News

Hello to both my customers and fans!

I'm excited to announce a new visual direction for The Grotto Creations in terms of the graphic design and overall feel, and I hope you all like it.

While I know it's not necessary to make an entire 'press release' for an aesthetic change, it's something I still love to make essays about to help gather my thoughts, plus it looks great in a portfolio. So let's get started!

First thing's first, a look at the old logo and aesthetic for The Grotto.
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When I first started making suits, I was living in south Florida, Delray Beach to be exact. Delray is my hometown, and still holds a very special place in my heart. Being around the south Floridian plants, animals, weather and people, was a huge inspiration to how I wanted my personal brand to appear to others in online circles. It felt right to bring that look into my fursuit interests as well. The bright colors and textures I use in my promotional material were all picked from photos I took around Delray. For tables at conventions, I tried to go for a sort of beach party vibe with my displays. 

The old logo featured a bright yellow sun, with a pink hibiscus flower to accent it. The sun was an obvious tie-in to my home state, the Floridian sun. I felt it was important to have something iconic of my own home state present in the logo. A pink hibiscus was chosen as the accent because it is used as a symbol of friendship. I always do my best to create a friendly space between myself and my customers, so this was an important element to the design of the logo.

While I still love the feeling of a south Florida beach party, I no longer feel like it's a branding choice I'd like to stick with. I suppose it seems a bit outdated in my life now. I started thinking about the most important qualities of my work, and how I could better represent them in a new branding direction. I also wanted something that would be a nice accent to my digital art branding, and vice versa. 
The logo for my digital art is a cloud with sparkles, and I thought that would be an excellent start for a new look. Clouds in particular are always shifting and transforming as they move across the sky, much like how my own creative thought process works. Sparkles are like the sparks of imagination. Then there was the color scheme to think about. Bright blues represent imagination, pink is playfulness, and light purple is ambition. These new colors are all representative of how I envision my work, and how I want it to be seen by others. 

I'd like to think of my creative muse no longer staying in a seaside grotto, but now moving to a magical cave in the clouds dusted with stars. I've always loved this kind of idea since I was a kid, and I thought it would be a really fun theme to bring into The Grotto Creations.

And speaking of muses, it's time to meet the mascot of the Grotto, Nova! The name Nova of course means 'new' which will symbolize the new design direction of The Grotto as a whole. I combined a few features I love to make in suits (Big sparkly eyes, fluffy cheeks, and cute accents) as well as the colors from the logo. I went with a dragon because even though I absolutely love the idea of having a cute puppy or other more popular fursuit species, I wanted to stay unique and true to my interests. Dragons are not only a great symbol of the imagination, but also one of my all time favorite mythical creatures.
I hope you all love the new look for The Grotto. And as an added bonus to the new look, I'm hosting a new giveaway! This will run the same way as my last one a couple years back, but will be restricted to Twitter to keep it simple. Please refer to the tweet below for information on entering!
Operating out of beautiful Florida since 2014!