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April 26, 2023 - Comments Off on Grit & Collaboration

Grit & Collaboration

Combining talents for delectable outcomes

Last summer, the Méli Mélo Charcuterie Boards — a lively collaboration with 600 Grit fine wood design — debuted in the art festival world. Maria Garcia, my former tennis partner and expert woodworker, had applied as an emerging artist to two of the nation’s most prestigious fairs — the Fort Worth Main Street Arts Festival and Denver’s Cherry Creek Arts Festival. A Colorado native now at home in Texas, Maria clearly had soaked in some of the “go big or go home” Lone Star attitude in targeting these events, but even she was slightly overwhelmed to be accepted by both. 

Our 600 Grit/EnZed collaboration began with volleying ideas on the tennis court. It went something like “wouldn’t it be fun to take some of your wrapping paper motifs and translate them to wood?” After a few years of playing with the idea, mostly in our heads, we found ourselves mixing epoxy and pigments in her Dallas workshop. We experimented with maple and walnut hardwoods, metallic and solid pigments, and two designs. Maria prepped the boards for the CNC operator who used my vector artwork to rout the inlays. After several prototypes in which we adjusted motif sizes and color palettes, played with depth of routing and angled edges, we landed on the finished product and perfected the silky finish. 

Méli Mélo translates to “an assortment,” which captures the essence of charcuterie and the nature of our collaboration. Once the boards began selling, Maria envisioned expanding the concept to furniture. The board motifs enlarged beautifully onto coffee, cocktail and side tables, and she received a commission for wall art at this larger scale. Maria’s furniture designs are inspired by the Arts & Crafts and Mid Century Modern movements, but the rich walnut hardwood and bright resin inlays transition across many interior styles.

What started as a friendship on the tennis court quickly became a delicious meeting of minds and materials. Talking with the art lovers venturing into our tent was energizing and Maria secured several furniture commissions in each city, a primary goal for showing at the festivals. (Prior to that, we had a brief foray into wholesale and set up shop on PaperieZ.com, selling directly to friends and others.) 

While I’ve enjoyed seeing my designs in three dimensions as Maria has added new, unique product offerings, the best part of this experience by far is the collaboration. Each bringing our best to the table (saw) inevitably yields tasty results.

For more about Maria, follow her on Instagram @600grit and visit 600grit.com. She’s available for custom charcuterie board and furniture commissions. Let us collaborate with you, too!

Join my mailing list to receive monthly reads about adventures, design, marketing, other creative musing, and how they all relate to and inform one another. Follow my antics on Instagram. — Helen

February 10, 2023 - Comments Off on French Diamonds & French Toast

French Diamonds & French Toast

“I do,” was my reply when Denny’s creative services popped the question: Do you design wallpaper? 

I’d just completed a custom pattern and a dozen or so templates for the corporation’s to-go boxes, cups, bags, and seals. This new request was a special invitation — to design the wall covering for their Las Vegas Wedding Chapel* on the iconic strip. 

With unbridled enthusiasm, I reviewed the creative brief. My task was to marry icons from the bride and groom t-shirts with the iconic French diamond shape housing the restaurant’s logo. A childhood of road trips and a decade of designing wrapping papers groomed me for this very moment. 

Initially, I presented seven designs featuring a bow tie, diamond gem, and French diamond, adding some additional symbols of love and location. They selected two motifs to see in a variety of color ways that complemented the new restaurant interior materials, then settled on one design. We further looked at color and scale with mock ups of the wallpaper in the space. Denny’s creative team selected a tone-on-tone print on a pearlescent paper. 

The project was a grand slam. This background will be photographed behind many happy couples, cutting into their wedding pancake stack and linking arms to sip mimosas. 

Elvis may have left the building, but the wallpaper is here to stay.

Thank you, thank you very much.
— Helen

*Yes, chain restaurant weddings are a thing. Rate the best “cake” - post below!

P.S. Need a custom pattern for your project? Check out our Custom Collections offering.

January 19, 2023 - Comments Off on Family Tree: Branching Out 

Family Tree: Branching Out 

Creating a surface pattern collection from one central design.

It began with a single leaf. My contribution to a calendar promoting Chicago’s Newberry Library debuted in the month of April, then went on to become much more. The initial task was to represent the library’s Genealogy Floor by creating an image encompassing multiple American heritages with their global origins. I chose to design a tribute leaf for each country or culture based on the motifs and colors I’d researched, then loosely assembled them to form our nation’s Family Tree.

Fast-forwarding to 2022: As the creative brief provided by the client had been limited to representing select continents, I expanded on the original tree by adding new leaf designs reflecting indigenous art from Latin America, Asian Pacific nations, and New Zealand, where I was born. The leaves were arranged into a repeat, while keeping the same loose placement on the bough. 

