Karen Lee Art

I have been doing print art direction and design for over 25 years. Here is a selection from a range that includes magazines, catalogues, annual reports, branding materials, storefront installations and media walls. I handle all parts of the print production eg. requesting quotes, choosing paper stocks and finishes, checking proofs, inspecting press checks and production file set ups.

Collaborating closely with the founders, I played a key role in bringing this brand to life. From initial concept pitches to the development of the final logo and style guide, every aspect was crafted with attention to detail. Partnering with a Webflow developer, we created a stunning responsive one-page website that seamlessly integrates video, Lottie animations, and vector illustrations, ensuring an engaging user experience. The result is a dynamic online presence that truly reflects the essence of the brand.

www.thesalmonproject.com

I led the UI/UX design for the website redesign, ensuring cross-platform functionality and a cohesive user experience. Working closely with the Head of Marketing Communications, and strategy, content teams, we built the site with WebFlow developers. I also art directed a set of still-life photographs for the site.

The redesign of the Food Agility website aimed to showcase and capture the crisp, freshness of food and to focus on what this CRC is all about, bringing together agrifood farmers, technologists and researchers for the future of food in Australia.

www.foodagility.com

Challenge: To design a brand for the Food Agility CRC - a $250m collaborative research organisation. To represent their vision for the future of food, incorporating the impacts of digital and technological transformation. Their current logo conveyed agriculture and food missing the innovation or technology parts of the group. It also needed to be used by partners who needed clear guidelines on how it was to be used.

Solution: I initially focused on representing one aspect of each area; food, agriculture, the future of food, technology, and digital, and also the act of what they do as a group, bringing people together to make and transform ideas for the future of food. From there I hybridized these ideas eg food + digital, nature + transformation, to uncover the best way of describing the concept.

Outcome: A logo process that uncovered the most important quality of the group; 'agility'. It inspires it’s employees and stands out in the marketplace. A list of deliverables is expanded upon.

From The Food Agility’s newsletter:

We commissioned art director Karen Lee to create a brand identity that conveyed transformation, agility, nature and collaboration. We think she nailed it. We see the two leaves as representing the synergy between our commercial and research agendas.”

https://www.foodagility.com/

Food Agility is a $150million+ innovation hub  that is creating new digital technologies and services to benefit the Australian agrifood industry. 

Our partners include agrifood businesses, technology companies, research institutions and government organisations.

Together we represent a broad cross-section of the food value system. We bring diverse perspectives to the table and approach challenges with a system-wide lens.

We are funded by our partners and by the Federal Government under its Cooperative Research Centres Program.

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The branding work included:

A full set of logos and marketing materials

Branding Guidelines Documents

Annual Report 2018

Website Art Direction and Design

Banners and Media Wall Banners

8 page folded brochure

Slide and Presentation templates

Business Cards and Letterheads

Magazine Advertisements

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UX case study

Examples of Style Frame Sequences for Clients.

A pictographic design for branding CSIRO’s space agency platform. CSIRO is an Australian Government agency responsible for scientific research and works with leading organisations around the world.

Challenge: Create a cross over infographic style illustration that would appear as a signature graphic for the new space agency platform on all of CSIRO’s branding materials.

Deliverables: Concept ideas and sketches, look and feel mood boards, final directions, final concept in Illustrator and photoshop file formats.

Role: Art Director, Illustrator

Morrison's brand needed a new approach. As they were expanding to states outside of their Perth base, they needed to convey more of a polished image. I found a solution that linked to their heritage, their mascot dog, Morri, together with a classic black and white colour palette which would work with every season’s collection. Using Morri, as the main symbol for all materials helped cement the new direction and keep a link to the past.

My work covered all concept and art direction for branding and in-house design, interactive, web, emailers, catalogues, invites, swing tags, labels, windows, photography, and diagrams. Production and quoting for print, packaging and labels.

Catalogues

Examples of a range of catalogues I designed and art directed, for the fashion label, Morrison.  Ranging from a tabloid poster that folds into A4 size, a square-bound booklet, an A5 booklet and other examples.

MORRISON RAFW INVITATION

Morrison needed an invitation for their show at Australian Fashion Week in Sydney. I asked Perth Photographer, Richard Woldendorp, if we could use one of his aerial photographs, matching the colours of the collection. We decided to use the photograph through out the whole show using the image in the store windows on large format canvas prints. This also launched with the new black and white branding, packaging and stationary.

Morrison needed an invitation for their show at Australian Fashion Week in Sydney. I asked Perth Photographer, Richard Woldendorp, if we could use one of his aerial photographs, matching the colours of the collection. We decided to use the photograph though out the whole show using the image in the store windows on large format canvas prints. This also launched with the new black and white branding, packaging and stationary.

“Food Agility CRC is a $150million+ innovation hub that is creating new digital technologies and services to benefit the Australian agrifood industry.

Our partners include agrifood businesses, technology companies, research institutions and government organisations.

We are funded by the Australian Government under its Cooperative Research Centres Program and by our partners.”

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This is my third year designing and art directing all of their collateral.

So far I have had the opportunity to design their Annual Report for 2019, a 29-page booklet and all materials for the yearly Summit conference, held at the Univerity of Technology, Sydney. This included creating a customised folder, 30 information cards, a media wall and posters.

I am constantly looking to add new skills and extend my current skills and interests. So I decided to get out of my comfort zone with the Illustration for Motion Course at School of Motion, taught by Sara Beth Morgan. This course has really pushed my illustration skills and tailor-made this for motion design. Here are some of the projects from the class.

Illustration for Motion taught the foundations of modern illustration for motion. We created a range of illustrative styles through client briefs for jobs specific for motion projects. Subjects include idea generation, conceptualisation, moodboards, style frames, sketching thumbnails, colour block techniques, digital illustrating, vector design in Illustrator and setting up files in Photoshop for animators .

Astronaut - Commissioned Artworks

Digital Prints on Canvas. 

Style frames and motion design for a set of instore screens.

Isonormic

Logo Design development for a VR/AR immersive training company, that works with the latest technology and global 3D and2D experts to develop real tactile experiences. The logo needed to embody elements of Interactive, futuristic, AR/VR and immersive sight and sound.

A company that runs innovation programs for researchers, innovators and primary producers to discover new opportunities in Fisheries and related industries.

The brand and marketing materials were created in time for the launch at The Seafoods Directions Conference, Sydney.

Saber Astronautics, a company specializing in reducing the barriers in space flight, needed a complete redesign of their existing website.

Looking at a way to develop their brand story, I concentated on finding a way of expressing what they do in space is so relative to how it relates to aspects of what we are doing on Earth.