As I’ve noted in my last post, one way I have coped with having too much time on my hands is to take on new projects. One recent project of mine was designing the graduation announcements for my boyfriend, who just completed TWO degrees from Oregon State University. He was nice enough to indulge me.
The Inspiration
The inspiration for the announcements came from Kyle (duh). He has graduated with a degree in English, a degree in Education, and spent the last two terms of his college career student teaching at a local high school. The obvious motif was to use a book cover/novel design, and because Steinbeck is one of his favorite authors and he had just finished a unit on Of Mice and Men, we chose another novel cover by Steinbeck to use as a starting point. I then took some of the main elements and color scheme of the cover and simplified it using Adobe Illustrator to draw the main shapes. I had fun replacing the title and author with Kyle’s information, and I also replaced the Penguin logo from the publishing house to be a little Beaver (which was a little rough as a UO Alum- Go Ducks!). This is the finished version:
The inside block of copy was my favorite aspect of designing this card because, as you may recall, I’m a bit of a type nerd. In any case, here it is:
I especially love the ampersand. I created this also in Illustrator, as this program gave me more flexibility in playing with the type as an object rather than as a block of lettering. If nothing else, this project showed me how much more there is out there for me to learn in the world of design!
I’m looking for tutorials in Photoshop, inDesign, Illustrator and Flash that will let me stretch my creative muscles again. Any recommendations?
Hey hey erin may 