Logo for a Children’s Theater Show

My friend Diane Crews founded and runs Tafe (Theater Arts for Everyone) in York, PA, which produces theater for families and for people of all ages and abilities. Diane asked me to create an illustration to promote her show that travels for various school performances in the area, The Princess and the Pauper, which she adapted from Mark Twain’s classic

I sketched a first quick design in pencil –

And after getting some input from Diane I changed the expressions a bit and felt it would read better as a contained logo if the title were enclosed in an arched gateway –

And with her approval, I drew & painted it on illustration board for the finish.

New Brand Design for a Business

A while back I designed a business brand for Jim Hardy, whose company was called “James Hardy and the Carpet Guys,” and performed carpet cleaning for businesses and homes. Jim’s business has expanded but he’s condensing his company name to just “The Carpet Guys”; so he requested a new logo that would work better on his vans as well as business cards.

I designed two logos, keeping some colors and elements of the old one to keep some continuity, and trying different typefaces on them.

Jim liked the top left design and requested a few changes. I gave him some variations from which to choose.

Jim chose the second design, and we are now on our way to creating new business cards for some of the salespeople.

The Ascent of Man (with Trees)

I was asked by the people at Grow With Trees, in Oklahoma, to draw a new chart of ‘evolution’ that they had conceived – it’s a delightful idea that relates to their industry of tree conservation and replacement.

Instead of the typical chart of chimps evolving into man, they described this scene, for which I made this first small pencil sketch:

With input from my client I developed it further for this color sketch:

And with all details approved I added in their logo and painted the finished art.

 

 

Husky dog mascot for a service business

I was asked to draw up some sketches for a heating-and-AC business mascot – they wanted a friendly-looking, cuddly husky dog.  Not sure how realistic they wanted the drawing to be, I started with three different drawing styles.

They chose the third sketch, and I drew the finish in acrylic watercolor with prismacolor pencil texturing over it, on illustration board.

From the beginning the company wanted to make a stuffed animal of its mascot to give as a gift to customers, and the expert designer I worked with on this project – Chanin Milnazik of Brown Dog Design in Doylestown – made that happen. Here is the final adorable TemperaturePro Husky pup, named Comfy:

 

Podcast logo

I created this logo for the newly released podcast, ‘Flyover Country,’ hosted by my client Ryan McPherson.  I hand-scripted the title and hand-drew the shadow of the aircraft, then scanned and colorized them in MS Publisher.  I realize that to most graphic designers, using Publisher is like saying you’re writing your novel on a manual typewriter, but it serves its purpose.

Logo for Sleeping Beauty

The Ardensingers in Arden, DE, are putting together a holiday panto – which is sort of a musical comedy based on a fairy tale –  “The Sleeping Beauty of Savoy.”  It was conceived and written by two former D’Oyly-Carte members, and is loosely based on the traditional Sleeping Beauty tale but using some Gilbert & Sullivan musics & lyrics.  I just finished this logo for them:

They asked that I base the composition on an old etching they had used to early-promote the play, and they liked the prominent red & green I added in to link it to the holiday theme.

 

Art for a Musicians’ Non-Profit

Photographer Steve Brown, who creates terrific photos at Looking Glass Photography in Perkasie, is working on creating a non-profit organization to benefit musicians.  One of his projects is a photo-essay book he’s putting together, highlighting a lot of well-known and not-so-well-known musical artists.  The title for the project is The Heart of an Artist, and between the drawing and hand-lettering I created and his added photographic effects, we collaborated on this image for the project.

King Bee at the Washington Improv Theater

My son performs with several improv comedy groups in DC, one of which is King Bee.  Here’s the logo I drew for them, cleaned up from the sketch.  I kinda thought they’d go for the insect with the attitude.

King Bee is one of the House Teams at the Washington Improv Theater, a terrific venue for comedy in the capital. I’ve seen a number of shows at WIT with my husband and they are invariably creative, lightning-paced and hilarious.  They really do base a large number of the improvisations on words or stories suggested on the fly by the audience, and uncannily weave them into weirdly logical scenes of preposterosity.  (And they are, happily, largely politics-free — surprising for DC, but then I guess the actors all get enough of that at their day jobs.)

Anthropomorphic Weenie

Finished a logo today for an acquaintance, whose spouse wants to open a hot dog restaurant at some future point: