Erik Spiekermann on Corporate Design

The work is tedious, and you don't win any design prizes with it, and people get bored, but it trains you to listen to things that, for us, are terribly unimportant, but for are clients are very important.

-Erik Spiekermann about corporate design work

We are a service industry. I'm not an artist…I am a designer. I work for other people. I solve other peoples' problems, not my own. My personality comes into it, but I'm not an artist. I don't express myself. I have a style…but I do work for clients. It doesn't mean I'm a slave! But if I take on a commission, a project, I will, at least metaphorically speaking, kill for those people. I will be very, very loyal. Otherwise, you know, why bother? If you find you're not loyal…to your client anymore, it's time to get out. It's a relationship.

-Erik Spiekermann on how he stays involved with work that he finds tedious

Click here to listen to the whole Design Matters interview. It's a good listen. 

Cold Specks - Winter Solstice

I've basically been listening to this song for two weeks straight (and sometimes this one). This girl is magical.

Type Fight

I was invited to participate in Guest Fight on Type Fight—a website and ongoing project created by Drew Roper, Ryan Paule, and Bryan Butler—where two designers create the same letter and then go up against each other for votes to determine who came up with the best-looking character.

For the past week, designer Jake Welchert and I have been battling it out with the letter K, and it's been a very close fight all week long. There's only one more day to vote, so head over to thetypefight.com to help me win with the K on the left!

Two Lettered Quotes

Below are my two most recent lettered travel quotes done in two very different styles and color schemes.

I enjoyed studying Roundhand style of lettering/calligraphy over the past couple of weeks, including all of the beautiful flourishes frequently used in that calligraphy style. I didn't letter this with a calligraphy pen, in fact, I've never even used a calligraphy pen, but I enjoyed utilizing the style of it. I almost posted the Emerson quote before I added the y_t, a_t, and f_d ligatures, but I'm so glad I added them, because I like the piece a lot better now.

I didn't take the sketch of this one very far before beginning to work with it on the computer. In my sketches, I had found the basic alignment and structure of the letters that I wanted to use, and I kept some of the horizontal and vertical lines. I knew that for this particular quote I could keep sketching and sketching without getting closer to the final piece unless I took it to the computer, so I didn't even finish my last sketch.

I've updated these to my portfolio site. Click here to see all of the lettered travel quotes I've created so far.

Adentro Style Logo and Blog Header

My good friend Alejandro, who is a stylist and runs the men's style blog Adentro Style, recently invited me to design a logo and blog header for him. I love working on projects with friends, so I absolutely said yes. Alejandro and I met through mutual friends when we were both living in Manhattan four or five years ago, and I remember walking through Central Park with him one day, listening as he explained to me why he didn't have an online presence and didn't want an online presence. I'm glad he changed his mind!

Designing websites isn't my favorite thing—I only know HTML and CSS enough to fiddle with already-written code—but when a good friend is involved, and I see that I can help somehow, I can't rest until they let me play with their blog layout and design. Alejandro trusted me enough to give me full access to his blog to do whatever I wanted to it, so after adding the new header, I adjusted the colors, fonts, and line spacing, redesigned and rearranged the sidebar, and added a top navigation bar as well as a favicon. I think we were both very pleased with the results.

Click here to check out Adentro Style!

I travel not to go anywhere, but to go

I'm up super late getting some stuff done, since we're packing up and leaving Lexington first thing in the morning. We'd originally planned to go through Indianapolis to get to Milwaukee, but now we're not sure that's the route we want to go. I guess we'll have to decide soon!

My latest quote is by Robert Louis Stevenson. I've updated it to my portfolio site, as well as some other recent work. I hope to be able to post some of my other things soon, too!

My sketch had a nice idea to it, but it needed a lot of cleaning up. Below are both my final sketch and my final lettered quote.

