Better Late Than Never

Hello all,

Sorry for the distance! I've not only been traveling all over the country, but also helping my mother plan my grandfather's 89 and a half birthday party which occurred over Memorial Day Weekend. It's no excuse, but I've just been so busy with family that I haven't had much time to even think about this blog. There will be photographs of my outfit to come tomorrow as well as photographs from my grandfather's party!

For now, I will leave you with some awesome music.

Enjoy!

Brand Day Sunday

Branding is by far one of the most fascinating facets within graphic design. It takes one little nugget or idea and expands on it, translating it into various mediums to create a compelling marketing tool. Because of this, I love branding design! There are so many possibilities and it allows the designer to fully develop and evolve an idea. It's an exciting process and I can't wait to get more experience in this area as I continue my studies in graphic design. Because I am oh-so fascinated with branding, I have decided to devote every Sunday to branding design.

Here's this weeks branding!

This awesome branding was created for Egg & Dark, an urban development company and was designed by Toronto designer, Tyler Smith. 

http://www.behance.net/gallery/Egg-Dart-Identity-System/2678753

Check out more of Smith's work here!

The First Day of Summer

My first day of summer wasn't exactly exciting, but it was a much needed day full of lazing around in my sweats, surfing the web, watching ridiculous cat shows on Animal Planet, etc. While it sounded completely uneventful and lazy, I still kept busy (I can't sit still for long!). I unloaded my car and unpakced my various garbage bags filled with contents of my life. One of the major things I was to accomplish was finishing sending/addressing invitations for my grandfather's 89 and a half birthday party. I designed the invites during finals week, which was probably not the smartest idea but in the end they were finished and turned out rather cute considering I was working with such a tight time frame.

I feel like this design was perfect for my grandfather--dull colors, a neutral sans-serif. It was perfect! And it allowed me to continue my long-lived run with Helvetica Neue Condensed.

After I was done lazing around and working on my grandfather's invitations, I met up with my best friend since kindergarten for dinner and a little bit of shopping. Oh, and froyo of course! We went to my all-time favorite restaurant, One World. It's this hip cafe-esque restaurant with some really incredible food. It's also located in downtown Peoria, which means there was some really old brick buildings to take pictures by. I wanted to take more, but I'm new at this and was already receiving weird looks from people. This is definitely something I will have to get over.

What I wore...

Dress - Target

Sweater - Anthropologie

Shoes - Toms

Bag - Fossil

Pictures by Nicole Dyar (me); pictures of me done by Kelsey Phillis

Aesthetically Driven!

Hello all (or maybe one other person or none at all)!

My name is Nicole and I am the name behind this little blog. I am a 20-year-old graphic design student who has a burning passion and love for design and anything pleasing to the eye. I love practically everything (okay, maybe not everything, but I like a lot of things)! I wanted to start a blog to collect aesthetics and express myself through fashion and design. It's a part of my summer resolution (I'm a little late on the News Year's one so...). Since I have to be home and taking art classes this summer, I thought I would explore other ways to have fun and express myself!


Here are a few other things that made my resolutions list!

Don't mind my silly stickies note--I have an affinity for them and they practically cover my entire Macbook desktop.

I hope I stay committed to this dandy little blog, as well as my resolutions for the summer!