the sweet spot...

We'll I've finally narrowed down these designs for Andre's. In the first picture below, I have the original plus some new typefaces I tried for the logo. I like the one in the middle the most (the one with the big loops around the A). I had to friggin edit the heck out of that letter A because the loops on it were WAAAAY bigger than they are right now. It was cutting into the type on the bottom and the top area of the design. I'm still not sure about whether I should just use the straight-up martini glass at the top or the tilted one with the treble clef. Hopefully after critique tomorrow I'll know what works best.

I really like the 2nd style of designs I have for Andre's as well. Really simple and modern. Although I think it would work, I kinda think I can push the other design a lot further during the semester. Besides, it took like 400 bajillion hours to do all that line work with the pen tool in illustrator... heheh...

A month ago I hated it, but after doing these logos for Andre's and the animal hospital, the pen tool is my new best friend. :)

Oh yea, does anyone else like these new Reese's commecials? Damn fly commericals if you ask me. Great color and great type. They got like 4 or 5 different ones that I've seen. Check this one out if you haven't see one.

cleaned up...

Well I cleaned up my artwork for the animal hospital logo in illustrator by redrawing them with the pen tool. I didn't redraw the puppy because I doubt I'll be using him in the design. Anyway, I'm pretty comfortable with the typeface being Cooper-light. I also made a nice, medical symbol using that serpent wrapped around a staff thingy that many medical places use. I found out that this is the symbol that represents Hermes and some other Greek/Roman God that is known for healing. Anyway, I think a few of these work well, but I'll need critique to help me decide which composition to use.

attention to detail...

I'm still going to have 2 designs for Andre's for our mini critique next Thursday, but I'm really liking this logo right now... I added some details and uniqueness to the ornamentation around the type. A little Martini glass on the last one is what I came up with first. Then I decided to add some details at the bottom which form to be a fork, spoon, and knife. I'm probably going to thicken up the lines a bit to make it a little more scalable. Some of the minor details may not be very visible when scaled down, but I think that'd be OK because it's supposed to be subtle anyway. Right now, I like the one with the martini glass and treble clef arched above the type (the 2nd one). I'm going to work on the type before class on Thursday as well. Anyone have any suggestions?

moro logos, logos, logo

Here's some more versions and revisions of the logos I've been working on. I need this stuff to be critiqued or I'll keep going on forever. I made a nice, clean version of the "ornamental" Andre's logo with the pen tool in illustrator. I'm liking that design a lot. I like the tilted square design somewhat as well. As far at the animal hospital design goes, I'm not sure which design direction I'm going with at all. I haven't even tried to do much with the type on those because I'm still trying to figure out the best composition. Doh!

old work from 3150

I'm trying to revise some of my work from last year. Here's the original poster I did for Jeff's typography class.


I used that gradient because I couldn't think of anything else to put back there. I wanted something behind the image of the casket to emphesize it and some of the type, and I also thought the casket looks as if it's floating in space when I put a solid color back there. Here's an alternative I came up with, which do you think is better?

more logos

Here's a few more logos for the animal hospital. I'm not really a fan of type being on an arc, but I decided to try it out just to see what it'd look like.

andre's logo in illustrator

...been working on some ideas for Andre's Off The Square tonight. I like the idea of using a square with a bit of negative space, but I have other ideas as well.

As far as this script-styled font goes, if I went with that, I'd probably write it or have someone else write it out so it would have a handwritten feel to it. I'm thinking I might paint it as well. I also like the idea of having a painted edge on the square like the one that has color in it below. I'm looking forward to feedback!

some quick designs in illustrator

Here's some stuff I just put together in illustrator from my sketches. The type needs work, but I plan to try a lot of things as time goes on.

businesses 2 brand

I've decided to work on 2 different businesses for the branding project. I only have two classes this semester so I'll try to push both designs as long as I can.

My first choice for this project is Huntington Creek Animal Hospital. Right now they don't even have a logo. They have a sign with plain type and their business cards has a pretty generic picture of a cat, dog, and a bird. Here's some photos of the place from their website:

Here are some sketches I've made so far:

The second place I'm going to rebrand is a little restaurant in Newnan, GA named Andre's Off The Square. I ate here once a few months ago and plan to go back this upcoming weekend to do some research. The food I ate there was great. The place can be pretty expensive... ya know one of those places with the one page menu, but it has a great atmosphere and an eclectic selection of entrees and desserts. Below are a few pics from the outside and inside of the restaurant:

Lastly, here's a sketch of some ideas I did today:



I just had the idea to do Andre's today. but I like the idea of branding this fairly new place just as much as doing the animal hospital. Time to get started in Illustrator!

work from last semester: fall 2007

Here's some of my GRD3000 work from last semester.  Click on the thumbnails to view a larger version.

  

The first one if a rally poster for the crisis in Darfur.  The second is a book cover design for the graphic designer April Greiman.  Third is my redesign of the box and labels for Gorilla Glue.

Below is some of my work in the GRD3300 illustration class:

   

In this group, the first is an illustration of a "delicious" Ann Coulter; the public personality I hate the most.  The second and third illustrations are depictions of a pet dog named Princess that I had growing up.  Lastly, is an illustration of my unequivocally sacrilegious food triptych.  On the left panel is the "Moodonna," at center is a holy piece of lasagna ascending into the heaven, and on the right is the crucifixion of the tomato.  I'm quite proud of this last one.  Believe me, it took quite a while to finish.

good and bad logos: round two

Bad:


Awful. Just awful.

Wow, I can't find it on the net but the store Rack Room Shoes near where I live has their name at the top of their building written in Comic Sans. Yea, seriously.

Nevermind, I found a pic and it's not quite Comic Sans. But it's close enough. It seems to be one of those dry erase marker fonts. Lame.


I don't know who is worse. The person that made this logo, or the person who added the drop shadow to this picture.


This one is SEVERELY outdated. I can't believe they still use this.


I had to order a computer part from this place a few weeks ago. I'd take the 5 minutes necessary to make something better than this if I could write it off on my taxes.

Good:



The best looking supermarket inside and out. Their flyers in the sunday paper are layed out better than any other store I can think of.


So simple, so effective, and just so much you can do with this logo.



I think this logo is pretty effective.



This one's pretty nice too.

good and bad logos: round one

I'm going to post some logos I think are great and some that I can't really stand. I'm a big football fan so I see a lot of logos associated with NFL teams. First lets talk about the Patriots (A team I really hate, btw).

Not only do the Patriots have to steamroll over the rest of the league this year, they get to do it with a sweet logo. One thing I particularly like about this logo is that the person that makes up the logo is the color grey. I think this subtle choice of color make the logo a little more inviting to people of various colors. There are many logos that have human figures that are Caucasian. However, too often it seems that logos that feature people of color only show them in stereotypical roles such as a Mexican guy wearing a sombrero. Beside the colors, the shape and simplicity of the logo are nice as well. I see speed, strength, and confidence when looking at this logo and it's the perfect stamp on the side of a helmet.

As far as the worst logo in football goes... that would have to the Cleveland browns. Which in fact is the only team that really doesn't have a logo. In essence, for the award of worst NFL logos they "won by default." Their logo is A HELMET.

Why they don't have a logo on the side of the helmet is anyone's guess. Why a team called the BROWNS has an ORANGE helmet as their logo, is something else that I can't answer. This team has had the same, awful orange and brown uniforms since like the 1960s or longer. One day we can welcome them to the millennium.

First post

I've been meaning to setup a blog for quite a while so I can post my work and my ideas online. I guess it took a required class assignment to get me to finally do it. Let the fun begin!