Discover more from Pelican Quilts
Five years ago my friend Drew Garza make a mark for my quilting project. At the time this idea for Pelican Quilts was just a glimmer.
I do a lot of marks and branding projects as a creative director for my day job and it’s one of my favorite parts of my work.
My role I play is to help the designer to represent this highly specific yet totally vague thing we want to capture. The vibe.
My method is to pull 4-5 favorites from the person. These favorites can be anything from the highly specific to broad. A favorite movie, a favorite painting. A memory from childhood. A favorite smell. It’s important to limit the list to 5 because the narrowing process is important. I might start with 20 things but then pull back to 5.
I also ask the question “What do you want people to feel when they look at your work?”
For Pelican quilts I didn’t want to overly focus on the sewing process even though this was going to be primarily about quilts and sewing craft. These are some of the images I shared with Drew.
The Bayeux Tapestry Horses - I really love everything about the bayeux tapestry. Every weird animal and scene. The narrative that drives this piece, its scale. The colors. This was my doorway into the formal study of textile design when I was in college. I began my university days as a history major. Once I realized that I wasn’t interested in any classes above the 200 level, I started searching for a new major. When I encountered this piece I switched over to textiles, imagining that it would be temporary.
Viking Ships - I visited the Viking Ship museum in Oslo, Norwary three times. Its my favorite museum in the world. It is so simple and holds just three boats and a handful of artifacts. These ships have no bad angles.
The Pelican from the Osterteppich Tapstry - the bottom corner holds the Pelican that I named this quilting project after.
Kuba Cloth - I love these textiles from south west Africa. My parents lived in Namibia for 25 years and I visited several times. I have a special fondness for this textiles.
I work on branding projects about 4-6 times a year and I really enjoy it. I took myself through this process with Drew, and I take other people through this process. For my mark I chose the Pelican as the dominate one, but I also have these other two at my disposal as the need comes up.