Author Archive: Kat Amano
Holiday card design showcase
In this month’s design showcase, we’re highlighting some fantastic holiday card samples by two of our lovely ladies of design. These are unusual showcase items since they’re not tied to any particular client, but they’re also interesting since each one is, by its very unbranded nature, a peek into the designer’s unfettered mind.
Our holiday cards, of course, are all completely custom; these designs are merely samples of what our team can do. If you’re an Emma customer, you can request your own custom holiday design right over here. Let’s bring on some of that holiday style!
Sample: “Welcome to Fall”
Designer: Elizabeth Williams
Design level: Custom greeting card
This fall greeting card flies in the face of convention, which should be no surprise to anyone who knows its designer. Elizabeth, known around here as the one who rides her Razor scooter to staff meetings, originally wanted to conjure a Thanksgiving feast with imagery of gourds. It turns out, however, that a good gourd can be hard to find. When her search for the perfect photo came up empty, she had to return to the drawing board. Via Razor, of course.
Instead of using typical “fall color” (reds, oranges and browns), she opted for a cool color scheme with hints of warmth for balance. And though autumn designs commonly use textures and typefaces that evoke early Americana, Elizabeth’s card summons a different kind of nostalgia: home.
Her font of choice is not quite antiqued Western, not quite Deco, definitely quirky and decidedly vintage. The shapes and textures of the card itself call to mind an aged, clipped coupon and a classic, weathered money-clip made of engraved leather. There’s also a touch of natural beauty from the sprig of rowanberries, though it’s appropriately and seasonally sparse.
The feeling, then, is the spirit of fall on a smaller scale: familiar objects reminiscent of home, fall shopping with the family and minimalist, natural elegance. The gourds only *wish* they looked this good.
Sample: “A Joyful Thanksgiving”
Designer: Kelly McClain
Design level: Custom greeting card
When it comes to Thanksgiving food, Kelly is all about tradition: casseroles, macaroni and cheese, and all manner of pie. Come to think of it, though, Kelly is really just all about food, regardless of custom or holiday. That’s why, I think, we all expected her sample design to be an unabashed tribute to dinner, and I’m still a bit shocked that it isn’t.
In the end, though, it’s also true that Kelly never fails to surprise and delight, and this card certainly keeps with *that* tradition. In this design, she uses a variety of contrasting textures and styles that still work together to form one cohesive design.
First and foremost, the antiqued “paper” and ship illustration reference the colonial era, as does the vintage font for the header. These more traditional elements, however, are balanced with the more playful turkey handprint, the strips of tape along the top and the line-drawing flourish in the top left corner, all of which allude to grade school crafts for the holidays.
If you look closely at the content text, you’ll notice that it sits on top of a background image instead of a solid color. That means that, for this particular design, the text would need to be flattened into the image itself, instead of being highlight-able live type. That’s because certain email programs, such as Outlook, do not render background images correctly when they’re behind live text (the background images get stripped out).
We could, however, place live type in the middle area if it were expanded. Kelly did a brilliant job of smoothing out the roughed-up paper texture and ripped-edge borders in the middle so that, if needed, the design could expand vertically and accommodate more live text.
Sample: “Merry Holiday Season”
Designer: Kelly McClain
Design level: Custom greeting card
For her sample Christmas card, Kelly wanted something a little more understated and classic. Here, a shiny gold bow and a bit of sparkly wrapping paper transform the card into a gift, and the ribbon even appears to wrap the entire design. The rest of the image gets its depth from the shadowed curve that arcs across the bottom left corner.
Of course, the design wouldn’t be complete without a touch of levity. Kelly’s goal was really to create something conservative enough to work for a client of more traditional tastes, but still with a touch of playfulness to give the card an extra something special.
To that end, she added in a little paper snowflake, which peeks out from behind the ribbon in the top right corner. It’s a subtle, minor addition, but it changes the mood and spirit of the card. It also introduces an entirely new texture, which keeps the eye interested. And maybe even more importantly, it mirrors the color of “Merry Holiday Season,” which is the only other true white in the design. The snowflake and salutation work together, then, to make each other pop off the screen, all the while encouraging the reader’s eyes to continue moving across the “page.”
