Bridal Kool Aid Cocktail Hour Now Available on iTunes!

I have to say, although I was expecting it, it’s awfully thrilling to see my work on a site as prominent as iTunes!

Listen here, and see the original post here!

Logo Design: The Bridal Kool-Aid Cocktail Hour

A few weeks ago, I blogged briefly about being a featured vendor on Rogue Bride.  I was fortunate to be able to meet up with Lauren in person for happy hour not too long afterward, and I learned all about her new podcast with Christie from Hindsight Bride, “The Bridal Kool-Aid Cocktail Hour.”  It’s all about making good choices for yourself in your wedding planning process (rather than following the crowd, spending unnecessarily, and “drinking the kool-aid”).

Now, I love beautiful over-the-top amazing and/or frilly weddings as much as the next girl, but as I have said over and over, there is no one way to plan a wedding, and there is no reason you can’t plan a beautiful wedding without spending a ton of money.  It’s all about being realistic – and creative – with your budget.  Which is why I enjoyed the perspective so much at the Cocktail Hour – it’s all about making smart choices, with a good helping of snark.  Seriously these two ladies crack me up.

Lauren and Christie asked me if I’d be up for creating a logo for the podcast, and of course I said yes!

They gave me a font they loved, a color, some ideas, and said “go for it!”  I started off with the idea of doing a traditional “graphic” logo in Illustrator and even made a couple of attempts at a cocktail glass.  But I have to tell you that it was boring, boring, boring.  This show is anything but boring!  The most important part of graphic design, in my opinion, is editing, during both design conception and execution.  In other words, I knew I had to edit my original approach to the project.  That’s when I realized that what this project needed was a photograph.  A really interesting photograph.

I’m not a photographer, so the task was daunting.  I actually started off with a bunch of photos of the full cocktail glass with the engagement ring (not mine!) floating inside, but I wasn’t in love with the way they looked.  More boring.  More idea editing.

I spilled a little bit (actively, taking photos of the spillage).  I just started playing around with the spill and realized that I really liked the look, and that the spilled drink went well with the irreverence of the whole show.  So I styled and shot and restyled and reshot and finally came up with this:

I loved the imagery of the spilled cocktail with the engagement ring!  All it needed was some processing (aka: more editing, this time of the photo itself), and about 2 hours over Skype laughing until my stomach hurt (and nerding out over the English language) with Christie and Lauren.

The resulting logo is subtle and edgy, interesting and fun.  We all love it.  It’s easily one of my favorite design pieces ever, and I’m so proud of it!

The second podcast (“Forget the Cake, Let Them Drink Booze”) went live this morning, and it’s SO good!  If you are planning your wedding, or have ever planned a wedding, or like weddings…  Or just like snark…  It’s totally worth checking out on iTunes or by clicking on the logo below!!!  (iTunes is being stupid right now, so I’ll update the link as soon as it’s started behaving again!)

Word of warning: The language does get a bit salty in places (since I tend toward wholesomeness online, I want to make sure I make that disclaimer!).