Our sweet baby boy is now a year old! Oh how time flies. It seems only yesterday he was born. And how far he’s come. Born 10 weeks premature I am in awe of all he has accomplished already! Throughout Henry’s first year I took his picture monthly with a handmade banner my dear friend Perri made for him.

I incorporated it into his first birthday theme. From the handmade invitations with little banners sewed on, to the the cupcakes decorated with the #1 from Queen of Cakes.

We hired the amazing Melissa Oholendt to photograph his first birthday cake smash and bubble bath! She is amazing to work with and the photos she captured are perfect, but when I received the package in the mail I was delighted by her presentation. Check out the detail she put into her packaging! The designer in me swoons. I can’t stop raving about Melissa! Love her!

When I designed our fall porch party invitations with a diecut, I knew there would be wasted paper, but for me all paper should be loved and the least amount of waste is respectful to the earth. So I designed the size to work with our Christmas card as well, so the waste would create a custom frame for the photos we sent for the holidays.

These letterpressed frames & photos accompanied our annual Christmas letter. A custom designed letter with a simple accordion fold to make it a self standing mantel piece. The beautiful photography of Stacy Kron from our summer photos on one side, and our more candid shots on the other with a short letter telling of our year worth of adventures. Simple to create but a stunning piece that I am proud to share with our family and friends.

2012 Porch Party Invitation Cards and the left over paper.

The finished porch party invites with the patterned backside.

The giant stack of left over paper!

Put to good use with our Christmas cards as a photo frame.

Our custom accordion folded Christmas Card & Letter! Front side is a selection of photos from our summer family photoshoot by Stacy Kron.

This is the letter side of the card including candids of our year. It’s a nice way to showcase our family in a fun and different way that can be a standing card. Keeping ideas fresh! Happy Holidays Everyone!

If I had to say what my addiction is I would say “to create”. I love to create. It doesn’t matter what it is, I have a passion to create new things, and I find so much joy in it. And I think it shows in my work. Whether it’s sewing, painting, design, writing or production, I create! My husband and I throw a porch party at our house for our nearest and dearest every year, it has become a beautiful, annual celebration. What better time then a delightful little porch party, to do letterpressed and die-cut invitations!

You might find yourself thinking, well it’s just a little party of friends, they would come whether you did an evite or you did an elaborate handmade invitation. But I am driven by the passion. My dear friends and family would be there no matter what the invitation looked like, but I see it as an opportunity to create something beautiful and I try to grab ahold of every opportunity I can to enjoy life and create something wonderful.

As my husband and I continue the renovations on our beautiful 1900 farm house, we invite our friends into our chaos to enjoy the charm of what we have finished and what is in process. With that farm feel, I continually embrace the rooster as our mascot. With his morning cry to get up and enjoy the sunshine! When I started designing these my passion and inner designer took over. By that I mean I dreamed and I dreamed big, I didn’t limit myself by time, cost or effort, I just set out to create something beautiful that spoke true of our house and spoke true of our love for each other and our friends and family.

I designed a 4 card invitation. That was 3 PMS colors with a common 1 PMS color back, each card being die-cut. Now this is where the realist should have tapped me on the shoulder, just to let me know what I was committing too.  4 Cards x 4 Colors (3+1) + 4 Die-cut (each card) x Number of Invitations = 1500 IMPRESSIONS! Yes, alas, I did not take in account the effort it would take to create these. But the design, paper, colors, texture, hemp rope tie, all equal delight! So was I realistic, NO. Was it worth it, YES! All I can say is embrace life to the fullest, enjoy every single minute and find your passion!

I had the great honor to work with Tara LaTour on her branding, creating this delicious logo! Her work is inescapably wonderful. From the texture and layers her dresses are to-die-for. Every time I am in her studio I can barely keep my hands to myself. Her work is amazing. When we set out to do her brand, I knew that she had an eerie, antique, romantic allure to her work. And by looking at her dresses and hearing her talk about the designs I instantly felt connected to her soul and the roots of her work.

Once Tara was delighted with the design and mood boards, I hired the amazing MMInk to do custom calligraphy for her. Tara’s designs are all so unique and each one tells a different story, I knew her logo font had to be custom. Nothing else would do her justice. And MMInk always does such a beautiful job creating custom work for me that I was thrilled to get to work with her again!

I then took the custom calligraphy and spent time distressing each individual letter of each layer of the logo. So each piece was unique to the others. Loving every detail of her logo and giving it the personal attention it needed. Finally I layered them together and applied her lovely and intriguing color pallet! I can’t say enough wonderful things about my experience working with Tara, she’s amazing and truly a life long friend.

With the arrival of our sweet little boy came the borderline obsessive design process for creating his birth announcements. As I started designing these I knew I wanted to letterpress them and use a die cut to create the window for the photo. With all my designs I like to think about the paper as a whole and limit waste. So I took the piece that was being removed for the photo window and created an ornament. I believe it’s important to design holistically and really consider the size and use of all materials.

I letterpressed and die cut these on my Chandler and Price letterpress during Henry’s naps. And I couldn’t be more pleased with how they turned out. I even letterpressed his very own return address on the envelope. Love.

