Hello Hinterland Book Launch

Really excited for the upcoming launch event for a book I illustrated, ‘Hello Hinterland’. The event will take place at Hodges Figgis Waterstones on Dawson Street, Dublin 2 on 28th April 2022 from 6-8pm.

Hello Hinterland is a collection of illustrated stories and poetry celebrating the culture and heritage of Fingal county on the east coast of Ireland, written by Martin Holohan. It’s colourful illustrations make it appealing to children, but it is a book for adults also, we want it to be enjoyed by everyone.

It was a pleasure to work on our first book together, from start to finish to this launch event. Martin is a charismatic person and writer. He gave me the freedom to work on the illustrations without direction, inspired by his writing. I then put the book design layout together using my graphic design skills, and we worked to get a quality hard-back print. Hopefully everyone will enjoy reading the book as much as we enjoyed creating it.

It is available to be purchased at Hodges Figgis (Waterstones) bookstore on Dawson Street (Dublin 2) and on their online store, Tales 4 Tadpoles bookstore on Drury Street (Dublin 2) and will be rolling out to a range of other bookstores in Dublin and Ireland in the coming months. It can also be ordered online from the book publisher Choice Publishing.

See more about the event here:

https://www.waterstones.com/events/hello-hinterland-book-launch/dublin-hodges-figgis

Enjoy and keep an eye out for it in bookstores near you in the coming months and year 🙂

April 28, 2022 /  

The Big Idea Mentoring

Excited to be a mentor with The Big Idea – Ireland!

A brilliant initiative and amazing opportunity aimed to connect innovative Transition Year students with mentors in the design industry on their creative thinking.

The Big Idea is a practically-oriented creative programme which empowers students to use their creativity and design thinking to develop a B!G Idea solution to tackle society’s biggest challenges.

It aims to foster creativity and innovation within the Irish education system so that current students can develop the tools to think outside the box. It shows the importance of design in schools. Exciting to see the ideas the students are coming up with and help them develop their Big Ideas!

April 5, 2022 /  

MUSE Design Award Winner 2022

Delighted to win a Gold Award in the Muse Design Awards 2022 for the Packaging Design of the oat drink range, ‘Oat in the City’.

I also received Silver Design Awards for several other Brand Packaging Design projects, including Katie’s Kombucha, A Good Mood Food and Saltrock Dairy. Great to see my client’s branding being recognised.

Muse Packaging Design Award Winner 2022

The MUSE Awards aim to honour, promote and encourage creativity by providing a new standard of excellence. MUSE Design Awards is an international competition for designers whose craftsmanship shift paradigms. Their ingenuity and thorough works leave others in awe, and in so doing redefine boundaries and scope – much like a muse.

See more here:

Oat in the City
https://design.museaward.com/winner-info.php?id=7750

Katie’s Kombucha
https://design.museaward.com/winner-info.php?id=7748

A Good Mood Food
https://design.museaward.com/winner-info.php?id=7745

Saltrock Dairy
https://design.museaward.com/winner-info.php?id=7746


March 31, 2022 /  

Your Life Audit Brand Launch

Brilliant to recently work on the branding of Your Life Audit. Your Life Audit is a business and brand run by Catriona Kennedy, specialising in one-to-one personal life coaching, corporate coaching and coaching for schools and groups. It aims to empower clients with the tools and resources they need to unlock, achieve and maximise their personal and professional development and fulfilment.

Life coaching is a rewarding process aimed at giving you the control and direction to embrace life and fulfil your potential. It can help you identify and utilise your innate skills and qualities, develop optimism and build positive relationships, find true meaning and purpose in life and more. To put simply, coaching is all about creating positive change for you, with you and in you.

I highlighted the ‘U’ in Your Life Audit to emphasise one of the main points that they would like to get across to their clients, that –

‘Once you focus on you, anything can happen’.

Catriona Kennedy, Your Life Audit Coaching

More to come on this brand project in the ‘Portfolio’ section of my website.

For now, find out more on their website:

www.yourlifeaudit.ie

Or on their social media pages:

https://www.instagram.com/your_lifeaudit/

https://www.facebook.com/YourLifeAudit/

February 18, 2022 /  

IDA Awards Winner 2021

Excited to hear I will be receiving an Honourable Mention Award in the International Design Awards for several of my recent Brand Identity and Packaging Design projects, including Katie’s Kombucha, A Good Mood Food, Saltrock Dairy and Oat in the City. A great start to the New Year!

The IDA awards celebrate and promote creative talent and expertise in graphic design and other areas such as architecture, fashion and product design so it is a great achievement to recognised as an award winner in these awards.

See more here:

Katie’s Kombucha
https://www.idesignawards.com/winners/zoom.php?eid=9-41218-21

A Good Mood Food
https://www.idesignawards.com/winners/zoom.php?eid=9-41221-21

Saltrock Dairy
https://www.idesignawards.com/winners/zoom.php?eid=9-41217-21

Oat in the City
https://www.idesignawards.com/winners/zoom.php?eid=9-41213-21



January 7, 2022 /  

MIE Strategic Report 2021-26 Launch

Marino Institute of Education ‘Education Transforming Lives’

Great to attend the launch event of the MIE Strategic Report 2021-26 ‘Education Transforming Lives’ at the Marino Institute of Education yesterday.

