Bembo's Zoo

A little bit of Friday fun with Bembo's zoo

Fife Society for the Blind

It's always great to see my designs around in real life (in other words off my screen). So I was very pleased to see a photo of the tie and scarf I designed for Fife Society for the Blind using the lovely Penelopi elephant worn in a photo along side Gordon Brown.

Let's Talk ASN

When I'm accepting a design brief from someone it is important that I understand exactly what the client is looking for. One of my favourite questions to ask is what other brands/ websites do you like? Even if they are unrelated to what the client is branding it still gives me a visual clue about their tastes and their idea of good design.

My other favourite question is what do you not like? When I asked this client both these questions unusually the response included a number of things to avoid due to their prevalence in the sector. I realised these were the icons I would have turned to first and ideas that I have in fact used for other clients in previous work.

But I love a challenge and both the client and I are very pleased with the outcome.

You can get more information about the service from the Govan Law Centre Education Law Unit facebook page.

Water photography

As well as being really busy with client work lately I've also had the opportunity to take a 5 week photography course at Art 4 You Scotland. The tutor was the fine art photographer, Dave Hunt. His explanations of how the camera works were really good and even although I have some experience of taking photographs especially close ups I learned a lot. We spoke a lot about how to capture a subject that is moving, a concept with which I was struggling.

The beautiful weather over the Easter weekend gave me the perfect opportunity to go walking along the river with my camera and have a play with what I've learned. I was quite pleased with the results.

Little Wonders

Logos are interesting to design. I enjoy the research stage, finding out what the business does and working out how to represent it. No research was required for this logo for the Little Wonders toddler group though. Being a mum myself I am very familiar with the business of toddlers.

I wanted it to be fun and where there are toys there is fun. Not wanting to resort to the primary colours I instead went for a palette of orange, green and yellow. The trio is bright and cheerful but also a little sophisticated to appeal to all the mummies and daddies.

Quest for Success

Design is a process. Once I receive a brief my creativity gets to work until I have something to show the client. Thereafter it tends to go back and forth until both of us are completely satisfied.

The work I did for Quest for Success was different. Karen & I always seemed to be on the same page. The concepts to be illustrated were challenging; resistance to change, strengthening personal impact but my brain really enjoyed being stretched. And I'm really pleased with the results. Sticking to the core colours kept them simple yet completely on brand.

Checkout the Quest for Success website to find out more about Karen's great work.

The Games People Play

I really enjoy the challenge of being a graphic designer. Every client is so different and I often have to research to get a feel for the business. My aim is always to make my designs as appropriate and relevant as possible.

In this case no research was required at all. As soon as I was given the brief I had an idea in my head. You may or may not know that I'm a bit of a board game fan.

That's why, I just knew that for advertising a board games event photographs of board game pieces or meeples would appeal to the target audience as well as be bright and colourful to stand out.

So I had a fun little afternoon in my studio photographing all sorts of board games and their meeples. The meeples from Carcassone, a popular euro game, stood out as clear winners. They gave me all the classic board game colours then I added in some hex shapes from board games like Settlers of Catan et voila!

So if you're around Stirling on the 9th of November pop into Common Ground Games, play some games and learn about social sciences. (http://www.stir.ac.uk/social-science/news/games/)