New Scanner

Santa brought me a high res. Epson scanner this year and I love it! It goes up past 1000 dpi. Now I can scan my art now and not worry about pixelated images. Here is my first scan of a sketch I did recently with no photoshop tweaking:

Basic Gear logo

I am excited to say that I am finished with the Basic Gear (outfitter company) logo! To continue off my previous post, my client chose the bear, which surprised me because he originally wanted a landscape. I was excited that he wanted the bear since I love drawing animals. I told him that the reason I chose a bear out of all the woodland creatures is because it is the most confident, resilient, and powerful out of the forest animals.

The previous bear sketch was too stagnant for my liking and I wanted to reflect that the company was always moving forward so I drew this sketch:

Then I traced it in Illustrator and added the company name and tagline as requested by my client. When I finished I realized how awkward the bear looked like floating on an implied hill, so I rotated him to be on a flat surface.  

I then got to play with color combinations and while I was thinking of color I wanted to keep it earthy  to keep it appropriate for an outdoor supply company. I researched earthy color palates and I found this one particularly helpful.

I took some of these colors and applied them to my logo:

I sent my client these 4 color options and he (and I) liked the chocolate brown bear the best. It is warm and earthy without being dull. From there, I saved multiple options of file types and made a style guide on how to use the logo properly. I quickly learned from my last client that if I skip the style guide my logos and all my hard work goes into the gutter. So learn from my experience, don't forget if you are making a logo to take the extra time to make a style guide or your vision for that logo (might) go to waste!

New Year's Resolution/Alphabet

I have realized I am not the best of art bloggers recently (thanks to Pinterest for letting me know that). I am inconsistent with blog posts and my New Year's resolution is to post something at least every 2 weeks. So something I have been working on is an alphabet for kiddos and basically every letter is formed by an animal that starts with those letters. Here are sketches of the first 3 letters:

Basic Gear Redesign

After finishing the TM Publishing logos I was ready for a breather, however fate had a different plan for me. My new client Dave stumbled upon my blog while looking for someone to redesign his current logo.

Dave is a one-man show living in the Netherlands who sells outdoor gear. So far he has outfitted expeditions to Mount Blanc, Kilimanjaro, and the North Pole.

Dave told me he wanted to keep the landscape concept and if I wanted to I could explore wild animal logo concepts. I began sketching and I realized how difficult this was (is). I need to make a logo appealing to an audience that is made up of mostly 20-45 year old men, who are tough, and survive in the wild.

Here are some sketches that I came up with and sent my client this evening. I would love any feedback from you.

Crimson Fog

I am excited to say that this is the final imprint logo for TM Publishing called Crimson Fog. This logo is for the genre mystery and thriller publications. This logo went through many variations before coming to the final that you see above. 

I researched all sorts of things from fog to blood splatters. Here are some images that inspired me:

Then I went to my sketchbook and drew a lot and here are the few that I sent to my client:

From my previous logos I felt that it was appropriate to go with something literal for the logo with some concept thrown in. My client liked B the best and felt that A and E were too dark for their liking. From their feedback, I made these more refined sketches:

My client liked the bottom cloud the best and felt that inorder to be a fog it needs some context. So for the mystery element, I decided to add a detective into the scene.

 My client liked B and D, however they didn't want the gender of the detective to be apparent, so I tweaked the figure by lengthening the trench coat and lowering the heels. After a few revisions, the cloud was taken out of the logo because of it's complexity. I looked up how I could make the figure appear to be in a fog. I found that fog is the absence of (in this case) a figure. I applied a gradient to the figure to make her/him appear to be in a fog.

Amber Ocean

This is the 4th out of 5 imprint logos for TM Publishing called Amber Ocean. This logo is for children's books so when I was researching I looked up the top 10 logos for kids and they were very colorful, playful, sometimes hand-drawn and just plain fun. 

After researching those logos, I searched to see what logos were out there already with wave or ocean theme. Below are the top three that I was influenced by. 

Again, I had to be literal about the ocean, but I noticed that the waves resemble book pages in a way. Below are my sketches I came up with. A, B, and D are pretty literal waves, while C, E, and F resemble pages in a book turning.

My client liked D the best and one the first round (a miracle) he liked it. All I had to do was tweak some more to refine the smooth edges and I was finished.

Burgundy Grove

Burgundy Grove is my 3rd out of 5 logos I am working on for TM Publishing. This branch is the Literary and Contemporary genre. (Emily Dickinson to the new American Dervish novel) My client wanted a pretty literal representation of their imprint brand.