Can you match up the leaf to the motif? Comment below with the leaf letter and motif name.

A budding new collection. Next, I challenged myself to design to a full collection of surface patterns, iterating on the single-leaf motifs. I chose a shape or section in each motif to craft new, seamless repeats and simplified the initial color palettes. The new motifs turned out to be very different from one another, yet an umbrella aesthetic holds them together. 

Next, I toyed with the original motif as a repeating pattern in a new colorway — a soft palette for my bedroom, including a duvet and sheet set, plus an accent pillow. These designs came out of that motif and color palette.

A pattern collection is akin to a family, where the siblings are unique while the parents’ genes are expressed differently in each. I think of my brother at 6’4” with auburn hair, freckles and fair skin, and me standing a foot shorter with an olive complexion and dark curls. Eyes, toes, nose. Fun, puns, buns.

Seems evolution is its own artform.

***

Join my mailing list to receive monthly reads about adventures, design, marketing, other creative musing, and how they all relate to and inform one another. — Helen

December 20, 2014 - Comments Off on Our 2014 highlight? An 1863 experience.

Our 2014 highlight? An 1863 experience.

EnZed Design FCC Services Gettysburg Leadership Experience Helen Young

When the innovative marketing director at FCC Services, first spoke with us about rebranding their Gettysburg Leadership Experience, we were intrigued. How often does a design group like EnZed have the opportunity to develop a fresh identity for a program merging 19th Century lessons and 21st Century leadership?  The result, I’m delighted to say, has garnered enough participant interest to fill all 2015 Experience sessions and cause more to be slated. (It’s also led to our being asked to develop special materials to help FCCS celebrate their 40th anniversary and re-energize their conference offerings.)

In brief, The Gettysburg Experience brings corporate executives to the Gettysburg battlefield for an intensive exploration of decisions made during that nation-changing three-day conflict. The goal is to examine what happened at that Civil War turning point and translate it into practical leadership strategies to guide one’s personal and corporate path forward.

EnZed’s initial scope of work included a new logo, program graphic design, marketing collateral and on-site materials for participants to use during their Gettysburg “boots on the ground” journey. Moreover, our copywriter Carla Carwile was to provide web text for project co-partner, Rabble + Rouser.

But something happened on the way to final product.  Our objectivity led to questions that sparked a full-program reassessment by the client. Modules were updated, options expanded and activities aligned. The outcome is winning praise as well as participation. The FCCS board just pronounced it exceptional and a major step forward for the organization.

EnZed Design FCC Services Gettysburg Leadership Experience Helen Young

Shown here are:

• The brochure encouraging enrollment

• The field guide with customized map used by participants while at Gettysburg

• The copper cup memento inscribed with the program logo

 

This multi-layered project succeeded because of true teamwork. A special thanks to:

• Rob Barnes of Vintage Pressworks for his custom iNPEND notebooks and his Civil War expertise

• Matt Luckwitz of GrafPort for his 3D battle-plan map tracking the three-day battle

Frederic Printing for their signature excellence

Annette Slade for the photo appearing here and the finished product images on our EnZed website

 

…and most important, to the FCCS team. Thank you for an extraordinary opportunity.

 

 HAPPY 2015, EVERYONE!

And we'll take a cup o' kindness yet, for auld lang syne.”

December 13, 2013 - Comments Off on Promotions become products

Promotions become products

EnZed Design's products sold in I Heart Denver Store in Colorado

Each year we come up with a clever paper holiday gift for our clients. Now they are available for purchase at the I Heart Denver Store at the Denver Pavilions.

We’re retailing four of our most popular items. Our To Do Ta Da! Notepads offer a little daily dose of inspiration and motivation. CurliCues make gatherings more festive with a simple paper swirl that hooks around a wine stem or ribbon on a package. Make ‘em Snappy frames allow you to take the best pics off your phone and display them on to your fridge. And if getting organized is on your Ta Da list, Keep Tabs are a great start to the new year—a bank of 12 allows you to section your notebook or mark key pages in a recipe book or spicy novel.

Head downtown to the I Heart Denver Store on to get a glimpse of the goods and many other unique creations from other Colorado artists. Our “hostess gifts” and a myriad of Colorado-made keepsakes are great options for far away friends and family. This locally-owned store pays 70% of the retail price directly to the artist, a rare split in the retail world. Very nice.

Have you been naughty or nice?

Not sure? Maybe ask yourself: How many rounds of edits did I make last year? Uh oh. That’s ok, here’s your chance to make nice. We’re finalizing our mailing list for the next EnZed holiday gift. If you're on the list, you'll receive our next creation. Sure beats a lump of coal.

Comment here or send us an email with your address to make sure you’re on the list!

Photos by Lynn Clark Photography and EnZed Design. Printing by Frederic Printing and paper by Neenah Paper.