New Products!

When I first opened Design Gem I focused a lot on paper products and personalized prints. As Design Gem just turned two (Feb 18), I have been thinking a lot about the last two years and how much we've grown and the kind of products I want to continue to design in the future. I love gift products more than anything. I love finding that perfect gift for someone special and I get so very excited to give that perfect gift to them. Watching them open it makes me so excited hoping they love it. I want that feeling for my customers with the gifts I design. Something else I strive for (hang in here with me, folks!)...You know when you find a cute product and it reminds you so much of someone that you just have to get it for them? Yep. I want my gifts to be like that too. I focus a lot on niche items. Here are some examples below:

I know you know someone that would love this mug. This coffee mug is 100% me and I love it so.

A gift for your bestie, who of course, is da best!

For your littles that love Frozen, they will surely love these Frozen pencils. These were a big seller during Christmas as a stocking stuffer and now they have been selling as Frozen party favors.

I love the movie The Help and I love this quote. These pencils are perfect as a pick-me-up for a friend or for someone that just loves that movie! 

Happy 2nd Birthday Design Gem!

Happy 2nd Birthday to my small yet incredibly fulfilling Etsy shop, Design Gem. I absolutely love being creative and my shop has given me more than just a creative outlet...It has shown me my passion and love for gift product design! This shop lights my heart on fire and I cannot wait to see what is in store for year three.

Since today we are celebrating DG's birthday, I want to introduce our newest product....a TUMBLER! I am very excited about this for several reasons. 1) Well, I love tumblers and use one everyday. 2) It's so cute with it's striped straw and bright turquoise color! 3) It has a meaningful reminder and I need positive reminders on the daily! 4) There is a tiny heart in the curve of the "e" in "love". It's pretty cute!

This tumbler would be the cutest gift filled with candy for a friend or add some of Design Gem's pencils for a different yet sweet touch.

Design Gem is Now Doing Wholesale!

Exciting news for Design Gem! We are now accepting wholesale orders for retail stores and online shops! Please contact us for wholesale inquiries! We know your customs will love Design Gem products!

New Products in the Shop!

I am SO excited about the new products recently added to Design Gem! I have loved designing stamps and wall art but decided to dabble in some new items. So without further ado...

iPhone 5 cases. These beauties come in two variations, regular case and the tough case :) I can also do other cases. All phone cases can be customized with name, monogram etc. Yay!

I have some favorite phrases and earlier this year I made them into a print (here). Well, I love this print so much that I decided to make some engraved pencils with none other than gold writing. Love love.

I was just telling you about my favorite print, it has been popular so I decided to create a gold foil version and I am seriously swooning over how it turned out. The gold is so shiny and pretty!

See! I told you it was SHINY!

 Next up and new to the shop are these custom stickers! The example above does show an address but really, with stickers, the options could go on! Holiday stickers? Yes! Stickers for your kids? Yes! To and From stickers for gifts? Yes! The possibilities are endless!

Lastly, I have a new stamp design in the shop. This design is very modern and if you'll notice, there is a slight offset with the type creating a subtle line, seriously, it looks so modern and awesome.

So...what do y'all think? I'd love your feedback!

I have a couple more items headed to the shop soon...stay turned, my friends! xoxo

Product Love: Design Gem Return Address Stamp

I am currently crushing on this stamp. Is it ok to crush on my own products? I think yes. It would be hard for me to sell products to others that I did not absolutely love and want to use myself.

My favorite part about this stamp the horizontal layout. I also enjoy that you can play with the placement. You can stamp along the edge of the envelope, like shown in the example photo, or you can place the address at the very top of the flap. This stamp is also very dainty with its thin typewriter style typography. Love love.

Moral of this short story? I need to order myself one of these stamps pronto!

Hop on over to my etsy shop to view this stamp and many more at Design Gem.

Black+Ecru Classic Wedding Invitation

 

I was searching through some invite files and found this pretty invitation that I designed from last year. I just love the simplicity of the ercu+black and the elegance of the bold, statement-like typography. Oh, how I love a beautiful wedding invitation!

Classic Wedding Invitations

I had the pleasure of working with a lovely couple to design a classic wedding suite for their big day! Together, we designed an invitation, reply card, thank you notes and programs. Absolutely loved every minute of working with Brynnan and Zac! Before Brynnan sent out her invitations, she wrapped the invitation and reply card in bakers twine before putting them in a kraft paper envelope. I love those little details!

