Finally, We can now say we are headed towards summer, Happy Spring Solstice everyone. I am so looking forward to lighter nights, sunny days and warmth. Get the shorts out, go on a diet, get a tan line, woop woop!
Look what Google marked the solstice with, yes a Hedgehog.Its so cute.
I’ve spent the solstice putting new work onto my website I was supposed to be walking the dog but im sure Storm wont mind waiting until tomorrow for his long walk, he gets a long walk once a week the rest of the time he gets around 20 minutes and plenty of play which is more than enough. (Storm is an Alaskan Malamute, we thing he’s around 6/7 years old, we are his forever home after being through 6 homes in 5 years)
Cheeky half hour on Mum’s bed
Have a cheeky check on my Instagram, I’ve added new work there too, playing around with Polaroid film, my favorite!
Found my brand Logo, found my brand colours and font but wait my brand has a personality too! Why did i start my business, what are your beliefs and values, what do i do better than anyone else, what makes me special, what three words do i want my customers to describe me by? All questions that i need to answer apparently. It seriously makes you think about yourself and what your trying to accomplish as its not just about going out and taking your amazing photographs or making your fantastic art, that’s just the beginning.
My new logo is…….. a Hedgehog of course!
I personally started taking photographs as a form of therapy, to deal with pressures of family life and it snowballed into a business. I suppose looking at the questions it kind of helps to form a very loose start to a business plan, if you’ve not got one to start with. I really loved pulling the words together that i felt symbolised what i wanted my brand to say and how i wanted potential customers to think of me then matching those words to colours. Words have such power and create a response in your audience that i wanted to get it right, out came the mind map and colour wheel and i think i have my three colours for my brand.
Colours
Blue —— Reliability
Orange —— Artistic
Green —— Friendly
Fonts
Head text —– DrCarbfred Pro
Subtext —— Elina web
Body text —— Acumin Pro
Putting it all together i now need to make my templates for social media posts on facebook and instagram, these are the two i regularly use, i use Adobe Spark to make my templates but there are other apps to make them in and after i have my templates made i seriously need to get down to making some art! I have neglected to an extent my photography as we haven’t been able to go anywhere, my garden is empty of flowers so i cant get inspiration there so basically i have not done a great deal. However my lovely husband bought me a very exciting birthday present this year and i am going to enjoy using it to make my photographs in a different way.
My next project is Polaroid Lab, hang on to your lens caps its going to be a fun ride…………………………………………………………..
After the agony of finding my brand shape and colour i now have to find a logo, i want my logo to be cool, on trend and i want a little of me in there too. I looked at my business name ‘Spikey Mouse Photography’ i want something photographic in there of course and spikey mouse is a Hedgehog in Bengali, read my back story to find out WHY, so i want to incorporate a hog somewhere but i am also aware of the power of shape and colour which need to be incorporated too, so how do i get it all into one logo?
I have looked through page after page on google, cute hogs, graphic hogs, hogs with colour, hogs in lots of colour, how do i make my mind up! I downloaded 10 free vector images from Shutterstock and had a play around with colour and text, i then sent the three i liked the most to various members of my family and we took a vote. So i have my Logo now and its not the one i liked but in retrospect it was probably too cutesy, i will probably use it for a photo watermark though because i do like it.
Next is Font, now im going to drive myself crazy going through pages and pages of Fonts on the Adobe website, wish me luck…………………
I am often asked how I came up with ‘spikey mouse photography‘ for my business, I have to admit that it is all thanks to a boy called Ben who wanted to buy his mum a birthday present. Ben is my eldest son and one day when he was out with his grandmother he decided that he was going to buy me a present for my birthday, I think he was around 3 or 4 years old at the time. They finally came up with a ceramic ‘Hedgie’ hedgehog and Ben has been buying me 2 or 3 of them a year ever since. It is an understatement to say that I now have quite a collection and when I was naming my new business adventure everyone suggested using ‘Hedgehog’ but I wanted something a little different and found that in Bengali Hedgehog was spikey mouse and a business was born! Strange how things happen, I have a great and memorable company name and am reminded every business day of my little boy Ben and my lovely Mum who has sadly passed away now. Ben is now a grown man and a father himself and is really happy I chose to use him as my muse, thank you Ben. x
I am often asked how I came up with ‘spikey mouse photography‘ for my business, I have to admit that it is all thanks to a boy called Ben who wanted to buy his mum a birthday present. Ben is my eldest son and one day when he was out with his grandmother he decided that he was going to buy me a present for my birthday, I think he was around 3 or 4 years old at the time. They finally came up with a ceramic ‘Hedgie’ hedgehog and Ben has been buying me 2 or 3 of them a year ever since. It is an understatement to say that I now have quite a collection and when I was naming my new business adventure everyone suggested using ‘Hedgehog’ but I wanted something a little different and found that in Bengali Hedgehog was spikey mouse and a business was born! Strange how things happen, I have a great and memorable company name and am reminded every business day of my little boy Ben and my lovely Mum who has sadly passed away now. Ben is now a grown man and a father himself and is really happy I chose to use him as my muse, thank you Ben. x
If you have ever taken the time to look at my FAA website (which is karen-lawrence.artistwebsites.com) you will see that i am a Landscape photographer and if you have read any of my previous posts you will know that i use photography as a way of getting away from the stresses of being a carer, (wanderings with Chris). I have been very happy looking for suitable landscapes and have thought of myself as a landscape/nature photographer BUT someone once said you should have more than one string to your bow and as i have recently found it difficult getting out with my camera i decided to have a think about what else i could do. Fortunately my daughters friends cat had kittens, i am most deffinatley a cat person so i asked if i could pop round and take some pictures of those cute little kittens. I then decided i didn’t want just any old photo, i wanted CUTE photos, so i took a huge mug, a toy picnic box and various other odds and ends. My first objective was to cuddle those little kitty’s of course 😉 and once i had made friends i posed the kittens and took a handful of pictures, had another cuddle, of course, and gave them back to mum. (no kittens/cats were hurt or distressed during the cuddles, i mean shoot).
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I really enjoyed this style of photography, not just because of cute kittens but because it didn’t take me far from home, was very enjoyable and i loved the results. That got me to thinking about what else i could try and after a look around i decided i would like to do a study through the next 12 months using a hedgehog door stop my kids had given me. Introducing Mrs. Hedgie and her family.
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I take her everywhere looking for suitable situations in which to place her and plan to have enough images in 12 months to make a calender and i hope a children’s book. It should keep me out of trouble for a while and i hope prove a source of entertainment for other hedgehog lovers. Another enjoyable string to my bow and one that i hope will bring in custom to my burgeoning business.
Spikey Mouse Photography Blog 