Black Belt Graduation

My oldest son and I both earned our Kukkiwon 1st Dan black belts in taekwondo back in October of last year. You can read about my taekwondo journey and me feelings regarding the test here and here’s a rundown of the test itself and my thoughts afterward (spoiler alert: it was really fucking hard).

What does that have to do with art or graphic design? Nothing. But this is my blog and it was pretty cathartic for me to write out my thoughts, so there we go.

We were finally able to have our graduation ceremony a couple months ago in March. Apparently it took a long time for the official certificates to get here from Korea.

Friends and family were invited to attend. Our master instructors were there along with a few studio instructors who were integral to our training. This was seriously a team effort!

The beginning of the graduation involved a trail run up a pretty steep hill where we were all presented with our black belts. I was the LAST one up the damned hill because I didn’t see which direction the group went and I went the wrong way. Also, it was ridiculously muddy, I almost fell multiple times.

We took lots of photos at the top of the hill and then headed back to our studio.

This photo is me with my husband. Anyone who has parented a child through the physical and mental preparation that goes into a martial arts black belt test would agree that there should be a black belt for parents. We have watched quite a few parents go through it and we wholeheartedly agree that they've earned their own kind of black belt.

Compound that with supporting your spouse going through the same-but-different preparation too and you have the level of awesomeness that my husband achieved. It took me a long time to put these feelings into words; which is apparent since our black belt test was months ago.

Part of me didn't want to test alongside my son because I worried that I would focus too much on his training at the expense of my own. My husband was the rock that supported our preparation and it took on multiple forms... Pushing our son when he wanted to quit or refused to listen to me anymore (which was a lot). Commiserating with me and offering ice/heat/massage/ibuprofen when I was in pain. Humoring me when I questioned why the hell I was doing this. Cooking dinner pretty much every night, including the 4-5 nights/week for 2-3 hours we were at the studio. Encouraging me to go to class when I didn't want to, but in a way that wasn't a guilt-trip. Coordinating with other parents to make sure we had support during our black belt test. Making sure uniforms were clean, sparring gear was accounted for, and belts and weapons were always in the car.

I don't know if I would have passed if I hadn't been able to put parenting (and sometimes adulting) on the back burner many nights and I feel like my husband earned this belt almost as much as me.

Wholeheartedly, thank you babe.

Back to the graduation…

We headed back to our studio and changed into uniforms. Our master instructor said a few words about what being a black belt means and how hard we worked for them. Then we all got our belts, one by one.

Actually, there IS a tiny bit of graphic design in this post because I do most of the graphic design for our studio. Here is the printed program I created for our graduation. These were 8.5x11 inches, folded in half, and printed on card stock at our local Office Depot. I kept the color scheme simple with black, gray, and red.

The back cover had a bunch of messages that I asked parents to write to their kids and there is one message from my husband to Rachel and me (the two non-kids). I felt it was a bit too personal to share publicly, but it looked beautiful too.

Lastly, here’s a video one of our master instructors made about our test. She’s pretty darned good at it.

So, that’s it.

But you know the crazy part? I’m thinking about testing for my 2nd degree black belt in October of this year…

Emily & Shane

Emily contacted me last summer about creating a wedding invitation for her December wedding. She and Shane are both avid cyclists and they fell in love with the invitations I created for Melissa & Patrick. So I was happy to create something that fit the colors and style for their wedding. 

Emily was gracious enough to send me one of their invitations. They went with a gatefolded invitation with just one RSVP card insert.

The sillhouettes of the bicycles and the tandem bicycle are all of Emily and Shane's actual bikes!

They had everything printed on a lovely linen card stock, it really added a classy texture.

Don't stress, I changed their address.

For the wedding itself, we also created some fun signs. These photos were taken by their awesome wedding photographer Ashley Russ. If you click on any of the photos below, you'll head over to her website. 

