The relatively new fields of user interface/user experience design and research (aka “UI” and “UX”) is a fairly interesting field that’s had much of my attention for the past few years. As most graphic designers know, two big things that can catapult you into a new bracket of success beyond being “artistic” are:

• Understanding how to code my design ideas (HTML, CSS, Javascript, etc).
• Understanding of User Experience, including interaction, flow, wireframes, testing.

My friend Cari is a user experience expert with both visual AND coding prowess, something I’ve often admired. My friend Cari was also getting married this year, in June 2011! Her boyfriend had proposed back in 2010, and I always get a little gleeful when a design-inclined friend gets hitched – ther are SO MANY Do-It-Yourself options for the artsy bride-to-be!!!

So I was pretty honored when Cari asked me to design her wedding program cover! She had the rest of it covered, of course – color scheme, fonts, typography, printing, true to the expertise of a UX gal – but there was a blank spot on the front she was hoping I could fill.

For this project, since I was between printers, I decided to color with my long neglected copic markers, the fine choice of comic artists everywhere.

These japanese markers really took off in the comic cliques I hung out with back in early 2000, and I have to hand it to them – the fact they’re still alive almost ten years later is fairly impressive. They’re incredible quality too, just a bit steep at around $5 per marker. I highly recommend them.

Cari knew exactly what she wanted, of course. A few revisions later, we had both a portrait in formal wedding attire, and a casual shot for wedding guest gift bags, which were fantastic and thoughtful. (Chocolate, bottles of water, granola bars, a map of Santa Barbara…so genius for out-of-towners!) It was a pleasure to draw these and an honor to seem them printed on 100+ programs at their beautiful Santa Barbara Zoo wedding a month later.

Congrats Cari!

Coming up next…the requests keep coming in, squee! I’ll be doodling something up for a friend’s 3 year anniversary!