CREATING A FIRST IMPRESSION WITH CALLIGRAPHY

Recently I was delighted to have been contacted by Helen Warner Photography who was redesigning her logo for her new website.  She had seen my ‘Seraphine’ suite and wanted to have her name written using pointed pen and ink, then digitised and vectorised to be used as a digital file for her website.

She also wanted to have illustrations created to enhance her website design, we discussed types of flowers and foliage that she would like and I began the process of creating this for her.

The beauty of using a pointed pen means the level of creativity is immense, Every time you put pen to paper there are always subtle differences, from the type of nib that you use to the ink texture and opacity, also the angle of the pen to the final stroke.  Helen had an idea of what she might like and I created a variety of options for her to choose from.  I also researched a number of wild blossoms and flowers from which I created a collection of illustrations.

After selecting a particular logo design, Helen wanted the ‘shade’ or downstrokes to be a little thicker so I went back to my pen and used a different nib to create her final logo.  Once we were happy with the ink version this was then scanned, brought into Photoshop for final edits and then converted into a vector* graphic in Illustrator.

This was also repeated for all the illustrations, Helen wanted a small collection of pieces to use throughout her website and a main image for her logo. Once all the elements were finished, they were brought back into Photoshop to be created into jpeg images for her website at a lower resolution and optimised for the internet**.
Helen was in the process of having her website created so I made a mixture of jpeg and png files for her to choose from***. This enabled her to upload her pictures to her website to complete her branding vision.

Business Cards

Helen also invited me to create her business card for her and wanted something luxurious and elegant using letterpress.  I had recently been in contact with Cotton Letterpress regarding my own business cards and loved the quality, texture and tactile feeling of letterpress.  After looking at a number of samples and cardstock Helen decided to have a neutral card with a soft foil which oozes elegance and sophistication.

I created 3 different designs for her to choose from and she opted for one that had her name on the front with a lovely illustration and her business details on the back.  Once the designs were finalised and signed off I sent the artwork created in Illustrator to Cotton Letterpress.  They created a final proof for both Helen and I to check and with a big tick off it went to be printed.

A few weeks later the most beautiful card landed on my doorstep.  The softness of the texture of the card mixed with the foil worked perfectly.  In the light the foil picks up a pale shimmer and the detail in the illustration came out perfectly.

Helen was delighted and now has some fabulous cards to promote her amazing photography business.  It was wonderful to work with such a lovely client and letterpress printers.

www.helenwarner.co.uk
www.cottonletterpress.com

If you would like me to create something completely unique and designed just for you please contact me either via email hello @ missmoderncalligraphy.co.uk or through my contact page.

*A vector graphic is one that can be resized whilst retaining the original quality, the file is converted into a shape that can also be changed to any colour as it becomes a computer graphic rather than a fixed image.  This is different to a jpeg file.

**Unlike a printed file images used on the internet are normally of a lower resolution typically 72dpi so that they can be viewed quickly and easily without large download times.  If you are using a file for print the resolution would need to be a minimum of 300dpi.

***Jpeg images have a fixed background colour, png files have a transparent background and can be used as an overlay if you have a coloured background.