Let's Go On Safari...

I'm so excited to introduce a logo I designed for Art & Soul Mixed-Media Retreats and their 2013 On Safari theme! When Glenny Moir asked me to create the logo for next year's theme... I was ecstatic. That little hamster wheel in my brain started going a mile a minute. What should I do? Maybe a Survivor themed logo... Outwit, Outcraft, Outlast? Maybe an animal print logo... like a zebra or a cheetah? But when it came down to the actual design, I ended up just gathering as many jungle and safari images that struck my fancy until the ultimate idea came to fruition.

Playing around with the mixed-media theme, I thought it would be fun to silhouette a bunch of animals that you'd see on a safari... using the many types of papers, fabrics and ephemera I love to use in my own collage work! So I searched through my own papers, books and even random pieces of fabric to find just the right look for each animal. After creating a pleasing composition for the animals it was time to design the logo for the theme.

I knew I wanted to use the Acadia Tree and once I had that in place, everything else just seemed to fall together. Even when I'm doing graphic design, my process seems to be very organic. I get inspired by the serendipity of the moment... and I just go with it. For example, using the tree as the '1' in 2013 just kind of popped into my brain... just like having the giraffe eating the '&' just kind of happened. So I ended up with the perfect combination of clever and whimsy, and I must say...

I'm wild about it!