You may have noticed some changes around here for the last few weeks, and maybe a few glitches, but we have at last, worked out the bugs and I’d like to introduce the new Red Organic Blog to everyone called Red Blog. It’s prettier, more organized, and just plain awesome. You can now search by categories, Design and Branding to read about specific Red Organic projects or enjoy the Artsy Fartsy category for some nice handmade and personal projects of mine or even check out the Illustration section in the next few days for new work. After the amazing painting by Myron Sahlberg of me, I was inspired to start painting again and can’t wait to share the journey with all of you.

A few nice revisions have been worked into the website as well, keeping a nice consistent brand look. The smallest changes can really add those little details to a brand and bring it that extra mile. While the blog is a fully redesigned, the website and portfolio were slightly reskinned to match the new look. The identity system for Red Organic is almost complete with the new look, and I couldn’t be more pleased.

I’ve updated the work sections with some nice campaign work on Delta Air Lines, Eliesa and Deluxe, added a few more links to the inspiration section, and very proudly added the AIGA Design Show win to the accomplishments. It’s been a great year so far and it’s only getting better! With a delightful new client on board, the amazing Tara LaTour, I can’t wait to show you all the lovely work we’ve been up to! Check back often for the new work, inspiration and creativity.

Ta ta for now.

I am so proud to announce that Red Organic was one of just over 90 pieces in the coveted 2011 AIGA MN Design Show, with the branding work on Gina Zeidler Photography. As I said many times before, Gina was a delight to work with and her photography is beautiful! I am yet again proud to talk about the work we did together.

The Gina Zeidler brand was created for the Minnesota, photographer with a balance of shabby chic, vintage and clean-contemporary. The sophisticated brand was developed keeping in mind each step a client would go through, from the letterpressed business cards and pocket folder brochure, to the final delivery of digital images on disk, and the prints in the screenprinted fabric bag that is personalized with a multi-layer tag and a polaroid from the event. Using a calligrapher, we were able to create a unique type-treatment for the logo mark. The plume icon and pattern on the fabric bag tie the brand together with layered texture. We utilized several different techniques including letterpress, digital printing and screenprinting to achieve the full brand package.

Designer: Aurora Whittet
Calligrapher: MMInk
Printers: Studio On Fire, Shapco, ColdSide, MediaXPress

Check out the full list of 2011 AIGA Design Show winners. Red Organic also had a lovely mention on Beast Pieces, and Gina Zeidler’s Blog.

Gina Zeidler and I have officially completed the brochure for her amazing brand! Individual cards, printed by Shapco Printing, showcasing her images, pricing and style that are slipped into the brochure carrier sleeve, letterpressed by the lovely Studio On Fire.

A balance of shabby chic, vintage and clean-contemporary. The sophisticated brand was developed keeping in mind each step a client would go through, from the letterpressed business cards and pocket folder brochure, to the final delivery of digital images on disk, and the prints in the screenprinted fabric bag that is personalized with a multi-layer tag and a polaroid from the event. We utilized several different techniques including letterpress, digital printing and screenprinting to achieve the full brand package.

I am ever so proud to see this brand come to a beautiful completion! The only question is, what magic with Gina and I create next…

I worked with Joy Lengyel this summer creating a brand that was as unique as her lovely personality. After only a few moments over breakfast with her I could tell she was a happy soul and I knew she brought the “JOY” out of those around her. With that in mind I created her brand to really encompass sunshine. I created a whimsical flower pattern and matched it with a very playful font to create her look. The playful purple and happy sunshine yellow really tied together elegantly.

We letterpressed her business cards and brochure carriers with the ever so amazing Studio on Fire. Both are die cut in circles. The business card has a ribbon like effect front and back with a flood of the yellow flower pattern. Just looking at these letterpressed cards brings happiness to my heart. The brochure carriers, I created a second die cut of four flower petals, where the brochure nestles safely down inside.

She photographs both families and weddings. So we created two small brochures for each category printed by the lovely Shapco. As well as a beautiful yellow envelope with the floral pattern inside. The brand is a lovely example of the JOY that comes from shooting weddings and families.

Working with Eliesa is like working with my design soul mate. Our energies collide with glitter and fireworks to create our very own brand of awesome. We set out to create a sophisticated brand that had a dark, dramatic intrigue with a high fashion flare. But to also allow the photography to be the star of every piece. We did not want the brand to over power the photography or “try to hard”. It should be a compliment to Eliesa’s photography.

Eliesa’s signature instantly caught my attention. I knew the graffiti like style of her name would have an elegance out of this world, especially when I introduced silver foil stamping for her business card! They are printed on 24pt White FiberMark Touche paper, if you’ve never felt Touche, you have never felt something so exotic in your life. This paper’s smooth, velvety texture enhances and elevates the brand. We flood coated it with her dark, intense purple ink and foil stamped her name in silver. One word…exquisite. Printed by the fantastic people at Shapco!

This is only the beginning, we went on to develop her custom portfolios. With her business cards in mind, I designed 1/8″ thick Birch Wood Portfolios, etched and cut with her signature, logo and brand stripes. They are stained a delicious shade of dark purple, and coated in protective poly, giving them a lovely sheen. The silver hinges have a beautiful contrast to the deep purple and consistency to the business cards. As I hand-made all five of these beautiful porfolios, I could almost hear the design-angels sing.

A special thank you to Eliesa for the photos!