Tag: graphic design

  • Quality Express Bakery

    Spring 2024

    Quality Express Bakery

    An emergency face-lift to streamline a struggling brand identity.

    Client Work
    Adobe Illustrator

    Working under Zip Signs in Burlington, ON, this client was initially looking to create a pylon face for Quality Express, a catering service which specializes in Sri Lankan-Indian baked goods. After a fallout with their previous designer, they had lost access to their logo files and as a result, also needed a total rebrand.

    My goal was to create a professional, clean and focused logo. I wanted this logo to be versatile, scalable, and to have easily recognizable component parts for use in various printed and digital marketing materials. Since we were printing signage for this client, I synergized their brand colours with vinyl swatches to help streamline the production process and guarantee colour-accurate signage every time.

    The design itself is inspired by the Sri Lankan kombu bun (and its similar looking relative, the croissant). The relaxed yet competent attitude in the design is inspired by fast casual restaurants and gourmet grocers like Panera, Olive Garden, or Farm Boy.

    The client was pleased, and given a copy of the logo files & branding guidelines.

    ⏶ The secondary “monogram” version of this logo, to be used on packaging or social media.
    ⏶ The colour palette for this brand was selected using 3M vinyl swatches, to aid with future signage projects.
    ⏶ The logo for Quality Express’ parent company. They needed a more coherent brand identity to improve their image.
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  • Good Times Neighbourhood Bar and Restaurant

    Winter 2024/2025

    Good Times Neighbourhood Bar and Restaurant

    Interior & exterior signage for a New Orleans-style restaurant and bar in Woodstock, ON

    Client Work
    Adobe Illustrator

    Part I: Exterior Fascia Sign

    Working under Erb Signs in Woodstock, ON, I was approached by a client looking to open a New Orleans-inspired restaurant and bar in the downtown area of the city.

    The goal was to take the client’s existing logo and adapt it into a fascia sign that would fill the available space on the storefront. The long, thin sign area did not match the proportions of the logo, so I opted take the core elements of the logo– the clock and fleur-de-lys– and pair them with a new typeface which could fill the space.

    I retained the same colour scheme as the existing logo, though opted for a black background to help showcase the gold accents and provide a sense of elegance and professionalism to the storefront.

    ⏴ The client’s existing logo that was used as inspiration for the fascia sign

    The client had decided to keep a readograph sign that the previous tenants had left behind, which I then incorporated into the new design. I created a separate decorative element for the “Neighbourhod Bar and Restaurant” tagline, and placed it on the opposite side of the readograph sign to help unify the design.

    Part II: Interior Wall Mural

    After the installation of the fascia sign, the client came back to us looking to fill a 19 foot long interior wall space near the restroom.

    At this point, the client had opted to use lime green accents for the interior decor to simulate a New Orleans/Mardi Gras aesthetic, so the goal for this design was to harmonize those elements with the black/white/gold colour palette that had been chosen for the logo and the exterior signage on the building.

    The client was inspired by wall murals featuring collages of famous musicians, however we were concerned about copyright, image quality, and design costs for a wall of this size.

    ⏶ The mural features various public-domain photos of famous musicians, such as The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Dolly Parton, David Bowie and Elvis Presley.
    ⏶ While the restaurant’s logo features black and gold, the interior has bright green accents. This design aims to marry both palettes to help build cohesion.

    To simplify the design, I proposed that we use a limited amount of public domain images as the centrepiece, which I masked into the gold-tinted letters of “Good Times” to match the logo. I found several copyright-free images of musical icons to incorporate into the mural.

    The colourful stock background includes green and gold to unify the colour scheme and keep in theme with the revelry of Mardi Gras. The foreground elements were simplified so the design had room to breathe.

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  • Draplin-Inspired Collage Posters

    Spring 2019, Fall 2022

    Draplin-Inspired Collage Posters

    Two collections of vector graphics and iconography in a satisfying grid format

    School Project
    Personal Project
    Adobe Illustrator

    Part I: BCI Poster

    Created in my senior year of high school, this project for my Information/Consumer Design class involved selecting a famous graphic designer and recreating something in their style. I chose Aaron Draplin and reimagined his commemorative city and state tour posters as a tribute to my high school.

    This poster features over 130 custom emblems and icons highlighting my time at the school as well as its proud history, culture and other iconic elements. The school’s colours, blue and gold, are used to tie disparate elements together and create a sense of unity throughout the controlled chaos of the dense design.

    ⏶ The school’s past logos, designed in 1910 and 1964 respectively, are among the designs referenced in this poster. These were archived in a 2011 photography book titled “The BCI Forever,” by Paul Smith which is also in this collage. Zoom in and see what else you can find in the mix!

