Category: Graphic Design

Graphic Design

Font Addict

Jessica Smith

My name is Jessica Smith, and I am addicted to fonts. The first step to fixing your problem is admitting you have one, right?

I was going to share with you one of the two projects I worked on over the weekend, but I didn’t finish the first because of the storm that rolled on through yesterday afternoon, and I misplaced my camera and couldn’t take pictures of the second project. Lame, I know. I should hopefully be able to finish the first tonight *fingers crossed.*

Anyway, back to my font addiction. I brought it up because I wanted to share a fun piece I designed this weekend to express my love of fonts.

It’s always amazing to me how different fonts can make or break a design piece. Because of that, I’m always on the lookout for new fonts to try out. I love stumbling upon Pinterest posts that are lists of fun and free fonts. They totally make my dad.

Do you have a favorite font? Mossy is a top contender of mine, as is Matilde and Mansana. Really, I love them all. I am, after all, an addict.

Graphic Design

Be the good in the world

Jessica Smith

Do you ever have those days when you just don’t feel like doing anything? Today is one of those days for me. I am totally pooped from participating in Beer Olympics last night. The hubby had his friends over for some Olympic watching fun, and I “participated,” drinking all of two beers (gross) and staying up until 2 a.m. Thankfully, we cleaned the house yesterday and tidying up today was easy. AND, I brought my MAC home! So, I am crafting on my computer today and taking it easy.

Tomorrow it will be back to work. Brian and I are going to take down part of our old fence and I plan on spraying the back yard one last time for poison ivy. I have the smallest patch of poison ivy on my foot and I’m not sure whether I got it from our yard or the river walk last weekend. Better to be safe than sorry, right?

I also want to start staining the coffee table my dad gave me last weekend. I think it’s going to look really nice once it’s a little darker, so hopefully my energy and motivation will return tomorrow full force.

Today I made a new graphic design print. I think I might want to do a gallery-style wall in our living room of several of the prints I’ve designed. Would it be tacky to have nice quotes and sayings on our living room walls? I can’t decided. Either way, here’s the print I designed today.

This one is fun, combining two nice thoughts in one using different shades of purple: “Believe there is good in the world” and “Be the good in the world.” I won’t claim to have thought of that  myself, but I also couldn’t tell you where I saw it done originally. I used a new font I recently downloaded called Made with B.

I also changed the colors around so the hidden saying pops more. Which do you like better?

I think I prefer version two to version one.

Well, time to go to a neighbor’s  going away bash at my  Dad’s house. Enjoy your Saturday and your weekend!

Graphic Design

“If you’re a bird, I’m a bird” print

Jessica Smith

One of my favorite movie quotes is from The Notebook: “If you’re a bird, I’m a bird.”

I think it’s just charming. And yes, I know I love it because it has to do with birds and I love birds. It’s a problem. So many bird things in my house haha. I might need therapy.

Anyway, in an effort to keep up with the skills I’m learning in my classes, I created a print of my favorite movie quote using Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign.

To start with, I found a font I wanted to use from a bunch of fonts I just downloaded for free. I chose a font called “Things we said” thinking it resembled the rings in a tree.

 

After I chose my font, I got to designing little birds for my print. I did this in Illustrator using basic shapes and combining them to create one outline. I added an eye and a wing, and my little birdie was born. Super cute.

Using a heart from a previous project, I popped two birds and a heart into my InDesign file. I tinted the birds two different shades of gray and left the heart white. After a while I decided it was missing something, so I snagged a photo of tree rings off the interwebs and pulled it into Photoshop. There I made the photo black and white and cropped out the excess of the photo. I then imported into the inside of my heart.

Here’s my finished design. What do you think?

I framed it in black to pull from the only color in the design and hung it in our new bathroom. Gah. So cute 🙂 You can see its home in my house as soooooon as I find a dang mirror for my bathroom. Soon!

Update:

Our bathroom is finished!!! HOORAY! Post coming tomorrow 🙂 For now, here’s a sneak peak at the color and adorable artwork: