Spirit For Us Canadian Whisky

Through a friend of a friend, I got an email one day from Kevin. He was starting a business in bottling Canadian Whisky and wanted to hire me to help him build the brand from scratch. He sent me the vision he had along with some general ideas about colors, mood, and where he was thinking this business would lead. We played around with a few logo concepts and some ideas on what kind of bottle label we could do.

The first round of logo concepts was pretty broad, playing with different fonts and a play on a slogan he already had: The Rising Tide of Canadian Whisky. We toyed around with some ocean-themed graphics but didn’t want it to look too pirate-y.

Here is the final logo. I really love how it turned out.

And after many, many iterations, here’s what the label will look like on his first bottling.

We will make adjustments to all of the little details like batch, cask, distillery, and age with each variation that gets bottled. Also notice the little label above the main label saying “Whisky for Us.” That will change if they ever decide to bottle a different spirit.

I made these bottle mockups so they could use them on their website.

Kevin was kind enough to send me a bottle along with some labels so I am going to see what kind of photos I can get with my camera and my very-non-professional lights. Hilariously, I live in Utah, where it’s illegal to ship alcohol. So I asked Kevin to ship the bottle to my sister in California and she drove it to me when she and her family visited over Thanksgiving. :::eyeroll:::

Thanks, Kevin!

Irvington High School Custom Hats

I had the pleasure of creating a watercolor painting for the sole purpose of putting it on a trucker hat for Irvington High School’s track & field and cross country teams in Fremont, California. The most recognizable peak in Fremont is Mission Peak. It’s barely a foothill by my Utah standards at a mere 2,516 feet in elevation, but it’s by far the most well-known by residents in the area. Since I grew up in neighboring Newark, California, I know this peak well.

I don’t live in the area anymore, so I had to use images from Google as reference and we went with a viewpoint as close to the high school’s as possible. The color of the hills themselves varies on the time of year. In spring, the hills are a vibrant green, depending on how much rain they got in the winter. By late summer, the hills turn to a harvest gold color, and become a huge fire hazard! I have always thought they are pretty in either colors, but I know some hate the gold, calling it brown instead.

This was such a joy to paint and I LOVE how the hats turned out. I designed the IHS logo that we added. Irvington’s track and XC coach had the hats printed with Boco Gear in Colorado. He actually had two hats made; one with the painting and another that was solely a running hat in white with just the viking logo that I designed earlier this year. They both turned out awesome.

I know they are planning to use the hats for a little bit of fundraising, so I am excited to see what kind of money they bring to their track & field program this coming spring.

You can watch a timelapse video of my process with this painting here. This view of Mission Peak is close to what can be seen from Irvington High School.

I really had a hard time getting my iPhone camera to capture the correct lighting when doing this painting. It looks pretty washed out in the video. One one snippet, I turned off my overhead light and just used the natural light in my office, but I couldn’t keep that up as I worked on this well into the night. Maybe there’s a light setting on my phone that I can mess with?

Patrick, the track and XC coach at Irvington HS had a second hat made with the logo I created. This one is a running hat and he went with a simple topographic map design that Boco Gear already had. It’s such a comfortable and lightweight hat. And it looks rad with the Irvington logo.

This was such a fun project! I cannot wait to see what other paintings I can make to be turned into hats!

Wolfpack Running Club

It has truly been a pleasure to get to create the brand for Wolfpack Running Club.

A few years ago, my kids joined a cross country team at their school through an elementary program. It was a fun intro-to-running program that was game-based and taught kids how to love running and be part of a team. They showed some natural talent when training and in 2021, my youngest was invited to join the competition team where he qualified to run at the USATF Cross Country National Championships. We weren’t able to attend that meet, but he was determined to qualify for Nationals again the following year.

In the following spring, the folks who ran those teams moved away from the larger, multi-city organization they had been part of and created their own nonprofit running club. Wolfpack Running Club was born with an elementary program for kindergarten thru 6th grade and a competition program for 3rd through 8th grade. In the spring they do track and field and in the fall they do cross country. They are affiliated with USA Track & Field and compete at local meets, state meets, and sometimes USATF National meets.

That spring, both of my boys joined the competition team and learned the ins and outs of track and field.

Throughout all of this, I have been the designer for their logos, merch, website, social media, and branding. I take photos at meets and some trainings. We started with these navy t-shirts and the hashtag that goes on everything #OnePack.

From there we created uniform singlets, hoodies, jackets, pullovers, drawstring backpacks, beanies, and hats. We also have vinyl stickers, temporary tattoos, Croc charms, and we are looking at possibly adding a tie-dye hoodie and a trucker running hat next year.

Every cross country season, athletes on the comp team keep track of their miles. When they reach 100 miles, they earn a t-shirt that has a different design each year.

100 Mile Pack tee from 2022 Cross Country

100 Mile Pack tee from 2023 Cross Country - I’m really proud of this design.

In the spring with track and field, rather than track miles (because sprinters and kids who specialize in field events don’t get much mileage), they are encouraged to train and/or compete in ALL of the events and keep track of them. Lots of kids join track with an idea of what they want to compete in, but then later realize they’re awesome at something else. My cross country kid turned out to be great at hurdles. My youngest thought he wanted to be a sprinter but turned out to be awesome at mid-distance. Also, if they join the track team in high school, odds are high they won’t get to do more than one or two events.

