design studio {five new styles!}
Spring is on it’s way (I’m choosing to believe that despite the frigid temps and snow outside), and spring means wedding season is just around the bend! Two of Emmy Lu Design Studio’s lovely designers have been busy putting together a few new wedding collections for this season, and I am so excited to show them to you!
Rachel Johnson designed the Telluride Collection, which celebrates the beautiful colors of the west with clean, elegant typography. Lisa V put together three awesome new styles including the romantic, old-world Victoria Collection, the modern and tropical Honolulu Collection and the intricate and exotic Marrakech Collection. She also added a new calendar design called Vintage Gems, which features a mix of specially selected letters and vibrant color blocks and stripes, giving a dramatic modern touch.
If you or someone you know is getting married, head over to Emmy Lu Design Studio and check out our large collection of printable, Designer+DIY wedding invitations. We also have baby, party, personal stationery, calling cards and calendar designs! If you are looking for something custom, feel free to email me at design(at)emmylu(dot)com for more information and an estimate.
crafty girl {decorative calendar}
This week at Emmy Lu Design Studio, we launched three styles of 2010 printable calendars! I love calendars, and especially decorative calendars. The graphic, simple nature of these is perfect for spiffing up a cubical or hanging in a kitchen or bedroom.
I’m working on a few homemade gifts, and decided to print off the Pretty in Pattern calendar for a friend. I used a heavy linen paper in white, and simply threaded a tweed ribbon through the hole I punched in the top (ribbon is by Martha Stewart at Michael’s). This calendar features 12 months of patterns that I created, set in a contemporary, cheerful palette of navy, chartrusse and sky blue. It’s modern, with a bright and electic twist. The best part is that our calenar DIY files are only $10, so you can purchase the file and print off several for gifts (and for yourself). What an easy gift for only a couple bucks a piece!
Design Studio {Good News, Bad News}
Hello everyone, and happy Friday! First of all, thank you again for your patience this week. The short version of the long story is that we’ve had some major technical issues with our hosting provider that have caused a huge time delay in our site launch, and put a bit of a wrinkle in things (more on this later). I know you are probably tired of hearing “coming soon” and seeing “sneak peeks”. I mean, gol… it’s HIGH TIME that we give you the new baby, holiday, party and personal stationery designs that you have all been patiently waiting for. The good news here is that these new styles will be available in our store on Monday, so be sure to check in at www.emmylu.com to see our site revamp and a load of new designs.
Another piece of good news is that in December, we will be bringing you 2010 calendars, recipe cards, kid’s party invitations and personal calling cards. That means that all of the Emmy Lu designers are busy creating these new styles right now. We are excited to continue expanding our product offerings, as we bring you great Designer+DIY stationery that’s big on style, but easy on your wallet. If you have any special requests or ideas, feel free to shoot them my way (design(at)emmylu(dot)com)!
And now for a bit of bad news. In the midst of our site update, we made the decision to switch hosting providers, due to the significant amount of money we could save on a monthly basis. This should be a fairly simple process, and the logical time to make this switch was as we built the new site with our new products. Everything went perfectly, until this past Saturday. It was on Saturday, that I found out that we could not launch the new site without losing the blog entirely. I don’t totally understand the reasons from a technical perspective, but my amazing and talented web designer/coder (Justin, couldn’t be doing all this without you!!) has been working like mad trying a thousand different options and going above and beyond the call of duty to figure this thing out. Bottom line is that the files for the content of the blog were not set-up as seamlessly as they should have been, so that means there is no easy way to import the past year’s worth of blog posts and content onto the new server. So where does that leave us? Well, after five days of brainstorming, we have come to the decision that we will rebuild the blog entirely, and I will go and back-post most of the past years worth of posts into a new blog. While we will lose all previous comments, and many inbound links will be broken, there is still a bit of good news (gotta end on a high note, right??).
The good news is that we are taking this lemon and making lemonade!! I am actually really excited to take a good look at the blog, and bring you something new and fresh. There are some big changes coming, and I can’t wait to share everything with you. For now, you’ll have to hold your horses and have more patience with me. This blog will be gone (as in, not here at all) starting Monday. For the next week, we will be frantically rebuilding, and then, on Monday, November 16th, you will be able to log on and see the NEW BLOG (which you may or may not even recognize!). In the meantime, stay in the loop by following me on Twitter. You can go to my page to hear how the process is going (even if you aren’t a member of Twitter).
