B & N Creations has a commercial experience of nearly 20 years at drawing and designing Illustrations, cartoons, caricatures and logos using the newest flashy technology… But in what way can this help you?
Below is a glossary of services and how they might be applied to your advantage.
Social Media Avatars
Yep, I've even been asked to do this one. Makes sense, really. You've got to stand out in the hurly burly of Facebook, twitter or even the skype phonebook. As for blogs, a good avatar is your point of difference. We've produced quite a number of likenesses for these situations including personalised “twit” birds. One time we provided a “web mechanic” for a site designers blog.
Greeting Cards
A number of businesses here, in “Oz” and in the States have asked me to do cards for them, most often to say “thanks” to their customers after a successful year. I've checked with a local printer and found these are as cheap as dirt to print, so they're an effective way to build goodwill and keep your brand in your customer's minds.
Compact Disc Covers
Like authors, musicians find their products expensive to launch so I like to make our part of the process easier to afford. Our logos are suited especially to bands and hand generated cover remind you of the days when LP's were radical, fantastical and full of sumptuosity. Not to mention Symbolic. There's usually a lot of that. We've provided covers to a variety of bands... from NZ's Country album of the year to Folk-Rock in Chicago to a Prog-rock power trio in Norway! I wish the whole world was a rock gig...
Website Decoration
This one has been fun! By replacing the slick standard website cliches with hand drawn artwork we've seen sites turned into places the customer really wants to browse. Your site will take on personality and people will want to be associated with it. Like any presentation, a business blog also benefits from artwork pointed at the reader which takes reference from the text directly.
Short Animations
A moving infographic engages the customer's every sense... Bored one holiday I decided “I want some of these pictures to move!” and set about to produce three quick, quirky music videos and one more complex and detailed. The latter I vowed never to do again even though it was hot stuff. This lot grabbed the attention of the Hospital board and local communities who had health concerns about the Christchurch post-quake rebuild. The result was a four and a half minute newsreel-style presentation about building for accessibility and inclusiveness. I even provided the plummy “BBC” voice from my home recording studio. More recently three music vids were commissionws by local country artist Chas Williams.
Retro Logos
You remember the days when every comic book, every LP cover, every coffee shop, TV show and even the supermarket had COOL logos with lots of pep, tons of vim, and loads of vigour? Some of 'em even had a good deal of spank. Designers seem to have forgotten how to inject excitement into their logos! We've wrassled it back with such extreme prejudice that in fact, we can no longer do a boring corporate style business logo even if you want one.
Caricatures
Usually these would have a political agenda but a surprising number have instead been commissioned as gifts... for that “important birthday”; framed as a keepsake for a boss who's retiring or to commemorate an important trip. The airport commissioned a very nice set of these for Bob Parker when he visited Malaysia to promote Christchurch tourism after the quake. As an entirely different approach I've been brought into a shop to do fast sketches of their customers over an afternoon to celebrate the anniversary of Charles M. Schulz! THAT was so much like a Rock n' Roll gig.
Hand Drawn Maps
We love google maps, but sometimes we need instructions with a little more personality and... changed a little to fit on the page. You may want to show the layout of your premises to guests and do it with charm and style. You may want to show where your services can be found around the city but with a little humour injected. We've illuminated stacks of maps over the years.
Company Mascots
A small business and a sports team will learn a lot from each other. They both have a lot more fun than the poker faced corporate giants and build their confidence by expressing a strong team personality. Like a World War II flight crew this personality is often encapsulated in their mascot... be it mad dog, superhero, gun totin' bunny or long legged lady it helps bind the crew together, attract attention and give voice to “your thing.”
Real estate Visualisations
You have the plans (or not!) for a building but the investors need to see it before they sign the cheque... OR you have the dibs on a property but don't want to invest in it or the buildings until you have a definite buyer, OR you want to enthuse a landlord to let you set up a shop on his spot... Some artistic flare is required to visualise what the place might look like once you've finished the job and the money's in your pocket. Artistic flare is something we have in surplus.
Book Covers, layout and Illustrations
Publishing can prove expensive, so we've tailored special prices for authors wanting to break into the self publishing gig. We paint up delicious covers to attract the reader, stylising the title if required. Internal illustrations are tailored to your budget with reduced prices to get your project cooking. Lately we've gone the whole hog and laid out dozens of entire books, prepping them for print.
Presentations
Throw away the clipart catalogue and pepper your Powerpoints and Prezi's with drawings made for your specific event. If you want to make an important point, nothing impresses it upon punters like original artwork does.
Posters
A well crafted poster can advertise you event or serve as a visual during a presentation. A poster can be a flow chart for staff training, a pictorial mind map or infographic, instructions on using your product. More personally it can be printed on art paper, a framed image as a gift.