2022’s Track & Field earned tee. We learned this color tee doesn’t look that great in person.

2023’s Track & Field earned tee. I was really happy with the design on this one. One Pack Mind… get it? Like One Track Mind? For track & field?? Lol.

For cross country season, we typically have a large group that will qualify and make the trip to USATF Nationals. So I design a t-shirt for those kids and a parent version that family can purchase.

2022 USATF XC Nationals Tees

2023 USATF XC Nationals Tees

Throughout the seasons, I have also created certificates and inspirational things that we do for these awesome kids along with flyers, meet posters, yard signs, banners, and social media graphics. Some are super simple, some are more complex.

Little 4x6 signs for track or cross country, and bookmarks.

In the spring, we are hoping to buy these trucker running hats to sell to our athletes and their families that are adorned with a watercolor painting that I did of Lone Peak here in Utah. Almost all of our training happens around the base of this mountain.

It has truly been a blast creating this brand and I am so proud of how it has become cohesive and evolved into something that I hope these kids are proud to represent. We see a local high school cross country team doing runs around town and nothing makes me prouder than seeing former teammates wearing their Wolfpack t-shirt.

On social media, give us a follow! We’re @wolfpackrunningutah on Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook.

Irvington Track & Cross Country

My brother and sister-in-law are both teachers at Irvington High School in northern California. Last year, they became coaches for the school’s track and field team and this fall they added the cross country team to their jobs.

They were in need of some cool graphics to adorn uniform singlets and t-shirts so we went to work coming up with something that the athletes could be proud to wear. School colors are royal blue and white. They are the Irvington Vikings, so we played around with concepts that included a horned helmet, wings, a wooden shield, arrows, a wood grain texture, and some fun fonts.

For uniform singlets, we kept it simple with just the school name with the helmet and wings. That way they can use the same graphic for both track and field and cross country. I think they will get sublimated singlets for the teams.

Sublimated printing is a bit more expensive at the start, but it allows for more freedom with colors and designs and the shirts last longer wash after wash. This is especially important for sports teams where athletes don’t keep the singlets when the season ends and they are loaned to another athlete the following year. This is where screen printing can wear out over time.

For track and field, we also wanted some cool t-shirts that athletes can wear to trainings and to kind of advertise their team. I sent a few concepts to my brother and he had a few of track athletes that are in his math class give their input and we went from there.

When it was time for cross country season, we had fun with a popular saying for many cross country teams. They are planning to print these on a heathered navy blue tee.

These were so much fun to create!! Thanks Pat and Melissa!

Land Beyond Zion at Winter Break

Over winter break, my family spent the Christmas holiday with my sister and her family in southern California. We drove there from Salt Lake City. My husband was only able to take off one of the two weeks from work, so as we headed home from SoCal, we dropped him off at the St George Airport and stayed in the southern Utah area for a couple of days; specifically Land Beyond Zion.

Land Beyond Zion is a fun campground/vanlife spot right on the UT/AZ border. Shanti has built out a beautiful place to camp comfortably with flush toilets, running water, an outdoor shower and claw foot tub, WiFi, and a shared outdoor kitchen. It has multiple sleep options: from BYO tent, RV, or van with full hookups to a canvas platform tent (with heater!), an RV, or a tiny house. There’s a lovely spot with hammocks hung, and a play area for kids. She has plans to continue building more amenities and dogs are welcome!

Kicking myself for not taking photos of the structures she’s built; mostly on her own too!

My oldest with Shanti’s dog, Sunny

It’s 30 minutes from Hurricane and 50 minutes to Zion National Park. It’s 20 minutes from Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park. It’s super close to Gooseberry Mesa, about an hour to St George, and 90 minutes to Bryce Canyon National Park. It’s a wonderful basecamp to all kinds of outdoor exploration and adventures.

It actually rained most of the time we were there, so we did no hiking, but it was still fun and relaxing. We had no pressure to actually do anything… and we kind of didn’t. We played a competitive round of Phase 10, we chilled in hammocks, and we slept in; even thru an epic sunrise that Shanti was gracious enough to share a photo of.

One rainy afternoon, I attempted to paint that beautiful sunrise in watercolor and made a video of the process. You can view it here. At the end of the day, I couldn’t get my paints to make that peachy-pink sky (at least not at the vibrance I wanted, so I did another one after I got home in gouache. They’re very different, but I love both for different reasons.

As the rainstorms cleared and we headed home, we stopped at the Cinder Knoll trail in Hurricane to take photos of the Pine Valley Mountains with snow and Red Cliffs Desert Reserve in the foreground. The puddles were serendipitous.

Check out Land Beyond Zion on its own website, but also on AirBnB and HipCamp.

Shanti is hosting two retreats for adults this spring; one at the end of April that is hiking and running focused with Kathy Pugh. Click here for info about that retreat.

She’s hosting another at the end of May with amazing photographer Michelle Craig. Click here for info about the May retreat. If I didn’t have other stuff happening at the end of May, I’d be attending Michelle’s retreat!

Also… I love the logo I designed for Land Beyond Zion. It really turned out awesome. I’ll write a post about that on its own at some point.