value of good design...

"Questions about whether design is necessary or affordable are quite beside the point: design is inevitable. The alternative to good design is bad design, not no design at all." - douglas martin

It seems like the value of good design has been a daily topic in our studio since, well, always!

At Different By Design we adhere to the highest design standards in everything we create. This tends to cause some confusion at times when we are innocently asked if we can just "throw something together" or told they just need something "cheap" to get them by.

While we understand that businesses have budgets, being asked questions like the ones above at the start of a client meeting is always a huge red flag for us.

Design isn't something that we can "dumb down" or "whip out" for a cheaper price. We understand the value of good design in the business world and we would never jeopardize our client's reputation or our own by creating thoughtless work. Though we are obviously open to discussing client budgets, with design the old adage rings true...you get what you pay for!

I snapped the above picture of Billy in the studio earlier. He was showing me a sketch he had just completed for a redesign of a brochure we are doing for the City.

It makes me proud to work with someone with an equally high work ethic, who puts detail and thought into everything he does. I think it's clear in our work that when you hire Different By Design you are getting the absolute best solution to your design problem.

target (product-packaging love)

In our household, we love Target. Wait...make that Love (with a capital L)....this Love is pretty serious! :)

One thing we really love about Target is their amazing gift cards. Last winter we picked up these Target gift cards that came with a little Lego set to build Bullseye (Target's mascot). Needless to say the boys were ecstatic to find these in their Christmas stockings. We actually have one sitting over at the studio.

Then today as we were browsing around we came across these Target gift cards that double as Bullseye water guns...of course we had to pick up some!

The truth of the matter is that people would buy Target gift cards whether they were fabulously designed or not...the fact that Target still goes out of their way to be a leader in all of their branding efforts makes them our all time favorite place to shop.

Can't wait to see what they will think of next!

just a friendly reminder!

studio-behind the scenes

I thought it would be fun to show some behind the scenes photos of a recent custom 30th birthday invitation we created.

Of course just like any other project, invitations start with a client meeting/conversation so we can get an idea on the client's preferences and the scope of the project.

For these invitations, our client was throwing a 30th birthday cocktail, masquerade party for her sister.

She gave us a color palette of purple, turquoise, and blue.

The masquerade theme reminded me of this Miss Capricho illustration I had seen on Daily Candy.

We decided to do the illustration for the invitations using water colors because we felt it offered a whimsical feel while still being sophisticated.

Next, Billy hit the drafting table with PrismaColor markers in hand. He did a detailed thumbnail illustration of martini glasses and a masquerade mask.

After that, we scanned in the marker illustration and enlarged and printed it. Then back to the drafting table! Billy used the built in light board to illuminate the illustration so he could use it as a guide for inking and watercoloring a new illustration.

After the watercolor illustration was completed and dry, we scanned that in, preserved the colors we used by tweaking the curves slightly in photoshop, and voila! We had our piece for the invitations.
*illustration before any photoshop edits

Of course, after placing the image there was still finding proper fonts for the invitation and laying out the type....getting all the information properly laid out on a grid and kerning letter spaces...

I think its helpful to get to see what goes into a process for anything. More often then not people don't realize just exactly what is involved to get a finished product on something. And that probably can go for any industry, not just design and art.

Of course we have changed information to protect our client's privacy.

We hope you enjoyed this behind the scenes glance at the making of an invitation! If you'd like to commission custom invitations or a custom water color illustration, you can contact us through wwww.differentxdesign.com