I am very excited to be attending the TRENDS trade show tomorrow (Dec. 8), which will be held at the Washington State Convention Center in Seattle. The company I work for, The Washington Rental Owners Association, will be holding a booth there.  

What is TRENDS? TRENDS is the largest one-day rental housing ownership/management conference and trade show on the West Coast. TRENDS serves the Pacific Northwest and has sold out the last 27 years! The TRENDS Education Conference includes the largest regional industry trade show featuring 215 exhibitors. The TRENDS show draws over 1,400 attendees. This year TRENDS offers 40 educational workshops. Each workshop is taught by the best local, regional and national presenters

For more details, please see flyer below.

It's been very busy for Trina Eliza Designs, but a good kind of busy. This month, I've finalized the designs for two logos. First logo is for teen musician, Sebastian Janoski. Second logo is for Washington State Attorney, Rob Trickler. 

"Sebastian Janoski is an American born singer, musician, songwriter, and actor. He is primarily known for his various musical releases, appearances on local and national television shows, broadway theater, movie roles & soundtrack work."
Sebastian is also a very talented guitar player, which is why I incorporated the guitar imagery into his logo. In addition, a script font was chosen to convey his youthfulness and energy. 

Rob Trickler is an attorney and counselor at law with a firm located in Everett Washington. He was in need of an updated logo. Mr. Trickler wished to have the scales and laurel leaves imagery in the design. For the font, I incorporated Trajan Pro into the logo. Trajan Pro is an elegant font that conveys professionalism, respectability, & trustworthiness.
​

I created this ad for a lawyer located in Everett, Washington. His old ad needed to be revised so that it would be more eye-catching in a newsletter. I put my design knowledge and skills to good use in order to create an ad that would help him stand out from the competition.

Provided below are the design principles and techniques I used to redesign this ad.

Hierarchy
What is hierarchy? A hierarchy is an organization of items into different levels of relative importance.
In the revised ad, my goal was to first draw attention to the business name: The Law Office of Robin W. Trickler, PLLC,. It was especially important to add emphasis to the name since it communicates to an audience that this is an ad for legal services. Hierarchy of the business name was achieved through it's placement in the ad (at the top), the increased text size and the use of high-contrasting colors.

​Order & Improving Readability
To achieve order and to improve readability, the list of offered services, phone number & website was arranged in one column under the business name. In addition, bullet points were placed to the left of the offered services so people can easily differentiate each one. The alignment of all the text with the 'Scales of Justice' image also helped to achieve order throughout the ad.

Consistency
Color: The revised ad uses the same color palette throughout: gold for the text and black for the background. If you are creating an ad without a pre-defined color palette, try taking color from an image. In this case, I used the color picker tool to select the gold color from the 'Scales of Justice' image.

Font: I also used the same font throughout the ad. A serif font was chosen because I felt that it was professional-looking and appropriate for a law office. NOTE: Ads can also have a 2nd font, but any more than that and it will start to look cluttered.

High-Resolution Imagery
Always use high-resolution images! Low-quality images tend to be blurry and even blocky in some parts. High-resolution images have crisp, clean and clear lines, which is why they are perfect for print advertisements. Also, stay away from clip art as they tend to look unprofessional.

Last year (around September of 2014) the Washington Rental Owners Association went through some changes - and all for the good! In addition to a new office and increased memberships, WROA has merged with other Chapters in Washington State. Since there have been so many new developments, we felt that we should give our brand identity a little makeover.

I've been with WROA for a year now and during that time I've been updating their brand identity with a new logo, and marketing materials.

Back in July 2015, I was given the responsibility of redesigning and publishing the company's newsletter. Opting for vivid blue colors, bold typography, and a clean design layout, I produced an informative as well as an aesthetically-pleasing newsletter.

Spark Behavioral Associates is a Washington-based behavioral consulting and training company. They work primarily with educators and school districts--and ultimately individual client engagement. Their field involves the scientific study of principles of learning and behavior. Their mission is to help a child, family & community in playing a part in creating a change that positively impact the child's life.

I worked with Spark Behavioral Associates to create a logo and business card for their company. After learning more about my clients and their mission to help children, I wanted to create an image that is personable, friendly & casual, but professional at the same time. Both the clients and I felt that the chosen font and custom-designed graphic conveys that image. 

Always Something Thrift Store's logo has been given a new look!

So What's New?

• New Typefaces: Corbel Bold & Corbel Bold Italic

• Bolder Colors

I picked the typeface Corbel because it is a little similar to the old logo's typeface; the typeface chosen for the word 'always.' Corbel also stands out more which makes it perfect for signage and other marketing materials.