Refresh

Tom Waits once quipped “Veal cutlet came down…started beatin’ the (blank) outa my cuppa coffee… coffee just wasn’t strong enough to defend itself….” This original logo fell into the coffee category.

My goal was to make a stronger logo that could stand on it’s own and couple it with condensed typography that could hand the long title.  This last point is key. As domains become harder to find, companies are going to start having longer titles just to be able to lock up a dot com.  Being able to work with long titles and make a versatile logo that can double as an icon, iphone icon, favicon, web icon, etc…  will be more important that ever.

Battle Twitter

A while back I questioned how relevant Twitter was.  The whole thing seemed a silly waste of time, and I couldn’t imagine taking the time to tweet what I am doing, never mind caring about the tweets of others.  But I will give Twitter its props.

This week Twitter was the only way for non-censored news to leave Iran. Twitter! After the election the government shut down Facebook, YouTube, BBC service, but forgot about Twitter. Tweets have been used for everything from mobilizing protests to getting the word out.  So… although I won’t be tweeting anything anytime soon, and I still don’t care if you are going to the gym or had an awesome latte,  I have to say… “Way to go little blue bird!”

Time is not on my side

Mick got it right and time has not been on my side. Things have been pretty busy of late, and blogging is 9th on my list of stuff to do. I think because of that, and the need for a better organized portfolio,  this site is going to migrate into something better.  Stay tuned…

Just A Little Elbow Room

I’ve played golf for a while now, and saying it is a difficult sport is like saying Yao Ming is kinda tall.  Make one mistake and you are shanking one into the woods. Club selection, stance, grip, balance, follow through, head down, weight shift, etc…

What does this have to do with design?  It’s easy to overlook something.

Color, shape, size, form, layout, photography, typography, SPACE.  One of the biggest things that separates the best designs from the average is quite literally space. We hear phrases like keep it simple, less is more, how about… let your design breathe and embrace the clean white space! Attention is drawn to anything in that white space because it is the only thing there. It could be 6pt. font and the viewer will want to read it. Of course you will still have to convince your client that their phone number doesn’t need to be bigger than anything else in the design, but at least it’s still easier than golf. FORE!

I Tot I Taw a Twitter

What am I doing right now? I’m trying to figure out if Twitter is useful, or another distraction. I would love Twitter users opinions on the topic, and how they use Twitter.  The last thing I want to do is start posting my life like some R Kelly song.  “He walks up to the closet… He’s close up to the closet… Now he’s at the closet…” But if it’s useful, and people REALLY want to know when I am going to the gym… when I’m back from the gym… if I had a good shower… then I don’t want to deny them.

If you use Twitter let me know.

New and Unimproved

Have you seen the signs on the side of the road that says “We buy ugly houses”?  There seems to be several companies out there that can put up similar signs “We buy ugly logos”!

I’m just hoping that this isn’t a trend.  I can’t remember the last time I liked an Olympic logo.  The last Olympic logo reminded me of a sombrero running. (which may actually become a future game)  I won’t get started on the 2012 games (except that logo cost $800,00, yikes)! Then there are The Illegibles (good movie title) like Baskin Robbins and more recently Animal Planet.  It would boggle my mind at how some of these things happen except I know a good salesman can sell anything, even an ugly logo.

Which brings me to Pepsi.  I can’t figure out what Pepsi is doing.  This is a company that has to stand out against stiff competition, and they go with a minimalist design and throw away all that branding. It will be interesting to see how that works for them.  Maybe being off center and minimal will be different enough for their product to fly off the shelves. Maybe they will have to put up a sign.

Designer Gifts

Got a designer on your gift list, or just want to get your self something nice? Then try a few of the items on this list. Gifts that you can use all the time are the best, and you remember the person who got it for you throughout the year.  Of course, you also remember the person who got you that itchy reindeer sweater too! (you know who you are)

1.    Wacom Tablet: If you are still using a mouse for your design work you might as well go get a chisel and some stone.  There are no pressure sensitive mice.
2.    Reference: We all need a little inspiration, or to learn a different approach from time to time. The internet does not have all the answers (it actually only has a couple of answers and a lot of social networking sites). The right design book is something you can hold on to, or a subscription to a nice design magazine can also make a great gift.
3.    Digital Photography: Even if you’re not a photographer, shooting pieces and parts of your designs, even textures can be a life saver.  Really good cameras are expensive but some of the peripherals are not. SD cards and even some lenses can be affordable.
4.    Storage: It is always good to have storage for travel and backup, or if your like me your backups have backups.
5.    Style: We can’t sit in front of our computers all the time… sometimes we need to go get coffee.  When that happens we need to look good, so something creative and cool to wear is also a great idea.
6.    Speaking of Coffee: Sometimes the work really piles up.  This is a good thing, but it also means some late nights… Some nice coffee, a coffee maker, Starbucks card, you get the point…
7.    Music: Can’t have enough music!  Enough said.
8.    A Good Chair: My wife got me a super ergo-awesome chair a couple of years ago and it’s the best. I use it every day. (see opening paragraph)
9.    Speaking of Sitting: Some exercise equipment, or a gym membership. We don’t have the most active job.
10.    Fun: A game, a hobby, or a pet… can’t work all the time. Have a Merry Christmas!

Path on… Path off

I don’t write tutorials normally and if it’s O.K. with everyone we’ll just call this some stuff I know that you should too. Adobe has not documented this very well, and this is just too useful not too know.  It has to do with paths in Photoshop CS3.

You would think you could just pick up the pen tool and start drawing paths and everything would be alright. For the most part you would be right… as long as you didn’t want to do anything cool with your path outside of making a selection.

To unlock the cool things you can do with paths you have to do it in this order or it won’t work and there will be much frustration and gnashing of teeth.

Make a new layer

Got to paths and make a new path

Now grab your pen tool and make any open or closed path you want

Go back to the path tab and choose stroke path

At your disposal is everything from pencil to smudge. The best part is whatever brush settings you have setup will now work on your stroke, giving you great control and unleashing many possibilities.

As my permed friend Bob Ross would say “Happy Painting”