Kate + Chad: E-Photos

Meet Kate & Chad from Denver, Colorado. They flew over for the weekend to wrap of some wedding biz-nass and get a few mugshots taken by the Gary & Courtney Show... they basically rocked our faces CLEAN OFF... true story. View Slideshow.

Birds Need Bird Houses

One of our overly artistic friends Lori LaBissoniere painted this for our daughter. Lori's work is beautiful, we love her style and use of color. We feel very honored that she gifted us this piece in celebration of Joelle's birth. Joelle has a bird theme going on in her room and this piece is the finishing touch to the decor. We love it! And we love our friends that make up the artistic community here in Central Oregon. It's inspiring being around such "creatives" all the time.

Also, here's a recent pic of Joelle in her teething phase. Mmm, she loves chewing on fingers. As you will notice, she's lost most of her deep dark hair. However, she's rockin' the BEST mullet / grandpa hair style ever right now, but she's still getting cuter and cuter each day. Other than her having a hard time sleeping (which is normal), she's doing great. It's been a huge blessing having Courts mom here helping out and giving Courtney some much needed time off from the daily grind of motherhood. THANKS MARSHA!!! We love you!

emote360 projects

16 pg Booklet for World Relief NEXT
Shown below are a few spreads in the booklet.

Photography by the always amazing Ben Edwards of emote360.

Lately I've been busy designing some really sweet items for our emote360 clients. Hop on over to the emote blog to see what's been happening lately. We have four really great projects happening right now and we're anticipating a few more projects in the near future, as well as a couple emote360 trips to Africa in the next 6 to 9 months. I feel completely blessed to use my designing gifts in this way... doesn't get better than this.

Take Us With You

We HEART photography. We HEART weddings. We HEART travel. Put all three together and our hearts may just EXPLODE!!! Due to some recent conversations, we have deemed it necessary to offer a unique package to our clientele who wish to tie the knot abroad in 2009. We call it our "Take Us With You" Package. We will waive our photography service fees (US $3,000.00+) if you simply take us with you to your destination wedding (anything outside the continental U.S.A.). You take care of our travel expenses and we will document & deliver stunning photography every step of the way... and yes, you will be given every image that we capture and you will own all the rights to those images. Please contact us for more details via our Photography Website Contact Page. Danke, Grazie, Mahalo, Xie Xie, Merci, Grasias and Thank You.

The Bee-FF

Meet Joelles BFF. This little stuffed animal brings her an unmeasurable amount of joy on a daily basis. While driving in the car or sitting at home, it's nonstop smiles when she spots this bee. We don't really know what it is... maybe the white and black stripes, or the blue wings that have a crunchy texture to them, or maybe the bright yellow head and those big white eyes... who knows. All we know is that Joey hearts her bee... and she loves it even more when the bee's head is in her mouth getting gnawed on by her gums.

Client: Connexion

I wanted to share an interesting process I recently went through on a Branding project with a client. The company is a high end Print Consultant Firm called Connexion. Most people think that graphic designers come up with a logo in like 15 minutes and it's some mindless Typeface and Icon to quickly slap on a website or product. But in fact, an educated designer has a lengthy process that will ultimately flush out a unique branding solution that will give the client an edge in their market. My process always begins with me spending several hours trying to really get into the clients head... How does the founder feel about their company? What does it mean to the consumer? How should it speak to them? What sets this company and its product apart? If it was an animal, which would it be?... well, not that last question :) but I basically flush out any information that will help me come up with some creative concepts for my clients image.

So in the logo brainstorming session, the client wanted to incorporate a principle known as the Golden Ratio, that he felt helped describe his business. It's quite remarkable once you start looking into this principle. It's an equation that's been used by artists and engineers from as far back as the Egyptians, if not further back in time. It's believed to be the most aesthetically pleasing proportion. It's principles can be found in most anything in the physical universe... pretty crazy stuff.


So we explored the idea and incorporated this principle into the arms of the "X" in their company name (also making it their Icon or "Brand Mark"). The Golden Ratio will exist in the design of the website as well as other marketing materials. It was really interesting to me and fun to explore as a designer. Other words that I pulled from to create this brand: Intelligent, Diversified, Attentive, Nimble, Expertise, and Context. Overall the logo is modern & professional, and fits like a glove.

New "About Us" Photos

Here are a few self portraits (that we took for our Photography Website - which we've recently updated) ... we set up in the middle of some random field in Central Oregon and had some fun snapping photos of each other. A massive shout-out to the self timer on our cameras - couldn't have done it without you :)