Back in September, when I decided that it was time for Howjoyful to have a facelift, the very first thing I did was grab some paper and a pencil to draft some ideas. I have to admit that when it comes to me as a client I am the worst so I end up with 2 completely different ideas and 2 completely different concepts. I loved them both but I had to make up my mind and choose, and that’s what you can see now in the blog.

Since I really liked one of the rejected drafts I decided that it would be nice to show you all a little bit of behind the scenes as an excuse for it to get a little exposure, I just feel sad no one got to see it! The least I can do is give it 1 post of fame. So here it is, the poor little How Joyful that went to the trash =[

For this sketch I really liked the idea of making swirls in the shape of hearts with "How Joyful" but then I changed my mind because it seemed too busy and cutesy for my personal taste. So I started exploring other ideas and other kind of typefaces, lines and swirls. I ended up with probably more than 20 different drafts but this one below was the runner up =]

I still think I could do something with this, the one above was the last draft I did in ink and paper, but I also vectorized it. So, I would really like to actually do something with it since I spent so much time on that. I think it could be another print to frame for my office, or maybe print it on fabric? I am not sure.

This was one of my first completely free-hand projects and I loved the process so much! Now I really want to buy a new tablet to draft projects because my old one was only for PC so now I have no way to use it (the only bad thing about only having Mac products now) so hopefully I’ll get to buy one soon, because I really want to get back into drawing with a tablet again.

I’ve received a few emails asking me for the font I used in my current header, so I want to show you where it came from. I actually didn’t even have tracing paper that day, so I just started playing with the only sheet of paper I found. After my first sketch I went over to my Mother-in-laws (She does awesome calligraphy) and asked for her advice/opinion, we played with calligraphy pens and had a lot of fun. I was still indecisive over the two sketches because I started with such a different set of concepts for each one. But I decided to work more on my second draft because I thought it was way too rough at first, so with a few line changes and tracing it on Illustrator it ended up just like I wanted =]

Do you have any ideas to use the runner up?
I hope you all have a wonderful day and stay warm!
XO