    This project taught me patience and planning when building smaller parts of a larger whole, how to use masters of design as reference to create something personal and new, as well as how important incorporating love, care, and several distinct sources is to creating something expansive, modern, and nostalgic.

    Through simplifying concepts into something instantly recognizable to its core audience, I expanded my abilities and perceptions as a designer.

    Part II: Inktober 2022 Poster

    In a similar vein, this design imitates the layout of the previous poster as a contribution to Inktober 2022, an artist’s challenge consisting of a prompt-a-day for the entire month of October. This three-colour poster showcases all 31 prompts in a grid format, with the text version of the prompts listed in order at the bottom.

    This time, this poster style was used to add an additional challenge to Inktober, working within specific shapes and limiting colour choices to add complexity and create an overall sense of stylistic cohesion, also mimicking the black ink traditionally used for the challenge.

    As this was my fourth time participating in Inktober, the goal was to elevate the project beyond previous years and create a new way to improve my skills as a designer. See if you can match all 31 prompts to their artwork!

    ⏶ Some sketches showing rough work, and the planning process required to cleanly build out the enclosing shapes
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  • ADK Strength and Conditioning

    Summer 2025

    ADK Strength and Conditioning

    Dynamic branding solutions that pack a punch for a growing business

    Client Work
    Adobe Illustrator

    This project was completed while working under Erb Signs in Woodstock, ON. The client requested a logo for their business that featured the torso of a beast-like figure crushing the letters “ADK”.

    I was initially concerned that this concept may be too complicated to be the sole logo design. I know from experience that complex logos can be restrictive and lead to additional pain points down the production line. The amount of colour and detail on a logo can make it difficult to scale to small sizes, or to fit spaces with extreme proportions.

    I proposed that we develop a more robust branding system with several modular components that could be used in different contexts.

    These additional logos share the colour scheme, iconography and art style of the primary logo, but allow for new use cases that add depth to the brand.

    Having alternatives creates a more coherent identity for the business overall. The brand is not reliant on a single logo, instead having its own visual language that can connect to clients on a more substantial level.

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  • “Perpetua” Custom Typeface

    Spring/Summer 2023

    “Perpetua” Custom Typeface

    A friendly, vintage-inspired typeface with a modern, screen-friendly appeal

    School Project
    Adobe Illustrator
    ⏶ A spec sheet highlighting Perpetua’s alphabet. The typeface is paired with the URW Type Family, which has clean, squared-off shapes and little contrast to complement Perpetua’s most distinct features.

    This custom typeface was developed as the summative project for the GCM 806: Advanced Typography course at Toronto Metropolitan University.

    The goal of this project was to develop a consistent and holistic character set to fulfill a stylistic vision, to reinterpret several base elements into a full alphabet, and to optically balance glyphs for maximum visual appeal.

    This typeface received recognition on Episode 146 of the graphic arts-focused podcast Talk Paper Scissors, titled “Emerging Typeface Designers Nicole Galindo & Cameron Mady” for its excellence.

    Perpetua is a bold display typeface designed to draw the eye, tying back to retro styles while having a modern and screen friendly flair. It is distinctive yet familiar, marrying a love for old school designs with a fresh faced upgrade.

    Perpetua has a simple, rigid and geometric structure with enough contrast to give its traditional feel a little more style.

    Unique characters include rounded letters like O, Q, G, R, U, and G thanks to its angular build, and the typeface caters to readers looking for something mature/dependable yet fun, or those who love retro styles.

    ⏶ The initial sketch for Perpetua. Various features of the typeface were tweaked, refined, and optically balanced in the final, vector version seen in the spec sheet.
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  • Alyssa Tess: Sweet Goodbye EP

    Spring/Summer 2022

    Alyssa Tess: Sweet Goodbye EP

    Album cover art illustrations and merchandise design for Toronto-based contemporary singer-songwriter.

    Client Work
    Procreate
    Adobe Photoshop
    Adobe Illustrator

    Part I: Cover Art

    Illustration work for indie contemporary singer/songwriter Alyssa Tess’ 2023 EP release for Sweet Goodbye, and companion single “Daydream”.

    The goal was to create a light, breezy, and flat hand-drawn style for the album where musical and thematic elements are incorporated into the wavy hair of the portrait.

    As a primarily vector-based designer, this project granted me the opportunity to experiment in a different medium and adapt my skills to properly fulfill the concept behind the final product.

    The process involved working remotely with the client through multiple iterations of the designs, developing a general colour palette, and using non- destructive editing to make and revert changes as necessary.

    This experimentation allowed me to build out a new design style to suit the needs of the client, making a cohesive and distinct visual language for the overall package.

    The single “Daydream” released on September 7, 2022.