Sample: “Happy New Year”
Designer: Elizabeth Williams
Design level: Custom greeting card
The background imagery of Elizabeth’s New Year card is intentionally ambiguous, but unmistakably buoyant and celebratory. Those lighter spots in the content area could be the glint of the Times Square Ball, the flashes of cameras capturing the festivities or even a dance of light off a bubbly flute of champagne. The exact source or identity of those floating spots of light is not what’s important — it’s the spirit of the design, the depth of the field and the unusual combination of colors that still, somehow, feels like News Year’s.
In the bottom corners, the shooting sparks of fireworks are softened with a play on blur and opacity. They visually echo and reinforce the circular logos in the *upper* corners, strategically placed on either side of “Happy New Year.” Elizabeth brings in contrast with the texture of that banner, as well as the rougher smudging of “paint” behind the year. In the end, it all comes together to make a nuanced but festive design.
And until next time … hugs and holiday cheer from the entire Emma Design Team!
July design showcase: back-to-school edition
It’s been a minute since my school days, but this time of year still makes me want new books and shoes. There’s just something magical – something like New Year’s Eve – about the feeling in the air, like promise and potential are everywhere.
And after all, let’s face it: It’s been a long, hot summer, and maybe a little back-to-school spirit is all we need to get us through the tail end of this heat wave. Who else is ready for some stylish fall boots, back-to-school sales and university stationery? This month’s design showcase will at least help on the university stationery front.
Client: University of Notre Dame
Emma designer: Elizabeth Williams
Design level: Stationery Suite
Colleges are great candidates for Design Suite, our custom design package that includes three stationery designs based on one concept. Since university messages must appeal to a wide variety of audiences (prospective and current students, donors and alumni, faculty and staff, high school guidance counselors, parents and so on), the Suite is the perfect way to have something special for each distinctive group – while, of course, retaining brand consistency.
This design is the first of what will become a Design Suite for the University of Notre Dame. The original request included the school’s brand guidelines, which immediately determined the colors and fonts for the stationery. The shape, however, came from website-prowling on Elizabeth’s part. The curved frame appears frequently on the Notre Dame homepage, so Elizabeth mimicked the shape and added shadows and highlights to enhance it, creating a truly three-dimensional feel.
Client: Metropolitan Community College
Emma designer: Jimmy Thorn
Design level: Concierge Design
Our friends at the Metropolitan Community College wanted a fresh look for their stationery, so Jimmy was free to play with design concepts that strayed from the look of the website. Still, he knew it was important to communicate the school’s particular personality and style.
They provided their logo as an EPS file, meaning that Jimmy could blow it up as big as he wanted without losing image quality. And that’s exactly what he did: If you look closely, you can see that the background texture behind the logo is actually an extremely enlarged copy of the logo itself. He added color and shadow to give it a metallic sheen and then reversed out the actual logo to white, making the contrast much more dramatic. Their tagline gets its own focus here, but the red slanted bar continually draws the eye right back to the logo.
Client: Stanford University Press
Emma designer: Kelly McClain
Design level: Concierge Design
This was the second stationery design for the Stanford University Press. They needed a new, less traditional design for certain kinds of mailings — they weren’t exactly sure what they wanted for their new design, but they did know they wanted their brand shade of red. With that in mind, Kelly perused the SUP website and found that they typically use a lot of white space to give the red accents more power. She also discovered that they have a terrific online presence, and not just with their own website and Emma campaigns. They’re active users of Twitter, Facebook, RSS feeds, podcasts and a blog, all of which work together to engage a diverse community of fans and followers.
How brilliant, then, for an established American institution of print publishing to be so active on the web. And how brilliant of Kelly to put a similar ironic twist on their “less traditional” email stationery by making it look like a traditional printed letterhead, complete with typewriter font! She further aged the look by bending the page corners just a bit, scratching up the header type and fading the red bar under the title. The “paper” comes to a clean mid-section, though, so that the header and footer images could easily give way to clean, HTML-based design in the middle. That way, the stationery can stretch vertically to accommodate content of any length.
