I am very excited to officially announce that I am a design intern for Kellen Brugman, an ayurvedic lifestyle counselor, yoga teacher, writer and artist based in Santa Barbara, California. Becca Reitz helped Anelise Salvo design Kellen's brand last year, so when Kellen needed an intern of her own to help her keep up with the brand's new beautiful design, Becca thought of and recommended me.
So far, I have designed two cards for Kellen to use as well as a little graphic for her MailChimp newsletter. I have also been updating and adding to her website with a shop where people can actually go register and pay for her services.
The New Moon Dreamscape Gathering cards display on the front artwork by Kellen's friend, Jon Orton, along with one of her poems. The other side has information about her Dreamscape Gathering event and details on how to register. The challenge here was to find a typeface to accent Kellen's current Brandon Grotesque brand font that was strong and sturdy but also soft; I settled on Very Berry. I also added a few flourishes that mimicked the line quality of the typeface and a watercolored moon illustration. These cards were left at some of the stores Kellen is an ambassador for, specifically Lole, Lululemon and Aveda in Santa Barbara.
The other card was created for Kellen to take to her Valentine's Day-related events at Lululemon and Lole. During her events, she writes tips and notes on the backs of peoples' cards, and this particular one was to be "Valentine's Day" themed to keep with the "Love Your Body" theme. After using watercolor on the moon in the first card, I found that I liked the fluid, organic quality of the watercolor that lent a personalized touch, and decided to merge watercolor with the other elements of her brand to round out the aesthetic. I then did "a few quick watercolor hearts" (a perfectionist never does anything quickly...I probably spent a couple hours drawing until I had the perfect hearts) and adapted the colors on the back of the card to reflect a Valentine's tone without being too distracting, scaling back the opacity so that she could still write on the cards when necessary. The front of the Valentine's Day card was also used in Kellen's article for Lole, published on their blog here.
The best part is, we have lots of projects planned for the future! I am starting now on templates for one of our big projects that we will be rolling out in the coming months. It's been great getting practice with working with an existing brand's elements and figuring out how to expand the limits of design within that brand. I am also learning lots about entrepreneurship as well as really cool shit like essential oils, breathing practices, and yoga sequences to keep me at my best. Basically, I'm having a blast. Stay tuned for lots more awesome projects!