JOSH PALMER
GRAPHIC DESIGNER
Hosanna House
Freelance Designer
Dec, 2019 - Jan, 2020
I matched with Hosanna House through the website CatchaFire, a site that matches volunteers with organizations that need their professional help.
The goal of this project was to create a postcard mailer and social media announcements, for Hosanna House to send out in their 30th Anniversary year. They wanted to celebrate their 30th anniversary subtly while announcing the event lineup for the year, along with dates and brief descriptions.
Design Process:
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In order to celebrate Hosanna House, I included their special anniversary logo, and broke up the colors from their logo into a watercolor blended pattern. I kept the colors in the same quadrants that they take up in the logo to tie the pattern into the brand, and to represent a backdrop for the logo.
For the back of the postcard mailer, I had quite a bit of information to put out, and I wanted the information to mirror the front of the card, being colorful, playful, and celebratory. To accomplish all of this while still forming a professional image, I divided up the space into equal sections, and matched the formatting of date and information in each section. They all display the same font sizes, heading sizes, and typefaces.
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Hosanna House offers high-quality care and early education services to children from toddler age through high School. In order to incorporate this mission into the celebratory announcement, I wanted to create a custom illustration that embodied each event.
I began by sketching out ideas for the project and for the icons on the back. I presented final sketches and several mockups created within Adobe Illustrator, which received feedback from the Manager.
The next phase, I finalized the sketches into colored icons in Illustrator, came up with the watercolor blend pattern, and laid out the initial table for the back to break down the information. This was when I received the most feedback, from positioning of the colors within the watercolor, to several changes to the designs I illustrated for the events. This feedback led me to change the icons to be more colorful, fun, and indicative of the event specifics.
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Communicating with the Client:
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I was able to include my own unique style in this design without compromising what the client was looking for. This was accomplished by thoroughly researching the events they wanted to announce and rolling out custom illustrations that capture the essence of each event.
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In addition to researching the events from past social media posts and the company’s website, I went back and forth with the Marketing Manager to receive feedback and critique throughout the entire process. This allowed me to play with several styles and whittle down a final product that was satisfying for the client and that allowed my unique skills to shine through.
I went through many variations of style and ideas for this project. The client wanted something formal and celebratory while still being fun and colorful. I ultimately went with 2 different styles on the front and back of the card that were tied together with the use of the company’s color branding. Although the front is watercolor based, and cloudlike and the back is sectioned off and formal, the colors tie everything back to Hosanna House and keep the design cohesive as a whole.
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