Tangerine + Wasabi

I love fun color combos, and I'm glad the Knot recognized my fun pick of Wasabi and Tangerine that we used for our engagement party in NYC! I picked the combo because I think it is perfect for a modern summer event with an asian twist (we picked up on the theme of our honeymoon plans to southeast asia for the party). You can see the picture of Justin and I on the lower right corner! What crazy color combos do you like?

http://wedding.theknot.com/wedding-colors/choosing-wedding-colors/articles/20-crazy-wedding-color-combos-that-work.aspx?cm_ven=Responsys&cm_cat=KnotNews&cm_ite=January%2031,%202011&MsdVisit=1

The High Life

One of the primary duties at my day job is creating style guides for different properties that want to sell licensed product. A style guide is composed of graphics, patterns, icons, fonts, logos and a color palette that licensees can use to create products.

The latest property we are developing a style guide for is the Showtime show Weeds. The first step in developing the style guide is presenting 3 different trend boards. The trend boards show an example of what the artwork would look like, the trend inspiration (existing graphics in the marketplace that are on trend), a color palette and font selection.

So with all of that explanation - here is my trend board for Weeds. I have always thought Weeds was a good, not great show and I've seen most of the episodes so I'm pretty familiar with the plot. It's kind of a hard property to draw graphical inspiration from since most of the plot revolves around the characters - and we aren't allowed to use images of the characters! So I decided to pick up on the contradiction of a suburban housewife selling weed and use an icon of a marijuana leaf as a patterned element that may be seen in something sold at Crate & Barrel for example. These aren't finished graphics, but just preliminary designs to give the client an idea of the trend proposal.

CatPrint

CatPrint
So I often use online digital printers to print business cards, postcards, invites, etc. Well for my most recent project I wanted to print square cards and all of my go-to printers only print rectangle shapes (????). So I researched a bit and came across CatPrint.com

At CatPrint you can select any size format you want - what freedom! Also they have a wide selection of paper choices (lux cotton, yes please!). On top of that, the price was right. I went ahead and placed my order with them. I received a phone call from a customer service rep who asked me about my cropping specifications. I was really impressed they cared enough to call - for this job I am cropping  the text to bleed off the edges so they wanted to make sure its right.

Well, when I received my prints they were unfortunately cropped incorrectly with the text only bleeding off 2 edges instead of all 4. I emailed catprint about this issue and asked if they could quickly resolve it.

I got a prompt response claiming all responsibility and apologizing profusely for the oversight. They offered to resolve the issue and get me corrected prints in just a couple days. I received the prints last night and they are perfect. I am really impressed with CatPrint and the way the handled the problem - it is rare these days to find somewhere with good customer service!

Overall, even though there was a slight problem with my job, I would highly recommend CatPrint to anyone looking to do a custom print job! Use this referral link from CatPrint if you are interesting in getting something printed through them:

http://www.catprint.com/referrals/new/hobesonageji

Light as a Feather

I have always loved feather earrings, but have never attempted making them before - couldn't quite figure out how to attach the feather to the earring hook! Well my good crafty buddy Rochelle was here visiting and after not being able to find glue to make hair accessories, I decided we should make some earrings since I definitely had all the supplies to attempt those. Rochelle, being an art teacher and all, loves to wear asymmetrical earrings (freaks the kids out!) - so following that inspiration and experimenting with feathers, I came up with these two pairs. I ended up just improvising on attaching the feather by wrapping a bunch of wire around it - seems to work ok!

Extra Jolly Good!

Well it was requested that I share the designs that were not the final pick for Paul & Casey's invite. I do especially love how the watercolor union jack turned out. Amazing what can be done in photoshop!

Jolly Good!

I wasn't joking when I said I like to design invitations! Here is the invitation I designed for my good friends Casey & Paul's engagement party. They met while studying abroad in London so we decided to throw them a British themed party. I thought the perfect design for the invite would be a play on a map of the underground with the different stops being moments in their courtship - after all, love is truly a journey! They loved the concept and I think the end result fits well with their fun-loving personalities.

My next big (messy) project!

So I found a blog post in my wedding ideas research on DIYing these cool twine globes. I thought they could be a semi-easy and cheap solution to decorating our space in an artsy way.

Well Justin (my fiancé) had a dream... an actual dream like when you're asleep, not MLK style.

That dream was to make the twine globes and then create an arch out of the globes for us to get married under. Well I think its a great idea and could look really cool if we can figure it out logistically.

So to start the process we are going to begin experimenting soon with creating a few of the twine globes in our apartment. Thankfully this blog has very detailed instructions that seem pretty easy, if a bit messy, to follow: http://wednesdaycustomdesign.com/blog/messiest-merriest-and-whirliest-diy-balls

I'll update our progress with some pictures later this week!

Save the Date designs

Well my Save the Date design entries in the minted.com contest did not win, but I still find them quite cute and want to use the designs sometime in the future for something. I also found out the prize money is only $100 which is rather uneventful in the end! If anyone needs a save the date or any other stationary, feel free to contact me - I have a lot of fun designing these!

Welcome to my blog!

Hello!
I decided to start up a blog to document all of the various creative ventures I take on in my life - the bexcetera. This will include bexcessories (my line of hair accessories), various graphic design projects, jewelry, paintings, home improvements, wedding related projects, and maybe even some creative dishes I cook at home. Thanks for stopping by, I hope you find my blog intriguing and inspiring!