Sword + Dagger Logo Design

February 10, 2015April 5, 2015 | Erika Schnatz

I was recently contacted by two lovely graduates of my publishing program — they had combined forces to start a publishing services company called Sword and Dagger. They had a super cool name and some fabulous design inspiration to go along with it. It didn’t take me much time at all to create some logo ideas:

They liked number 9 best, and wanted to make sure the sword and dagger were represented in the design, and they wanted to see how the design would look on a black background. So I put together the following:

The final designs are below. It was a fun project that was a nice break from what I normally do, and I can’t wait to see how the designs look in print!

You can check out their website here: http://swordanddagger.wix.com/publishingservices

Jazzy T-Shirt

January 29, 2015April 5, 2015 | Erika Schnatz

Let’s get this sketch blog back up and running!

Here’s a t-shirt design I drew for a jazz-related project at Ooligan Press:

It was deemed a little too folksy for a jazz t-shirt, and the style wasn’t quite right for the target demographic, but it’s a nice little composition. Someone brought up Michael Cera when talking about the design, which is a compliment of the highest order for me. I loved Juno. :)

The black and white drawing is below:

All of the Cats

May 22, 2014April 10, 2015 | Erika Schnatz

Here’s something I did a few months ago for the Independent Publishing Resource Center (IPRC) in Portland. They needed a half-sheet sized catalog cover to promote classes and events offered in February and March of this year. To the surprise of no one who has skimmed through this blog, it features cats.

The Valentine’s Day image was the front cover and the St. Patrick’s Day cats occupied the back cover.

Readin’ with Sasquatch

July 30, 2013April 10, 2015 | Erika Schnatz

Here’s the final art for my Powell’s tote bag submission. I really liked it, but it didn’t crack the top 10. Since a very similar idea did make the top 10 (and was way less cute, in my humble opinion) I have a feeling my design was passed over because I didn’t make the Powell’s logo big enough. Whatever! At least I got a nice little portfolio piece out of the contest.

More Sasquatch!

July 25, 2013April 10, 2015 | Erika Schnatz

I’ve been thinking a lot about the Sasquatch because he’s the main component of an image I created for a tote bag design contest at Powell’s books. Here’s my linework for the submission – next week I’ll upload the color version (which is looking pretty adorable so far!)

A Very Portland Christmas

December 20, 2012April 5, 2015 | Erika Schnatz

To continue on the Portland theme, here’s hipster Santa, bringing PBR to all the underemployed boys and girls living on the east side…

Portlandia!

December 18, 2012April 5, 2015 | Erika Schnatz

I will be leaving Portland for a short span of time to spend the holidays with my family, but I love this quirky little city so this week’s posts are Portland-related.

This image is something I made for my friend who has recently left Portland for somewhere in Colorado, so I wanted to send her off with a slice of Portlandia. I tried to think of the most “Portland-y” thing I could think of. According to my brain that was a hipster elk/deer thing riding a bicycle past Powell’s Bookstore while drinking a PBR.

This is how it turned out:

If this image captures even a fraction of Portland’s oddness, I consider it a success.

Materials used: pens, watercolor, colored pencil

I really hope Megan got this in the mail by now and I didn’t totally spoil the surprise by posting on here…

Travel

November 15, 2012April 5, 2015 | Erika Schnatz

Last fall I created a series of illustrations so I could throw together a stop-motion-y video for a Southwest Airlines competition to win 30 million rewards points to fly wherever I wanted. I love to travel and thought I threw together a fairly convincing and creative presentation as to why my broke AmeriCorps butt should be able to jet across the country on a whim, but they didn’t pick my video. (You can still make things right, Southwest!!!)

I was pretty bummed that I did all that work for nada, but you all can view some of the pieces I created. Maybe I’ll try to throw the video up on YouTube or Vimeo or one of those places. I wrote a children’s book-esque script to go along with the video and narrated it myself and used iMovie to edit it all together because I have lost whatever Final Cut abilities I gained in college.

I’ll shut up and show the pictures.

That’s supposed to be me. Broke and living in Portland, Oregon. BUT HAPPY!

Then I discussed driving across the country in my tiny little car to serve in AmeriCorps because I am an amazing, selfless person.

This is a really weird combination of images: Cleveland’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and a geyser (Old Faithful if you’d like) from Yellowstone, because I saw both of those things on my drive across the country. It’s kind of surreal and I really like how it turned out even though it makes no sense without explanation.

Hey, look! I don’t have enough money to fly anywhere and go on tropical vacations.

Like 99% of Americans.

I explained the awesome things I would do if I was able to fly all over the country for free.

You may notice that I love alliteration.

I tried to tug at the heartstrings of the soulless marketing folks who didn’t choose my video. I talked about going back to Philadelphia to visit my family because I missed them very much. That’s a pretty accurate representation of my Pops.

Then I did a little stop motion bit of the ridiculous amount of flights I would be able to take with all those reward points. I even made the airplane look like a Southwest plane. Because I have a crazy awesome eye for detail!!!

Then I cleverly brought it full circle by using the first image, but I changed the words on the sign! Brain-explosion-inducing, I know.

So those are some pictures. I made them with patterned paper, markers, watercolors, and Mod Podge.

MAPS Logo Design

August 17, 2012April 5, 2015 | Erika Schnatz

At the beginning of August I began my new AmeriCorps position at Portland State University. My official title is Retention Project Program Assistant (fancy, I know) and it comes with perks. Like my own office. There’s also this amazing copier that can scan in documents and send them as e-mail attachments, which blew my mind. It’s also how I got all of the images for this post onto my computer.

Anyway, the program I’m working with was initiated last year and is in a bit of a transition period this year. Someone made a logo for the program last year, which looked like this:

I didn’t hate it, but I thought it looked a bit amateur, especially for a university program that does important, good work. I kept the basic idea of the compass and found some reference material:

I drew one thumbnail and went with it. I know that’s frowned upon with logo design, but since I was tweaking a design and not inventing it, I thought that was enough brainstorming. So here’s how it turned out:

I like how it turned out. Plus now I feel like I’ve done something productive (I’ve done a lot of reading at work but not much else). It’s always fun when I can use my art skills for good.

Quick note: there is a rose in the center of the compass because one of Portland’s nicknames is “Rose City”. Knowledge is power!

Materials used: Micron pens, Photoshop/Illustrator