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.

Between my bouncing around in advertising, web design, and illustration, my summer activities have included a new commitment to finish my children’s book. It is nothing of great importance, but if opposition is a measure of anything worth doing, then it must be of some value. Along with this undertaking, I am putting finishing touches on a English/Spanish flip book that may have some merit. When these are done I will offer them as e-books as well as your typical case-bound hard copy versions.

There is a great amount of discussion lately on the validity of this new wave of “freeconomics” that seems to power the web. Within this idea, the creation of products (like books) are no longer the end focus. Rather; creating a channel where people can connect and take part in the evolving stream of conciseness, seems to be the order of the day. Within this collective hand wringing, products can be purchased, of course, but the driving distribution paradigm is in the building of this hive mind.

It is a dichotomy of sorts. Much like building a boat in the middle of a desert or building the same boat in the middle of an ocean; too early or too late can kill you.

Some have espoused social networking as a safe middle ground for the exercise. It is a natural base to gather a collective of “followers” if only passive in nature, and use it as a jumping off point for when you are ready to leverage the power of your channel (or network).

Along with this network, is the idea of “giving away” your product. For example, giving away an e-book that can be read on a iPhone, tablet, or computer. People watching such things say that free e-books drive sales to hard copy books of a more traditional nature and profit margin. I have reservations as how long this will last as technology becomes more and more portable over time. It feels like a transition solution. Still, the idea has merits.

It is all very interesting from many points of view. The new breed of publishers, marketers, advertising aficionados, and content producers are looking at this and saying: Hmmmmmm. Myself included.

Get ready for a whiny RANT!

GURU is an online resource for artists and work providers to make connections and bid on jobs. In the past I have used them with some success. They were never enough to provide a steady income, but they did provide a stream of new contacts and clients for a minimal fee. I viewed it as an advertising expense. For $300 a year I picked up some extra work and exposure. In the beginning the work that I did more than made up for the expense. However, as more and more (talented) artists from around the world caught the vision of what GURU was doing the more bids I lost to overseas competition. It is hard to compete when a man in Malaysia will do 40 hours of work for $25. I don’t blame him for feeding his family, but I do not look fondly upon the business that propagates the exploitation. As a matter of fact, I often will look at the employer history and see how many jobs they have contracted overseas. If they all read “India” for example, I avoid them like the plague. For this reason I have developed a talent for reading in-between the lines of ads placed on GURU. The following is an actual ad placed on GURU. My reading between the lines are in red.

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Title: Graphic Designers for T-shirt company Project ID: XXXXXX Category: Illustration / Cartooning / Painting / Sculpting

Description: Start up clothing company, is in search of a few graphic designer/illustrator to work through telecommuting. (Can you read English? )

Experience Requirements: Strong experience with Photoshop, and Illustrator. (We don’t want to know where you got them as long as your pirate version works and you know how to use it.) Online portfolio includes examples logos, branding, t-shirt designs, screenprinting preparations (We have no idea what we are talking about, but the artist should be fully trained and exploitable.)

Company Background: We are a T-shirt company with offices located in San Francisco, CA that is focused on identifying and collaborating with emerging/undiscovered artists globally. (We are looking for artists who will work for peanuts, literally, from 3rd world sweat shops.) Our main goal is to (… undercut regional artists by using digital, tariff-free imports of intellectual property and …) provide premium/rare/unique t-shirts that combine our ideas with those of artists that we collaborate (Take your $100 ideas and pay you a quarter.) with. In addition to producing our own t-shirts (from your work) as well as searching for talented artists (slaves), our site offers an on-going t-shirt competition that is open to all artists. (We encourage a large volume of spec work for which you will never see a dime.)

Project Details: Below is a brief description of current design needs. T-shirt Design ( 3 Series of T-shirt Designs): We have several t-shirt ideas that we’d like to bring to life. We have the picture, (Don’t ask about copyrights) color combination that we’d like to use, screen printing materials & techniques, t-shirt design location, etc all in place. (The only thing we are missing is a tangible creative product.) We’re looking for a designer that can help us through the process of having the design ready for production/screen printing. (Again … we have no clue how to do it on our own and need you to do it for us for next to FREE.)

Packaging, Hang Tags, Labels Design: Going forward, we will be looking to have designs for our packaging, hang tags, marketing materials etc. (We are willing to exploit you further for as long as your Government is stable enough to guarantee internet access.) Please let send a resume, art portfolio, relevant material, and initial thoughts and/or questions regarding the projects detailed above. (If you can read English great. If you can speak and write English; even better.)

