Design: Membership Drive

The first event of the social year for the Spouses' Club will be our Membership Drive. Initially, because there isn't a theme, I was trying to decide what route to go with the design of the flier. I played around with a version of the Uncle Sam "I want you for the..." poster as inspiration. However, with our new logo we decided it would be best to highlight it.

I had already designed a newsletter with a color scheme that coordinated with the new logo, so I decided to use that design for the Membership Drive fliers, too. I pitched the idea of making a little campaign to include a couple graphics that highlighted who is able to join the club. The final image below is part of this campaign. We are not allowed to use the Army and Air Force logos, so I had to be creative and find something that represented each.

Fonts used:
Milasian Circa Personal
Franklin Gothic Book
Franklin Gothic Heavy

 

Logo Design

When the idea of our base's Officers' Spouses' Club merging with the Enlisted Spouses' Club, one of my first thoughts was that we could use a new logo. Being that my position is PR, coming up with a new logo fell on my shoulders. I have never really created a logo before, so this gave me a great chance to try my hand at it.

My initial thought was to do something a little similar to their current logo. Since our base is located in South Carolina, the current logo uses the South Carolina state and the palmetto moon. Both are really popular images here. But I wanted to branch out just a bit and make it more personalized to our town. My idea was to use an iris. Our town has a park that is known for their irises.

After some feedback from the president, I ended up creating several different options for the board to choose between. This led me to fifteen options.

My very first idea is shown in Option #1 below. I replaced the top of the palmetto tree with the iris flower. This is commonly done for car decals and such in South Carolina. You can find ones with the Clemson paw, South Carolina Gamecocks, etc.

I also wanted to try one without the palm tree base and an iris stem base, like in Option #2. To make sure we had all our bases covered, the President wanted me to include the palmetto moon, as well. And finally for Options #4 and #5, I was inspired by a few car decals I saw while driving down I-95 one weekend. 

We shared the 15 options with the board and narrowed it down to four. We decided on blue for some continuity with the current logo. I happen to think it is a great shade of Carolina blue!

In the end, the majority chose #3. This was actually my favorite one! I was secretly hoping for it to win. How often does that work out? It does make me feel validated in my amateur graphic design abilities. 

Bacon wrapped pimento cheese stuffed okra

I grew up mainly in the lowcountry of South Carolina. Because neither of my parents are Southern, I did not eat a lot of Southern cuisine when I was a kid. I probably would not have enjoyed much of it anyway because I was such a picky eater. I'm a quarter Italian and I did not even like spaghetti sauce for the longest time!

Over the years my palette has expanded greatly. One food item that I did not give a chance until a couple years ago was okra. It took living in California and having dinner with a friend from Washington state for me to try it. And it was delicious! Of course, it was the fried variety, so how could that not taste good?

Fast forward to moving back to the South... We have planted our vegetable garden and I included okra. It has been growing quite nicely lately and I have amassed a lot of okra from it. I did not realize the plant has such beautiful, delicate flowers.

Having never cooked it before, I searched Pinterest for some recipes. I found one that sounded perfect... bacon wrapped stuffed okra! The actual recipe calls for a shrimp filling. I'm still a picky eater; I don't eat seafood. But I was planning on making pimento cheese with our homegrown pimento peppers. Wouldn't that taste amazing stuffed inside a bacon wrapped piece of okra? I think so!

Fourth of July gave me the perfect opportunity to try this dish. It was easy to assemble and tasted FANTASTIC! It is just as good as fried okra...if not better.

For the pimento cheese, I kind of followed the recipe from Eleven Magnolia Lane. It's OK, but I've had better. I just have to find the recipe! Feel free to use your own favorite recipe or store bought (if you have to).

For the okra, I followed the instructions from I Heart Publix. The recipe suggests using regular bacon and not thick cut bacon. I happened to have thick cut and it worked out just fine.

Design: Play Date

One of the "unofficial" socials of the summer for our base's spouses' club is a play date. From listening to parents, I have learned that play dates are popular. They seem like a fantastic way for parents to get some grown up time while the kids run around and burn off some energy. Sounds like a win-win!
 
Fonts Used
Play Date (how appropriate, right?)
Franklin Gothic Book
Milasian Circa Personal

Design: Summer Dinner

Do you ever feel stressed out and tense and you're not entirely sure why? I have been feeling that way lately. My jaw has been really tight and I have to keep reminding myself to relax. The worst part is that I do not really have that much to be stressed about. I have a few events coming up, but nothing I really need to be overly stressed about. On the plus side, it has made me get down and do some yoga. I have been so slack about working out lately (hmm...that probably has something to do with my stress level). I found a new yoga channel through a Pinterest post; it's called Yoga with Kassandra. She has a lot of Yin Yoga videos which focuses on holding poses for a few minutes so you get a nice, deep stretch. I thought these videos would help me de-stress a little bit. I've been enjoying them so far.

One of the events I have coming up is a dinner with my Alumni Chapter. Really it's an excuse to have dinner with my friend, Cheryl. She might be the only one RSVPed so far, anyway. But that's OK! I used to stress out about lack of participation from people in the group. But I have learned (and still have to remind myself of this from time to time) that it doesn't matter who actually comes. All that matters is that I give them the opportunity to build and develop relationships. Only they can choose to use the opportunity.

For the dinner, I created a simple invitation. It follows the template I've been using for these types of events. But I do love the background I found on Shutterstock. It's perfect for summer!

Fonts Used
KG Hard Candy Solid
Cursif
Bell MT

Design: Coffee

I am having a blast creating fliers for our base spouses' club. We recently voted to merge with the Enlisted Spouses' Club which means I will have many additional projects to work on. Yay!!! I have started to prep a few items such as a newsletter and trifold. The project I have had the most fun with so far has been creating some new logo options. I cannot wait to see which one is chosen! I have a favorite, but I will share more about them soon.

An event we have coming up is a coffee meet up. The summer is really casual and we do not have an "official" socials, but I'm glad they have a couple events planned. A lot of people move in the summer, so it is beneficial to have an event for people to get their "feet wet" with our group.

Fonts used:
Rhumba Script NF
Bodoni MT
Milasian Circa Personal

Design: Movie Night

My creative outlet has a new beneficiary and I could not be more excited! I am now officially the PR chair for the Officers' Spouses' Club (OSC) here at our current base. I loved this position so much at our last base and and I am so thankful the spot at this base opened up for me. I am just getting into the swing of things and will not have a whole lot to do until the end of summer since the club takes a break over the summer.

Knowing that I would be in this position and because I anticipate organizing more Alpha Omega Alumni Chapter events, I decided to purchase a Shutterstock subscription. Whenever I make invitations or fliers, I find so many cute images from Shutterstock. But to use them (without the annoying watermark) you have to buy them or have a monthly subscription. I was tired of being limited.

For my first OSC flier, I was asked to create something for the upcoming movie night. They have these once a month. I downloaded my first Shutterstock image. It was so hard to choose because they have thousands of images. I plan to use this template for each month's movie night but update it with the new movie. It will be quick and easy to edit and post.

Fonts used:
Broadway
Bodoni MT
Milasian Circa PERSONAL

My goal for the OSC PR position is to create some new "branding." We may be merging with the Enlisted Spouses' Club and a fresh look sounds like a good idea. Part of new branding is finding some go-to fonts. My newest addition and my pick for the new logo is Milasian Circa PERSONAL. I love finding new fonts!