The IT Hollow Branding

Hi everyone! Erik here. I hope that this blog will be a place that you can come to to find some creative inspiration! Both Carolyn and I have some big plans for this site in the next few months, so keep checking back often because there will always be new things to spark and inspire your creativity. 

For this first post, I wanted to share some recent work that we've done and are continuing to work on.

We were recently approached by Eric Shanks of the IT hollow for help with a logo and some branding for his blog. He is a senior systems engineer and he started a blog sharing his experiences with computer networks and IT systems.  He had the content down pat, but wanted a more cohesive feel for the brand that he was creating. He already had the web site name, The IT Hollow, and that’s where we began.

We brainstormed and quickly and kept coming back to ideas about trees and technology. We tried several versions and the idea that emerged was a combination of a tree and a circuit board. We liked the thought of technology growing up from the ground, taking shape, and changing over time. We ended up making 3in x 3in vinyl stickers as a promo piece that could be handed out at conferences like business cards. The blog header was also updated and the logo was put onto t-shirts and buttons.

Just recently Eric’s blog was voted one of the top 50 VMware and Virtualization blogs by the readers of vsphere-land.com. To celebrate, we designed a TOP 50 award logo for the site. Check it out here www.theithollow.com

IT Hollow Blog Header

IT Hollow Screen Printed T-Shirts

IT Hollow Promotional Giveaway Vinyl Stickers and Buttons

IT Hollow Promotional Button 2-1/4" dia.

IT Hollow Promotional Vinyl Sticker, 3"x 3"

.....And we're back!

Hey everyone!  Whatever Inspires went away for a little while (ok, a long while) but we're back and we're better than ever!

Whatever Inspires is evolving.  It turns out that maintaining a blog was harder than I expected, and I gave up pretty quickly.  Lame, I know, but it's the truth.  Around the same time, my hubby also had a blog that went by the wayside, and we have been passing around the idea of selling some of our creations online.  We decided that rather than try to run 2 small side businesses, we would combine forces and Whatever Inspires was the perfect umbrella to run literally whatever inspired us.   There may be photography posts, and jewelry posts, and I am hoping to reinstate "What's on your Worktable Wednesdays" as we both write about what we are inspired by.   So, without further ado, I would like to introduce you to my hubby, and fellow blogger Erik.

Ok, he's not usually that ferocious.  He's a photographer, and fellow architectural designer.  We went to college together (graduating in 2003 & 2004), and have been pretty much inseperable ever since, except the year he spent in London getting a masters degree.  Finally got ourselves married in 2009, and have been enjoying our own little adventure since then - and looking forward to many years to come.  Ok, lets try this picture thing again...

That's better, well, he would like this one better anyway.  This is when the giant (340 ton) rock "sculpture" was moved from a quarry in Riverside 105 miles across Los Angeles to LACMA, and my darling hubby humored me to go see it one night when it was near our house.  VERY cool!  Anyway, he's a good husband and a GREAT photographer and designer, and I'm super excited to be sharing this blog with him! I'm looking forward to the other fun changes that might come our way, and continuing this journey with him.   Welcome to the blog, Erik, let's make Whatever Inspires shine!

tiniest of seashells

I found this website a couple of weeks ago, and I thought the images that Dr Gary Greenberg creates are so beautiful!  From his website: 

"During the 1990's he invented and developed high-definition, three-dimensional 

light microscopes, for which he was issued eighteen US patents.  

Since 2001, Dr. Greenberg focuses hi microscopes on common objects, such as grains of sand, 

flowers, and food.  These everyday objects take on a new reality when magnified 

hundreds of times, revealing hidden and unexpected aspects of nature.  

Dr. Greenberg's images of sand make us realize that as we walk along a beach 

we are strolling upon thousands of years of biological and geological history" 

  

Those images are magnified grains of sand, and I love how they look like teeny, tiny seashells.  It makes you think that the sand you're walking on could have been a seashell that one of the very first humans picked up at some point thousands of years ago.  It also reminds me how beautiful the design of our planet is, and how wondrous it is that something that seems so average to our naked eye actually has such a beautiful, purposeful design when you look closer at it.  It makes me want to celebrate the creation of this beautiful planet!  

Enjoy your weekend everyone, and remember to celebrate the beauty in the everyday objects you see around you!

What's on your Worktable Wednesday

I can't wait to wear this one! Keeping on my ocean and tropical theme, I pulled out this flamingo charm that I bought a while ago at a bead store in Las Vegas, called Bead Jungle.  They have an awesome collection of charms, and I have picked up quite a few there when we go visit the hubby's parents. To go along with my flamingo, I pulled out all the tropical blue rounds that I have, and some pink & turquoise cubes, just for a bit of variety, as well as the matching blue and pink Swarovski crystals.

I originally thought I was going to do a double stranded bracelet, since the cool flamingo charm is much bigger than I normally work with, but when I started working on that, I didn't really like the way it was looking. So I took that apart, and started working on something else. I'm pretty happy with the way it's turning out, although I can't decide if I like both colors of the little rounds, or if I want to switch one of them out with a similar color of Swarovski crystal.  What do you think, any suggestions?

