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Posted by Netra on Oct 20th 2011 | design - graphic design - training
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For regular followers of this blog, you may already know that I am working with Ronald McDonald House Charities (RMHC) on rolling out their new look branding. RMHC helps seriously ill children and their families through a broad range of programs and initiatives, one of which is Ronald McDonald House  (you can find out more at www.rmhc.org.au).

I had been asked to design an interior wall mural for one of RMHC houses and I was pretty excited. RMHC had joined forces with HP to produce this project on a big scale. HP have developed a new PVC-free wallpaper that was going to be ideal for this use. The wallpaper is ideal for photographic prints, is odour free, applies to the wall surfaces with water (which activates the glue) complies with a huge range of Australian standards, flame retardant AND lasts 20 years! You can read more about this amazing product here – View datasheet (pdf, EN only).

The final mural was close to 5m long. That may be one of the largest prints I’ve done to date! One of the things I had to take into consideration was the sheer size and the fact that most times for large posters or murals, they are meant to be viewed from far away, however in this instance, viewers would be sitting fairly close to the wall so we had to present the information comfortably at a height that was easy to read and also not overwhelming in the space.

Also, given that families might be staying for a while and may have to see this over and over again, we wanted to be able to keep it evolving. So the bottom half includes a series of blanks bricks so that families can add messages of support and hope to the wall, add their ‘mark’ so that future families can read those messages of inspiration and encouragement.

So here it is, the final mural. I have yet to see it in person – but I can’t wait!

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Posted by Netra on Oct 20th 2011 | branding - corporate - design - graphic design - print design
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REDefining, REDesigning Part III

If you have been following this blog over the past few posts you will know I have been on a journey of self-discovery. Or perhaps that should be ‘rediscovery’. Part of this was moving out of my dedicated home office, and into a commercial space. Part of it was reflecting on the journey to date, what I bring to my clients and who and where I want to be in five, ten and twenty years. Another part of it was the realisation of working for myself, means I can actually be myself without feeling that I need to conform to what I thought a corporate in-house designer should be.

And it’s the small things. Small things like the colours in my logo. The posts below explain it all, so I don’t need to harp on about it again. But here it is. My new look and logo. It’s red, its vibrant, its passionate and exciting and I love it.

My old logo was a series of rings expanding from each other. This logo is three simple rings coming together. No dotted or dashed lines, only solid linework. No shades or transparent colours, they are all solid. No random expansion and growth, it’s all focussed. It’s an evolution of the old logo, but it’s a visual representation of who I am and what I want to do going forward.

As much as the logo represents focus, it also represents vision. The same way you can look through a camera, or telescope, or microscope or any other instrument of vision, there is a dial that makes all the fuzzy bits clear – that’s what I want to do with the clients who come to me with a tangle of ideas in their heads. I want to help people focus and achieve their visions of their business and brand.

In terms of vision and focus there is a much more personal meaning layered under all of that as well. It’s essentially my name. I love my name – granted I have never ever found it on a keychain, or a mug – but I love how unique and unusual it sounds. I also love it’s meaning – as a word it means ‘eyes’ in Hindi and Thai (so I’ve been told). Within the last 2 weeks as I’ve googled, I have also discovered that as a name it can also mean ‘vision’, or a ‘guide’ (to be the eyes for another person). That has been a lovely way to be able to articulate all the hope that I have for the exciting journey ahead.

Stay tuned for upcoming posts with photos from my launch party. But for now, here is the new look.

Posted by Netra on Oct 8th 2011 | branding - card - corporate - design - graphic design - logo - marketing - personal - print design
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