The event was hosted by politician, TD and Minister for Further and Higher Education, SimonHarris. The report’s focus is on how ‘Education Transforms Lives’. Simon further emphasised the value in this, speaking about the need to broaden the conversation around pathways in to education, so that there is not just one direct ‘hit-or-miss’ route to higher education and training, but multiple avenues towards brighter futures for people from all backgrounds with different and varying types of skills-sets – enabling access to education for all.

We co-created the report in collaboration with Laura Macaulay at Navigate by Design.

The printing of this report is FSC Certified, supporting sustainability and the environment by using paper when printing that is FSC approved.

November 11, 2021 /  

B4B Feature

A big thank you to the B4B network for such a lovely feature about Clare Lynch Creative and our design work. It’s always good to get nice mentions like this as it helps other businesses who are interested in getting Brand Identity, Packaging and Design work to be aware of our services and encourages them to get in touch to enquire about their own projects. Thanks again B4B! You can read the article here…

Clare Lynch Creative
October 7, 2021 /  

‘Oat in the City’ in the Media

Our latest brand to launch ‘Oat in the City’ Irish oatmeal drinks were featured on RTE radio on 3rd July 2021, where Kilbeggan-based farm owner Liam Lynam tells the story of how the character Eoin the Oat came to market, featured on his range of healthy and sustainable oat-milk drinks, and the story about how we came up with the the brand name. They are off to a successful start so far and are available to purchase in Aldi stores throughout Ireland, Donnybrook Fair stores in Malahide and Donnybrook in Dublin, Nolans in Clontarf and selected Super Valu’s.

Have a listen to the interview here and keep an eye out for Eoin the Oat, the brand character, on the front of the brand packaging on the range of Oat in the City oatmeal drinks:

https://www.rte.ie/radio/radio1/countrywide/programmes/2021/0703/1232829-countrywide-saturday-3-july-2021/

July 14, 2021 /  

Clare Lynch Creative in the Media

We are delighted to be featured in a number of design publications.

These features included the German design magazine ‘Creativ Verpacken’ and Favourite Design Book 2021. Being featured in design publications is a real kudos to the work designed by Clare Lynch Creative. It has many benefits, such as:

  • It helps our clients grow in terms of brand recognition and customer base
  • It, in turn, helps new companies and clients to find us by coming across our work
  • It is an honour when reputable design publications recognise the work enough to showcase it as exemplary branding

The latest features we have received were for the Packaging Design of ‘Flying Squirrel’ vegan plant-based cheese. In the German Packaging Design publication ‘Creativ Verpacken‘, it was featured in January edition (page 38) and March edition (page 10) of the magazine in 2021. It has also been selected to be featured in the 2021 edition of ‘Favourite Design‘ book, a book which features the ‘best of’ design around the world for that year. This book will soon be available to be purchased on their website and is a useful reference point to explore the latest successful graphic design and packaging design brands.

creativ-verpacken-1_2021-digital_150ppiDownload
creativ-verpacken-2_2021-digital_150ppiDownload
July 6, 2021 /  

Client Success – Flying Squirrel Vegan Cheese

I love to see my client’s do well, it’s a sign that their brand packaging has worked well and communicates the ethos and values of their product and brand to consumers.

Some successes of Flying Squirrel, a vegan plant-based cheese range are as follows:

The Happy Pear Stockist

Getting stocked and featured with ‘The Happy Pear‘, a successful health food brand and cafe in Greystones in County Wicklow, run by the two handsome twin brothers Stephen & David Flynn.

The Irish Times News Feature

A feature of the lovely Colm Farrell with ‘Flying Squirrel’ vegan cheese in the Irish Times News by Olive Keogh in July 2020 along with some other Irish food entrepreneurs, speaking about their success stories and how they are pushing boundaries with their products. Read the full article here.

Blas na hÉireann Irish Food Awards 2020 Finalist

Flying Squirrel has also been shortlisted for this year’s Blas na hÉireann Awards #blas2020. Blas na hÉireann is The Irish Food Awards – they recognise and reward the very best of Irish Food & Drinks and the passionate people who are behind making them. You can view more about there awards below:

Colm Farrell, the owner of Flying Squirrel is extremely passionate about what he does – creating delicious plant-based vegan cheese, free from any harm to animals and good to the environment. His passion, genuine nature and friendly, fun spirit translate across everything he does and I think this has helped his success. I love to see clients like Colm shine and reach their goals.

Flying Squirrel vegan cheese is currently stocked in a number of locations including Super Valu Deansgrange, @supervaluchurchtown #supervaluastonquay @thecarrotstail @its_a__trap_ and @thehappypear

August 26, 2020 /  

Design Awards Interview Feature

After winning Gold in the Muse Awards 2020, their linked marketing company ‘MuseDotWorld’ requested an interview with me on my thoughts on design, my experiences in the design industry, working with clients on their brand packaging. You can read more about it here.

August 7, 2020 /