EVERYTHING MEDICAL SCHOOL FORGOT

In my first year of college, I had to take two mandatory drawing classes. Awesome, graphic designers aren't always the best 2d artists and since I grew up drawing and painting, I figured it would be an easy good grade to help balance out English 101 :). Turns out the drawing classes took quite a bit of time and we had to also do some technical anatomical drawings completely to scale. I think I put around ten or so hours into each one to get all the proportions decent and include all the intricate muscle groups. While at times I remember running straight from soccer or basketball practice to get over to the art building still sweaty and with limited time to get some drawing in, they were fun to work on and slowed my mind down.

Recently I had the idea to scan in the drawings and create some funny callouts. Going to a buddies residency graduation seemed like a good cause to assemble the first poster and present it as a gift. I plan to create a few other versions with more callouts so they could be hung as different posters together in a series. Possibly license them to med-schools for selling in their campus stores and just send to doctor offices to get a few smiles. All in all, fun to look back at some old drawings, and to combine a creative thought with some artwork. 

THE PERFECT BALL OF ICE

I never knew how a Whiskey Ball was actually made until I saw IceCraft’s product. They manufacture a product that takes a block of ice, could be from water frozen in a solo cup or anything large enough, and compresses it as the ice melts into a perfect ball. It takes a matter of seconds for the weight of the top to drift down forming the ball. Pretty cool! Anyway, before they sell and promote the them for people to keep on their wet bar shelves, they needed a logo design and that’s what I do. They wanted an older ornate look and it was a lot of fun to create a few flourishes and do some custom type. Below are the layouts and finally the chosen version.

MANUFACTURING AND BBQ TOGETHER AT LAST

Basically combine manufacturing and dinner each quarter for a meeting of the minds and that sums up Industry Hour. It’s a great way for Innovative Manufacturing to look like a thought leader and make some great connections. The meetings have been growing since they started this a while back and even have sponsors now for the event. Putting a brand look to the meetings was a lot of fun and you can see how my thoughts ranged from blades to gears and the balance I kept tweaking between dinnerware and tools.

In the end, the caliper was the tool common to many of the businesses that would be present and just made sense for the meeting. It’s not often I get logos where I’m given two distinct things to combine (like everyone on dribble makes up, Monkey Music or something) and that made this one a lot of fun.

WHAT'S A VISUAL CASE STUDY?

Case studies are pretty common to portfolios. They tell the original problem (sometimes talking over the brief), what happened over the course of the project and how the solution was arrived at. They show some work and maybe even talk over what goals were met or exceeded with some statistics (number of impressions, number of leads etc.).

My soccer and sports logos have been a good side hustle for me. I have teams, clubs and organizations contacting me for work after seeing some designs on google images, pinterest, dribble or hopefully after visiting customsportslogo.com or customsoccercrest.com. The easiest way to sell work for new projects is client seeing previous projects and admiring the thought, styles and professionalism. For some reason when I seek out work, it's more difficult to gain that level of trust and be given the time with the same level of engagement.

With this in mind I wanted to create some visuals that would put some of my designs in an environment that relates to the design itself. I thought showing some of the iterations or variations on design would give insight to the time spent on each project and the level of detail I work with. I didn't want to include all the copy points and info surrounding the project, as I feel most people glance over that anyway, but instead show compelling visuals and keep them simple. Here are the first few I have done and I am excited to do quite a few and tell the stories visually online.

TRIUNE CHARITY AUCTION

I had a great time at the Triune Art Auction at Noma Square in Greenville. All sales went to the Triune Mercy Center and the work they are doing for the homeless. The event had a silent auction as well as a live auction with over 50 pieces of artwork. Its was exciting to see the charcoal panda among the top few sellers. Not bad for a salvaged piece of cardboard :).

DIVERSE BY DESIGN

Some recent handout materials for a consulting group specializing in social justice and equity. Much of their philosophy is centered around reflection and self awareness. The goal was to create an interesting leave behind and various other collateral pieces that would continue to reinforce their key themes and push viewers to give some feedback/take a deeper dive online.

For the handout specifically, a few shown below, we were able to print various fronts consisting of different age ranges, ethnicities and appearances. This fit well with the overall message and really added some interest in seeing what individuals took which handout and how many were left of each race/age. Just a cool talking point someday maybe if there are 50 copies of one group and only 2 left of another. Anyway, it was a fun project in concepting and designing the handouts and also creating some posters that reinforced a similar message and style. 

WOULD HAVE BEEN THE BEST BARTER EVER

I love to barter, but this one didn't have a chance :). I may never have a custom home, but I'd like to design for more custom home builders. Fairview wanted a mark that would convey a home and feel more modern than their previous design (before a name change). Currently their brand mark was a multi-colored home and didn't have that high-end/professional look that they were looking for.

Rarely have I done real client projects that seem to combine two really interesting names, like "Monkey Cafe" which I just googled and yes there is a "Monkey House Cafe" in existence.  Those interesting names can really spark creative designs. The challenge with a logo like this is creating a mark that is interesting and can be the essence of a home, but not be super literal and dull.

After a bunch of sketches and after exploring a few different directions, we liked how an "F", when tipped over appears to make two peaks of a roof. It's a very simple solution and could be used in some interesting ways in identity and future branding. The next step was finding the right balance of "F" to roof lines and the correct weight for the logo. 

Multiple type styles were also explored and while the Sans Serif type gave a very modern look, Fairview had previously incorporated a script into their design and a serif type style seemed to be a smooth transition. I altered the type slightly with some added kerning and extended the leg of the "R" as it transitions down to "custom homes". In the final execution, I also changed from the original black and gold color scheme I showed to a navy blue and gold. It was a little less harsh and I liked how established the final layout looks.