io design & illustration, inc.
fun and functional design & illustration services for print and web

Design for Print

Print design services include catalog layout, menu design, brochures, rack cards, sales tools, multi-page booklets, posters, books and maps. We offer full-service print design development, including production file preparation and printer interaction. We can also put together a team of experts for your project to include writers and photographers.

Below are some examples of our design work for print.

Asheville Wedding Guide

Now in it’s third edition, the Asheville Wedding Guide is one of my favorite design projects ever. The first edition was created for the Asheville Convention & Visitor Bureau (CVB) in 2009 as they were stepping up services for destination weddings. The guide needed to include the normal content you would expect – lists of photographers, locations, caterers, spas and all other local wedding related resources.

But the goals for the guide went beyond that. We needed to create a piece that spoke of Asheville as an unique place to hold a wedding, a piece that evoked the beauty of our area and the wide variety of activities that make it a wonderful place to ask friends and family to gather. It also needed to tie in to existing CVB branding, which includes a fun, bold color logo, while maintaining a romanic feel generally associated with softer colors.

I am please to say that the initial edition won the 2010 North Carolina Destination Marketing Achievement Award: Gold for Best Niche Marketing piece. And brides-to-be have blogged enthusiastically about the piece, as well as the excellent service from CVB staff they have received with it. Always nice to know a design has hit the mark!

Why is the piece one of my favorites? Because it merged illustration so nicely with the layout of a lot of detailed information. There were lists and tables a plenty, but throughout I wove delicate vine illustrations and enhanced pages with photos and quotes. We also chose to print on a natural soft white uncoated paper. The end result is a piece that is very beautiful, extremely functional and has a warm welcoming feel.

To request a copy of the wedding guide, please visit www.exploreasheville.com

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Posted in Brand and Print by alice

Frosted Skates

Once again I had the opportunity to create a poster for our local roller derby team, the Blue Ridge Rollergirls. As I’ve noted before, I love creating their posters! They give me a theme and let me know what copy and partner logos are to be included and then let me at it.

When Drag’n SlayHer told me the theme was “Frosted Skates” my mind thought of punning off Frosted Flakes, but Celeste had done an excellent “Lucky Charms” poster not too long ago so it seemed a little too soon to do another. Frosty the Snowman seemed kinda clunky. Then I thought of the Hans Christian Anderson tale The Snow Queen – perfect, I thought – combined with sort of a Narnia White Witch image. I set about sketching, but it just wasn’t working. I couldn’t get the roller derby energy into an ice queen.

To make a long story short, after digging around the internet and thumbing through lots of books at the library, I came around to the X-Men character, Emma Frost. Now that is PERFECT. She is tough, icy, and well, her name is Frost so we end up with a pun after all.

The illustration came together nicely and I got to use some of my cool Alien Skin Photoshop filters to create icicles on the type.

Seems to me Emma Frost would make an excellent rollergirl. I’d get out of her way.

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Posted in Illustration and Print by alice

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