The light was magnificent, casting a warm glow over the hills and coastline, shadows lengthening as the sun started to dip below the horizon.

Wouldn't it be nice to have a house up on the hill, with a view of the ocean and close enough to enjoy the beach every day?! *wishful thinking*

seaside fun

Had a really great, relaxing weekend recently. After a movie and frozen yogurt on Saturday night, Sunday we spent the morning walking around Balboa Island and Newport Beach, taking the ferry across, looking at the houses and boats and some beautiful views, playing games in the arcade, browsing in the shops and boutiques and enjoying the sun and the seaside relaxed atmosphere. Some necessary fun! :)

sculpture in tacoma

On our trip to Seattle (other posts here and here) we decided to head to Tacoma to the glass museum. Mainly because of me because I wanted to see the Venetian Wall and whatever other glass art I could find. On the bridge where this wall is located was the fantastic glass rock sculpture, looking like big sticks of candy (good enough to eat?), a similar type of structure to Crystal Mountain (featured in the Jerusalem 2000 exhibition). From that location you can see Union Station and the Chihuly art in the window! I also like the lettering of the station signage.

to market

Even though the most recent trip we took was to Washington DC I still haven't transferred my pictures to the computer. I was looking through my pictures from our trip to Seattle WA today in between some work. One of the to-do things in Seattle is Pike Place Market down by the water. It's signage is iconic as is the fish market where the fishmongers are theatrical and throw fish.

We were there on a really gorgeous day on a long weekend so it was very, very busy. Great produce, fresh flowers and arts and crafts for sale plus of course the first Starbucks store! I really liked the floral border running along the top of the building.

see through abc

This past Labor Day weekend we headed off to visit Washington DC (for the first time) and take in as much of what is on offer there as we could in three days! There was so much to see and learn - architecture, politics, museums for for everything, art, history - we only scratched the surface of what is there!  (The heat and humidity made touring tiring.)

I got a crash course in American history during a visit to the Capitol Building and Library of Congress and we enjoyed a tour of the White House (part of it). The Conservatory had a beautiful collection of plants and flowers and we popped into a couple of other museums along the way. One of these museums was the Smithsonian Hirshorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. The images below show an interesting metal and wood sculpture (located on one side of the museum) with one side stamped out Cyrillic letters and the other our English Alphabet letters. I liked the combination of materials and the balance of construction. And it was kind of fun taking pictures of each other through the lettering.

(Apologies for neglecting to note down the artist name.)

The art inside was varied - modern, sculptures, paintings, installations - and there was one exhibit that was really trippy, I think it was this.

Looking forward to going back and exploring more sometime in the future!

in my neighborhood

Went looking for some interesting type or signage while out one evening but didn't see much that captured my eye walking around mostly residential streets. The houses are fun to look at because they're different from the styles in Australia so even a year and a half later, it's still somewhat new for me. But I'm eager to see more of LA so I'm hoping to get out and about to see some areas I've not been to yet!

 Follow me on Twitter! @SarahLikesGreen

theatrical type

Art Deco style plus neon lettering theatre signage on an evening walk.

Have a great weekend!

if you use comic sans... fyi

Don't misuse comic sans. It's a crime. Or, if you see someone using the font incorrectly, share with them this link which explains how to use it appropriately. Or learn to not use it at all. This site offers alternative fonts. I think the font should be banned. But that's just my opinion.

via Smashing Magazine