j.j. elliot blog

Dinosaur princess mash-up invite

j.j. elliot — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 22:10:01 +0000

Recent custom order: a combination-themed dinosaur and princess birthday invite. It was a little brain exploding trying to figure out how to bring the two themes together, but it was still fun to work on!

Free kids’ computer drawing program. Woo-hoo!

j.j. elliot — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 19:25:52 +0000

Tux Paint is a free kids’ computer drawing program. Now children can kick it semi-old school and draw and paint their doodles on a desktop computer (do kids even use desktop computers any more in this age of iPads and iPhones?) The interface is simple and easy to use, plus you can save and print your artwork. Tux Paint is geared towards kids ages 3-12. It’s available for Mac, PC & Linux computers.

Note: Tux Paint has a rubber stamp tool, which allows you to stamp pre-designed icons onto your artwork. Kids will have a blast playing with this fun feature. Extra rubber stamp icons are available as a separate free download on the Tux Paint website.

Here’s a link to the Tux Paint program: http://tuxpaint.org/

Grouchy bear in Tux Paint

Grouchy bear with ducky stamps

A children’s book that grown-ups can appreciate

j.j. elliot — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 16:12:10 +0000

I came across a unique children’s book at the library the other day: “I Want My Hat Back” written and illustrated by Jon Klassen. What caught my eye was the simple but cool illustration style and the clean layout of the book. I really enjoyed Klassen’s animal illustrations (the main character is a bear plus we get to meet a fox, frog, turtle, snake, opossum, deer, squirrel, and a semi-devious rabbit.) With great illustrations and irreverent humor, “I Want My Hat Back” definitely stands out from the sea of mediocre childrens’ books. Klassen has also illustrated another picture book, “Cats’ Night Out” which I’m looking forward to checking out.

cover

bear & opossum

Superhero birthday party invite

j.j. elliot — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 18:55:24 +0000

Here’s the latest birthday party invite design: a comic book superhero-themed invite. With a nod to Superman, the general look and color scheme is similar with a few tweaks (used a darker shade of blue, added a mask and added some extra costume detail by the shoulders).

New pirate birthday party invite

j.j. elliot — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 15:22:00 +0000

ARRRR!!!! Don’t be a lily-livered scalawag. Have a look-see at this newfangled birthday invite!

(Don’t worry, the rest of this post will not be written in pirate. You’re welcome.)

Still working on a corresponding pirate-themed thank you card. As far as the next birthday card design goes, it will definitely be a super-hero themed one. Hoping to have both of these designs done soon.

Sportsman’s Club 2011 Kickoff Dinner

j.j. elliot — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 14:43:27 +0000

Earlier this month, The Sportsman’s Club held their annual Kickoff Dinner benefiting the Rise School of Austin. One of the biggest supporters of the Rise School is Coach Mack Brown, head football coach of The University of Texas.

Typically every year the evening is centered around Coach Brown and his coaching staff’s preview of the upcoming UT football season. Big thanks to Coach Brown, Coach Major Applewhite, Coach Bryan Harsin and Coach Manny Diaz for generously donating their time and supporting the Rise School!

j.j. elliot helped design the Kickoff Dinner program. To keep things simple and more cost-effective, the program was printed on a standard 8.5” x 11” piece of 100 lb. card stock, then folded in half.

For the front of the program, I used this cute photo of a few Rise School kids playing football and made a football card for each of them.

Original photo:

Program front:

For the inside page, the main visual is a coach’s clipboard and whistle. The original color of the whistle string was red. Not just any red, but “University of Oklahoma red.” Well, there was absolutely no way I could leave the string THAT color, so I changed it to a more UT-friendly orange in Photoshop. Whew!

Inside pages:

Back:

Here’s some additional info about The Sportsman’s Club and the Rise School of Austin:

The Sportsman’s Club is a premier men’s volunteer network dedicated to providing financial and moral support for the Rise School of Austin by enlisting a membership of committed leaders, conducting events, and educating the community.

The Rise School of Austin is a non-profit early childhood and preschool program providing the highest quality education and services to children and families in Austin. Rise Austin provides a complete, customized learning experience for each child, building a firm foundation for each student to reach his or her fullest potential. www.riseschool.org/austin

2011 Rise School Graduation Invitation

j.j. elliot — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 15:07:58 +0000

Here is this year’s design for the Rise School of Austin’s graduation invitation. Can’t believe another school year is almost over! I thought it might be fun to have a space-themed invite along the lines of “The Right Stuff.”

The front of the invite has a spaceship with a port hole for each student. Originally, I was thinking of drawing an astronaut giving the kids the thumbs up, but went with the alien instead. The back of the invite has a mission control-style computer console. I thought using the monitors would be a good way to spread out the information.

Graduation invite (front):

Graduation invite (back):

I’m starting on the graduation program design this week. Hope to have it finished by next week.

2010 Rise School Holiday Card

j.j. elliot — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 17:04:32 +0000

Here’s the 2010 holiday card design for the Rise School of Austin. Like last year’s card, the design was centered around a panoramic school photo. Went with a peppermint candy theme this time around. Initial design had red and white stripes for the background, but the type was too hard to read. Ended up going with a red on red striped pattern which worked a lot better.

The Doughy Runner

j.j. elliot — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 16:17:34 +0000

This is a logo/header design for the blog, “The Doughy Runner”. Follow the ups and downs of a first-time marathoner as she trains for a race in NYC.

http://thedoughyrunner.blogspot.com/

We did a couple of initial designs simply based on the name of the blog, but it wasn’t until we actually had a chance to read some of the posts did we get a better understanding of how to approach the logo design.

The Big “7-O”

j.j. elliot — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 16:15:38 +0000

This custom design is for a 70th surprise birthday party invitation (3.75″ x 9.25″). We were able to scan in some vintage photos to complement the timeline concept. We converted the more recent photos to black and white to keep things consistent with the older photos.

We also heard that despite superhuman effort to keep the surprise party on the down-low, the surprise element was still unfortunately blown. Bummer! (What’s the success rate of keeping the “surprise” in a surprise party anyway? Maybe less than 5%?)

Happy Birthday, T.K.!