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Print Design Advertising

I handled several Kentucky businesses’ in-house print design before becoming a full time freelancer. My first job after college graduation was laying out catalogs for a jewelry store in my small hometown. I also once created DVD case cover art for an educational media company. Creating both packaging and magazine ads for a sealant cartridge factory was also a highlight. These were all great learning experiences. The variety of formats alone helped me grow as an artist.

I love to make designs that are both eye catching and original. Holding physical media that I conceived myself is so satisfying. There is nothing quite like it. I’d go so far as to say that it’s my destiny!

Contact me for your own print design project

See samples below of my newspaper and advertising work. Then contact me today. I would love to help you to spread excitement for your products and services. Let’s get to work!

Sempervivi

Lexington, KY

I’m a big time band merch nerd. Especially stickers. If I don’t have the money budgeted to buy a shirt or hoodie from a band at their show, I will at least purchase some stickers. They end up either on my truck, toolbox, or the filing cabinet in my office. I always make sure my band Sempervivi’s merchandise table is fully stocked with items ranging from inexpensive to higher priced items. In 2022, we were running low on previous sticker design concepts, so I took advantage of a Sticker Mule sale and stocked up. I worked up four different designs and had all of them printed in order to offer some variety to our fans.

Sticker Design Story

First, I thumbed through some old line art books and picked out a nice roaring tiger. I colored in the tiger’s fur with a golden yellow hue. Then, I combined this expertly detailed illustration with our name uppercase in a vintage font. Our hometown “LEX KY” nestles between two simple lightning bolt icons in yellow, completing the first sticker design.

Since many would call our band’s genre “skate punk”, I incorporated a rad broken skateboard image into an old school signage layout. The bold image of the broken deck jumps out in front of the marquee font spelling our band name. I added our hometown and Roman numerals for the year 2015, the year when our band began. I played with a few different different color schemes. The band members couldn’t choose between the two palettes I pared it down to, so we had both printed. I love the alternative “Joker” combination of mostly purple and lime green. The melon red and Carolina blue scheme is lighter, cleaner, and more fun.

Finally, I had been toying around with a rugged “stamp” style logo for the band. I jumbled the sizes of the letters and tilted them, creating a chaotic style to match our fast, loud punk sound. The final touches came together as I filled in the characters in neon pink and turquoise. Then, I outlined the letters in black and added a solid black shadow to the art to make it pop. 

Contact Me For Your Band’s Sticker Design

Every musician needs merch. If you are a live performer, your fans want to buy merch to support you. An inexpensive way to get started?  Contact me today to bring your sticker design to life.

Filed Under: Print Design Advertising

Yoga poster design for kentucky libraryMuhlenberg County Public Libraries

Greenville, KY

The library director Janet contacted me regarding this project. She needed me to turn this yoga poster design around shortly after New Years. Of course, I made time after the holidays for my long time clients

Yoga poster design story

Janet only provided the text to include on the flyer, and the format sizes I would need to design. I had worked with the library for many years, so she trusted my instincts to create the perfect promotional material. Of course, I instantly had a concept and color scheme in mind.

Initially, I envisioned a group of silhouettes performing yoga poses. Combining these with an ornate mandala pattern hearkened back to yoga’s origins in the country of India. I didn’t want to make the yoga poster design layout too busy. Therefore, I faded the mandala into the background.

I contrasted the dark, dull blue elements against the bright orange burst background. The images stayed simple. The background however included a three dimensional pattern. I fenced all of the elements in with a dotted white frame, which also helped emphasize the sponsor logos and tagline in white. These were located at the bottom and top, respectively.

For the yoga poster design’s main title, I chose a font containing characters similar to Hindi for the word “Yoga”. The capital “Y” moved up to make it more symmetrical. I set the words “IN THE LIBRARY” in another exotic font. I warped them in a waving flag shape. This added just the right amount of motion to the title.

Janet and the rest of the library staff loved the vibrant, inspirational design. It perfectly promoted that patrons could stick to their New Years resolutions, and get fit with a new exercise program.

Contact me for your own yoga poster design

Are you promoting an event centered around yoga, or another exercise? I believe that promoting fitness in your community is very important, and I would love to help! Contact me today!

Filed Under: Print Design Advertising

Library Event Poster for 2019 Spring Tea eventMuhlenberg County Public Libraries

Greenville, KY

In previous years, I employed line art from Victorian age ads for MCPL’s annual Mother’s Day Tea. However, I decided to switch things up for the 2019 event. The library wanted to incorporate a theme to coincide with the Kentucky Derby. Therefore, I set out to create an authentically vintage library event poster.

Library event poster design story

I spent several hours studying minstrel show advertisements from years gone by, circuses, and other attractions. Their font treatments and type styles specifically caught my eye. These are crucial elements in capturing the look and feel of these posters. After much internal debate, I settled on a muted yellow, blue, and red color scheme. I then chose my fonts.

Library event poster typography

First of all, I employed a tall sans serif font called Kankin, reminiscent of those used in the vintage posters, for my my titles and large text. I outlined all of the large text in a thin black stroke in order to complete the period style. Next, I used the Wide Latin serif font, along with Trajan Pro, to spell out the rest of the content.

The director also suggested I incorporate some roses in the poster as part of the Derby theme, so I worked them into the main title. I situated one on either side of the words “Spring 2019” at the top to give it a little extra flair.

Horse outline used in library event poster

For a while, I had wanted to incorporate an image inside a silhouette, much like in many classic movie posters. Once the idea came to me, I jumped at the chance. The classic Victorian lady depicted could very well be on her way to a horse racing event of the day. I chose the silhouette of a jockey and horse that was the most obvious, since it was an action shot. The jockey is high up on the horse’s back, ready to cross the finish line, as the horse’s tail swishes in the wind.

Need a library event poster design? Contact me today!

Does your public library have a special event coming up? Then you need to hire a professional graphic designer to help with your advertising!  Contact me today.

Filed Under: Print Design Advertising

Local Violence band sticker designLocal Violence

Lexington, KY

I created this band sticker design for a new group based here in Lexington. Local Violence is a pop punk band that includes some friends from my local music scene. I have been designing band merch since 1999, so they reached out to me in order to help promote their band.

Local Violence band sticker design - finished product

The finished product is ready for the masses! Here is a printed and die cut band sticker design.

Band sticker design story

The band already used a fist icon in their initial branding. They wanted to somehow incorporate it in a parody of the Los Angeles Dodgers‘ iconic logo. I both cleaned up and recolored their existing fist art in red using Adobe Illustrator. Then, I added motion lines in red, so that it would mimic the Dodgers’ “flying baseball” image.

After that, I found a similar script font to replace the word Dodgers with “Violence” in blue. A few adjustments to the text made the font more authentic. Finally, the word “Local” tops off the design in a blue sans serif Varsity font. I spaced out the letters and also warped them with an arch effect.

At last, the baseball parody sticker art was complete.

Local Violence loved the finished band sticker design. They took advantage of a special promotion with Stickermule to both print and die cut their stickers. This created a white stroke effect around the design. The precise outline of the shape really stands out amongst other standard square and circle shaped stickers.

Hire me to create your band sticker design

Is your new band just getting your feet wet with merch? Perhaps you have been in the game for awhile and you all just need a fresh new design. Contact me today to hire me for your new band sticker design!

Filed Under: Print Design Advertising