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Mason Cellars Press Check

May 26, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Napa Press Check

I just returned from a few beautiful days in the lovely Napa Valley. I was on press with Randy & Megan Mason of Mason Cellars and Herdell Printing, a fabulous family owned print shop in the area that specializes in wine label printing. The Mason’s are getting ready to release a new wine, this will be the fourth label they’ve commissioned with me. This label, like the others I’ve done for them (Pomelo, Three Pears and Mason Sauvignon Blanc), will have it’s own unique identity. We added a few embellishments on this design, like a clear foil and an emboss. The embossing plate is made from a half an inch sheet of brass, it will last longer than any of us!

The first release of this new wine will only be 5000 cases, so I’m sure it will be in high demand once the word gets out. Stay tuned for another presumably fabulous wine from the Mason’s the end of June 2013.

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Tacoma Concert Band CD Design

April 4, 2013 By Leave a Comment

TCB2.small

Had a fun opportunity to work on a CD Cover Design for Tacoma Concert Band this past Christmas season. They were working with funds from a special grant, so they  had the resources to get something special designed. I gave them some special pricing and they gave something back to the community, donating 50% from the sales of their holiday music to Lakewood’s Caring for Kids.

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Illustrations

April 2, 2013 By Leave a Comment
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    Three Pears Illustration
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    Pomelo Illustration
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    Grape Vine Illustration
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    Cloudberry Illustration
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    Jazz Man Illustration
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    Cowboy Illustration
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    Queen Of Hearts Illustration
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    Angel Illustration
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    Winter Angel Illustration
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    Butterfly Illustration
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    Alien Illustration
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

One of my favorite things to do is illustration. The drawings and paintings in the slider above are some of my favorites. Ways these illustrations have been used include t-shirts designs, hat designs, wine label designs, greeting card designs, poster designs. When designing a logo for a client, I am usually creating original and unique illustrations. My use of clip art is extremely limited, if I ever use it at all.

I use oil alkyd paints, scratchboard, colored pencil and pastels in my illustrations. I also do a lot of digital illustration.

I’m always on the look out for more illustration projects…

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Creating an Icon

July 26, 2012 By Leave a Comment

I think this process is interesting, so I thought I’d publish an example for people to view.

Since I love illustration, I’m always looking for ways to do more of it. I recently had a request for an icon design that will also be also be used as a logo. I do lots of work with new businesses, so I’m not always at liberty to say who the client is, as in this case.

The client wanted an icon of a bloodhound. So of course I started with a line drawing of an actual bloodhound. After I had done the initial illustration, I went through the process of simplifying. Icons are really just representations of an object in it’s most simple form. The challenge is to maintain the integrity of the subject matter, so at the end of the process it’s still recognizable.

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Mason Cellars Sauvignon Blanc Label Design

April 4, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Mason Cellars officially released the new version of their signature Sauvignon Blanc, which features my artwork and design.

I worked closely with the Mason’s in developing the illustration. It contains the old growth vine, the new growth vine and the beginning stages of the buds, before the leaf blooms.

The illustration was created with oil alkyd paints on a canvas. The design was completed on a macintosh computer, using the program InDesign CS4.

To read the full press release go here: http://www.masoncellars.com/e/v/7ab2ffc38df5b98f

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Three Pears Wine Label

January 10, 2012 By Leave a Comment

My clients, Megan & Randy Mason at Mason Cellars in Napa, California, just sent me the first few bottles of their new wine. We worked for several months on this new wine label called “Three Pears”. It’s a Pinot Grigio that’s infused with pear flavors. It’s not available to all markets yet, just a select few.

This illustration was really beautiful when it was completed. We went through several rounds of line drawings before agreeing on the final one. Then I spent about a month doing the actual painting. It’s a nice sized piece, and was painted with oil alkyd paints, which have a much shorter dry time than the traditional form of oil paints. Dry time is a very important issue for commercial art projects such as these. Everyone has tight timelines to adhere to.

I’m so excited to get the final product. It looks fabulous. The printers were Herdell Printing in Napa, California. Herdell is a family owned & operated printer that has been around for generations of Herdells. We had quite an involved press check and did some last minute adjustments while on press. Mike & Joe (father & son) are some of the most talented printers around. They used a beautiful matte paper that worked so well for this application. Nice job guys!

 

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15+ Years of Logo Designs

January 10, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Logo design is a unique endeavor, encompassing a thorough understanding of the business being represented and what makes it unique, combined with a pleasing visual combination of fonts, graphics & colors. All logos must work in black as well as in color. If someone needs to copy your form, with your logo on it, it needs to be seen and not disappear on the copied page. If you send a fax with your logo on it, the same rule applies. Many copiers & faxes are not in color.

Adding color is another phase of the design process. Color is a very powerful tool. It can convey love, hate, fear and peace. Most business owners know how they’d like their market to perceive them – color helps to convey the emotions they’d like to utilize in realizing their unique brand recognition.

Proportion is another important component in logo designing. There needs to be a visual focus, or primary design element. Sometimes it’s a graphic, sometimes it’s a font. The goal is to not confuse the person viewing the logo. Our natural line of vision wants a primary focus, then we’ll travel around an object looking for more visual information.

Ideally, the best logos tie together a graphic element with the meaning of the text.

Here are some samples of logos we’ve created.

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University of Puget Sound Photo Editing & Illustration

January 10, 2012 By Leave a Comment

BEFORE:

AFTER:
UPS(after)lores

This is a project I worked on a few years ago, the client was the University of Puget Sound. They had a presentation coming up in which they needed to show the proposed changes they intended to make to some newly acquired property on campus. They provided me with high resolution aerial photos and drawings. I edited the photo by using PhotoShop CS4, to create a fairly realistic depiction of what the outcome would be. They had the photos output in a large format and mounted on boards to present at their meeting.

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Spot Illustrations

January 10, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Grabeez Spots1.lores

Grabeez Spots2.lores

These are a series of illustrations I created for a new product that was being developed and was to be released for sale in stores. The illustrations were created to show how the product would be used as well as what it looked like and how it functioned. The illustrations were to be used on the product packaging and on an instructional insert.

 

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New Mason Cellars Sauvignon Blanc Wine label

June 27, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Today I got the new line drawing approved for the next new wine label for Mason Cellars in Napa, CA. This will be for their signature Sauvignon Blanc. This drawing represents quite a journey. We started several months ago with a completely different design on the first round of label redesigns. It was going to be photographic imagery with a some nice typography. Here are some of the original variations:

Mason SB labels

After much thought and discussion, Megan & Randy decided it just wasn’t the look they wanted. This wine is their signature label, the wine that put them on the map in wine country. It needed to be unique and representative of what they value in Mason Cellars wines. They decided upon an illustration of the growth of the sauvignon blanc variety of grape vine.

Below is the new approved line drawing, it’s quite a change from the original design.  Now that the line drawing is approved, I’ll move onto the color phase. I’ll enlarge the illustration and transfer it to a canvas. Then I’ll start painting and layer on the color with oil alkyd paints, for amazing color quality with a fast dry time. After the painting is complete we will have the painting scanned in a high quality and high resolution format. Then I’ll work with the Mason’s in deciding to keep the typography from the previous label or go in a new design direction. We’ll then merge the typography of the label design in with the hi res scan of the illustration.

Mason Sketchfinal

This will be the third wine label I’ve done for Mason Cellars. We seem to have a winning combination of traditional art work with computer graphics for the labels. An “in progress” pic…

Maosn IN Progress1.lores

Final Product:

Mason.newsb

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