L'Oréal Professionnel - London Addixion Look Book Design

I'm really excited to share a project that I worked on back in March. A couple of months ago, L'Oréal Professionnel launched a new product line called London Addixion, and I had the opportunity to design the stylist and client look books! A friend of mine works at L'Oréal Professionnel in Paris, and when he contacted me about the project, I was totally on board to work with such a great company. 

The look books revolved around renowned hairstylist Malcolm Edwards and creative looks and styles he gave to a couple of beautiful Londoners on the town—including behind-the-scenes photos, cutting and colouring tips, and step-by-step pages.

The photo below was featured on the Vogue UK website showing the L'Oréal London Addixion products and the look book I designed. Below that are photos of some of the look book spreads as well as some digital spreads.

For one of the renditions of the look book, I created some lettering for page titles. In the end, we decided to match the titles to the original logo and packaging to keep with the style of the campaign. (Londoner Isabel Eeles designed the logo and packaging.) I've included selections of the unused lettering below.

Wherever you go, go with all your heart

I'd like to start showing my final sketches (I did several renditions before this one.) in conjunction with some of my final letterings. 

The latest quote is by Confucius. (I am usually a lot more strict about only lettering quotes that I'm sure are attributed correctly, but this one was too inspiring for me to care very much.) As you can see, I spelled Confucius incorrectly in the sketch. Haha. I'm so glad I caught that.

I'm not in love with the coloring of this piece, so I'll likely play with it a little bit. 

Recent Lettering Works

I miss this blog! With all of my blog focus on my Miles of Road travel blog during Josh's and my Airstream adventure, I can't really put a whole lot of energy into this one. I'm sure I'll be back in full force afterward, but in the meantime, I'll continue to periodically post some of my design/lettering work.

Below are a few lettering projects I worked on recently and have added to my portfolio.

Symbolism in Design

My latest quote definitely has a different look than the previous six have. Why? I don't really know except that I'm trying not to be so drab and dreary in my color selections.

Although I chose to design this quote because of its relation to travels and journeys, it also made me think of heaven, so I added a few subtle religious symbols into the piece. It was really fun; I think I'll need to start incorporating symbolism into my work more often. Can you pick them out?

New Travel Quotes

Here are the newest travel quotes that I lettered—quotes from two of my favorite adventure books.

My trip and letterings were recently featured on the blog The Fresh Exchange.

The blog is filled with cute graphical posts, pretty photos, and daily inspirations, so go check it out!


P.S. I've been working on a few freelance logos, and I'm excited to be able to share the final images soon.

Daring Adventure - Wander Postcard Project

I recently did some lettering for the Wander Postcard Project. See my entry here.

All of the postcards are available for iPad and iPhone wallpaper download, so click here to see them all. Some are sooo good and by artists that I really admire. I'm honored to even be included.

 

The quote is by Helen Keller in The Open Door. "Life is either a daring adventure or nothing."

Travel Lettering Project

We've now been living in our Airstream for one month so far, which seems crazy to me. Stay updated on our trip by following my travel blog, Miles of Road, where I post little graphics, day-to-day tidbits, things Josh and I have been working on, restaurant reviews, and photos from our adventures in different cities.

While on the road, I'm working on an ongoing lettering project where I letter a quote a week that I feel relates to Josh's and my journey around the country. Here are the ones I've done so far.

P.S. I was delighted and honored to be featured on the design blog, designworklife today. Click here to check out the post.

Starrify - Dead Word

I was asked to contribute a lettered word to The Dead Words site, a blog that showcases lettered words that are no longer in use or found in our dictionaries.

Click here to see my contribution on The Dead Words site.

After spending two weeks all over Southern California, we're heading to Prescott, Arizona tomorrow morning for a couple of days (one day later than we'd planned) before heading to Phoenix. Check out all of trip updates on milesofroad.com.

gifs, lettering, and where we've been

Just a reminder—I'm not going to be posting on this blog much during Josh's and my Airstream adventure. Check Miles of Road to see some gifs, my summer lettering project, and where we've been so far.


