While vacationing in Miami the other month, we recently stumbled across Classical South Florida 89.7 FM. Unlike most public radio stations, Classical South Florida is all music all the time. It was wonderful having such a large collection of music available and it reminded us how disappointed we are with our own local public radio stations. Luckily for us, Classical South Florida streams over the web, allowing us to listen to it from Indiana.

Because we listen 12+ hours every day, and it truly increases our productivity, we have decided to support Classical South Florida for the month of November. So for the entire month of November, when you go online and listen to Classical South Florida through the “Windows” link, you will hear a “prepend” about Adelie Design and see a little logo and link to our website.

Extreme Makeover: Home Edition is over until the show airs on ABC in January. We found out that the selected family was Cowan-Brown family of Bunker Hill. Their daughter Kori, 12, was diagnosed with a congenital blood disease when she was six. Since spending time rooming with a young cancer patient in the hospital, Kori has raised over $35,000 for the American Cancer Society. Because of mold in her home, Kori has had to have several surgeries for growths in her sinuses, and other family members have suffered as well. Hallmark Homes and numerous volunteers have banded together to build this family a new home.

My role in all of this was to make sure all of the sponsors received recognition for their hard work and generous donations. I worked with D Ashley Design + Events to create the “Hall of Heroes.” Over fifty businesses sent me photographs, logos, and statements about why they wanted to help out with Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. I had less than a week to combine these elements into a poster for each business. Although each poster was not very difficult, the sheer quantity and time frame kept me working like crazy.

Thanks to Janel Bantz for the excellent photograph.

Here are some other links:

• http://www.hallmarkextreme.com/photos
• http://janelbantz.blogspot.com/
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/hallmarkhomesinc/
• http://hallmarkblogs.com/
• http://www.dashleydesignandevents.com/blog/

A few months ago, Casual Creations was only a concept. The client loves to bake and thought that making desserts for small gatherings, such as bridge clubs, parties, reunions, etc., would be an enjoyable way to share her love of baking while earning extra income. I was tasked with developing a name and tag line, creating a visual identity, and creating marketing materials.

There were two main challenges when working on this project.

1. The name and tag line. We needed to convey the idea of homemade desserts that might not be picture-perfect, but that still tasted delicious. After much brainstorming, “Casual Creations: Desserts like grandma made,” came to the forefront.
2. Reconciling my own design ideas with the real world. I originally envisioned a beautiful, stylized illustration of a lemon pie, using only white on a rich, lemon-yellow background. Unfortunately, if the yellow is dark enough to read white text, it no longer looks lemony. While struggling with this concept, Debbie, my client, received a beautiful red Sunbeam mixer for her birthday, providing a focal point for the solution.

In the end, I was able to create a brand that evokes grandma and her kitchen. We determined that, instead of letterhead and envelopes, a price sheet and dessert labels were more important for this business. For the website, we continued the idea of grandma’s kitchen by not only making an “online business card” but also making it a place for Debbie to share other recipes with her customers.

Update: Sometimes it’s just as exciting to see what the client does with the finished product. Debbie told me several months later that she punches holes in her price sheets and dessert labels and ties them together with a red-and-white-checkered bow that matches the ribbon she ties her desserts up with. A perfect touch to the brand. Way to go, Debbie.

I’m doing design for the project in the Kokomo/Peru area. Tomorrow we find out who the blessed family is.

I’m designing posters for the Hall of Heroes to recognized all the sponsors and volunteers. I just started getting art on Friday and So far we’re at about 25 posters. This has been insane and really neat.

I’m writing this during a quick breather waiting for the next email. I’ll post more about this project after it’s finished. Visit http://hallmarkextreme.com/ to learn more about the build.

As a designer, one program I use a lot is Adobe Illustrator. It’s a good program for building logos, artwork for screen printing, and other simple illustrations. Back in 1963 Ivan Sutherland developed a program called Sketchpad that helped make future computer drawing programs (like Illustrator and AutoCAD) possible.

Hat tip: swissmiss