Client: Michigan State University
Emma designer: Jimmy Thorn
Design level: Concierge Design
Stephanie from Michigan State University wanted a fairly simple design but requested a variety of colors to represent her international audience. She provided a photo of flags from the around the world, with a busy street market blurred in the background. Jimmy cropped the image so the focus would be entirely on the flags in all their colorful glory, and he took the accent shade of green from the department’s own website. He also borrowed the idea of rounded corners from their existing branding and used that shape to frame the individual design elements as well as the stationery itself.
Stephanie can use the editable text box just below the header for the date, issue number or any other text that she’d like to change out from time to time. It’s completely separate from the text box(es) that form the layout template, so she can still use any of the existing layouts without losing that upper text box.
Until next time … hugs and autumn leaves from the entire Emma Design Team!
5 things to know about Studio Design
If you’re an Emma customer, you’ve probably heard about this little thing called Studio Design, which is an entirely different (dare we say, groundbreaking) approach to custom design. But as thrilled as we were to launch it, our customers’ enthusiasm quite simply made us feel like dancing.
And so, with the helpful feedback of our community and fellow staffers (except this guy, who really just did the dancing), we’ve put together a handy-dandy user’s guide to our own little design revolution. Which, of course, is not to be confused with Dance Dance Revolution, even though they do, on occasion, look quite similar.
1. What it is
Studio Design is a new way to get custom stationery that relies more pointedly on *your* art direction. One particularly astute customer noted that requesting Studio Design vs. Concierge Design is a lot like answering a multiple choice quiz vs. a short essay question. With Studio Design, we provide a hefty assortment of styles and motifs, and from there, you choose your own design adventure. Side note: Never fear! At Emma, said adventures never end in shipwreck or scurvy.
Click the image for a larger view.
2. Who it’s for
If one or more of the following sounds familiar, then you could be a great candidate for Studio Design:
- You want stylish, professionally designed stationery, but you want to be directly involved in the design-making process.
- Your stationery needs to reflect your brand identity, but you don’t have a lot of your own supporting graphics to use.
- You want a simple header that contains your logo or name, and possibly (but not necessarily) a slogan, background color or texture and/or a couple embellishments to make it look extra special.
- You have good, solid ideas about how your stationery should look, but you could use some help articulating what you want.
- You don’t know exactly what you want, but you know what you don’t want — so choosing from a gallery of original graphics would help you figure it out as you go.
3. Where to get it
If you’re an existing customer, just head on over to the online form.
If you’re interested in joining the Emma community, we’d love to chat and get you started! Just give us a ring at 800-595-4401, email us at hi@myemma.com or fill out a quick form.
4. How it works
The first step is to give us your basic brand information: your logo or company name, your slogan and your color preferences. You can then choose a background texture and up to two design elements to complement and enhance your brand. There are dozens of graphics in several different styles, and you can filter them thematically if you’d like (e.g. “Illustrated,” “Modern,” etc.) to help you find the imagery that will really make your brand shine.
Click the image for a larger view.
5. When it’ll be done
The turnaround time for a Studio Design stationery is two business days from the date we get your request. Keep in mind, of course, that the form does not generate a preview of your stationery. That’s because each header is handcrafted by a real designer, who uses his or her graphic design skill after you submit the request to make judgment calls on things like scale, composition, opacity and angle.
So what if you chose the most perfect shade of green, only to realize that it wasn’t so great after all? Rest assured that you can ask your designer for a revision if you change your mind about any single aspect of your stationery.
Of course, we’re still offering Concierge Design too, our completely custom option where your Emma designer designs a new stationery from scratch, based on your branding and/or art direction.
To see real-life examples of both Studio Design and Concierge, check out our design showcase. Ready to request your stationery now? Click here for the Studio Design form, or here for Concierge.