Thank you for following along on this journey, and for your interest in Emmy Lu Design Studio and the tidbits of my life that I share with you. It’s been a true delight getting to know you as my readers, and I’m thankful for each of you and just blown away that you care to read what I have to say! I’m excited about the next chapter ahead, and can’t wait to have you along for the ride. Have a great weekend, and don’t forget… Monday, November 9th go to www.emmylu.com, and check back here on Monday, November 16th to see the new blog!
Design Studio {My Holiday Collection}
I guess it’s normal that just a matter of days after Halloween, the stores are crammed with Christmas stuff and commercials are suddenly ringing with holiday cheer. I must admit that it caught me off guard–however I am prepared! Today I want to share with you the five Christmas greetings that I designed for our new line of holiday styles. I chose to use subtle tones, and a subdued style for my designs, focusing on the pure and simple beauty of this season. Laura, Lisa and Rachel also contributed several designs, which bring other elements and themes to round out the holiday collection. We are so thrilled to be able to offer this product. It’s a great way for families to send out personalized Christmas greetings to their loved ones, without breaking the bank!
Now that you’ve met the designers, and the photographer, and seen my studio, and had a peek at all the holiday styles I designed, I’m sure you’re just bursting at the seams and probably wondering WHEN on earth you’re going to see the new designs in our shop. Well I finally have some good news!! The site will be going live on Monday (barring disaster). Tomorrow I will be back with a big announcement reguarding the blog, as well as a hint on some of the new products we’ll be launching in December, so make sure to stay tuned!
Design Studio {Behind the Scenes}
Today I want to share with you a behind-the-scenes look at Emmy Lu Design Studio. I’m giving you a peek at my work space, and I’m going to tell you a little bit about what my design process is like.
my design space :: Above are several photos of my home office. This is the place where I spend countless hours per week designing, blogging, emailing, planning, brainstorming and creating. It’s on the second story of the cottage, and has three windows, which provide plenty of natural light, and a treetop view. I have a library of design resources housed on the built-in shelves below the octagon window, and on the opposite end of the room, I use the other dormer as a small nook for taking photos of invitations and/or random things for the blog. My desk isn’t very large, but has enough room for my computer and a few jars with clips and rubber bands. To the left of my desk is an inspiration board that I use for notes, magazine clippings and anything that inspires. The drawers next to my desk are great for storing paper, envelopes and notepads (of which I have many!). My desk drawers are full of post-its, markers and cutting tools. A shelf next to one of the windows houses my printer and several boxes for everything from letters to extra camera cords. It’s a fairly simple space, which works just perfectly for my needs right now. Trust me, it doesn’t always look this neat and tidy. For the sake of honesty, I will tell you that most often my desk is stacked high with papers and at least a couple empty glasses, and maybe a half-eaten box of crackers.
my design process :: Every designer has their own process that works for them, and I know that if you asked Laura or Rachel or Lisa what their process looked like, it would be different than mine. With that being said, I want to share with you the way that I work, and give you an idea of how a design comes to fruition. Usually, an idea comes to me out of the blue… maybe while I’m driving or shopping or working on something else entirely. I might see a shape or a color combination or even something in nature that inspires me, and I always whip out my idea notebook and sketch or jot down notes on this bit of inspiration. I tend to save up several ideas and then sit down to work on a bunch of designs at once. For instance, for this upcoming launch, I set aside several hours on a Saturday to design my collection of baby announcements. I get into the design frame of mind, and it’s easy for me to be in the “mode” when I know that I will be spending a good chunk of time on something, instead of just doing a design here or there when I have a spare hour. Usually I start with one of the ideas that I have sketched down in my notebook and begin to create it on the computer. I use Adobe Creative Suite 4 for my design software, and for the stationery styles, I always work in Illustrator. I typically create any illustration elements first, and then begin to add the typography. Often, I have a color palette in mind that I work within, which sometimes changes as the various elements of the design come together. Once the design is complete, I always run it by a couple other people who can see it with fresh eyes. After it’s been “approved”, I print out a sample for taking photos of, and prep files for the website.
I hope you have enjoyed this little tour of my space and a peek at the basics of how my design process works!
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