Marcie McCabe Design

Sketch Book Drawings

2011-11-15T09:37:00.001-08:00

This is stuff I create when I sit with a pen and color pencils.

Etsy Store

2011-11-10T09:35:00.001-08:00

I finally did it! I have created an Etsy store. I have been visiting Etsy for the past couple of years to see what is going on in the arts and crafts world. As a graphic designer, I believe that the crafting world is an interesting and important place to be connected to. Crafters are fearless artist who create without permission. The guts to create a product and put it out there in the world and hope it will be received well is admirable to say the least.

So.. deep breath... I have decided to take on creating and crafting as a way to stay in touch with my design skills, the consumer market at large and with my own desires to delight and satisfy folks with my artistic talent. I have created an Etsy Store!! check me out at marciemccabe.etsy.com.

I hope to develop my niche in this amazing community of artists!

Thanks!

Tenderfoot Album Package Design

2011-07-21T10:36:00.001-07:00

Tenderfoot is a moniker for my dearest friend Adam Boehmer. Over this past summer Adam toured Germany and Denmark as Tenderfoot. The tour demand some accessories such as this album package. If you are curious to music behind the design then please check out Tenderfoot's bandcamp site and sample some of his offerings.

Business Card Design

2011-06-13T14:01:00.000-07:00

This is a really fun business card design for a Swing Dance Instructor and dear friend Jo Ann Coker. Full color, front and back di-cut 2.5 inch diameter. This design was not as innovative for me because Jo Ann has already branded her look --check out her website for Camp Balboa here in Seattle-- I was challenged with the task of organizing her look and information on a record shape business card.

Tenderfoot Bandcamp

2011-04-13T14:09:00.000-07:00

Tender Foot Music

Original Print taken from a camping book from the 70's.

Tenderfoot is a one man wonder musical creation from my dear friend Adam Boehmer. Adam is a long time accomplished Poet and Lindyhopper/Solo Jazz Dancer. His music reflects his ability to hear interesting parts in music and his ability to create abstractions in language with his poetry. His recent accomplishments in poetry and dance include Poems of Fog reading in San Francisco, Ca and instructor and featured on front page of Midwest Lindyfest in St Paul, Mn.

Please seek Adam Boehmer out as an artist. He is amazing!!

Sitka & Spruce

2010-12-13T10:27:00.000-08:00

I came across this website looking for Farm to Table restaurants in Seattle. I was blown away by the design of this site because I have a particular interest in vintage fruit and vegetable illustrations. I thought this web design was quite special and really hit spot on with the idea of what they are going for.

It is not clear who designed the site (at least i am not seeing it right away) but the Friends section of the site lists resources and is worth visiting for the pure pleasure of getting lost in all the connections. LOVE IT!

Nike Write the Future World Cup Video

2010-06-19T14:21:00.000-07:00

I feel this was really well done~

Bird Song Dwellings Logo

2010-05-30T15:20:00.001-07:00

Bird Song Dwellings is a urban cycle-powered gardening business headed by Nedra Deadwyler.

Seattle Lindy Exchange T-shirt

2010-05-15T15:29:00.000-07:00

Savoy Swing Club approached me in 2008 and asked me to design a T-shirt for their event Seattle Lindy Exchange. This design was a great creative adventure. I wanted to represent the energy/excitement of the event by honoring the fact that the organizers were flying in the Loose Marbles a New Orleans jazz band who had gained popularity among the national Lindy Hop community. The female figure you see in the design is Meschiya Lake.

Objectified: For Those Curious about Current Thoughts on Design

2010-03-30T23:11:00.000-07:00

Objectified A Documentary Film by Gary Hustwit.

I was pleasantly surprised this film featured designers and design firms that spoke of a general awareness of some of the major issues and challenges facing designers today. How do we design for real human needs focusing more on people-centered design? What are these needs? What are our responsibilites? What are some of the fundamental principles of design? Do we dictate these needs or listen and then create? How do we design to take better take of our planet? Will our products end up in the trash in less than a year? How do we design for the future?

These are some of the major questions in Objectified and to those curious about design check it out~

Savoy Swing Club Website Design

2010-03-02T13:41:00.000-08:00

Savoy Swing Club is a Seattle non-profit organization established by dancers to promote the learning and support in the Lindyhop and Jazz Dance community. The previous website had sustained the group but needed some heavy revision. One of the most important revisions needed to be in the overall style and presence of the site. The former site (I wish so bad I had pictures/files to illustrate my point) was not too far from being a qualifying candidate for World's Worst Website.