Color Palette Mondays: Ocean View

In honor of our kayaking trip yesterday, I thought I would pull out one of my pictures of the Pacific Ocean from the past year.  My husband decided some time ago that he was going to do something called he dubbed the "California Pier Project" - which he eventually would like to turn into a little book.  This entails photographing all (or nearly all) of the piers that stick out into the Pacific Ocean - mostly starting at (or as close as possible to) sunrise.  That's REALLY early, but I'm a good wife and I usually go with him without complaining too much.  The funny thing is, I'll complain when we get up that early (like 4:30 in the summer time) but once we get there, I always have fun.  I usually bring along my little point and shoot camera, just for fun, and I take random pictures of whatever I think is beautiful - I usually end up with a lot of photos of pelicans, any other wildlife we see and my husband in various random poses taking pictures on the pier (my favorites are when he lays down on the ground).  And sometimes, it's waves.  This day, we were at Manhattan Beach, and I sat for some time on the beach just taking pictures into the ocean of the different waves.  I think this is one of my favorites :) Hope you all had a good weekend!

Tropical Whimsy

So, I know it's supposed to be "What's on your worktable Wednesday" but to be honest with you, we were busy this weekend and I haven't started anything new, plus I brought some work home with me tonight, so what's on my worktable tonight was uploading a PowerPoint presentation for my boss.  It happens.  Instead we're gonna talk about the tropics, OK?

A few days ago, Erik & I got the same email from Living Social.  They're one of these websites like Groupon, that sends out an email with daily deals on all kinds of things.  One of the things they have deals on is vacations.  They come in a separate email, and there is always several cool places for really cheap - usually anywhere from 2-4 nights at a cool hotel or bed & breakfast somewhere pretty.  So, the other day there was a 4 night trip to the Bahamas for $400 for 2 people.  It got the tropics stuck in my head!  It was all I could think about all the rest of the day.  I even got a couple of ideas for jewelry, that I have to get working on :)

I found a couple of images that I'm in love with, and I decided to pull together a treasury on Etsy.  Basically this is a little collection of up to 16 pieces that you like & have some kind of a theme.  I decided to call mine "Tropical Whimsy" and I pulled together a few things for the house that I would love to own, a few pieces of jewelry that remind me of the tropics, and a few things that I would love to get for our kids (assuming we ever have some...).  What do you think of my treasury?  Click this link to check it out, so you can get a good look at these beautiful pieces!  I don't know if I can pick a favorite, but it would probably come down to one of the pelican pieces... or maybe the flamingos... or... well, I really can't decide, I just love them all!  Which one is your favorite?

PS.  none of the photos here today are mine.  the first one is a downloadable wallpaper, and came from this site.  The last image is just a screen capture of my treasury on Etsy!  Thanks for reading :)

Color Palette Mondays: Whale Watching

Today the hubby and I went on a whale watching cruise out of Newport Beach Harbor.  I was not overly impressed with the overall operation who took us out, but we got a pretty good discount so I can't complain too much.  Plus we got to see a bunch of dolphins and even a fin whale!  The down side was that we've had some wacky weather this weekend - storms around here and tropical storms starting to push their way up from the South - so the waves were crazy high.  I didn't get a ton of pictures at all, because we were being tossed around so much some times it was hard enough to find a spot where I could see, much less be able to hold the camera steady enough to snap a shot.  I did get a couple of cool videos of the dolphins jumping near our boat, because I realized that while I couldn't get a still shot my camera takes pretty good video :) I'm always the problem solver! When I figure out how to edit them, I will try posting one or two here.  Now I know you're thinking, this is a really long story since she didn't get any pictures on the whale watching cruise, why is she telling us all this when she's going to use some other picture today.  Well, I got some good pictures while we were more in the harbor where the water was calmer.  On the way in, our captain took us right up to the bouy that marked the end of the harbor area, and there were half a dozen sealions hanging out on the bottom of it.  They were super cool, and posing for our cameras.  They make an interesting color palette, don't you think?

I had to pull the green in form the alge on the bouy as well as that bright red of the bouy.

The other really great photo op I got was as everyone was getting off the boat.  A small fishing boat had stopped near where we were docked, and a pelican was hanging out.  The boat had two grown ups and a kid about 10, and best I can tell the kid decided to throw the leftover bait (maybe, or something else, I didn't see) into the water for the pelican.  Well, that attracted about a dozen more pelicans, and as the boat drove away trying to escape, one of the pelicans saw our boat and decided we might have food.  He started swimming right up to where I was standing, until he was about 5 feet away!  I love me some pelicans, so quickly snapped a few shots before we had to run off the boat!  I love this shot, and I really had fun pulling a color palette out of this guy.  It's actually kind of beautiful, don't you think?

Hope y'all had a great weekend too!  Did you do something exciting this weekend?