Logo - Back Pocket Entertainment - fist of fury!

BAM! How about them apples?! I give you - one of my favorite logos to work on - Back Pocket Entertainment by Matt Martinez. Matt and I came together back in spring of 2014 to create this little guy. I created a bunch of concept sketches best on his ideas and preferences and after a couple rounds, this is what we came to as a 'final' logo. I say 'final' because in my opinion, no logo is ever final. They change as the times and company change. But I think this is a good first step for Back Pocket Entertainment. The image above is the full logo in all it's glory. Below are the separated pieces. Please don't steal - these images and ideas belong to Matt and we would be both be very hurt if our hard work was stolen and exploited. Remember, we're the little guys, not huge corporations.

A little bit about Matt Martinez and Back Pocket Entertainment: Matt is a film guy. Back Pocket Entertainment is currently a podcast/blog site with aspirations of bringing fellow film/comic book/tv enthusiasts reviews and new content from things like interviews with other content creators such as artists, directors, writers, and so on. In short, there's a lot happening over there so keep an eye on it as the site continues to grow. And feel free to give encouragement! It's a fairly new project and if he's making something that you enjoy, be sure to let him know.

So there you have it! Back Pocket Entertainment - welcome to the logo world. I might do a post about the process I went through for this and other logos if that's something that interests people. If you're curious about getting a logo made, fill out this form and we'll go from there. Otherwise, go check out Back Pocket Entertainment!

with love - M

Re-Post: The Noun Project - Making my life easier everyday

Original post from my old WordPress blog: "The Noun Project might be old-hat for some but I only just learned of it this year. Thanks to my Creative Director at work, I now have a resource that I come back to time and again. I wanted to help support this wonderful site but sharing it.

So what is The Noun Project? “The Noun Project is building a global visual language that everyone can understand. We want to enable our users to visually communicate anything to anyone.”

From my experience, in a corporate setting we use these symbols in brochures and catalogs to help convey or reinforce an idea. Instead of bolding or headlining something you want to call out like ‘Fresh foods’, I might use a carrot symbol. Or instead of ‘weather resistant’ I might choose an umbrella. And it can get deeper than that, no doubt. I look forward to using more of these symbols, making smart selections for witty correlations.

Now I hope you all use this resource to help better your designs and communications. Some are free, some are not. Even if you’re not a designer, next time you think about using clip art, I hope you’ll decide to step outside the box.

They download as .svg so you’ll need a program capable of reading it and saving it as an .eps or .png. If you don’t have Adobe Illustrator, Gimp is a free open source program that does the job just fine."

Some updates to this - now you have to sign up with the site in order to download and all of the icons must be attributed unless they are bought, under $2. Once downloaded, the zip file now contains the .svg AND a .png so you no longer have to have a program to change them into .png. They also have cool 'kit' options now, kind of like a lightbox on some of the major stock photo websites. The premium paid levels are really varied, too. I mean really, $10 a month to not have to attribute all the time, that's a pretty good deal.

It always amazes me how many designers don't know about this site. It makes me wonder how many awesome sites are out there that I don't know about...

with love - M

Re-post: RõSõz Logo Design and Branding

Original post on my old WordPress blog in October 2010: "A freelance seamstress thought she just needed some business cards and ended up creating her own brand with me as her design guide. Time and money were limited for this first step of branding but we managed to agree on these two as the final designs."

So this was for my Mom. Why I didn't just say that, I don't know. Being so close to Mother's Day, I felt it appropriate to revisit this piece. The whole project was as simple as - she asked me if I could make her some business cards and I did. However, this was when I was establishing how I wanted to ask questions to clients so I experimented with a questionnaire on her for establishing a brand. Questions like "who are your competitors?" and "what animal best represents your company?" and so on. She was a great test subject and gave me a bit of a challenge with the typefaces, if I remember correctly. I had a whole list and she kept wanting to pair up typefaces that I specifically separated. The flower design was the easiest part because it was a vector version of a photo I took of a hair piece I had made out of satin. And the name - RõSõz - is kind of ridiculously perfect. Her last name is Rowe and she sews... done.

When it came time to choose a design for the business card, it just wasn't happening. She liked them both and wanted both versions to hand out. Maybe she thought the more colorful one would be good for artsy people and the standard one for the more square folk. She says she got a lot of compliments on them and ended up giving out my business card to folks, as well. I haven't heard from any of those people but hey, promotion is still promotion. 

Personally, I think people have been scared to talk to me (and other designers) about design work in the past. Like I was some artsy seraphim that can only be called upon for the most serious of projects. Seems like folk are wising up though. Trust me, no matter how silly or small you might think your idea is, there is a designer out there just itching to help you. And I'm not saying that like "oh we're so desperate for work" because even I have turned down work in the driest of seasons because of various reasons (usually because the client was untrustworthy or rude). What I am saying is that we love to take ideas and make them into functional works of art. Love it.

I hope ya'll don't mind a few more re-posts from my old blog. I just really like a couple of the topics and didn't want to leave them behind in WordPress land. 

with love - M