Sometimes Desiging Cakes is Part of the Job....

Sometimes the job calls for designing wedding cakes for our wedding title, Charleston Weddings. It's a lot of fun working with the local bakers.

Here are some other cake and floral design ideas we came up with for a holiday photo shoot. The idea was to pair a cake or sweet with a matching floral arrangement...a "how to." The entire piece never came together, but the sketches are fun.

Recent Work: November 2011

The December food issue cover for Charleston magazine. Along with a couple of other shots. We posted this to social media as a promotion when the the Diggity Doughnut food truck was going to visit the Charleston magazine office.

Charleston Magazine November issue. "The Music Issue" photo by Sully Sullivan.

Charleston Fashion Week 2012: Getting ready for next year!

Time to gear up for CFW 2012. This year we wanted to scale things back to feel more spare. Juxtapose harsh black and white runway shots with 2012 forecasted pastel colors from Pantone. With designer Gerald Andal, we created a color system with geometric shapes and colors. Each shape/color would be used for a different part of Fashion Week, ie: Rock the Runway Model Competition, Emerging Designer: East, etc....
The system would then translate to ads, posters, web buttons, e-newsletter, landing pages, you name it.

Recent Work: Feeling like Fall

Love this cover photo of the Lowcountry Marsh taken by Wilson Baker.

Frank Edwards shot these incredible shots on assignment in Moab, Utah.

The opener for our local music studio feature. Photos taken by Paul Zoeller.

Unbelievable house we shot on Pitt Street in Downtown Charleston. Full of unreal pieces by Warhol, Picasso, etc...All shot by Peter Frank Edwards

September cover photo by Peter Frank Edwards.

Charleston Magazine May: The Arts Issue

The Arts Issue. Charleston Magazine May. Great fun to design this piece on Don Zanfagna, a relatively unknown artist living right here in Charleston. Tim Hussey really captured him in the portrait for the opener. One of his pieces made a perfect "arts issue" cover.

Recent Work: Baby shower invitation, save the date, and cake!

Designed this Baby Shower BBQ for my husband's brother and his girlfriend. I saw some monkeys on some things that they registered for. And besides, the family joke about having Monk as a last name now perpetuates.


Lime green envelopes and raffia to tie the two cards together.

Save the date that I sent via email to folks who lived far away.

Couldn't resist a cake to match. Felt bad about art directing the bakers at Publix.... I gave them a sketch of the cake along with a design for the top and colors to match.

July Charleston: On the Water!

July. Our "On the Water" issue. Photographer Ben Williams got into the assignment by catching waves with our subjects. This image of a local kite boarder landed him the cover. It's not Waimea but it still has great energy.

This feature on board sports was inspired by new and old surfing graphics. My assistant art director did a great job piecing everything together for the opener. Photographs by Ben Williams.


And I really felt some love for this spread among many from our 2011 Summer Guide in the July issue. Love the quick reads, and giant cool treats that make you want to lick them right off the page.

The April 2011 issue of Charleston Magazine

Since I'm sort of an avid gardener, our garden issue is always fun. Not only do I have the opportunity to lay out beautiful features, but I get to steal ideas that I'll soon use in my own yard.

We try to shoot all of our big garden features a year in advance since we have to work on them when it's still winter outside. I sent this awesome photographer back three times so that we could catch several different things in bloom during last year's summer growing season.

The yard and garden were so huge and difficult to get a perspective on that I felt like a map illustration would probably help orient our readers.

Photographs by Peter Frank Edwards
Written by Melissa Bigner

Grand Strand Magazine: Recent Work

After being worked on in another office across the state, recently we brought this title back into our Charleston office fold. The demographics are totally different than Charleston so it's a terrific exercise!

This feature we did on edible landscaping was a bit of a challenge because of the season there was almost nothing to shoot. We added recipes from local Myrtle Beach chefs to make it more interesting and shot a couple of the dishes. Almost ALL of the images are stock. Something not ideal or exclusive, but in this case it made it happen.



And sometimes it starts with a sketch.