Classic Vintage Wedding Programs

See those little cuties in the mail box? Those are some vintage inspired programs I designed for the cutest wedding along with invitations, reply cards and thank you notes all wrapped in bakers twine and grocery bag material envelopes. Full invitation suite reveal coming soon!

Photo credit: Carl Zoch

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Monday + Happy Valentine's Day from BloggingwithTaylor!

Cards+photo via {bloggingwithtaylor}

gray and yellow save the dates

I had the pleasure of designing these fun little save the date postcards the other day at my work, English Paper Company. You can tell by the photographs that the couple is so fun and playful! They are going with an "h&m" theme which is so sweet and unique to them as a couple.

photos by {bloggingwithtaylor}

Jessica & Shaun's Fiesta Save the Dates

I was super excited when Jessi contacted me about designing her fiesta inspired save the dates. Jessi and Shaun are such a fun couple (ie their engagement photos!!) so our goal was to tie some playfulness into their save the dates by incorporating a bold, exciting color palette and fun flower illustrations. Congratulations Jessi & Shaun!

photos by {bloggingwithtaylor}

CFT business cards!

Just got Chemical Flooding Technologies business cards back from the printer!! 

Logos, invitations or other graphic design needs? Please contact me at hello@taylorharwelldesign.com

Prop Styling for Brag Book Magazine

A few months back, I was asked by the wonderfully talented Shannon Ho to do prop styling for a new magazine to Oklahoma called Brag Book. Brag Book is a family lifestyle magazine catering to the OKC metro. From photographers and orthodontists to local candy stores...this magazine has references for just about anything family and child related.

The shoot took place at the Harn Homestead in OKC. It's a museum with property from the early 1900's in Oklahoma. It is set up like a small community with a house, barn and school house. We went for a vintage back to school theme since the magazine was being published in late July (in OKC area bookstores!) Just in time for school! 

We brainstormed and came up/ made lots of fun props to enhance the vintage theme. Pin wheels, chalk boards, vintage inspired fabric backdrops, lunch sacks, and LOTS of vintage books from my grandparents garage were used. I really enjoyed working on this creative shoot!

one of my favorites!

lots o logos

I was asked to work with Chemical Flooding Technologies to come up with a logo/brand identity. To tell you the truth, I had absolutely no idea what Chemical Flooding Technologies (CFT) was, I bet you don't have a clue either. CFT works with oil. An oil rig only releases about 10% of the amount of oil actually in the rock. So, then water flooding companies come and flood the rig with water to push more oil out, but that only gets a little more out. SO THEN, CFT comes in and gets about 40% of the oil out!  So, after a lot of research, note taking and meetings to discuss the processes of this company..I got to sketching. The three components were oil, the chemical surfactant (yellow) and water. The surfactant is the middle man between the oil and the water.  Am I making any sense??!?!? Anyway, I used opacity and transparency in several of my sketches because the surfactant in a way is mixing with the water and oil push the oil out of the rig. 


My favorite is the first one. I hope they pick this one! :) I think it is abstract but also illustrates oil coming towards us..which is ultimately what CFT does. I also love the typeface and that it is referencing old retro science reports.




Logos, invitations or other graphic design needs? Contact me! I'd love to solve a creative problem for you! Email me at tayloranneharwell@gmail.com 

Senior Design Project: How to Design Your Wedding

Here it is. This has been my baby for the past month or so. This was my senior design project. We had to choose a design direction in something that within our design strengths. My strengths are color and print. So, I just went with it and I love how it turned out! I wanted the book to be filled with photos to inspire any bride. I also wrote all of the content but if the reader chose not to read it, they would still get a lot of great ideas from the photographs.

Remember when I showed this lovely image? At first I was simply organizing my color palettes for each chapter but I loved how it looked so much (happy design accident!!) that I made it the design for the inside first + last spreads . I love fabric inspired patterns so for the front of each title page, I added a bit of advice to help the reader with "color tips" showing the color schemes for the colors I used in each chapter. Since I chose to use those color boxes...I had to have consistency throughout the book so I continued the "square color box palette" theme in the table of contents and next to each page number.

Hope you all like it as much as I do! :)

*This book was a school project. If it were to ever be published, permission and full photography credit would be given to all.