Lila3lla Logo

My friend (Bmat of Throttle Down Speed Co.) has shared his love of video games and love of geckos with his daughter Lily. They're currently building her brand's identity: Lila3lla. He asked if I could design a logo for her. He reached out to someone on fiver a while back to come up with a proof of concept for her video game logo. He wanted something girly, but also bad ass that would tie in her love of gaming and geckos. Simple enough, right?

I thought on it for a while and finally got into Illustrator. I wanted to include how she wears her hair, how she smiles and capture part of her youth. I definitely didn't want to make her look too young in hopes of her being able to use the logo design for a few years. I went with purples to be girly yet bad ass. Through a Google search, I had found this inspiring photo of a girl holding a snake. She looked confident and powerful, which is what inspired the posture of Lila3lla's logo. Then I had to learn a bit about geckos to illustrate them accurately.

Below is the final product! She posts gecko stories regularly on her Instagram. I can't wait to see what her and her sister become as they continue to grow up.

Galaxy Archery Catalog

Galaxy Archery is one of Lancaster Archery's house brands. In past years there has been a four-page Galaxy sell sheet that included all of the Galaxy products and pricing. Each year the sell sheet got more and more crowded with products in efforts to keep it on the four-pages. The typeface used throughout the entire catalog is better used as a display font, which was not ideal to use for descriptions.

We primarily designed the sell sheets to take to the Archery Trade Association (ATA) in January which involved a lot of design projects and prep work. Each year when we would need to update the sell sheet, I found myself having very little time to make any big changes. I decided to plan ahead and do a full redesign in the summer when I had some downtime. I could focus on pricing closer to the event, but was able to be creative in the new design and emphasize the product images and information. I had expanded the sell sheet from four pages to now be an eight page booklet, giving it a small catalog feel.

Additionally, I created three Photoshop composites to incorporate some lifestyle imagery within the catalog. Before, there was never any room for inspirational and creative imagery. Below are the two lifestyles representing the two categories of Olympic bows and Traditional bows.

I incorporated these as section headers within the booklet and also created a lifestyle photo for the cover.

I laid out the product photos and information accordingly. I also created right hand and left hand icons for easier identification. I created swatches for various riser colors to better organize and display those options as well. I wanted a very clean and organized look and feel so that the product images could really stand out and be the main focus. Below are the spreads for the retail catalog.

Once approved, I created a wholesale version for our dealers that includes charts of tiered pricing for each item. For reference, here is a page from our 2020 retail sell sheet that I had inherited when joining LAS.

Below is the final product of the redesign. 

Right on Cue

One of my new favorite hobbies lately has been playing pool in league. I joined the American Poolplayer Association (APA) the end of 2019 due to the encouragement of my best friend, her husband and my boyfriend who have all been playing in league for years. Entering the APA and joining a 9-ball team, I would come in as a skill level 3 and win or lose to determine my long-term skill level. Being completely new to the sport, I quickly dropped down to a skill level 1 with a ton to learn. This allowed a lot of flexibility for the team though since we had a broad range of skill levels already on the team. 

I lost a TON at first, but that definitely made that first win extremely memorable. Eventually COVID-19 put a wrench in any social activities including pool league. One benefit we had was a pool table in the basement. I watched a bunch of intro videos and practiced nearly every weekend. When we came back to shooting league later in 2020, I was winning and bumped up to a skill level 2. Our team went through some changes as well and were now under a new name Right on Cue.

Once back to shooting full time in league, Right on Cue placed first during the "summer 2020" session. Unfortunately, we lost the first round of playoffs, however, since we had finished first in the session we advanced to regionals. Being a team full of friends outside of league, we were all really excited at our ticket to regionals. The winner of regionals then advances to go play in Las Vegas. While we have a couple months until our shot in regionals, we all decided we needed a logo design and t-shirts. After my busy catalog season at work, I got inspired and designed a logo.

