Made by Me Posts

The last of the cards! December birthday cards

January 5, 2013
December birthday cards
December birthday cards

Yes, it’s true – I’m wrapping up the card project with the end of 2012. It’s been fun creating so many different designs and illustrations for my friends and family and I feel I’ve learned a lot from the process. After two years though it’s time to move onto some new projects so I won’t be making any more cards (except for maybe a couple here and there ^_~).

Apart from my Christmas cards, I created three birthday cards for friends during December. All of them were handmade, with some even having a bit of interactivity (apart from the obvious opening and closing).

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Handmade Christmas Reef Cards and Gift Tags – 2012

December 29, 2012
Christmas Cards 2012
Handmade Christmas Cards and Gift Tags

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas day with your family or friends while enjoying yummy food and awesome gifts!

As I’m finishing up the Card Project this year, my Christmas cards and gift tags would be the last items for me to create.

I tossed around numerous ideas until I came up with creating  Christmas cards as illustrated wreaths. I originally intended to go all out with sparkly glitter and gold pens but after doing a couple of test cards, I decided it would be better to keep then more simple.

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A November of birthday web-pages

December 2, 2012
November Birthday Web-pages
November Birthday Web-pages

The end of year birthday season is in full swing which means there’s an influx in birthday cards and web-pages for me to make. Since we’re now at the start of December, I’d thought I’d share all the birthday web-pages I created over the past month.

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Point and Shoot! Camera Birthday Card

November 23, 2012
Camera birthday card
Camera birthday card

My lovely friend Jones was the photographer behind the photos of my birthday party last year and almost every time we hang out we both bring along our Canons to spend the day behind the lens. I decided that for his birthday I would give him a card based off our little photography hobby ^_^.

My laptop was still unusable at the time so I had to actually sketch up my rough by copying my own real life camera.

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Happy Birthday to Darren! A new birthday web-page

November 12, 2012
Darren Birthday Message
Darren Birthday Message

A couple of weeks ago I made another online birthday web-page for my friend Darren. I decided to go with a bold typography piece using my pattern work ^_^.

I’m not a huge fan of plain-minimalist-sans-serif-all-caps typography but it’s something I’ve never tried to create before. While I re-used pattern shapes from a previous project (still had to adjust each one to fit properly), the letter bases were made from scratch.

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New Portfolio Design

November 3, 2012
New Portfolio Design

I want to start off by saying sorry for the lack of posts lately. What should have been a simple LCD screen replacement turned into 2 weeks without a laptop due to broken motherboard. So here is the post I intended on finishing about 2 weeks ago before everything hit the fan, enjoy ;).

So I want to tell you guys about a little on and off project I’ve been working on over the past couple of months. There were moments of triumph as well as frustrating problems but at the start of September, I released my new Portfolio onto the web!

I wanted my new portfolio to achieve 2 things with the new designs –

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New jobs and going away gifts

September 24, 2012

Today was my last day at Digitalpop. I started work with the company way back in university, beginning as an intern before being given the title of graphic designer and eventually web designer. After four years it’s time for me to start a new career journey. In that time I’ve learnt so much – how to create designs and work with a wide range of different clients, how to communicate ideas and solve problems, how to extend brands and campaigns across the web and social media, all while learning about my own design style and interests.

I felt it was important to give something back to the job that has given me so much. I decided to create a special framed artwork as a last thank you gift.

The  image was based off the Digitalpop logo with some added pattern work and the copy ‘Digitalpop, we rock!’. It’s a saying that was suggested by one of the employees as a funny company slogan and ended up becoming a recurrent saying over the years. I used a similar lettering style to my Fathers Day Card, only this time more bold and with a solid drop shadow.

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Fathers Day Card 2012 – with video

September 17, 2012
Father's Day Card 2012
Father’s Day Card 2012

It was Fathers Day only a couple of weeks ago and I hope you all got a chance to spend some time with your dad! Of course a special day for my dad means a special card for him too!

So this card has a bit of a story to it. Back when I was in high school, my dad would always drive me and my sister in the mornings and drop us off. Because I would often be ready to go yet my dad would still be upstairs, I used to yell up to him ‘Come on Dad!’ to let him know we were ready to go. I ended up doing the same thing every morning and my dad started calling me the ‘Call-on-dad bird’. So this was the inspiration for my Fathers day card!

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August Birthday Webpage!

August 15, 2012
Happy Birthday Renee header
Happy Birthday Message ^_^

After over a month of no cards, my friend’s birthday came up earlier this month and I wanted to give her something since I hadn’t seen her in so long. Because she lives so far away, I decided to make another birthday web page for her!

I didn’t set any particular theme to follow so I got creative with another lettering piece which ended having an ‘organic’ styling. Below are some screenshots from the process ^_^.

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The unfinished work of an old art journal

August 7, 2012
Old Art Journal
From the old art journal

Earlier in the year I retired my completely filled art journal, which I’m sure was a relief for it because it was in pretty bad shape from living in my bag for so long >_<. I’m not the kind of person to re-visit an art journal once I move on but I thought I would share some of the ideas and alternate concepts that were never realised during it’s lifespan.

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