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Here we go!

Josh and I are leaving this morning to head out on our road-trip adventure. We officially moved out of our place yesterday, so we're homeless—unless you count a 19-foot Airstream trailer as a home, which we do. Check out my latest post on our Miles of Road travel blog, where I'll be posting a lot over the next couple of months.

Check out all the lettering I've done for our travel blog so far on my portfolio website: www.beccaclason.com.

Business Cards

I finally have business cards! My friend, Meredith Hendricks, letterpressed them, and I'm excited to take them along on Josh's and my road trip adventure that starts this morning.

Proud Wife Moment

Josh flew to Las Vegas at the beginning of March to help film some ads for the new Fiat Abarth. Fiat was building upon their relationship with Catrinel Menghia, who was in their Superbowl commercial. (I read that part on the Autoblog article that Josh just showed me.)

Josh filmed the shots of Catrinel (and her legs—haha).



Proud wife.

In anticipation of our departure, we're moving millions of things into a storage unit tomorrow, so I suppose I'll go finish packing up our kitchen.

Miles of Road: A Summer of Film & Design

Josh and I are going on a grand adventure this summer.

In a trailer.

A 19-foot-long Airstream Bambi trailer.

We leave in one week.

Josh will be filming Season 2 of his Depth of Speed automotive short documentary series, and I'll work as an independent graphic designer and lettering artist. We're super excited to see more of our beautiful country from the road, to live with less, to meet people, and to eat lots of tacos.

I made a travel blog to document where we are, what we're doing, and the things we create: www.milesofroad.com.

sympathy card

At work, I had to come up with a sympathy card design. In the end, this one didn't get selected, but it's OK, because I like any chance to do lettering at my current job. Sure, it needs a few tweaks, but I like it!

P.S. I don't mean to be cryptic and not follow up with details from my I'm-quitting-my-job-and-we're-moving post, but I've been working on something for it and don't want to post about it until I'm finished. 

recent designs

I have such a good time creating graphics for Rubi's blog, especially since so many of the posts are inspirations to me. I may be creative in some areas, but I struggle in the hair one (as Rubi knows by the silly hair questions I've ask her—haha). I've only recently started cutting my hair more than once a year and trying to do some creative things with it (now and then, anyway). I've stopped trimming my own bangs (I still need to work on going in to get them trimmed instead of letting them grow too long!) and have stopped straightening my hair frequently. Progress.

Below are some recent graphics I designed for the hair blog, She Lets Her Hair Down. (Click links below the images to see photo credits on the original posts.)

original She Lets Her Hair Down post

original She Lets Her Hair Down post

original She Lets Her Hair Down post

original She Lets Her Hair Down post

original She Lets Her Hair Down post

original She Lets Her Hair Down post

P.S. The blog and some of my designs were featured recently on the Urban Outfitters blog! Check it out.

news, easter treats, and salt lake city drives

Josh and I have been going on lots of drives around the city lately. There are a couple of reasons for that: (1) I love going for drives (and walks, for that matter) in neighborhoods or down streets I haven't before been, so I pressure Josh to drive me around, and (2) we'll be in Salt Lake City for only 20 more days, so we need to cram in everything we can.

I'm quitting my senior graphic design job—I gave my notice a few days ago—and we have started selling/packing some of our belongings.

I'm quite excited for our upcoming plans. More information to come soon.

meals i eat...

Josh travels from time to time on film jobs, and without fail I revert to staying up on weeknights until 2 or 3 AM and eating really pathetic things as meals. BUT at least I exercise more often and get a lot of design work done! Win some and lose some.

I created this for fun to show my classy eating habits when Josh isn't around. I'm sure I'm not the only one. :)

exploring

Last weekend, Josh and I drove west toward the Great Salt Lake for a "visceral" ride (his word) in his work-in-progress 1974 BMW 2002.