The cover was a synthesis of three separate images, that were merged using Photoshop.

The theme of the conference was ‘Sharpened for Success’, this brought to mind blacksmiths or sword makers.

Searching the usual image galleries there was nothing obvious.

So I found the three images that are shown below. The images were downloaded in RGB 72dpi JPEG format, they were converted in Photoshop to 300dpi. Output to the printers was via TIFF.

The biggest challenge was getting the sword to look right. The background on the sword image was removed and a lighting effect added to give the effect that the light was coming from the forge and not from all around. The sparks were added and then blended into the forge image.

The rest of the leaflet utilised the sword image on a black background.

The work was for a logo and some artwork for something called Vibe Factory, which is I think an creative arts business centre with different companies all working under the Vibe Factory banner. Ash had all the basic ideas and concepts, it was just a matter of putting it all together into a package for the client.The logo we settled on came about by fluke. (See image to the left) The font for the word ‘vibe’ with the ‘ibe’ being on a black background came out like that when it was typed in. I later figured that this font had lowercase letters on black back grounds and upper case on white. However, that simple fluke of the way I type was quite useful.It was a good bit of serendipity.

The final part of the project, and possibly the most difficult, was to try and link the logo for Vibe Factory to that of the companies using the facility. What we came up with is shown below. Images 1 + 2 show the main idea with the company logo taking over several squares, with the idea that the colour scheme would change for each company. Images 3 + 4, show a slightly different take on the concept with each company having a different square,

Overall, quite a constructive day. Just hope the clients like the art work.