An excersize in futility

I'm not really going to say anything about this. Just going to post the art.

Good News!

So acting on a hunch of Darlene's I re-evaluated my design of Jacci's leaf, did some heavy redesign work to make it look more,"wispy", and Jacci loved the outcome. No more artist's block for me! I also turned the dot of the J into a globe because Jacci wanted to see that as well. Here is what it currently looks like:

I may end up doing some very slight changes to this before I'm happy (the kind you wouldn't notice unless you had someone point them out to you while you were looking at a before and after image) with it. The next step is to translate it into color. Jacci already reviewed the last set of color choices I threw at her and preferred the more green and gold looking version. So I'll be taking those colors and making a lot of subtle variations of them and giving them to jacci to look at. I'm also considering looking into adding some heavy vector color work into my logo design process. The flat colors just aren't doing it for the clients and I agree with them. I need to find some advanced illustrator coloring techniques learning material to consume before I try to just do it on my own though. Otherwise I'll be wasting too much time for a crappy looking product.

In other news, I may have picked up a new client. This one is unique in that rather than needing 1 brand for one store, he may end up needing multiple brands for multiple products. This client is also unique in that he has his own clients. I'll be helping him with both his own work and his client's. He is a very talented artist himself, so the work I do for him may end up being less in the arena of producing art and more in the arena of marketing consulting.

So how do you feel about the new logo design for Jacci? Are you excited to see what ideas I have for coloring it?

DotD #5

a tad more progress ... meh
the whole body looks all muddy ...

Logo Design Progress

It's about time I updated you on what's going on with Jacci's logo.

Jacci asked me to create a version of my logo that looked more like a melalueca leaf, as apposed to the one I originally had. So this is what I've come up with.

The difference between these three black and white versions is the stroke width of the white in the center of the leaf. Otherwise, they are all the same.

We've been discussing color and she likes the idea of a gold and green color scheme (yellow-green analogous). So I've been playing around with colors and these are what I have so far.

Bright Green and Gold

Dark Blue Green and Dark Gold

Dark Blue Green and Light Green

Dark Green and Light Green

Yellow Green, Dark Green stroke, and Yellow Gold










Jacci sent me an image of a globe and asked if I could make it the dot above the J. I'm hesitant to do this because a globe is a fairly complicated bit of imagery for such a small part of the logo. My fear is that a globe will not scale down nicely making an icon sized version of the logo look bad. This would be a violation of my 7 pillars of good logo design.

Obviously for copyright reasons I can't use the image that she sent me as the dot, but I am going to be creating my own globe and trying to make it VERY simple to lessen scalability issues. I am worried about this idea but what the client wants, the client gets.

DotD #4

 

I added a background and pretty much ignored everything else for today

DotD #3

I've made a very small amount of progress on this painting. It still sucks, but I think it looks like it has potential.

DoTD #2

So as I was browsing the web trying to come up with ideas of something to draw I decided that I want to get good at digital painting. This is something that I could REALLY use some work on since my digital painting skills are virtually non-existent.

I found this image that I am using for reference: http://i.ytimg.com/vi/cubdagTiRHE/0.jpg

And since this might as well be my first attempt at trying to paint something in photoshop decently. I'm cheating like crazy. Mr. Missal used to always say that all artists are cheating lying stealers.

Anyways I'm uploading my WIP (work in progress) in place of my DoTD (drawing of the day)

If anyone knows of any quality free tutorials out there for this sort of thing, I'd be greatly appreciative. Thanks in Advance.

Drawing of the Day

I think I'm going to implement a new section to this blog (it's growing so fast!) called the drawing of the day.

The back story: I had an instructor, Mr. Missal, who says that all it takes to become an extremely skilled at drawing is to draw something every day for about 3 years (similar to the famous quote regarding 5,000 hours to be an expert at anything).  That was always music to my ears as someone who has only been drawing since his senior year in high school and was always competing against fellow classmates (some of whom have been drawing longer than I've been alive). But I never really acted on it anywhere near as much as I should have. I have gotten better, but slowly, very slowly.

The Idea: I am going to spend at least 15 minutes every day drawing something (anything), and upload it to this blog regardless of how embarrassingly bad it is.

The Goals: To embarrass myself into getting better, quicker. To receive creative critiques. To encourage discussion on this blog. To foster an environment where people feel comfortable speaking freely.

So here is today's drawing of the day:

 

I used this image as reference:  http://www.tortoisetrust.org/articles/snapper_1.jpg

If I don't receive any feedback at all on this I'm going to have to resort to doing something terrible. 

