THE NEXT CHAPTER

It's time. The closing of one book, and the start of another. The highly anticipated sequel in my story as a creative professional. First, let's go back to the beginning:

Three years ago (nearly to the day) I walked through Dayspring's front doors, eager to find my place in the creative field. Boiling with anxiety, excitement and fear of the "new", I jumped head-first into the world of greeting card design. Surrounded by wonderful people and designers, between Dayspring and Hallmark, I learned from the best. This is honestly what I will miss the most: the wealth of talent and resources between my co-workers and the vast creative libraries of Hallmark are, in my book, irreplaceable. We collaborated on projects, deliberated over "cat-horses", and celebrated one another's design victories. Good times, to say the least.

Someone once said, "every journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." And so, Friday is my official last day designing for Dayspring, and Monday I will take the next step in my journey, starting as a Sr. Designer with Moxy Ox, one of the leading (and growing) creative agencies in NW Arkansas. Please visit their site to learn more about them and the type of work I will be getting to do with them.

Needless to say I am very excited about this next chapter in my life, but it is bittersweet leaving my friends and co-workers at Dayspring and not working with them on a daily basis. I want to say that I'm thankful for Dayspring and the experience I've gained with them, and I will miss it all very much! But I am looking forward to the plans in store for me, at Moxy Ox and beyond. Thanks & God bless

: Justin

A GREETING CARD IS BORN

A neat, behind-the-scenes look of how a greeting card is made: from a thought to the shelf and into your hearts and homes (its okay, greeting cards can be cheesy sometimes.) Thanks to Hallmark's very own, Chris Dorsey, for creating the video, and my fellow designer Jessica for sharing!

A greeting card is born from Chris Dorsey on Youtube.

LETTERING : ABOUNDING HOPE

One of the things I joyfully had the opportunity to work on during the past few months was a brand new Dayspring card line called "Abounding Hope", which will be out next summer/fall. I was able to do six different cards, four lettered by myself (I art directed a freelancer on the other two lettering jobs). I wanted to share some of the process behind my designs, with hopes to show more of the final product eventually...

MEET THE U-NEEKS!

They're finally here! All fearfully and wonderfully made, a little quirky, a bit strange, and completely U-Neek!

This is the message we hope to bring to kids and adults alike: to embrace the qualities that may make us odd, funny or unique, but still exactly the way God fearfully and wonderfully made us. Through simple, pun-ny messages of encouragement, these characters are a perfect way to bring a smile to someone's face, and are sure to catch an eye or two (or three).

I had so much fun working on them with my buddy, Jon, and I hope we can get an opportunity to do more! Please check out the site here to learn more about the characters, and try your local Christian bookstore/retailer to see them in person!

U-NEEKS : Plush!

A couple weeks ago, I posted about a character driven card line that we're producing at Dayspring, due out this summer. Well, earlier this week, Jon Huckeby and I (the two designers behind the characters) received samples of the four plush characters that will be sold alongside the 20 other cards in the line! THEY ARE SO COOL! It is so neat to see something I drew brought to life in 3-dimensional form!

Anyways, wanted to give a preview to the plush that will be coming out with the cards later this summer. Check them out! More to come in the future.

Also check out this teaser-promo video, published by DaySpring: here