We have brought to an end another calendar year, as well as another business season, the most successful for us so far. We have achieved all our business goals that we formed at the beginning of the year. It is noticeable that the business for most of our clients has also increased. Unfortunately, one of the reasons for this are the horrific consequences of the pandemic that has hit the United States and the UK, as well as the whole world after all.

This year was full of temptations. It brought us new reality and we all needed to adjust to the new rules in a short period of time. Unfortunately, some failed, not through their own fault. The market is simply brutal and lockdown has closed some businesses. Everyone who managed to push through learned something new and came out stronger. We hope that in the new year, humanity will win a complete victory over the pandemic and come back to somewhat more normal way of life.

Our business plan for the year 2021 is pretty much the same as the previous ones. We have added another member to our team, although Alen will still do almost all the work. However, we have big plans for the future and we think that the decision to dedicate part of our time to learning and improving the skills of our new member who is training in graphic art is the right one. It’s a process, so more on that next year.

We would like to thank all our clients, business associates and friends for the trust you have placed in us. We believe that we have fulfilled your expectations and we hope that in the new year we will only affirm the successful cooperation.

Our holidays will be slightly prolonged as we celebrate Christmas on January, 7^th, so we will be out of office from December, 28^th – January, 10^th.

We wish you all a happy and successful New year and happy upcoming holidays. Stay safe and have a wonderful time with your family.

Yours sincerely,

Aurora and Alen

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Also, this survey is opened continuously for our business partners as well as for everybody from the industry whose opinion and advice will mean a lot to us.

Thank you for your time.

[contact-form-7]

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As we are not certified designers, we have looked for someone who is (or thinks he is), someone who can meet our expectations for a not so big sum of money. We found the “solution” in online services offering such and various other services for smaller amounts of money ranging from $ 10- $ 100. Let’s not get into details, and we certainly won’t mention two online services we used, and to make a long story short – we made a mistake. In the end, we ordered a logo design from four different bidders. Two of these offered solutions that requested 3+ really necessary corrections at the mere beginning! We could not use either one of them, even after our modifications. Absolute catastrophe and $ 130 wasted. We decided to make our own logo.

How to start creating a business logo closely related to the monumental industry?

With research! We have come to the conclusion that logo design is a very serious job that requires awareness, knowledge and creativity. The first step is to focus on the general list of features that a logo must have: genuine, simple, memorable and minimalistic, and it must look good on black and white backgrounds. These are basics.
With this in mind, we have moved on to the messages that our logo should speak and which narrowly represent our business. We asked ourselves a simple question: what are we offering?

Picture editing of often older and bad photographs,
for further processing for memorial portraits for headstone in monumental industry.

So, our logo must represent stability and permanence, something that resists time and stands proudly and unchanged for centuries. That’s all that a family expects when they order a headstone, together with a quality picture on the headstone to confirm that idea. We decided that the main motif should be an antique Greek statue carved into stone, which will stand upright defiantly for thousands of years as a witness of time and people to come.

We have found this picture on google and contacted the owner for permission to use it for the logo. Pictures preparations for laser etching that we do are most commonly portraits, which include upper torso (just head and shoulders) of a person, so we only used that part from the picture we have found. We performed photo editing until we got a satisfactory flat black and white look. We’ve accentuated some sharp lines because we usually prepare these kinds of portraits for engraving in stone, where the depth of the engraving is highly appreciated, so the basic face features of our model looked sharp and deep.

The second part of our services is related to the picture preparations for companies that produce ceramic pictures for headstones. Furthermore, monument companies we work for often order photo editing of the picture, which is to be sent to the production of ceramic pictures. Also, we plan to get involved in the process of making portraits in GLASS ART technique.

All these pictures are commonly found in color and oval shape, which gives the ceramic plaque itself somewhat warmer and blissful appearance. In order to reconcile these two seemingly conflicting statements, we decided to put only a trace of color on our logo and include text that would be written in a mild and nostalgic font. The text also represents something that is usually engraved under the memorial picture on the headstone. We chose the beautiful Great Vibes font, which is completely free for commercial use.

Now that we have an antique portrait and a font to accompany it for our logo, we were still missing that detail that would leave an impression of what kind of business we do. That’s why we decided to put a rectangular frame that represents the headstone around everything. In the upper, right corner, we chose to put mild, light gradient, which represents tangible yet strong structure of a monument, as well as the sun rays that are shedding light on the memorial picture and headstone. These details are intended to say that the headstone and photo of the person will be illuminated and pampered with every new sunrise and will last as long as our sun exists.

In the end we got rid of all of the unnecessary bits and lowered the upper part of the rectangle so that the logo does not look too flat, and to get the effect of a portrait that springs out from the stone, which should represent a life that continues in some other form, which is the core of all religions – belief in afterlife.

After all of this, it was only left to vectorize our new logo. Once again, we are not professional designers and it is possible that in the future we will look for a new logo design or modify this one. However, right now we are more than satisfied with this.

The post How We Created a Logo for Our Business appeared first on Memorial Pic.

A few years ago we were contacted by a person named Chuck, with the desire to restore the picture he sent us. After the job was finished, the gentleman was very pleased and he sent another old photo to be restored. Then another. Then he sent another two, three … over and over again. The cooperation lasted 4-5 months, during which time we have restored over 40 pictures, some of which were very old (the very first photos of American settlers) and very damaged.

Among the most recent photos that were sent, there was a picture from the period around the mid-60s, damaged black and white photo, which we only had to fix. After we fixed it, we sent it back to him restored, still black and white, with the suggestion that further on a quality colorization could be done.

It may have inadvertently seemed that we insisted on additional money for a new order, so we sent in another email immediately mentioning that if he does not want, for whatever reason, to pay for the colorization, we’ll do it for free. And the gentleman replied:

As usual you’ve done more than I expected.. As to your offer to color it for me… I am over 77 and on Social Security … yes I would like to take the offer… Thanks Chuck…

We were speechless. This gentleman has sacrificed its social security to provide a suitable memorial album of his ancestors. This really deserves enormous respect.

Of course, we did the colorization for free, Chuck was happy about it and we were for him. After that we did several other jobs for him, after which we suddenly broke contact. We tried to find him, without success. Occasionally we remember him, as now, while writing this article.

Chuck, we hope you enjoy at peace, wherever you are.

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Photo credit: The Mysterious Man by i-am-JENius @DeviantArt

Note: This article was actually published on our other website that offered our photo restoration services only. Considering the nature of the content we decided to move the article here..

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