Project Assessment Form (Super Rough Draft)

To begin this post I must first apologize for it being a day late. The night before last I didn't get to bed until around 3am due to work reasons and the next day I woke up went straight to work, came home and fell asleep before finishing this post.

I am really going to need a lot of feedback on this one (Please and Thank You). This project has gotten me all sorts of depressed since it required me to spend a whole lot of time and attention dedicated to everything I don't have figured out yet. I don't know how much I want to charge for every service, I don't know which services I do and don't want to offer, I don't know how much it's going to cost me to offer every service, I don't know what the best way to organize this form is, and I dont know if I should split this thing into packages or do everything on a per client per project basis.

What am I even talking about, you ask? Well I needed to create a project assessment form that I could take to clients and fill out during our first meeting so I could quickly get a handle of everything the client needs and quickly work up an appropriate price for the service. This form is more or less a giant check list of what the client needs produced along with a set price for each service (or in cases where a set price is infeasible, a blank space to fill in information relevant to pricing). At the bottom there is a place to tally up the total cost (or give a best estimate). Creating this form is very challenging because there are a lot of variables to consider when setting my pricing, and that doesn't even address the issues with organizing the form to avoid redundancy.

Enough talking, here is the first draft:

 

 Obviously I have a lot of work cut out for me. Any suggestions for how I should arrange the form? Am I missing key variables?

Client Assessment Form / Personality Profile

Earlier I mentioned that I was going to create a Client Assessment Form for the purpose of better understanding my clients and thus helping me to create work for them that they can be happy with. I've created a first draft that's nothing more than a page of questions about the client (general interests etc.) and then it is followed by a True-Colors personality test I found on the web.

Here's a first draft:

Black and White Logo Progess.

 I was getting a little ahead of myself when I posted that screenshot of me working on the logo in color. I'm not near ready to play with that demon yet. So this is what I have right now. I'm hoping for some legitimate feedback this time.

I've included a 16x16 icon version of each.

more updates

So I have managed to update the look of this blog a bit. I think it looks much better now.

I also figured out how to get the labels I mentioned in my previous post as links in the blogs navigation bar. Now all you need to do is click the button and it takes you to a sorted list of all the blogs I've posted with that specific label.

Images of the drawings I did

7 Pillars of Good Logo Design

I've realized that as someone who's been billing himself as a freelance branding artist, I've been doing a terrible job of educating my clients. Like any venture a young hopeful novice embarks on, mine is already filled with lots of stumbling around in the dark like a drunk in the ally at midnight. The sad part is I have just gotten started. But now I'm getting off topic...

As I've been working on coming up with ideas for a new logo I realized that about half of the ideas I've come up with are (at least at the moment) horrible ideas for one reason or another. Some are too complicated, others don't translate well, and the list goes on. Part of the reason I've been doing this is out of a desire to give my client what they asked for. Except as an "expert" in the field, it's my job to properly teach the client what they should be asking for. When a client comes to me knowing they need a logo, I should stop them before they get too deep into telling me what they want their logo to be and educate them on what they need their logo to be. Otherwise I end up in a situation where I keep finding myself trying to paint the Sistine chapel when I should be trying to design Warhol's new Campbell's soup can.

The other part of the reason I keep falling into this time wasting trap is because I haven't effectively ingrained the principles of good logo design into my own mind. As an artist who's learned about logo design, I instinctively can spot what makes a good logo a good logo and what makes a bad logo a bad logo, but its not a list I can read off definitively. Instead its a web of ideas and principles in my brain and when looking at a logo I can instantly tell you what is bad about the design (assuming there is something bad about the design) but I can't read off a check list making sure I told you everything that is good about it. I can't remember everything that makes a good logo a good logo unless I'm looking at a logo that doesn't have a trait that it's supposed to.

To correct this problem I decided I would consult the experts of the interwebs to help me create a definitive list of things good logo design requires. Not that I need to be told how to design a logo, but I did need the help of others to make sure I didn't forget anything. It also helped to see how other people worded the same concepts because when your field is visual, sometimes putting things into words is a challenge. What follows is a list of what I am calling the pillars of logo design. I plan on bringing this list to all my future meetings with clients so I can quickly show them what a good logo needs and through the design process prove to them that I am meeting those needs. After all, if the client doesn't know what they are looking for, how are they going to judge the quality of the work at the end? I also plan on using this list as a checklist at every phase of the design process to help prevent me from wasting time in the future.