In my sketch phase I wanted to have a visual metaphor of poetry represented in the trees. I wanted the trunk to be fluid and elegant. I also played with the style of leaves including blocked shape, variety in line width and individual leaves. I presented the following sketches to my client.

The client liked the 2nd one down on the left the best, because the trees where becoming one, he also likes the leaves on the top right tree and finally the trunk on the 2nd down to the right. I went back to the sketch book and came up with the following drawing (one of many) and my client liked it.

I then brought the following drawings into the computer and cleaned them up in Illustrator.

In all of these trees I wanted to portray grace and elegance as well as exploring different leafy top options. My client liked "A" the best and I refined the symbol further and added color. From my previous comp I fixed the line width of the trees leaves to flow better. I also condensed the trunks to become more of a solid shape as well as thickening the braches so you can see it when printed small on a book spine. 

Emerald Sky Final

I gave the client the "final" from the previous post and he liked it, but it closely resembled a spermatozoon. So I did some research on sperm (funny but true) to figure out why they looked similar. Basically, you got your head and your tail and the proportions of the cell, which were similar to my previous logo. Then, I went and researched comets to see why they looked the way they did. Comets have a trail of dust, an ion tail, a head and a nucleus. When I was looking at comets, my favorite part was the dust tail, which you see illustrated above. I also added a bit-o-dust coming off the nucleus (rock) so it detracts from the spermatozoon look-a-like. Lastly, I added a circular grid to the logo to make the tail more unified in flow and shape and voila! I finished the Emerald Sky logo. (2 down 3 to go!)

Emerald sky logo

Here is the beginning exploratory phase of the Emerald Sky logo. Since this publishing company specializes in Sci Fi and Fantasy, I had fun playing with the idea of spaceships and celestial forms. I thought about sketching griffins and pegasus', however that wouldn't work with the other 4 logos, because they are literal descriptions of the name of the company. 

 The comet was the best pick for the client and I am glad she did. I feel that the comet best includes both the sky and the emerald. Here I got to play with comet tails and figure out what the rock would look like. The client picked C with the rock in A. When I was finalizing the logo, I realized that the trail was too straight, plus the positive space wasn't working for me. So I changed it to be more dynamic and more like a comet orbiting an unseen mass.

Mexican Bird Mural

Back in September 2011, Trevor's mom and step dad went to Mexico and brought back something for everyone. Trevor's step dad's mom got a wall piece with 2 colorful birds surrounded by lots of flowers and leaves. She was inspired by it and wanted to paint her bathroom those colors. She also has a sliding closet in the bathroom that she asked me to paint a mural on.
I first sketched out the birds on a piece of paper and then redrew them on to the doors (after painting them white). Then I painted the base colors with acrylic paint/house paint. After painting a couple of coats on to each section of the birds, I was able to outline them (which also took a couple of coats, because yellow and white are so transparent.)
I finished this mural 2 weeks ago, but I forgot my to bring my camera when I finished it. I came back to take a picture, but my camera's battery died and I didn't have the charger with me so I used my grandma's point and shoot. (hence the low res pictures) So I will have to go back and get some high res pictures next week.

Finale of the Azure Logo

Viola! After drawing hundreds of thumbnails (mostly mountains), and some Adobe Illustrator magic, I have finished the first out of five logos for TM Publishing (actually six, including the actual company logo.) I am pretty happy with the way the logo turned out. It was difficult to create a mountain and a book shape, because there is so many cliche logos out there using those elements. I had to really research to make sure all my ideas had not been done before. In addition, I had to simplify it down and make it dynamic. I made the book asymmetrical, because reading isn't stagnant. You are going on a journey and sometimes flipping through those pages rapidly to see what happens next. I like that the client kept the element of the pop-up mountain to show that reading (especially now it's gone digital) is interactive.  The story really comes to life and you are involved with what's going on. (At least that's how I feel.) Keep a look out for my next logo within the next week or so!

Azure Valley

Following up on my previous post, the client got back to me and said they liked option B1 and B2. I wanted to play with the white shapes in the mountain, which I think adds more interest than just a silhouette. I sketched out some more ideas, based on what they said they liked and I came up with the 3 ideas shown above. I emailed my client the 3 options to choose from (as well as mix and match the following elements: book, mountain, and color.) The deadline is this Monday and I can't wait to hear back from the client to make those finishing touches. ( I am hoping to finish this tomorrow.)

My thinking for behind the logo is that reading takes us on adventures and allows us to explore new worlds. Opening that book unfolds those new discoveries to be found, especially when this company publishes travel essays, textbooks and non-fiction stories. I like that the book opens up and creates a natural valley and has the interactive element of a mountain popping out of the book.