This sign is my favorite: "I've got a fever! And the only prescription is more BIKE bell!" I wonder how many guests got the fun SNL reference. Guests wrote their well wishes onto the wood boards displayed in the background. It will make for some really cool wall art for their home.

Rather than print out a hundred or so programs for guests, they printed one large program that sat in an entryway for guests to know the afternoon's schedule.

They had a local food truck that specializes in fancy grilled cheese providing dinner for the evening. Yum!

It looks like it was a really lovely wedding, congratulations Shane and Emily!!

Nikki & Damienn

Since my website was hacked a couple of years ago, I'm still getting some older projects added back to my blog. Nikki and Damienn's is one of them. They got married back in 2010, but their invitation still deserves a spot in the blog.

Nikki was such an awesome bride to work with. She was planning a black tie wedding for their families and we wanted the invitation to reflect that. I think we succeeded. 

Extra thanks to Nikki for being gracious enough to send me an invitation and program so I could photograph them for my website. 

She went with Perfetto pocketfolds from Cards and Pockets in a matte black and the printed items were printed on a metallic pearl card stock. 

There were just three inserts and love the pop of color that came from the metallic green rsvp envelope. The color is Fairway, also from Cards and Pockets.

We continued with a menu that was set at each place setting at the wedding reception.

For a wedding program, Nikki wanted to go with an elegant booklet that was bound with black satin ribbon. Kudos to the printing company she used for getting these black covers looking so good.

The back cover said thanks to the friends and family members who couldn't be there for the wedding. It's not easy to see, but I was stoked to see that the flourish that we used on their invitations printed beautifully in the background of the cover.

I love how all of these turned out and I hope Nikki and Damienn have enjoyed married life for the last seven-ish years. 

Amely & Ben

I had a blast working on a bunch of different items for Ben and Amely's September wedding. They got married at a lodge in Heber Valley in the mountains of Utah surrounded by close friends and family. 

Amely wanted to go big when it came to their invitations. She fell in love with these scroll invites and I was happy to create the graphics that were printed on each scroll. In case you're wondering, yes! They were really expensive to mail!

Rather than print a hundred program for guests, we opted to print one giant program that was framed and on display with their guestbook. I scaled this faux chalkboard to 24x36, had it printed at FedEx and we stuck it in a frame we picked up at Michael's. FedEx is my current favorite place to print big stuff since they usually print while I wait.

A number of guests were coming in from out of town and were actually staying at the lodge where the wedding took place. Amely and Ben put together welcome baskets for them and we included this itinerary to let them know the weekend's events.

The back (not pictured) included information about local events and attractions.

This fun door knob sign was also included in the welcome baskets.

Lastly, these are some of the signs that I created and were displayed in different spots throughout the venue on the wedding day.

We printed a handful of the cocktails menus and had them laminated.

They set up a fun photo booth using an iPad on a tripod.

This last sign is my favorite! 

Abby & Mark

I had the pleasure of working with both Abby and Mark on the printed items for their summer wedding in Massachusetts. There were nautical stripes, pint glasses, crab and lobsters! And they were gracious enough to share some photos that their wedding photographer got of the items I created.

Here's what we came up with:

It's not easy to see, but there's a crab and a lobster inside the circle of their monogram; an ode to their coastal Massachusetts wedding venue. 

The program was one simple printed card.

Escort cards were simple, they printed every guest's name onto a card with a crab faded into the background. Those cards were clipped together with a matching card that listed their table number and had an image of a lobster in the background. I love the shells they used to pair each set of cards together. And, of course, they're all sitting in sand!

Each table was named after a sailboat owned by a family member at one time. We included the name of the boat along with what type of boat and the year it was built. Since we had a variety of photos (some color, some black and white), we made them all sepia-toned to stay consistent. I love how these turned out!

Lastly, Abby and Mark took the monogram that I created for them and had them printed onto pint glasses that served as favors for each guest. I LOVE these!

Such a fun wedding, congrats guys!