[ Post updated on 7/12/2011 to reflect changes to the Studio Design process. ]
May design showcase: tasty creations
In this month’s showcase, we’re highlighting stationery designs that are especially, shall we say, appetizing. Flavorful? OK, we’ll just say it: These designs are downright delicious. They’re also extremely flexible. (Didn’t see that one coming, now did you?) Our restaurant, catering and food retail clients often need to send out last-minute campaigns for spur-of-the-moment promotions, so their stationery designs must be usable for nearly any kind of campaign. Fortunately, our designers are experts at uniting existing brand standards with the unique attributes of email design. And they also really, really like food. At their desks. Preferably sent via (ahem) priority overnight service. You know, to prevent staleness. Just sayin’.
Client: Deluxe Foods
Emma designer: Leigh Bernstein
Design level: Concierge Design
This specialty food retail shop from Seattle, Washington, needed a stationery design informed by its current website branding, which balances the refined look of 19th-century English fine china with a thoroughly non-snobby attitude.
Leigh took the header directly from the website in order to replicate the look exactly, since the fonts used for the logo and navigation bar are not standard, web-safe fonts. For the footer, however, she created a beautiful Nouveau design that is consistent with Deluxe’s existing aesthetic: organic but not overtly floral, dainty but not froufrou. And because image-based borders cannot stretch to accommodate longer campaigns, Leigh designed the footer to just barely creep up the sides of the frame. That way, the swooping lines serve to draw the eye back up to the content without sacrificing the stationery’s flexibility.
Client: Cactus Restaurants
Emma designer: Elizabeth Williams
Design level: Concierge Design
Before we began designing, Marc at Cactus Restaurants sent multiple logos and several other files for Elizabeth’s reference, including photographs and Lotería cards. And although most of those images did not end up in the stationery itself, they were still important to the initial design process because they helped her understand the design aesthetic at Cactus – whether that be the design of the menus, the website or even the décor on the walls.
The end result highlights their most-used design elements (logo, font-specific slogan and the lithograph-style image of four men) while incorporating new design ideas that take advantage of email’s particular capabilities. Elizabeth completely customized the standard “send to a friend” link in the top right corner, and she built a permanent sidebar with an editable text box, which will collapse and disappear if Marc chooses not to input text.
Client: Jailhouse Brewing
Emma designer: Jimmy Thorn
Design level: Concierge Design
The folks at Jailhouse Brewing wanted an edgy design incorporating multiple elements in a rowdy, unstructured way. “I don’t want it to be too clean,” read the design request … and right away, we knew this would be fun. Oh, and did we mention it was for beer?
Jimmy started with the logo, which fortunately was available as an EPS file, meaning that the image quality was perfect and the background was transparent. Jailhouse provided the scratchy gray background texture, so Jimmy digitally “tore” the edges and added just a bit of a drop shadow to the header. From there, he found a few key images to add to the design, including a photograph of the brewery from Jailhouse’s Facebook page that he antiqued and framed with an old-fashioned border. The slogan (and its distinct typeface) are also integral to the identity of the Jailhouse brand, so Jimmy made sure to highlight it in the footer and support it visually with the ball and chain.
Client: The Sweets Truck
Emma designer: Leigh Bernstein
Design level: Concierge Design
Anyone who speaks with Molly at the Sweets Truck – be it Sam in sales or Kelley in design – can’t help but note how sweet she is! It’s fitting then, that she runs a mobile bakeshop with to-die-for cupcakes. And even fittinger that her custom stationery express that same charm and friendliness.
And since Molly already had established brand standards for font styles and color, Leigh was able to draw directly from provided elements to begin the basic design. The circular icons are images that Molly uses consistently on the web and on the truck itself, so Leigh knew to spotlight those without putting them in the background of the content area, which would have caused rendering problems in certain email programs. She also used the approved Sweets Truck font for all image-based text in the sidebar, while sticking with a web-safe font for the live type at the bottom. With those little tricks of the trade, Leigh was able to protect and promote Molly’s brand identity and still ensure that all readers will see the *exact* design that she does on her own machine.
Until next time … hugs, brand extension and stomach growls from your entire Emma design team!
Emma is a member of the Email Sender & Provider Coalition and the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group.
Copyright © 2003 - 2012 Emma. All rights reserved.