Sarah Designs the World!

(And blogs about it, too.)

Tag: design (page 1 of 2)

Happy Holidays

Humane Society holiday card

A little holiday card I designed for the Humane Society.

Detailed view of the animal-snowflake:

Detailed view

Does anything spread cheer like kissing bunnies??

No!

Happy Holidays!

Spiritual Tours of India

I dare say, this was the perfect project to come home to after spending six months in India: A tourism website for Westerners wanting the authentic ashram/yoga/meditation/ayurveda/guru experience in India. Consider me your Subject Matter Expert.

Spiritual Tours of India

So here’s the site, and…..it responds!

Responsive website

 

How much do I love responsive fly-down navigation for smart phones and tablets? Immensely!

In India, more is more is more. And then add a little more. So this design was a bit of a free-for-all. Though if it were really an accurate representation of the country in look/feel it would also be bedazzled in sequins, set on fire, wail Carnatic music, and have a cow saunter through. Maybe in CSS4, folks, maybe.

But for now, lots of decoration and ornamentation and color, but keeping the layout clean and easy for our Western viewers.

drop cap and embelishment

 

Drop caps, funky borders, bold-italic colored links.

 

colorful icons

 

Fancy pants icons.

 

sidebar illustrations

 

A couple more interior pages:

Ayurvedic Treatments Page

 

Ashram Life

 

Spiritual Tours of India South India Tour

 

More pretty shots of the full-width responsive slideshow:

responsive slideshow

 

responsive slideshow

 

responsive slideshow

 

responsive slideshow

 

responsive slideshow

 

Visit the site. More importantly: go to India!

Google Hangout

Early this year I got the awesome opportunity to play Art Director & Lead Designer on this pretty huge event that partnered the Art of Living Foundation and Google India.

Why was it awesome? So many reasons!

First, the chance to work with Google, whose cheerful, minimalistic aesthetic and tireless innovation makes my heart happy. And I mean, c’mon, it’s Google — the company that became a verb!

Second, when your professional passion intersects with your personal passion (in my case, design and meditation/service/peacemaking), life is moving along nicely.

Third, this is a cause TO BELIEVE IN! The Hangout sought to answer the question: “What can we do for a stress-free, violence-free society?” During the opening remarks Sri Sri shared these words, putting it perfectly:

When the Wright Brothers thought about flying, everybody thought they were crazy. I have this crazy idea to see a world without violence, without stress. I’m so happy that so many of you have joined me in this dream. It may appear to be far-fetched but we need to dream first. Then, one day, either in this generation or the next, it will come true.

So. The design.

First, some visually stimulating teasers playing with the idea of what a stress-free violence-free society might look like:

violence-free stress-free society campaign

 

violence-free stress-free society campaign

 

violence-free stress-free society campaign

Pollution? Bah! Our factory’s emissions include bubbles and sparkles and rainbows.

 

The next step was to position Sri Sri as the expert he is in both large-scale conflict resolution and the individual journey to peace and joy. Luckily he makes this a snap through his own inspiring words:

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar commitment

 

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar growth

 

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar non-violence

 

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar duty

 

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar reverse

 

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar women

 

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar saints

 

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar capacity

 

And some hand-lettering for the fun of it:

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar hero

 

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar take action

 

And of course, ads of every shape and size:

violence-free stress-free ads

 

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar violence-free stress-free campaign

 

And the results!

violence-free stress-free campaign

 

violence-free stress-free campaign

 

violence-free stress-free campaign

So lucky to get to be a part of it.

A little dirt under the nails is good for design.

Recently spent a few weeks volunteering up in the beautiful mountains of Quebec, a couple hours north of Montreal. It’s a delightfully remote area, without cell phone reception and with just a spot of wifi here and there.

I did a bit of designing, including a big ol’ sign (9ft by 3ft) for the vegetable stand where they sell off the abundance from the organic garden:

Garden sign

And also a couple of advertisements, here’s one:

Print Ad

But mostly what I did was run about and get dirty in the garden and swim in the lake and scrub pots and fold laundry and make new friends and see lots of wildlife (including a baby bear!) and eat wild raspberries and spend all kinds of time outdoors with the flowers and the woods, waking when the sun came up excited for life and sleeping like the dead when the sun went down. It was lovely and restorative.

What I noticed was that the longer I spent connected to nature and disconnected from my computer, the more and more creative I became. It began getting expressed in all sorts of fun little ways — making up games with the kids, assembling elaborate flower bouquets, ‘cooking’ raw.

But also I couldn’t wait to get back to work, filled with new ideas. More on those to come….!

Que Rico

The truth is I’m kinda in love with this poster I got to make recently.

For one thing, the client is the lovely Adaliz De Sedas, whose food is so inventive and fresh and delicious you experience eating in a whole new way.

A recently meal we shared: carrot salad with a vinaigrette made from papaya seeds, cashews and homemade pineapple vinegar  /  soba noodle pasta with shitaki mushrooms, pineapple, mustard leaves, and homemade coconut milk curry  /  and for desert: homemade avocado ice cream!

Have you ever heard a menu like this?!  Are you not salivating? And did you notice the theme: homemade! Adaliz and her husband, Klaus, are what I’d call the real deal — sincere, compassionate, hard-working people who live their values with a sustainable, home-grown, home-made lifestyle. Klaus is a bamboo genius and recently completed a BOAT made from bamboo. A BOAT THAT SLEEPS SIX. That he MADE. WITH HIS HANDS. Yeah, think about that next time you’re sitting around bored!

Anyhow, here’s the poster:

Comer Sano poster

(Click the image to see it in its detailed glory.)

Thanks to the PSD Dude for his tutorial on how to make text look chalky. The pretty font is called Alice. It’s available for free from Google Web Fonts.

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