Archive for the ‘award’ Category

Christmas Birds

January 30, 2018

I’m blessed to work with a wide variety of clients, but there’s a special place in my heart for helping artists get their work in front of a wider audience. So I was thrilled with Traci DeForge introduced me to Kathleen R. Bates to design her soon to be award-winning book titled Christmas Birds.

Christmas Birds FB 400x209 w awrds

What started as art created for Kathleen’s personal Christmas card over 40 years ago became a coffee table book featuring original paintings of birds paired with short meditations on the spiritual meaning of Christmas. The combination of art, nature, and Christmas themes gives this book broad appeal as a gift.

Awards for Christmas Birds include 2015 USA Best Book Awards Finalist, 2015 National Indie Excellence Awards Finalist, and 2015 International Book Awards Finalist. In addition, Bates was nominated for the 2015 Georgia Author of the Year Award in the Specialty Book category.

Available for purchase at www.ImagesFromHome.com, you might want one of these beautiful books for your very own and another to give to an artist friend or birdwatching enthusiast. Check out this preview of Christmas Birds.

In addition to designing Kathleen’s book, I designed her Rising Fawn publishing logo, the Images from Home logo, as well as a postcard, bookmark, and brochure that she uses to promote her book to individuals and retailers. I also wrote a press release when she was a featured author at the 2016 International Christian Retail Show.

Contact me to discuss how I can help bring your book from concept to creation. Or, let’s talk about your marketing and graphic needs. Call me at 678-521-8820 or visit VanessaLowry.com to see more examples of my graphic design, writing, marketing, and art projects.

 

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True Identity

June 9, 2015

True Identity frnt cvr final webI met author Jennifer Brommet nearly ten years ago through a loosely organized group of fellow graphic designers. She is also the founder and director of the nonprofit True Identity Ministries. Short on time and understanding two design heads are sometimes better than one, Jennifer contacted me to help with the formatting and publishing of her book.

An added bonus for me was learning about Jennifer’s childhood and how her faith has impacted her choices in life. In the book, Jennifer shares her own difficult journey from severe rejection and depression to freedom and joy in embracing her TRUE identity in Christ and how she felt called to start True Identity Ministries.

Born with a cleft lip and palate, Jennifer felt like an ugly duckling throughout her childhood. Her first reconstructive surgery took place when she was seven and her final surgery the year she was twenty-one. Jennifer’s mother told her the story of the ugly duckling becoming the beautiful swan. Since she felt the swan symbolizes her journey, Jennifer drew a beautiful swan that we incorporated into the cover and as chapter headings of her book. Jennifer says, “Swans remind me of how God sees me and they also remind me of my mother and the special love she had for me.”

Continuing the swan theme, I created this graphic of wings that was used to identify a key segment in each chapter. Double wing

I was thrilled when Jennifer’s book was nominated for the Georgia Author of the Year Award (GAYA). The GAYA ceremony has the distinction of being the oldest literary awards ceremony in the Southeastern United States.

Go here to find out more about Jennifer and True Identity Ministries.  Paperback and Kindle versions of True Identity are available on Amazon.

Contact me to discuss how I can help bring your book from concept to creation. Or, let’s talk about your marketing and graphic needs. Call me at 678-521-8820. Find out more about me by visiting my LinkedIn profile.

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The Chattahoochee Review

September 27, 2011

Friends sometimes become clients and my clients often become friends. And best of all is when a client becomes a friend and then becomes a client again!

I worked with Anna Schachner more than 10 years ago to create a logo and business card for her side business as a designer of beautiful bead jewelry. As long as I’ve known her, she has been a talented writer and a professor teaching creative writing at Georgia Perimeter College.

Anna was named editor of  The Chattahoochee Review, GPC’s literary journal, a few months ago. This respected literary journal is celebrating thirty years in publication and is known for publishing new and established authors from the South and around the world. They even have an annual contest, the Lamar York Nonfiction Prize, that awards $1000 every year. (Submission guidelines are here.)

I was excited when Anna contacted me about helping design and format the first issue of The Chattahoochee Review published under her editorship. It has been great fun to reconnect and have a chance to work with her and her team, including Lydia Ship, the Review managing editor.

In addition to this issue of the Review, I helped them update their logo and designed bookmarks, signage & ads.

This is what Anna said about working with me, “When we hired Vanessa Lowry to do the layout and graphic design of The Chattahoochee Review, a literary journal whose editorship was given to me just a few months before, I already knew that Vanessa was a great designer. What I would learn, however, was that in addition to her design skills — the logo she did for us is so perfect — she brings a kind of intuition that we desperately needed. In other words, being new editors and new to the publishing business, we didn’t know what we needed, but she did! She was patient, insightful, and always very quick to remind us of how changing one element of a design changes the entire thing. She even caught some typos that we didn’t. Her ability to be accommodating under our very tight deadline also meant the world to us. I can’t say enough good things about her. 

All you have to do is look at the cover of the latest issue to see what I mean. All the other literary journals are jealous. Enough said.”

This issue of The Chattahoochee Review launched over Labor Day weekend at the Decatur Book Festival. Anna was interviewed at the Write Here, Write Now radio remote on Saturday of the festival. Listen to interview number 5 to hear more about the writers featured in this double issue.

Subscribe to The Chattahoochee Review for only $19 for one year or $36 for two years. They accept submissions of poetry, fiction and nonfiction. Check out their website for full details.

Let me know if I can help you bring your book from concept to creation! Or, let’s talk about your marketing and graphic needs. Contact me at 678-521-8820. Find out more about me by visiting my LinkedIn profile or watching my video profile.

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Uprooting Anger: Eliminating the Emotion that Kills

October 26, 2010

Uprooting Anger by Charlie CumminsI have worked with entrepreneur and author Charlie Cummins for many years. It was exciting to partner with him in designing the cover of his book, Uprooting Anger: Eliminating the Emotion that Kills. And thrilling when his book was named a finalist in the psychology division of the Ben Franklin Award from the Independent Book Publisher’s Association. The front cover received the highest review possible.

Here is what Charlie had to say about working with me on his book:

“While Vanessa has been an outstanding resource for various projects over the years, she recently partnered with me to design the cover for my book Uprooting Anger: Eliminating the Emotion that Kills. Vanessa listened closely and quickly formulated a shared vision for this project. She presented several concepts in a timely fashion, that allowed us to refine the overall design. She also provided resources to assist in my desire to explore creative images for the cover. Ultimately, Vanessa brought together all the pieces to develop front and back covers that effectively brought all the themes together. She is a trusted advisor to my firm and an absolute professional. I will continue to utilize her expertise in future projects and for my next book.”

Charlie’s book is available on Amazon as both a printed book and on Kindle.

Watch a video presentation I gave about tips for working with a graphic designer where I used Charlie’s book cover as the example of the design process.

Charlie was my guest on the Write Here Write Now radio show and talks about how he leveraged his book for more speaking opportunities.

Let me know if I can help you bring your book from concept to creation! Contact me at 678-521-8820. Find out more about me by visiting my LinkedIn profile or watching my video profile.

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