Sketchbook: Business Card - eZential Massage

Pencils & Photoshop

One reason I'm enjoying this sketchblog so much is that I get to show off some stuff that might not be fully appreciated otherwise. I drew the artwork for Elemental Vitality on 11" x 17" paper, and scanned it at an ultra-high resolution, enabling me to make prints as large as 18" x 36" in case Seth ever needed a banner for his massage studio.

For the moment though, all that painstaking work gets condensed into a website and a business card. An image displayed on a web browser with a resolution of 72 pixels per inch loses much of its subtle shadings. And although the business cards will be printed at 300 pixels per inch, they're still tiny. After I reduced the art to fit on the card, I spent most of the time zoomed way out, working on a file that appeared on my monitor at about 1/4 this size, making sure my design would be legible when printed.

Fine artists have the luxury of just doing something pretty if they want to. Designing for a business usually involves a compromise between aesthetic and marketing needs. I worked really hard on this piece and I'm proud to have it as the logo of my husband's future business. Naturally, I want to display it boldly. Unforunately, nifty art won't help build Seth's career if it obscures the contact information. I had to shrink, crop, and fade out parts of the art to make it work with the important info the business card has to convey. The challenge of design is to make the right compromises, for the right reasons.

Missing blog posts about Castle Whatsitsname? Never fear, they'll be back next week! In the meantime, check out the expanded Comic section.

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