We are completing a set of marketing materials for Intermax networks. The work will include a series of 15 second commercials, an integrated billboard, and a direct mail campaign. I love seeing my work in print. But seeing it in a large 15 feet by 48 feet display is always exciting.

My blog site is not immensely popular, but it has it’s moments. I average about 15K-20K hits a month. There are spikes of course. Every once in a while, somebody with middle eastern connections will trip across the editorial cartoon I did of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. This will cause a flurry of comments, which I ignore. (I shut down the comment thread for this blog post a year ago; out of sheer boredom.) Of course the comments and the hits bring relevance to the post in Google’s eyes, which position it higher in the search engine. This means more eyes see it, which feeds its relevance. Again, those who see it, almost without exception, send links of it to their militant friends, which Google watches. Some of these people will post the article, or the caricature link inside a web forum, which will also cause a flurry of inbound links and then subsequent outbound moves to other relevant sites. All of which reflects positively on the page which they just left. (Mine.)

I sometimes wonder if those who are so militantly apposed to the cartoon (going on three years old) realize that they make it popular by visiting it and commenting on it? If you want to kill something on the web, ignore it. It will get buried under a mountain of apathy and nobody will see it. The more you rubberneck a particular post, the more other people will slow down to look at what you are looking at. It is a simple fact. Congrats to Google for quantifying this quirk of human nature into the most powerful search algorithm in the world.

However, this past month Mahmoud took a back seat to a new key-word rising star on my blog. This magic phrase is “bubble butt.” I mean really? How disappointing this hit must be for the ardent connoisseur of bubble butt when he(?) arrives at my post to see the G-rated rant about my anatomical drawing issues. It makes me chuckle a bit to be honest.

People all over the world are searching for criticlal relevant information, and the nexus is Mahmoud Bubble Butt. There’s a cartoon in there someplace. But the mental image is far to powerful to reproduce. Sometimes it is better not to draw what you see in your minds eye. Sometimes it is better to just let go.

Somebody asked (emailed) me what do I do to keep myself in business? In this market, it is is tough. You are linked with your pool of clients and their failures are you failures to a certain degree. When a client goes under I feel it. I am a small shop, I can’t not feel it. However, there are five things that I try and keep consistent that I believe contribute to the over all health of my business. (This applies to my illustration as well as advertising clients.)

Be service oriented: Treat yourself like a plumber with a pen. People come to you to get a service performed; to fix their visual communication pipes. They come to you because you are the expert. If they could have done the job themselves, they would have. Treat your clients with respect, listen to their ideas, and foster an attitude of service. It will win the client’s loyalty and keeps them coming back.

Be approachable: An air of superior aloofness may foster an image of artistic aptitude, but being a friendly, approachable, down to earth person of character is something that you can take to the bank. Unfortunately, art programs often don’t teach this positive skill set. A lot of artistic types are loners, and not apt at being overly sociable. This may cause an outward appearance of aloofness, when you are in reality standing behind a protective wall. As much as I sympathize with this, it is bad business. Do your best to be open and approachable. Your clients will find it refreshing and frankly it is a lot more fun to be around.

Be deadline focused: An acceptable job done “on time” is worth more than a stellar job handed in late. This is a carry-over from my work in publishing and illustration but it applies to advertising too. More often than not you are not the only person in a workflow. Copywriters, editors, printers, designers, illustrators, photographers, publishers, distributors, are all in the boat with you. A small delay on your part can equal thousands of dollars in overruns for your client and cause problems for the others who are depending on you to do your part professionally. This is no excuse to do mediocre work. Do the absolute best you possibly can, within the established deadline.

Be flexible: Stuff changes. Clients ideas evolve. Better ideas sometime take a while to incubate. For whatever reason, the work that you do and the reputation that you secure will hinge greatly on your ability to adapt to what the client wants today not what the brief outlined two weeks ago.

Be grateful: I worked for a number of years as an in-house artist and art director. I also worked day-labor for a few years before that. Sitting on my backside while I attempt creative greatness is the best job ever. Doing it for myself, on my own time on under my one direction and schedule is about as good as it gets. I have know some great art directors and creative directors at some high powered agencies and companies. Without fail, all of them have said that despite the downsides of begin self employed (there a a few) nothing beats owning a small to mid-sized shop under your control picking and choosing the work you want to do.