So without trying, I easily envisioned a better site for this hardworking non profit. And after much thought and some good trying, I came up with a nice mock design for the club. Here is what I came up with:

My original idea was to illustrate the club's main focus--Vintage Jazz Dancing. The members of this community are some of the hottest dancers in the nation for Vintage Jazz. In the design process, I wanted to provide style and imagery that would get that point across more effectively.

Here are some of the pictures that I choose:

This one in particular is one of my favorite dance pictures. Just because it really captures an intimacy between two people. I cropped the picture to show just the face and hands.

Then I added the font "andes" and decided to ground the site design with a pinstripe wall paper. The SSC site developers added to my original design and moved a couple of functions around and the final result is what you see up on the web currently. Savoy Swing Club

Another Artist: Tina Randolph

2010-01-14T09:15:00.000-08:00

I was hanging out with a friend of mine last week and the two of us decided to go to The Tavern Law to try out some of their artisan cocktails. When I walked in I was blown away by a large 10+ foot scale mural on the wall next to the bar. I first saw the floral print at my eye level then my eyes were quickly directed upward to the rest of the design and it became a whole experience. The effect is that it forces the viewer to take in the vastness of the room by leading the eyes upward into the ceiling. It also keeps the viewer focused in on the girl as one figure instead of a bunch of designed arranged next to each other -- which can lack focus and cause the viewer to get bored. Having direction of eye and focus is quite an achievement in a mural. This one is fantastic!! Go to Tavern Law and check it out.. and have a cocktail-- Nathan is really nice!!

This lovely work is from a local artist Tina Randolph. Check out other work she has done around town by clicking on her name.

Francesca & Andy Quaid Wedding CD cover

2009-12-29T08:44:00.000-08:00

Adventures in typography begin!! I was contacted earlier this year by some ole friends of mine Francesca and Andy to design a CD cover for their wedding. Francesca discovered a lovely Letterpress wedding Cd on Etsy.com and sent me the link and asked that come up with something that would resemble what she sent. Here is the original art she was attracted to:

Once I had a clear idea of what she wanted then I got to work. I picked a couple fonts and used the color scheme that was employed on her wedding invitation and came up with final design. The challenges were with my lack of experience with typography. I seldom get requests on type-only designs. The success in this design is being able to layout the type in a balanced and tasteful way.

I had to do a ton of adjusting to get the different fonts to look good with one another and a major challenge was picking which words would look good with the different fonts, picking colors to go in certain spots and to make sure color was balanced and varied throughout the piece. I spent 80% of the time doing just that. The idea process was done for me (Fran knew what she wanted), the words used were written up by Francesca and the colors were already picked by the designer would designed the invitation.. so my big chunk of the work was alignment, kerning and tracking and font manipulation. I spent hours on it and learned ALOT.

After I was finished and sent the final file to the client (friends) I was very pleased to find that they LOVED it. ~smiles all around~

Homemaid design

2009-12-14T15:29:00.000-08:00

Homemaid is a sustainable house cleaning service located here in Seattle, Washington. The owners Laurel and Thomas are dedicated to providing a carbon free service by commuting only with bicycle and attached equipment trailer, and using all biodegradable cleaning products.

I was delighted to work with Laurel and Thomas on their logo and business card. The two wanted to convey to their audience that they are a committed eco-friendly service. In the designing stages, I decided on green and blues to convey the notion of Homemaid's clean and green service. I used a san serif font (clean edges) and tied green (shape of a branch) in with the imagery of typeface----all the letter are straightedge except for the "i" in "maid" which is a curvy branch. The final touch on the logo design was to add the bicycle wheel in the background to show a major principle in their business plan: They ride bicycles to each home they clean.

To keep in line with their business model, Laurel and Thomas decided on printing with Girlie Press and went with a wonderful recycled card-stock paper and soy ink.

Poster Design for local Seattle show

2009-12-10T11:18:00.000-08:00

This poster design was created in Illustrator CS3. The idea for this layout was inspired by a screen printing article on Designer Leia Bell in a DIY Design-It-Yourself Design Handbook (Princeton Architectural Press 2006)that I picked up at a used bookstore. Check out her website by clicking on her name. She has some beautiful work.

Sadly, this poster was a low budget project therefore it was not screenprinted. It was printed on a regular printer like the kind you find at a Kinko's.

Welcome

2009-12-06T00:23:00.001-08:00

Welcome to Marcie McCabe's Design Blog.

Here you will find a display of my work, other peoples work, resources I have been fortunate to discover and my thoughts/reflections/observations/ideas on Design topics. My interest are constantly changing and growing and I intend this Design Blog to be a vehicle in showing my growth.

Enjoy~