    The Sweet Goodbye EP released on August 24, 2023.

    In addition to the cover art, I was also commissioned to create a shirt design to accompany the EP release.

    ⏶ An earlier draft of the Sweet Goodbye cover art, based on a sketch provided from the client.

    Part II: Merch Design

    This shirt design aims to reflect a more mature perspective surrounding the EP and its themes of longing, nostalgia, and progression.

    The imagery references the album’s third track, “Dandelions,” along with lyrics pulled from the EP’s title track, and a butterfly motif showcasing the ideas of change and growth, which are present across the album.

    Since the client aimed to print this design onto thrifted shirts, a more vintage style was used to reflect the medium of choice, and a one-colour design was used to both reduce print costs, and keep the design consistent across the different thrifted shirts.

    Raster assets were compiled through the manipulation of stock photos in Adobe Photoshop, with additional vector elements being produced in Adobe Illustrator.

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  • Obsidian Counselling House

    Winter 2025

    Obsidian Counselling House

    Logo, business cards, and exterior signage design for Woodstock-based counselling service

    Client Work
    Adobe Illustrator

    Working under Erb Signs in Woodstock, ON, I was approached by a client who needed a logo, exterior signage, and business card design for their new counselling service.

    Aside from the name and a few colour options, the client did not have a strong vision for their logo, so I focused on developing a clean, simple, and professional brand identity that projected a sense of stability and comfort.

    After a couple of rounds of revisions, we crafted this simple, mono-line logo using muted pinks and blues.

    The pink “smoke” around the house is designed to resemble a rock formation, as the client had wanted to incorporate terrestrial shapes into the logo design. She was delighted with the final result!

    The pylon sign face was constructed using digitally printed translucent vinyl graphics applied onto a 3/16” thick piece of White 7328 Acrylic.

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  • Season of Drinks Poster Set

    Fall 2020

    “Season of Drinks” Poster Set

    Quartet of dynamic, colourful vector illustrations based on seasonal beverages.

    Personal Project
    Adobe Illustrator
    Adobe Photoshop

    This illustrative set uses classic drinks to represent the four seasons—hot chocolate for autumn, egg nog for winter, lemonade for spring and a fruity cocktail for summer. This acted as practice drawing fluid movement, designing for a series of illustrations, and working with colour to evoke recognizable imagery.

    These posters became part of an October 2020 charity fundraiser in support of the Red Cross combating COVID-19 and the Brantford Food Bank, helping me raise over $200 for both causes.

    I also created a collection of mock- ups in Adobe Photoshop to promote these prints during the fundraiser, showcasing the designs in a real-world context.

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  • Cross Cuts Student Film Festival

    Spring 2019

    Cross Cuts Student Film Festival

    Marketed, co-hosted, & managed online presence for high school multimedia festival in its most successful year to date.

    School Project
    Adobe Illustrator

    The Cross Cuts Film Festival is an annual high school film, photography, and graphic design festival for high school students in Brant, Norfolk, and Haldimand County.

    In my Grade 12 year, I volunteered to co-host and co-coordinate the event, which took place on June 6, 2019.

    Design duties involved creating brand assets for the festival, including tickets, programmes, award certificates, teaser trailers, social media posts, judge biographies, and sponsorship slides for the night of the show.

    In addition, I completely overhauled the Cross Cuts Film Fest website to cleanly showcase the winning entries, and to properly archive winners from the previous years.

    The website had been inconsistently maintained by past student volunteers, and needed to be re-organized, redesigned and future-proofed for ease of use.

    These efforts resulted in the most successful iteration of the Film Festival to date. In the years since, I have returned as a Design Judge for the festival three times.

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  • Toronto Day & Night Posters

    Toronto Day & Night Posters

    Spring 2022

    Award-Winning Ricoh 5th Colour “Toronto” Posters

    Poster series using digital spot colour technology to embellish their designs

    School Project
    Adobe Illustrator

    These 11”x17” posters were designed for and printed using the Ricoh C7210x Digital Press to showcase its 5th Colour spot technology, and were completed as part of the course “GCM 320: Digital Printing Technologies” at Toronto Metropolitan University.

    The “Daytime” poster uses a clear toner to add a subtle texture and sheen the clouds and text, while the “Nighttime” poster uses a UV Neon Yellow toner to make the city lights glow when exposed to UV light.

    Both posters were designed, formatted and printed by me, using reference images from Old Toronto, my neighbourhood at the time. Alongside Adobe Illustrator, the process involved the use of Adobe Acrobat Pro, and the EFI Fiery Digital Front End.

    The “Nighttime” version of the poster won the 2022 Ricoh Print Innovation Scholarship for exceptional use of the Ricoh C7210x Digital Press at Toronto Metropolitan University.

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