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So, you’ve got something to say – what is the best way to get it out there?

Trinity Western University (TWU) in B.C. is launching a new MA in Leadership Program in China! They’ve partnered up with Leadership Development International (LDi) in Tianjin, China. You can imagine the timezone madness when we did three-way Skype calls! But we did it!! After much thought, we decided to not print the newsletters, but to send them out via e-mail.

There are many options when it comes to spreading the news.

Traditional printed newsletters. No problem. Grab a designer, feed them content and images and you’ll get a beautiful newsletter that you can mail out to everyone and their pets. If printing cost is a concern, try printing the front and back pages in colour and the rest in black and white.

e-Newletters that look like printed newsletters, but they are sent electronically as a PDF. Same idea as traditional printed newsletters, except keep in mind the file size. No one is going to want a 2MB attachment.

e-Newletters through a mailing list service. This is the best option if you have a large mailing list. The content is opened right in their inbox, no need to download an attachment. Also, give you the option to include clickable links right in the body of the e-mail. Mashable has listed 30+ Mailing List Services. Some of theses services are even free!

Blog. Ah yes, a blog. I’m a big fan of blogs because it gives others a place where they can regularly update themselves on their own time. A blog will keep your customers coming back to your website.

Something else? As cool as newsletters are, there are hundreds of other ways to get your news out there, I’d love to get creative with you… (sadly, it is not new news, that I am dating my job as a freelance designer).

On that note, I’d like to mention the Toronto Graffiti book, which launches January 28th! I’m excited to get my really-dry-from-winter hands on this!

If you are working with a non-profit or a charity or if you are someone who enjoys keeping up the world of do-gooders, then you’ll love re: charity. The re: charity blog was started by Brady Josephson (@bradyjosephson) to give charities a place where they can go to find useful resources to help run their organization. Check out re: charity’s brand new logo!

If you ever get the chance to meet Brady, you’ll see that he just oozes with passion to inspire and empower others to champion the cause to help the poorest of the poor. Brady and I are working on a few more really cool projects, so stay tuned for more updates!

This past summer/fall, I had the pleasure to work with Leeorah Pearce’s chocolate company, Chelsea Truffles. What a dream job, to design her new line of chocolate bars and get it all ready to hit the market. At first it was just a simple wrapper design for the Belgian chocolate bars. If you’ve ever worked with me, you’ll know that I’m a go big or go home kinda person. I didn’t think a simple wrapper would do justice to these decadent chocolate bars. With a only a quick twist of her arm, the project included chocolate mould design and retail counter units to tie everything together to make it impossible to see these chocolate bars and not purchase one… or four. I was in Ottawa this past weekend and spotted the Chelsea Truffles chocolate bars in La Bottega Nicastro!

Gorr Financial just got a logo facelift!  The bold ‘GORR’ represents the strength of the company, while the lowercase ‘financial’ represents their holistic approach to financial planning.

Are you thinking about a logo facelift? Let’s chat. A logo can run you anywhere between $400 – $10,000. Seriously, some big fancy branding firms will charge upwards of $10,000 for your brand identity…. and it doesn’t even come with free botox. I like to stay within the 3 digit estimates.

Every year, Humber River Regional Hospital Foundation has a really big ticket event called Flights of Fantasy. This year, the theme was Wild Horse Saloon.  I was given freedom to do whatever I wanted to brand this event. It was a cool project mixing Flights with Wild Horse Saloon! I heard the event was a success and a blast (see pictures), they had real horses at the event!

When I was in Rwanda, I met a woman who was starting a business that cultivates, harvests, dries and sells Moringa powder. Moringa is a plant that grows in the most impoverished parts of the world. Most of the plant is edible and contains the essential vitamins for healthy living. Some call it the miracle plant. In addition to designing a logo, I designed some packages as well. They were printed in Nairobi. Ifu Ya translates to ‘powder’ in Kinyarwanda.

Last year I spent the bulk of my time getting Scratch Kitchen Inc. launched. This was my first large scale project and I am very happy with the final outcome.

The brand elements in this design package include:

Logo and Colour palette
Website design
Business cards and Letterhead
Packaging
Menus
Gift certificates
Promotional cards
Twitter page set up
Monthly newsletter template
Swag
Tradeshow displays

Here are some samples of Scratch Kitchen’s brand. The website was made in conjunction with Rhubarb Media, a very talented web design (and more!) company in Barrie, Ontario.

Back in February- April 2009, I was in Uganda and Rwanda working with Engineering Ministries International East Africa (eMi East Africa). I was so blessed to have gone on 2 project trips and a few more in-house projects. I met a ton of amazing friends doing amazing things in East Africa. Here are a few:
Kumbya Eden Retreat – Rwanda
New Hope Uganda – Uganda
Ubuzima Moringa (The miracle nutrition plant) – Rwanda
Education & Development Opportunity Uganda – Uganda
Here is a sample of a few of the logos from my work at eMi.