Last week I shared the new blog design I had created for Charlotte over at Colours and Carousels in my Creative Update. So today, I felt I would speak a bit more about the design, the process and how we go to the final design/illustration. 

So about a month or so ago, Charlotte contacted me asking if I was able to do some custom illustrations for a new blog header she was designing for herself. Since I've been fancying my hand at doing some custom blog design that isn't my own I jumped straight on board. To give me an idea of what she was looking for Charlotte sent me the image below as a guide. Once we had worked out a few details and had decided on a style that she liked we were good to go! 

When I started working on the illustrations, I had started with the stack of items that would appear on the bottom left. Charlotte had wanted the overall style to feel quite hand drawn so I done a lot of the drawing using the brush tool then going back and fining out the details. After sending a few initial ideas to Charlotte, we both agreed that the overall balance and layout wasn't working with the objects but agreed on the type to use. 

With the idea in mind, I cracked on and started doing an illustration of Ginger. With looking at some pictures of him and having Charlotte tell me about some of his distinctive features, the final illustration of Ginger had a lot of character. The only things left to do now were to sort out the colours and the other bits of blog design that I was doing... oh and not to forget my fussiness at having to get the layout perfect!

With the decision made, the last things to do were the blog photo and blog button. Both were pretty simple to do and the process of these weren't that long. Since Charlotte had sent me an image to use for the blog photo I only had to apply the text to the image and send it back after giving her some options. With the blog button I displayed it in the same way as her last one had been although I had mentioned about adding in extra bits Charlotte was happy for the minimal design. There was also one other small piece I made for Charlotte but you'll have to wait and see that appear on her blog within the next month

The overall design process and working with Charlotte went smoothly. She was a really great person to work with and gave me loads of freedom to experiment around with. The one main thing I'm glad about working with Charlotte is that she would tell me exactly what she was thinking when I sent her ideas/development but wasn't over doing it, meaning it was the perfect balance. 

DISCLAIMER: Currently I am not doing a massive amount of personal commissions, however I am open to speaking about it. The main reason I chose to take on the design work for Charlotte was because I truly love her blog and she is a genuinely nice person who I get along with. If you feel you would like to get in touch with me though and talk about any design work you can contact me at OhHayDesigns@gmail.com