New Design: The Chenault Life Blog Redesign

This past weekend I finalized the redesign of my awesome sister-in-law's blog, The Chenault Life. Sarah was an AMAZING and easy client. She had an elegant, modern, and fun inspiration board that led the process, but she was also open to many of the creative ideas I dreamed up. This is officially my first blog design (other than mine, of course). We worked on a simple, organic pattern based on a fabric that Sarah fell in love with, and kept the header really simple with a lot of white space. When you visit her blog don't just look at the design, you should check out her blog posts too. The Chenault Life is a fun, down-to-earth, creative blog that is worth the read :)

I cannot wait for Sarah to move to Chicago next year...
I see guest blogging in our future :)

Pigeons, Illustration and the Moving Image

via

This past Sunday while Reid was reading the NYT Magazine, I caught a brief glimpse of a striking information graphic where illustrated birds were used to represent famous tweeters and their influence. As soon as Reid put the magazine down, I ran over to investigate. The graphic was done by the famous and incredibly talented La Tigre, from Italy. If you aren't familiar with his work you should be. His designs are always beautiful and almost always embody a touch of playfulness.

La Tigre via NYT

As I was exploring his site, I noticed his new self promotional video (seen below or here). I have such a soft spot for pigeons. But even if you hate the dirty, little pests the video is very worth watching. Hope you enjoy!



Tales From The Basement from LA TIGRE on Vimeo.

Inspiration Overload: Abstract Patterns by Wanda Kamarga

 Oh my goodness...

Today while doing my daily inspiration search on pinterest, I stumbled upon the above watercolor pattern by Wanda Kamarga. When I clicked over to her blog/website, I was instantly hooked. Wanda seems like a seriously creative, renaissance lady. I love her style, her art, her design and her ambition. Plus the yellow pattern really made my day!!! Below are a couple of other patterns from her site. They are beautiful!

Chena Website Redesign is Up and Running!!!

It's official...
The Chena Design website is up and running! It has been a long project-in-the-making, and I am beyond-thrilled to introduce it to you! I hope you enjoy and a VERY Happy Friday.

Wrapped in Web!!!

 

My deepest apologies for being incredibly MIA lately. I needed to spend some time catching up with all sorts of design projects. Plus, I have been neck-deep in the final stages of my website redesign. It is REALLY almost done. Well, in all honesty, it is done. I am just tweaking one minor, last minute technical thing – I found out today that I need an updated server. Oops...

Web design ruled my world today and, honestly, I have a HUGE headache from it all. The technical side of stuff is not my forte. Instead I like to focus on the beautiful details of things. Take for example the above images of hand-crocheted spider webs from alovelything. Aren't they gorgeous?  I wish I knew the artist, and I wish I could see these in person. In my eyes, these webs are much more beautiful than all the code I looked at today.

The Beauty of Natural Light

 

Natural and minimalist and beautiful.

Over the weekend, Reid and I took the first baby steps towards buying our first home. We are (or I should say were) both a little intimidated by the whole process, and so we decided that for our first time out we would just stop by a couple of open houses in one of our favorite neighborhoods. Turns out that looking at homes is a lot of fun! We saw about five houses yesterday, and the daydreaming that came with it was wonderful.

We saw one home in particular that I cannot get out of my head. Why? Because it had an amazing little studio space with TONS of natural light. I didn't realize that crazy amounts of natural light was on my wish-list, but turns out it is. So, I have been aimlessly daydreaming about how my day-to-day work life would change if I had a plethora of natural light streaming in.

Here are some pics that only encourage my wishful thinking. Enjoy!

Wowzers! I could work really long days here...

Yes, please...

New Design: Lauren & Sam's Save the Date

Lauren and Sam emailed me a few months ago about designing their winter wedding save-the-dates. After exchanging just a couple of emails, I knew that Lauren and Sam were going to be a joy to work with! Their wedding sounded right up my alley – they are getting married in an "urban chic" gallery space in Chicago. Lauren wanted something modern with a twist of tradition that also incorporated her elegant color palette of rose and charcoal. I had a blast designing their photo save-the-dates, and am really looking forward to working with this awesome couple on all of their stationery. Hope you enjoy!