Wedding Invitation Line Sneak Peek!

With Curious Mustard, I want to offer typical graphic design services, but I also want to offer stationery design services. Currently, my for me project is developing both a small wedding invitation line and a notecard line to sell in an online shop. I have always loved greeting cards, notecards, personal stationery invitations, and heck, even post-it/todo notepads (though I am the world's worst list-maker). Working on these lines has been my oasis, as I try to find a good balance between my 9-5 job, my current freelance project (logo + website design), and legitimizing Curious Mustard.



Right now I plan to offer 6 pre-made wedding designs, and a set of 3-5 notecard designs (changing these every 4 months or so). I can't wait until I'm all finished with designs and mocking them up, so that I can share them on here!

Baggu bags

I loooove Baggu bags. I have a few of the classic reusable bags, and one of the duck bags, that I use as an everyday tote bag. The classic bags are great for shopping trips, they can hold around 2-3 grocery bag's worth of goodies, up to 50 pounds. I've been trying to remember to use them when shopping for other things as well, like Target runs, mall trips, or bookstore visits. I'd love to buy more of the classic bags (look at all the fun colors they offer!), but I never buy more than 2 bags worth of stuff in any trip, so I won't *sigh*. However, I'll keep them in mind for stocking stuffers for the holiday season :)

For spring they have a line called Shabd Totes, which are beautiful tie-dyed back packs, and duck bags. I really want one (maybe a back pack, since I have a duck bag), the problem is, which color do I choose? :)

all images from www.baggubag.com

Curious Mustard: Identity System

In between projects and my 9-5 design job, I've been slowly working to develop my freelancing business. The first obstacle was creating a name. After one false start, Curious Mustard is the name I've chosen, and the one I'm sticking with, gosh darn it :) I began by writing down a long list of words and adjectives I liked, from there I made pairs from different words off my list, and finally arrived at Curious Mustard. I wanted a name that was short and sweet, quirky, and most importantly, available!

So far, I've been working on the fun stuff: identity system, projects, Etsy shop, website, but now its time to work on the business-y stuff: obtaining a license, filing for a Doing Business As (since sadly, Curious Mustard is not my real name), and creating pricing guidelines. When books and blogs talk about how much time you spend on non-design stuff, they aren't joking around!

A bit more about my current identity system:

logo: of course it's going to be mustard! I wanted to create something sweet and simple, since this is the basis of my design "style." I also wanted something that could look professional yet playful, depending on its application.

pattern: I decided to pair a simple grey grid pattern with my logo, to add more visual interest to the system. It will be carried over to my website (and is already used on here and Twitter!)

I thought it would be fun to put my logo and/or pattern on various items beyond my business card and letterhead: mini Moleskines, buttons, stickers, and various envelopes. All of the items above (except for the sticker and buttons) were screenprinted using my Gocco and custom mixing a mustard yellow.



I got my Gocco for Christmas and used that to print my logo on the various items. It worked beautifully on everything except my business cards. I think from now on, I'll use a custom rubber stamp instead of gocco'ing everything, it will be more cost effective. It was fun to experiment though!

Recently Watched: Never Let Me Go

A few nights ago, Gannon and I watched Never Let Me Go. I read the novel of the same name, by Kazuo Ishiguro, a couple of years ago and was not impressed. At the time, I thought the plot would make a great movie, I just didn't particularly like his writing style. According to a Newsweek review of the movie, he tries to write in a way that would make his novels "unfilmable", however I think the film version was excellent, much better than the book.

I'm not a huge Kiera Knightly fan, but her scrunchy features were perfect for portraying a jealous and selfish Ruth. I am, however, a big fan of Carey Mulligan and Andrew Garfield, and I thought they were adorable :) I would recommend this film to someone looking to watch a beautiful, quiet, and haunting movie.