In true fashion, I designed a logo based around a great typeface. Additionally, I came up with the concept of having the name be large and keep the pool concept subtle but still recognizable to those in league. "Right on Cue" references hitting the cue ball with right English, causing the cue ball to move differently after contact with the object ball than it would if you hit it straight on. Many instructor videos include diagrams of applying English with a red dot to signify where the tip of your cue should make contact with the cue ball. I wanted to include that concept subtly within the logo.

Initially I was thinking of using the "o" in "on" to represent the red dot. However, after several attempts, I couldn't quite get it to work or find the right font to pull off the concept. From there I focused on the dot of the "i" in "Right". Below is what I came up with.

Hopefully we can get these made up in time for regionals and have a successful weekend shooting! Until then, we'll be practicing weekly and having fun while doing it.

LAS Catalog Ads

Yesterday I shared the Lancaster Archery Apparel print ad I had designed and included in the annual LAS catalog. In addition to that ad I had created three additional full page advertisements featured throughout the catalog.

LAS Custom strings is an in-house brand/service.

The above ad was featured in our dealer version of the catalog, replacing some retail-specific products. In this ad I focused on the benefits and perks business have when becoming a dealer of our archery supplies.

This ad is a very broad and general advertisement of what Lancaster Archery Supply has to offer. It includes all seven of our icons that are referenced on the LAS website and break down the different types of archery that we provide and promote. This is also a dealer-focused ad. All photos are from our in-house and freelance photographers.

Lancaster Archery Apparel: Women's Tee

One of our goals is to expand upon the women's apparel we have available at Lancaster Archery Supply. With this design I wanted to focus on typography. I found a script font that had a bold yet vintage vibe to it for the main "Bows & Arrows" text. It naturally had more of a feminine look and feel to it. I added additional design elements to make the final mark.

I chose a heather gray shirt color in a soft style. The fit of the shirt was really important to me. Finding a nice woman's cut that is flattering on many body-types is quite challenging. So many cuts are cut small which makes it really difficult for ladies to shop, and especially for those shopping online. This Fruit of the Loom cut is pretty perfect as it is true to size and isn't as short as some other cuts.

Our screen printer suggested we do one pass of the white LAS logo on the sleeve and no white base under the front image. I absolutely love their suggestion because it gives it more of a natural and vintage feel to the whole look. Grab yours at LancasterArchery.com!

In addition to creating these three new garments, we added some hats and shooter jerseys to the 2021 LAS apparel lineup. I designed a full page ad featuring some of these apparel items that is currently being printed in the 2021-2022 Lancaster Archery catalog. Below is the ad design including in-house photography.

Lancaster Archery Apparel: Zip Up Hoodie

I love a good zip-up hoodie, and the District re-fleece full zip-up hoodie is a really nice one. It is a well-constructed medium weight. I've been wanting to design on a maroon garment for a while because it is such a flattering color and is liked by all genders. District has a heather maroon that would work as the perfect canvas.

Again, I went with a one-color design. I originally had some color options with this design, however, with the garment color being a heather it made the most sense to stick with a solid white color. I do always love working with one-color to keep the cost down, especially with hoodies and their natural expense.

With this design I was mainly inspired by denim jackets, large patches, motorcycle colors and the bold statements they make. I designed this LAS mark with all of that in mind. While it has a bold "in your face" LAS in the center, it is encompassed by a circle of arrows and a handwritten-style font. This creates a bold but delicate balance within the circular design.

I added the vertical LAS logo on the bottom of the sleeve to incorporate our easily recognizable logo.

They're currently available at LancasterArchery.com

New Lancaster Archery Supply Tee

I created several new apparel pieces for the 2021 Lancaster Archery Supply apparel. First up is a men's pocket tee. I started off with the Next Level cotton pocket crew t-shirt in forest green. This is a really nice poly blend shirt that is of good construction but also has a soft feel.

The design features a circular graphic I designed stepping away from the original LAS logo. A few months ago, I came up with the broadhead/antler design. I built on that by incorporating the text and other design elements. To be consistent with our other apparel, the original LAS logo is featured on the sleeve. I went with a one-color design in a neutral tan to compliment the forest green shirt color.

Overall I am very happy with how this shirt came out and you can buy your very own on the Lancaster Archery website.