I can honestly say that from the view of the lifeboats I now know exactly what not to do when Icebergs unexpectedly enter the mix. In other words; I am going to handle next semester in a different more successful way. These past three months have been a nightmare of developing course curriculum, grading, juggling studio work, and family. Although all four were addressed and tasks completed, all four suffered. It was a mess that I am still pulling out of. I know that it can be done. That fact that I have finsihed the race at all is a testiment to the viability of the concept. But my process was nieve and not very organzized.

Luckily, I have survived the test and I have somewhat firm ideas to manage the second round.

As a side note: I am thinking about redoing the blogfolio again. I am split between the traffic that I get from making and keeping a blog updated and the self-promo aspect of new clients just wanting to see my work. Most of my new clients say that the blog is a great reflection of my laid-back style and practical “no hidden agenda” approach.

Then again. Some people just want to see work samples. This part is not really me. Not sure, not sure, not sure. Well … like I said, I am thinking about it.

After TV commercials, billboards, handbills, lawn signs, newspaper ads, and a website, I am now creating postcards for the final push towards election day. Here are the set of the final four. I have really enjoyed this years election. It has been a lot of fun and of course Mike is a great guy. I really ought to put together a self promo sheet documenting all the integrated campaign materials.

One might think that keeping everything in balance while I juggle my responsibilities of school, studio and family life is a trick. And you would be correct. Oddly enough, I am actual more productive when I am busy. I manage my time more efficiently, I am more creative, and it seems to breed more work. All of which are good things.

My eye candy for today is a mock up I did for class as an example of thumbnails and comprehensive layouts. I still find it amazing how many “new school” designers don’t take the time to freeform noodle. I almost always present thumbnails and comps to clients before traveling down the path of photography and physical computer layouts. It is not that I am against the computer. I do my thumbnailing and comps on the computer. I just find that the creative process is more enabled when concepts are discussed with a client before nitpicking about 6 point type in an ad.

I have decided to redo color experiments with my venus boy trap story. I am moving the pallet to a more tertiary (behind the story and the drawing) role. The reason for this move stems from the power that the established line style of the drawing invokes. Any over color fights with this style and the resulting mix is forced and contrived. After some research I have decided that a color style somewhat between Maurice Sendak and Mercer Mayer should work. I will post new versions of this test soon. Really … I will get to it.

On the backside, I have geared down my advertising studio work in anticipation of the start of a new semester of school. I am working on a few menu boards for Green Gorilla, a new logo for another company, and some rack cards for a client. I hope to gear up again in a couple of weeks, once the semester starts to settle into place.

I’ve been asked to do a series of political cartoons featuring Obama and healthcare. The mercenary part of me really wants to do it. But there is an underlying reluctance to get involved in such a tired and polarizing topic. One of the cartoons depicts a Iraq veteran waiting 8 months for a properly fitting prosthetic. He has filled out a mountain of paperwork only to receive a reply from the VA that a picture of the effected “missing limb” (an obvious typo) must accompany the forms along with an affidavit from his unit commander that the injury actually occurred in combat. (Based on a true story) The veteran is using toilet paper and homemade velcro straps to hold the prosthetic in place. The cartoon should highlight “the impersonal bureaucracy of government controlled healthcare like the VA.”

Like I said; I may be too close to this issue to create an adequate cartoon.

I have officially started school which was a big deal, and I am working on a number of new studio project as as well. One of these projects was a late night story that I made up for my five year old concerning a giant venus “boy” trap that uses chocolate chip cookies as bait for for its evil and nefarious plan to conquer the world. He art directed the picture this morning as I put it together. The plant tongue had to be blue, his teeth had to be sharp, and there had to be little bones around the base. I added the scared bunny behind the tree.

Green Gorilla is a carwash located in Logan, Utah. The previous designer used cartoon clip art for a gorilla which the client hated. They asked me to create something that was more corporate, (at least not so cartoony) fun, but professional. “It should have the feeling of strength with a green environmentally friendly feel.” (Which gives you an idea how where the other logo did not end up.)

I started, as I always do, with thumbnails in Sketchbook pro. After finding something I liked, I looked up scrap from google and used it as a base for a quick high-contrast conversion. There is no button for this, I do it by sight. There are some who say you can do the same thing by using Threshold in Photoshop, but I like to add things that are not always there or conversely delete things which are there, but get in the way. The best conversions are those done with the mind as a filter not an algorithm. IMHO.

After I have the conversion done, I then jump into Photoshop and start distorting things. Again I could do this by hand, but I like the liquify filter for quickly pushing and pulling lines I have already drawn. It is also convenient to have an undo. After the filter is done creating a mess, I go back over it and redraw the art using the distortion as a base. I will again add or delete elements based on what I feel worked and what didn’t.

When the graphic is pretty much done I copy it over to Adobe Illustrator and do a hand-tracing. Again, there are some who think that Autotrace is the answer to all vector problems. While there is a time and a place for this tool, I often find I can do a cleaner trace, with less points, and a more natural flow, doing it by hand. (Quicker too; when you consider all the time that is saved by not having to clean up the Autotrace mess.)

From here I will start playing with “real” fonts, colors, and design elements. I can spend a lot of time down this hole; Time that is generally well spent. I try and control myself while at the same time giving myself permission to explore as many variables as possible. It is a balance sometimes between making money on a job and finding the best solution. In the process I try to find relationships between the graphic, the shape, the fonts etc. When I have something that begins to work I will clone it and pull it of to the side. This gives me a working file with a series of historical changes. This can be essential if I want to revisit a particular grouping or undo a customized font outline.

Along the way in all of this is the client’s input and direction. I think that their input is essential for a natural collaborative end product that we both share. With the final logo design nailed down, I will then start working on solutions for CMYK, 2 color, 1 color, Greyscale, and Black. I will also find a solution for reverse (if appropriate) or dark backgrounds. In the end I provide solutions in native .ai files as well as jpg, tif, .eps and png.

I’ve created a new website for Mike Kennedy’s campaign for CdA city council. I do a fair amount of work with Mike at Intermax Networks and I have known him for many years. The graphics which include yard signs, hand bills, this web site, a 60 sec video spot (commercial) and other collateral. We are also talking about a billboard and voter registration cards. Anyway, it is good work for a great guy who lets me have the creative freedom to incorporate my ideas into his overall campaign strategy.

This is a test of embedding a YouTube video. Great stuff here for fun and profit.

Web design is a curious thing. As certified control freaks, most designers have an desire to be able to control every element of a project. But to be honest, unless a designer can write the code for themselves, we are at the mercy of the person(s) who did. This means working within a box of sorts. This box contains a thousand pieces of a puzzle, some pieces which can be moved about at will and some pieces that must be placed in the right spot, at the right time.

This week I have been working on two such projects. The first project was a move from one host to another. This entailed backing-up the existing database, custom site-styles and themes; moving the domain to another account, setting up that account, creating a new database, installing the blog engine, and then restoring the style and repopulating the database.

In the end it all came together perfectly. Which is saying a lot, when you realize how much can go wrong.

The second project was an evolution of an ecommerce site. This site has 50+ products of different styles, sizes and attribute based prices. It also has a FedEx shipping module that needed to be customized. Again. With so much that could go wrong it was amazing to me how much went right.

I love giving my clients a great price on functional design that does not break the bank.