About Yellow Dot Designs

The graphic design studio has operated in Alexandria since 2007. Graphic designer Ellen Hamilton specializes in logo design and print design. The studio also does websites and motion graphics for video. The studio works with nonprofit groups, businesses, political candidates and publishers.

Ellen studied Communication Design and Fine Art, majoring in painting and printmaking at Virginia Commonwealth University, and in Graphic Design at NVCC. She was in-house designer at a publishing company in Washington, DC for eight years, leaving in late 2007 to start Yellow Dot Designs. Ellen has been involved with the Alexandria business community, the City's Archaeology Department, and local filmmaking groups. In 2011 she started doing motion graphics for video. Around 2016, she began work on the story of Scottish migration to the United States, which was intended to be a documentary film. That project is now a book, A Scottish Migration to Alexandria, which was published October of 2021.

Contact

Ellen Hamilton
Yellow Dot Designs
Yellow Dot Shop
Yellow Dot Publishing
Alexandria, VA 22301
ellen@yellowdotdesigns.com
(703) 328-8046

What Yellow Dot Designs Does

• Book Covers, Book Design
• Greeting Cards
• Websites
• Calendars
• Screen printed apparel
• Hand sewed purses
• Products for retail sale

 

Logo unveiling for Mount Vernon-Lee Chamber of Commerce

Scottish Migration Project

A Scottish Migration to Alexandria
was first published in October of 2021. I published the 2nd Edition in August of 2022.

For 7 years, I worked on this project as a historical documentary film.
The story is about how the Scottish Lowlands became so crowded, and the reasons that caused people to leave everything they knew, climb aboard a crowded ship, and sail in unspeakable squalor for many weeks to start a new life, penniless, in an unforgiving land.
Told through the story of William Gregory, who migrated from Kilmarnock, Scotland to Alexandria, Virginia in the United States in 1807. Discussion of the cotton revolution which was as big as today's digital revolution.
Visit: Scottishmigration-film.com

About Ellen

I grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I spent my teen years in the German city of Kassel, where I went to a German school and learned German and other languages. In the mid 1980s I worked as an Au Pair in France, and then lived in Barcelona, Spain, where I played my guitar and taught English. I returned home to study art at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia. I moved to Alexandria in 1992 and never left.

My first job in Alexandria was at Kwik Kopy Printing, where I operated Canon's first Color Copier. My customers were graphic designers having color copies made to show proofs to their clients. One of my customers encouraged me to go back to school to study graphic design. So I signed up at Northern Virginia Community College in the Communication Design department.

I opened my first design studio in my rented townhouse and called it Yellow Dot Studios. I designed by hand, ink on board. My customers were Alexandria businesses and restaurants. I designed their logos, menus and letterhead, and did illustrations and murals. I took a job at a nonprofit organization, where I used my first computer and worked with mailing lists.

I went to work as in-house designer at Thompson Publishing Group in Washington, DC for eight years designing book covers, marketing materials and graphics for the company website. From 2006 to 2008 I designed wall calendars for retail sale including "Driving to Pittsburgh" which sold at Barnes and Noble in Pittsburgh and other stores. In late 2007 I opened Yellow Dot Designs.

My college degrees are in printmaking and art at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia, and in Communication Design at Northern Virginia Community College in Alexandria. You can see my work over the years at ellenhamilton.com.

In 2016 I began work on a documentary film on Scottish Migration. See scottishmigration-film.com. In January of 2018 I opened an online store called Yellow Dot Shop. See yellowdotshop.com.

I have been active in many business groups in Alexandria over the years. I attend events at various arts groups including AIGA (American Institute of Graphic Arts), WIFV (Women in Film and Video), and TIVA (Television, Internet and Video Assn). I am interested in history and served on the Alexandria Archaeology Commission for six years.

In the studio, I have been working on book projects for clients. In addition, I have been doing screen printing and sewing. Come see the Shop at Alexandria markets and see my greeting cards, books, framed prints, shirts, scarves, hats and bags.

Yellow Dot Designs. What does it mean?

Yellow is warm like the sun.
It is unassuming and friendly.
Yellow is a color. A dot is a shape.
Artists work with color and shape.
Dot com generation.
A dot is punctuation.
Graphic designers work with punctuation.
A yellow dot is a visual image that helps you remember.
Yellow Dot is a design studio in Alexandria.
Yellow Dot Designs is here for you.