Evolution of a Brand: Cari Hollis

Cari has been a dear friend of mine for more than a decade and, funny enough, we were friends long before we ever met in person. We “met” on an online, wedding-planning forum. We got married within a few months of each other and formed a friendship with a large group of women. She started her photography business shortly after her wedding and she asked me to design a logo and branding for her. We finally got to meet when I hired her to shoot some family photos when my oldest was about nine months old.

The flower motif and colors were inspired by the custom camera strap she found on Etsy. We designed a bunch of logo variations, business cards, website buttons, and more. We even did gift certificates and advertising graphics for social media.

A few years later, Cari was ready to rebrand and she had NO idea what she wanted for her new logo. She had also added the role of a birth doula and birth photographer to her repertoire. We tried a lot of different concepts, color schemes, fonts, and graphics and, after a lot of back and forth, we finalized this design. This is still one of my favorite logos that I created for her.

After many years as an amazing photographer, she decided to hang up her camera and delve into a couple of different direct sales companies and social media consulting, and since they usually require you to use their pre-designed graphics, we went a different direction and branded Cari all on her own.

This way, her brand remained the same no matter what kind of business she was working on. The bokeh backgrounds paid homage to her background as a photographer.

Earlier this year we rebranded again. Cari wanted to keep the gardenia as a graphic element and we kept the typewriter font because it’s a favorite of hers. We went with the same color scheme for the most and will keep the bokeh backgrounds, but added new fonts and a watercolor motif too.

She hasn’t been able to update her website with her newer branding yet because she’s busy running Direct Creatives!

You can watch the TikTok video I made documenting how I created her new logo here.

I love how Cari maintains the same general color palette with the purple and aqua.

I’m curious where her branding will head next!

Hike it Baby 30 Challenge - 2019

I had the pleasure of creating stickers to commemorate the two Hike it Baby 30 Challenges for 2019. In previous years, they used to have four challenges every year, but decided to cut it down to just two in April and September. You can see the stickers I created for 2018 here.

For 2019, we stuck with a similar watercolor and ink style and I made the April sticker quintessential to spring with blooming crocus, green grass, patches of melting snow, and the sky streaked for a sunrise.

In an effort to get more folks out on trail with their kids, they created a secondary challenge called Take it Outside. Participants received a sticker that loosely coordinated with the HiB30 sticker along with two sheets of little stickers to use on a calendar page that they printed out. Each day on the calendar page gave ideas for a daily activity designed to motivate people to get outside every day. I love how these turned out and it was awesome to see folks using the calendar page and stickers throughout the challenge.

Here’s the calendar page that I created for participants to download and print:

They received this sticker sheet in the mail shortly after signing up:

You can see a mini version of the Take it Outside sticker too!

When the September challenge rolled around, I created a new sticker and we added a few more hikers to the artwork, wanting to give more of a community feel. The Smoky Mountains in Tennessee and North Carolina were the inspiration for this sticker.

To go with the September sticker, they did another Take it Outside challenge for new members too, this was the coordinating sticker.

Holiday Cards 2019

Thanksgiving is right around the corner and I had holiday cards on my mind this weekend. I’ve been playing with watercolor elements lately and created these new holiday cards. They’re all listed in my Etsy shop along with a bunch of favorites from past years. Clicking on each photo will take you to its listing on Etsy.

This one below here has accents in gold glitter! I think I’m going to have to make another one or two that also have that fun glitter.

Hoping to add some more if my kids and time lets me.

Santa photos by Fotofly.
Family photos by Jessica Kay Photography and Cari Hollis.

Still-Life Painting and Stress-Relief

My grandma’s silver champagne bucket; this was a homework assignment. Still kicking myself for not getting an actual bottle of champagne. I would’ve enjoyed sharing it with Grandma.

When I was in college, even though I was majoring in animation (yeah, that changed), a still-life painting class was a required course in my first year. It met once a week for six hours (lots of my classes were like that) and before it even started, I dreaded it. I loved painting landscapes, but I’d never painted a bowl of fruit or a vase of flowers. The idea seemed daunting to my early-twenties self and I had no interest in a subject matter that I considered boring.

Little did I know that still-life painting class would turn out to be one of my favorite classes ever. Not only did I learn more about what makes good composition and how to use light and color in different ways, but I also learned how to paint reflective surfaces, how to paint transparent glass, how to paint folds in fabric, and how to really handle oil paints (I’d only ever painted with acrylics). But mostly, it was just a fun class. We’d crank up some music (usually Pink Floyd or Bjork) and just paint. That class became a source of stress-relief when other classes, a long commute, and work had me frazzled and feeling overwhelmed.

My second or third attempt at painting wine glasses. I loved how they turned out but didn’t love the pink fabric. This canvas is in a pile of ones I’m planning to let my kids paint over. The frame houses a different painting now.

A couple of canvases went to my grandma; whom I lived with when finishing college. She would often call dibs on canvases before I was even finished with them. A painting of fruit and a silver kettle on a purple tablecloth went to my mother-in-law. I even managed to sell two little 5x7 canvases to a random customer from my job at a picture framing store.

One of the 5x7 paintings I actually sold, eggplant, Bosch pear, and grapes in an extravagant frame. Sometimes it was fun to get to play with scrap pieces of moulding.

The other little canvas I sold, this one was my favorite with the little silver pitcher and pomegranate. I’m a little sad I don’t have them anymore, or at least have a higher quality photo, but I needed the money at the time.

Quite a few canvases were garbage too and I will eventually paint over them, or let my kids paint over them. This painting was my favorite with the copper kettle and brass bowl. It currently sits on my dresser and though I don’t love the frame, looking at it brings me back to that still-life class and the peace it brought me each week.

For some reason, that flower was the hardest part to paint, hahahah!

It’s been probably fifteen years since I painted with oils and the idea of starting up again with small children just seemed daunting. My 3rd grader has recently shown some interest, so I ordered some student-grade oil paints. Thankfully, I have a few unfinished canvases that we can doodle on and we’ll see what sparks us to put on canvas.