Azure Valley Publishing

Hello All!

I have been commissioned to design 5 logos for a publishing company called TM Publishing. They have different category publishing names,, since they publish a wide variety of genres.
They are called:
Azure Valley: Fiction
Emerald Sky: Science Fiction & Fantasy
Burgundy Rain: Literacy
Amber Rain: Children's books
Crimson Fog: Mystery

I just finished the sketches and sent them off to the client. This what I told them.

A1. This one I am most excited about. I know that you do a lot of digital publishing and I wanted to take on the idea of a pop-up to compliment the interactivity you have with digital books. With this logo it can be modern with the sample of the origami or the multicolor. Clean crisp lines will make it pop as well as adding color. This also has potential for innovative business cards that have a simple pop-up in it and your clients will remember it. 

A2. Is also made for an origami style. I like the abstract of this logo a lot. It is made to be in the process of folding into a mountain (interactivity of origami), so the bottom half folds up. 

B1. This logo plays off of A1, where it is a silhouette of a pop-up mountain coming out of a book that creates a valley. We can play with the highlights in this logo and make interesting white shapes.

B2. Is similar to B1, however this one won't have any white shapes. We can really play with the shape of the mountain more and how the book opens.  This one is meant to be simple to fit with the modern look. (modern has 2 extremes one with gradients and one with simple shapes.)

C1. This mountain has potential to be either origami or just flat colors. I like that the mountain is coming out toward the viewer, so it has a 3D feel to it. 

C2. Is another one I like a lot. I like the idea of using 3 different sized triangles that actually create valleys within the logo itself. Again this can be either origami or flat color. 

Tell Me Who I Am

I am way behind on updating this blog due to being busy with work and my freelance projects. (Irony? Maybe.) I received in the mail the other day the book Tell Me Who I Am by DeNae Handy. (Click the link and check out the interior layout I designed). I was super excited to see a design project of mine finished and published. I have to say that this was a huge learning experience when it came to learning InDesign, working with clients, and staying up late to make deadlines. I recommend reading the book.

Here is the synopsis: It "is a collection of stories and essays depicting faith, struggles, and universal experiences of 16 LDS writers. Told with humor and sensitivity, theses tales offer a glimpse into a religious culture that is alternately criticized, admires, and misunderstood. Self-reflective in tone Tell Me Who I Am will inspire and delight readers with its heart-wrenching, head-nodding, and often flat-out funny narratives (I, myself have laughed out loud, causing other's curiosity to wonder what is so funny.) While dogma may define people, this groundbreaking anthology shows how our individual stories ultimately tell us who we are."

TM Publishing logo

These past 2 weeks I have been working on a new logo for the traditional and digital publishing house TM Publishing. These are the concepts I have submitted to the art director and I am currently waiting to hear back. The company wants a simple, progressive looking logo. If you ask me, that is quite vague. However, I did my best to figure out what exactly they want by playing 20 (10) questions. From there, I was able to get a more concrete idea of what they wanted. The owner said he liked the flag designs in the movie Kagemusha. He liked the simplicity and it described what they stand for and believe in. 

Now let's talk about my logo ideas:

1 A is an abstract of a book mixed with the feel of progression (arrows). 

1 B is with out the spine of the book to make the arrow more abstract. 

2 This logo is playing with the idea of a traditional book moving forward into digital copy.

3 A This is again playing with the idea of a digital book. Digital is something you can see but not really touch (similar to an illusion.) I also like how it switches view (one with the text at the bottom and one with the text on the outside).

3 B  is a simplified version of 3 A, referring to digital as well as to print.  I used the two key stokes [ ] and added lines for the text. Although, I worry about it being too simple.

I would love to hear any comments from you!

Sketch of a Woman

Today's post is simple, but I am excited about it because I got the exact likeness of my subject in this portrait.

Threadless design

I am braving the threadless.com community by submitting a little design I did for an infant onesie. It is currently getting approved and hopefully tomorrow people can start voting for it. If you like it, click this link or the one off to the side to vote for it. I plan on making more t-shirt designs in the future (because they are so fun to make. I recommend it!)

The Reeds Center

I finished The Reeds Center logo last night and sent it out today to the client! It feels really good to finish a project and the client is happy with your work. The logo has changed slightly since the last post. The client wanted all the words in the name to be the same size rather than the "The" be half the size of the title. I am excited to have another freelance job finished and will be starting on a website layout for a music company for children.

Little Sketches

This week I am posting some sketches (chronologically) that I have done in my little sketchbook. Enjoy!