Well it has been a long time since I have written anything here, I have been so, so busy working on many different projects. A lot of revamps to websites, one of which was one of my long-existing ones and a few new websites that new people have come to me with. It has been a very exciting time!
But one of the most exciting projects I have embarked on recently is a website for a dentist in Romania! Yes… today Ireland… tomorrow the world! I have reached across the seas at long last. And I have to say I am really enjoying every bit of it. The dental clinic is City Dental and is located in Cluj-Napoca, CJ in Romania. A new logo, 2 concepts, one for stationary and one for the website have been designed and business cards, one in Romanian and one in English have been designed and gone to print.
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Logo Designs for City Dental, Romania |
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Business Cards designed for City Dental, Romania |
The website is in progress still and should be ready soon so watch this space!! It will be in Romanian primarily and then English, Italian in a few months and possible German down the line!
Exciting times I tell you…
Just before Christmas, I was asked by my client, Dental Options, to revamp one of my longest-running websites, 6 Month Braces. A fresh look for the new year! Check it out:
A while back a website designer contacted me and asked me would I like to take over a client of their’s as she was about to have a baby. This was going to be a permanent thing. I was of course delighted! The website was already designed and had been up and running for a while. Not a whole lot was done at first but a few months ago they came to me and asked me to revamp the whole website, keeping the original design in some ways, but tweaking it and adding to it. I kept the banner look and some of the layouts, but changed the home page and how it functioned and redid all of the pages, adding moving galleries, colour and spice. The main navigation through the website was altered too.
Since then, it has been a fantastic project for me to be working on. The website has grown and is continuing to expand.
Loughcrew Gardens in Oldcastle, Co. Meath is a beautiful estate that provides accomodation, amazing gardens and walks, an adventure course, gilding school, wedding venue and even an opera!
My husband Jamie runs a weekly swing dance social night in Dublin City Center and also teaches Lindy Hop classes in Temple Bar and Fairview. Our business is called Boogie Beat Swing and I have just given the website a total revamp!
Well it’s been a while since I have posted anything as I’ve been so, so busy. But I thought I would show off some nice invitation designs I did before Christmas for the Meath County Council Arts Office. It has been a long time since I designed invitations and I thoroughly enjyed getting stuck into it again!
The first invitation is called ‘Going Solo’. It was for an exhibition of work by Sinead Fahey, the 2010 winner of the Meath County Council Going Solo Visual Arts Award. Sinead’s sample illustration was just so delicate, I had to pick this up in the font I used for the title. I wanted light and airy colours too and I feel I captured this.
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“Going Solo Invitation”
An exhibition of work by Sinead Fahey, the 2010 winner of the
Meath County Council Going Solo Visual Arts Award |
The second invitation is called ‘Our own Backyard’. It was for a visual arts exhibition by local artists of their locale. There were a mix of sample paintings to be put on this invitation and all of them were very abstract and bold. That, mixed with the actual wording of the title, contributed to the feel of the invitation I designed. I feel it worked well.
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“Our Own Backyard Invitation”
A visual arts exhibition by local artists of their locale |
For anyone who saw my post ‘Website Revamp‘, I am now writing to say that said website has indeed been revamped. And I have say I am very happy with the result. It is cleaner, brighter and loads faster that before too. Check it out:
Hallowe’en is upon us and my inner child is coming out. I say I put up the decorations for the kids but I get such pleasure in it all myself too. And what would Hallowe’en be without pumpkins!
Well, I got a bit carried away this year. I bought three pumpkins. One very large one and two small. The artist in me decided to go at these pumpkins with ghusto!
Because of my love of Tim Burton’s A Nightmare Before Christmas, Jack the Pumpkin King was naturally going to feature. Indeed I fantasised about one day having a sort of Nightmare Before Christmas grotto out in the back garden, much to my poor husband’s dismay! But I decided to leave it at a pumkin, this time anyway and he was carved on the largest one.
After that, I found some scary but also sort of goofy (not to frighten the very young children that live in my estate) jack o’ lantern faces for the two small pumpkins.
On the whole, I had a blast and was very pleased with the outcome!
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| Pumpkin Carving |
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| Nightime Frights |
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| Awaiting Little Trick or Treaters |
So on to websites… or back to websites. I have just started working on a revamp of an old Dental Website that I designed a few years ago www.newsmiledentalclinic.ie.
New Smile Dental Clinic is a dental practice located in a new state of the art clinic on Wine Street in Sligo. Dr. Kennedy is the principal dentist there. The original website is black and gold to compliment the logo I designed for the practice.
As with all things internet, every month, every day things are moving forward. At the time I designed the website, it was up to the mark. Now, only two years later, I can see so many things to improve on. The style of websites has changed I feel. Maybe this is due to an increasing number of people blogging and so websites are becoming more and more like blogs in style. Maybe it’s just something that has evolved over time, like art. I am after all an artist, before a web designer. I majored in Illustration and Typography for my degree. And so I take this with me every time I design a website. Also, being a typical artist, I am very critical of my work and find that while I am very pleased at the time of finishing a website or other graphic piece, after a few months I look back and see things I could improve on. The great thing about website design, as apposed to printed design, is that it is never permanent. The work can always be changed and can evolve over time.
And so I am revamping the New Smile Dental Clinic website and I’m very excited about it. I will be keeping the same colours obviously and the style of the website will remain pretty much the same, but the layout will change.
Exciting stuff….
The Pucas & Potions Logo and Poster / Flyer have all been approved and printed!
The logo for the Pucas & Potions Children’s Arts Day 2010 was to be based on the Meath Councy Council Arts Office logo. I adapted the original logo to fit in with the children’s Hallowe’en theme of the day, taking all of the elements on the logo and turning them into little Hallowe’en silhouettes. Everything was made jagged and crooked to appear more scary to the children. A cauldron bubbles below, a cat sits and watches and a ghost flies across the sky. A splash of colour was then added with stars sprinkled around too.
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| Pucas & Potions Children’s Arts Day Logo
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The poster and flyer for the Meath Councy Council Pucas & Potions Children’s Arts Day were the same. After illustrating the main image for it, I put everything together in Adobe Photoshop and then worked on the layout in Adobe InDesign. The concept was to create a colourful poster that would be professional but appeal to children at the same time. Photos taken from previous years were inserted too.
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| Pucas & Potions Children’s Arts Day Poster and Flyer |
All in all, I really enjoyed working on this project! Now on to the signs for the day…
I am currently working on a project for the Meath County Council Arts Office.
On October 25th, at the Fair Green in Athboy, they will hold The Pucas & Potions Children’s Arts Day to celebrate Hallowe’en. This project is part of the Spirits of Meath – Where Hallowe’en Began Festival and will be packed with spooky fun for the day.
I have designed the logo for this festival and had such fun doing it. It brought out the child in me! The brief was to adapt the Meath County Council Arts Office logo to fit the Pucas & Potions Hallowe’en theme.
At present, I am working on the poster for the festival. Again, I am having great fun doing this. It has been a while since I have had the opportunity to be this arty with my work. Let’s see if it pays off…
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