NICOLA GINZLER

Senior Graphic Designer
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FLG Font Tuesday

The metal/fire/sculpture art collective I’m part of, the Flaming Lotus Girls, or FLG, was interested in having merchandise made that, unlike these, wasn’t associated with a particular event or sculpture.

I took on the challenge!

Black-and-white vector illustration of a lotus with petals reminiscent of flames, surrounded by flames reminiscent of petals.

I found a beautiful illustration of a lotus flower at stock house Shutterstock and used it as my base image:

Petals reminiscent of flames; flames reminiscent of petals.

Work for arts organizations is often more freeing for me than work for corporate clients, with more daring choices possible—even desirable—in layout, color and type. The frequent tradeoff, however, is lower budgets and more design constraints. The constraints, here, for an inexpensive sticker: 3″ square or round; red, black and white only. But constraints can be good too, encouraging the designer to whittle down their thinking to get to the essence of what needs to be communicated.

  • I started with round stickers, and just the lotus without the surrounding flames. I separated the lotus into the inner and outer flowers by using different colors. My favorite round design is red “A,” which I put first in its group when presenting them. (For the rest, scroll down to the A-B-C-D round and square designs below the rule.)
  • For the square stickers I used the lotus plus the flames in the designs, and kept the lotus all in one color. My favorite square design is black “A,” which I also put first.

I relayed the designs to the FLG organizer and she did an informal poll of artists at the production site. The winners: round “A” and square “A,” my favorites! Very nice to have my design judgement validated with real-world results.

The original scope was one 3″ sticker, but the feeling for both designs was so strong that the organizer decided to print square “A” as a sticker, and have round “A” created as a 3.5″ diameter embroidered patch. Embroidered patches generally have a 1/8″ overlock border; we decided to have this in metallic silver (see just below).

Round design to be used as embroidered patch. The design uses a vector image of a lotus with petals that also look like flames. A: Red image with large lotus centered and bleeding off the bottom and side edges; inner petals are white and outer petals are black; "FLAMING LOTUS GIRLS," all caps and in white, is curved at the top third of the edge.

A mockup of the embroidered FLG patch with the selected design and metallic silver border.

A square designs to be used as a sticker. All designs use a vector image of a lotus with petals that also look like flames. Additional artwork that looks like flames has been added back in from the original illustration. A: Striking black sticker with red flames; the lotus is all white; black bar at the bottom; "Flaming Lotus Girls" type in white.

The selected design for the sticker.

Additional sticker designs that I also presented

2 round designs to be used as stickers. All designs use a vector image of a lotus with petals that also look like flames. A: Red sticker with large lotus centered and bleeding off the bottom and side edges; inner petals are white and outer petals are black; "FLAMING LOTUS GIRLS," all caps and in white, is curved at the top third of the edge. B: White sticker; lotus centered with red inner petals and and black outer petals; "Flaming Lotus Girls" in black funky type curves above the lotus; same type in red curves below it.

2 round designs to be used as stickers. All designs use a vector image of a lotus with petals that also look like flames. C: White sticker; lotus centered with red inner petals and and black outer petals; "Flaming Lotus Girls" in black all caps smooth type curves above the lotus; same type in black curves below it. D: White sticker with heavy red border; "Flaming / Lotus Girls" in black is centered above lotus; lotus has red inner petals and black outer petals.

2 square designs to be used as stickers. All designs use a vector image of a lotus with petals that also look like flames. Additional artwork that looks like flames has been added. A: Striking black sticker with red flames; the lotus is all white; black bar at the bottom; "Flaming Lotus Girls" type in white. B: White sticker with pale red flames in all 4 corners partially blocked out by a radial gradient; gradient is white at edge and transparent at the center; the lotus is all black; white bar at bottom; "FLAMING LOTUS GIRLS" in all caps at the bottom edge.

2 square designs to be used as stickers. All designs use a vector image of a lotus with petals that also look like flames. Additional artwork that looks like flames has been added. C: Red sticker with white flames; the lotus is all white; black bar at bottom with "Flaming Lotus Girls" in white. D: White sticker with black and red flames; the lotus is all red; white bar at bottom with "Flaming Lotus Girls in funky black type.
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