The 7 Pillars of Good Logo Design

Scalability

Logo's need to infinitely scalable. Look at the top of any web page and see the tab you have opened. What you see to the far left of the tab is a 6px by 6px logo in the form of a web icon. That's really small, and yet (if it was designed right) it still looks clear. There may also come a time when you see the very same logo on a 50ft banner and (if it was designed right) It will still look clear. Good logos need to be able to retain clarity at all sizes. It is this reason why good logos are designed in vectors. I personally use Adobe Illustrator to create my logos once I have a decent idea on paper.

Edit: Web icons are 16X16 pixels. Don't ask why I said 6X6. I couldn't tell you.

Simplicity

Simplicity could actually be considered a pillar of design in general. In good design, even things that look detailed and intricate at first can be reduced to something much simpler upon deeper inspection. All design requires a certain level of simplicity as to not overwhelm the viewer. Simplicity is of even more importance in logo design when you need something that can convey a message quickly, be recognized at any scale, and be recalled instantly by the person who viewed it.

A subcategory of simplicity is making sure the logo works well in black and white. As I was taught in school, it's always best to design in black and white first. If a design looks good in black and white, it will always look good in color. Something that looks good in color however, cannot always be translated to black and white. Businesses need their logo to fill many needs and are often times going to need to use a black and white version of their logo. Furthermore, color has a tendency to act as a mask to aspects of poor design. building in black and white first helps avoid this pitfall as well.

Memorability

What good is a logo that people can't remember? Part of building a brand is building something that people can quickly recognize. Seeing a brown UPS logo and instantly thinking of the Brown truck with the worker dressed in brown delivering a brown package to your door is an example of good branding. People see the logo and they instantly think of what it represents. Good logo design can be instantly recalled by anyone who has come into contact with the logo especially if they have a memory of what that logo represents to attach to the logo.

Timelessness

This is something people don't often think about when designing a logo or when coming up with ideas about what they want their logo to be. This seemingly unimportant detail is anything but unimportant. The last thing a business wants is for someone 10 years from now to look at their logo and say, "I don't want their outdated product." If someone can look at your logo and determine roughly what time period it was created in, you're in trouble. Logo's with a date on them eventually expire. To this end good logo design avoids trends that come and go and always looks to stay unique and different.

Originality

This one should be obvious. A good brand focuses on what sets it apart from the rest and makes it better. A good logo should be a part of this. No one wants a logo that conveys the idea that they are the same as the competition. People want choices and people are going to chose the choice that sounds the best to them. A good logo impresses the importance of choosing you.

Coherence

I've stated before that a logo doesn't have to convey a thought. If you were to look at a McDonalds logo for the first time, you wouldn't think of hamburgers. If you were to look at the Nike swoosh or the Pepsi symbol for the first time, you wouldn't think of shoes or soda either. Not until you've had the chance to connect the dots anyways. However, it might not be good advice to walk around saying that your logo shouldn't convey such a thought. Indeed, a logo that tells people what you do without you having to tell them does half the work for you and aids in the memorability of the logo. It's a really good idea to have a logo that articulates what you do in a coherent fashion. I'm still iffy about whether or not this should be considered a pillar of good logo design since it's not required, but since its a really good idea I'm leaving it for now.

Afterthought: the three examples I gave don't articulate exactly what the product is but they do still articulate an idea that helps make the connection to the product. The golden M for McDonalds makes you think of the name which makes you think of the food. The color yellow also makes you hungry. The Nike Swoosh doesn't convey the thought of shoes but it does convey the idea of motion, speed, and perpetuity, which will in turn lead you to connect those thoughts to the thoughts of their product. The Pepsi symbol doesn't make you think of soda, but red makes people thirsty, blue relaxes people, and the waves in the symbol are likely to make them think of liquid. So I'm updating my position slightly to say that a good logo should always articulate an idea that you want people to associate with your product in the event that it doesn't convey the idea of the product itself. I guess we're all really only selling ideas anyways.

Universality 

Good logo design transcends cultures. As a business grows and looks to markets, it needs it's branding to be acceptable to those markets. The ideas a logo conveys should be done in such a way that they aren't restricted by language barriers or cultural differences. It is also important that your logo be inoffensive to all cultures. What is perfectly acceptable in the US is sometimes entirely illegal in China.

As I was writing this I realized that there are other aspects of good logo design that are important, but couldn't really be described as pillars. Or at least, I haven't figure out how to fit them in next to these pillars yet. Some of these things include psychology and color theory. For now I'm happy with this list. I will expand on these other ideas later.