I’ve already posted about the evolution of the bug-a-roo logo project. Over the last week, that identity grew a little stronger. With a sales event pending, we needed some fresh marketing materials. We’ve always been on a tight budget so instead of spending a lot of money on die-cutting business cards, we’ve just cut a couple of corners off and punched some holes to give the impression of a sales tag. Well, that gets old fast so this was my opportunity to simplify. The solution ended up being implying that tag with shape. However, instead of the drawing the shape of a tag, I just drew the impression of a background. Using a darker shade of the main green pantone color, I added a sliver beneath to imply a shadow. I liked this so much that I carried it over to the brochure.

The brochure was a redesign of something I threw together in about an hour for the last event. Since that was done around midnight, it looked uninteresting. I carried the green color and tag impression over to the brochure to see if I could still use it. It was starting to take shape so I stuck with it.

The previous design had a photograph of my wife holding our son in a baby sling. We didn’t have any more photos on hand so I decided to illustrate the old photo. If you are familiar with Adobe Illustrator, you know that you can click a button and, presto! you have an illustrated image of your photograph. That’s no fun, though. Besides, you get some funky-ness that doesn’t look quite right. If you do it by hand, not only do you get to brag about it, but any funky-ness is your own fault! This took HOURS. I had a blast, though. I worked with a skintone color palette, and created dimensional shapes and patterns to imply depth. It felt like the good ole days of paper and pencil. 

This illustration technique had been on my mind quite a bit. I had wanted to do something similar for bug-a-roo for a long time but didn’t have the opportunity until now. We’ll see if it shows up again. Again, that is the beauty of taking your time to develop a visual identity.

Illustration example

Well, I have to sign off because I have to be Mr. Mom so my wife can go sell these products. We’ll see how it goes. Check her blog out and order stuff from her: slings-and-things.blogspot.com.

This fund was established in partnership with the West Tennessee Healthcare Foundation to benefit the new Casey Jones Railroad Museum. The logo needed to stand alone, apart from the various enterprises under the banner of the Casey Jones Village. Originally, I wanted to try my hand at a horizontal, rectangular wood-cut image of a train. However, after we discussed the project, the client had envisioned a circular design resembling the front of a steam engine. Open sketchbook.

Since late April, I’ve been pouring over train books noting details in train design as well as turn-of-the-century promotional design (I LOVE the public library!). I am still in the process of forcing this obsession on myself; I think this is only the beginning. Any-hoo, one thing I’ve noticed about this period in design is the typefaces. These faces range from the very stout sans-serif to the elegant, scripty style such as I used in this logo. I particularly love the embellished jut from the lower portion of the ‘J.’ I decided to use the initials in this decorative way because I didn’t like the alternatives I kept coming up with. Any image would be a departure from our train-face; a number, as is common in such spots on trains, would confuse the message of the logo. I saw this as an opportunity to develop an identity that is strongly rooted in the period style rather than a literal depiction of what the fund was established to do. 

The sketch you see below was a rough idea of what I wanted to do. In the beginning, I tried tracing this sketch but you can never underestimate the subtleties of a well crafted typeface. I ended up using Harrington as my base and altered the design to achieve the solution you see here. And there’s the key word: solution. Much of design is problem-solving. Sometimes the problem is simple and it doesn’t take much to solve it; sometimes the problem is great and takes a lot of time to solve. Unfortunately, some logo projects, if executed well, will seem like it took ten minutes to accomplish. I’ve grown fond of telling clients that logos are “deceptively simple.” What seems like an obvious and quick solution may have taken hours to accomplish. 

The end result here was completed by our deadline and the client was pleased. I love having a fresh start to an enterprise. Unlike other projects commissioned by Casey Jones Village, I get to be involved in the Historical Fund’s identity from the beginning. Stay tuned to see the development of the Casey Jones Village, the Old Country Store, the Casey Jones Home and Railroad Museum, and the Casey Jones Historical Fund projects. I’ve had a blast working with them and can’t wait to show you more.

Casey Jones Historical Fund Logo

After sketching out what seemed like a full sketchbook of ideas, I kept coming back to the initials, I.O.I. The organization is referred to by these initials more than anything else so I felt strongly that the logo needed to communicate this. The result is the flaggy treatment of the initials. By creating the solid ‘I’s, we were able to insinuate the ‘O’ between them by only placing the negative space. What we are left with is a memorable logo mark that isn’t completely dependent on the text to its left. 

The organization’s main location of operations is in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Surrounded by a lush and muddy countryside, Addis is full of greens, dark oranges, and various shades of neutral colors. It seemed natural to establish these colors as I.O.I.’s palette. 

I am happy to report that after years of hailing Papyrus as a worthy font choice, I.O.I. has reconsidered its typefaces. Hallelujah. You can visit them on the web at www.ioiusa.org.

One of the curses of being a graphic designer is that EVERYTHING must have a logo. The good thing about that is that you can develop your wife’s side business into a brand. We began with a quick, rough logo. My wife refuses to capitalize anything so naturally, the logo would be all lower case. I thought the brand should reflect her care-free, cheerful personality so rather than searching for the right font, I sketched the type with Illustrator’s pencil tool (when’s the last time you used that one?). I fashioned a quick outline of a bug in the background and called it a day. It worked for a little while but I started cringing every time she asked me to print her some more business cards. 

I began sketching ideas for a revision. I came up with some great concepts but was having trouble translating it into crisp, clean vector lines. As a designer who prefers those wonderful vector lines to their jaggy raster counterparts, I had to resist the temptation to scan the sketches and start tracing. That’s cheating isn’t it? Well, after several frustrating attempts, I fired up my Epson and started tracing.

This process has really opened a lot of possibilities for me. I realized that no matter how complicated the idiosyncratic anomalies of hand drawn images are, they have to break down into simple lines at some level. This could only strengthen my design skills. One of the complaints about the vector preference is that things tend to be too neat. It would be great to master the ability to force vectors to behave and look more like rasters (without the scanning, of course). All of this comes from a distain for the size and color limitations you have with a raster image. 

Anyhoo, the results were quite nice. I ended up with a lovely logo for my wife that reflects her personality and business. You can see the process below. For gift ideas for moms and moms-to-be, visit bug-a-roo.

Original Bug-a-roo logo

A Sketch

Another Sketch

THE Sketch

Bug-a-roo Logo

Because the dinner menus were pretty stark, I used this opportunity to show Flight’s clientele that the Memphis restaurant knew how to have a good time. The color scheme keeps the design grounded in that “airline blue,” color. The colors from the logo were incorporated for a splash of color. Each dish categories are color-coded and easy to navigate through. The dishes are identified by their respective cities giving the customer the unique experience of pairing a location with a menu item. 

“I want the customers to feel like they’ve taken a flight out of Memphis by the time they are done eating,” said Russ Graham, the restaurant’s owner. To the extent a menu can help his cause, I think we achieved  what we were after.

I highly recommend Flight Restaurant & Wine Bar for those looking for a unique dining experience in the Memphis area. While you’re there, try the chocolate dessert flight and tell them I said hi.