Derby Etiquette Illustration for Louisville Magazine

Louisville Magazine, contacted me to do an illustration for their Derby issue this year, and of COURSE I jumped at the opportunity! It's always such an exciting issue to be a part of. The article is about Derby Etiquette and discusses how NOT to be "that guy" when you are out at Churchill Downs.

Below are the thumbnails I sent the art director:

She chose the bottom right option. Here's the final drawing before I took it to final:

And since I know you love seeing some behind-the-scenes action, here's a few of the reference photos we took. Pardon the poor white balancing, these aren't usually for the public's eye, they are just for getting a hand shape correct or a shoulder in place.

Till next time! p.s. Go Knights!

Cat Scott
Louisville Graphic Designer and Illustrator
www.CatScott.com

Wedding Website

Before the wedding invitations could go out, I had to make sure the wedding website was up and running!

With so many out-of-town guests, and with me being a giant web-nerd, it was important to me to have a website full of information on visiting Louisville. At first I was lulled by the simplicity of building a site on TheKnot.com, but the lack of customization made my skin crawl. So I built us a nice site from scratch using good old fashioned XHTML and CSS:

www.JasonAndCat.com

It's not that fancy, but neither is the wedding, plus it ties in with the invitation design and provides visitors the information they need. And it's not a cheesy template from the Knot. I love that I can keep updating it - like maybe I should add in those flowers from the invitation in the header? Sure, why not. It's a work in progress.

Next on the wedding posts, I'll write about our Save the Date cards which don't totally match anything but were the springboard for some of the elements you see on the website and in the invitation.

Thanks for stopping by!

cat

p.s. I'm learning more and more about web development at my day job, so please don't judge some of my inefficient coding!

p.p.s. Feel free to purchase us gifts from our Honeyfund registry!

Cat Scott
Louisville Graphic Designer and Illustrator
www.CatScott.com

Wedding Invitations

Have I mentioned in this space that I'm engaged to My Biggest Fan, Jason? Wedding day is less than two months away. Yet another reason I've been quiet on the blog.

As a creative person, I have set out to tackle a boatload of Do It Yourself Projects to give my wedding that "personal charm," and a perk is that we save a lot of money!

One of my main projects was the invitation. In the wedding blog world, there are scores of elaborate, beautiful invitation suites with wonderful calligraphy, screen-printing, special sourced papers, and of course intricately designed type treatments. However, our wedding is a 50-person daytime garden wedding, so none of that felt right to us. Our ceremony and reception will be personal, simple and sweet, so that's what our invitations needed to convey.

Some details on the creation:

Our "logo" is a little sketch I did of the two of us kissing in a canoe (we got engaged in a canoe in Asheville, NC). The flowers were hand drawn in illustrator and filled with an abstract pink & purple watercolor I painted. The white parts of the invitation and RSVP were printed on my inkjet and trimmed by hand with an x-acto knife (not so bad when you only have 40 invitations). Katy and I then spray-mounted them onto trimmed pieces of a beautiful navy Classic Columns paper. Finishing touch is a pretty pink ribbon. Envelopes are standard cheapo envelopes from Staples with "calligraphy" done by me with a pretty pink/purple marker pen and a standard blue rollerball pen.

Below are some photos of the invitations. The really nice looking ones of the RSVP card and the envelopes are by my uber-talented bridesmaid Katy A who helped me assemble invites while she was in Louisville. The others are by me with my crappy point-and-shoot.

Must stop blogging and start DIYing! Thanks for reading.

cat

Cat Scott
Louisville Graphic Designer and Illustrator
www.CatScott.com