DOLLA! GET IT?! DOLLAAAAAAA!

WHILE listening to Black Sabbath's "Paranoid", which according to several friends the B-side of the album is perfect, I began thinking about the process of client perception on your work. It's an interesting thought considering that what I do for a living is taking somebody's idea and making it happen in a functional form. Creating a logo is easily the hardest project for me to take on, as a client is very particular on how their company/appearance is preceived. As a society "looks" are so important that some people spend more time on perception than on the actual product.

RATHER recently as Switch we were awarded the opportunity to develop the new logo for St. Louis's Ad club. The project was pretty simple in theory; Come up with a new name and design around a name that the group had come up with, Young Guns. In a group of three, myself and two other art directors, began brainstorming names. With this recent surge in a "green" lifestyle, we wanted to try to focus on a similar feel. "Fresh Greens", "Fresh Mint", "Fresh Stock", etc. etc. were a few names we came up with.

AFTER a round of eliminations, as a group we decided on "Fresh Stock". My perception on the name was "Fresh" meaning fresh out of school, or new to the business and "Stock" as a type of paper. Most of the time "stock paper" is of a nicer quality and a little costly at times. My original concept was to create a leaf combining a stylized "F" and "S". After several failed attempts to make something work, I decided to scratch the concept and start over.

AS the second concept began to form, I brainstormed with a personal icon of mine (Mr. Andrew Dyer). A quick sketch was formed from making the "F" and "S" into one icon and from the bottom of the "S" a paper roll, rolled up. Sounds a lot more complex then it really is.


THE original drawing of the logo revealed several hurdles to jump over in order to get a workable version. I began redrawing the sketch in Illustrator as a locked template. As the first round of sketches became first round of vector concepts, I noticed a slight problem in the thinking. While, the "S" was very readable the "F" had begun to lose clarity.



WHILE dealing with the "F" clarity, my creative director advised me to think about my decision regarding the color palette. After reworking the same palette just figuring out a different way to use the colors, it seemed everyone was happy with the decision. When it was all said and done, the final draft looked a little like below.

THE HUMANOIDS RULE THE EARTH

EVERY so often I get to work with one of my best friends and favorite artist Dan Zettwoch on some band artwork. The Humanoids first EP is the second collaboration of what Dan and I dubbed “Lamb Grenade” (the first being the debut 7” of Cross Examination). For this release the band asked us to capture the simplistic nature of early mid 80’s and early 90’s pop-punk. Think the Descendents, ALL, etc , etc. The Humanoids first t-shirt design featured a half-man, half-robot drawing that Dan drew up, which the band sort of adopted as their identity.


THE creative mind of Greg Stinson (guitarist and good friend) came up with the idea of an infant robotic baby inside the womb of a women and naming the ablum “The Humanoids are Born”. The first step for the project was to get the baby drawn up and ready for imaging. Dan drew up a rough comp and with Greg’s approval we were off and running.




WITH the robot baby drawn up and ready for placement, I began laying out the type, placed in the vector art, laid out the type, readied the images & finished laying in the PMS colors. The finished product featured a metallic spot color that really added a nice element of depth. Not shown in the jpeg’s is the on-disc, which featured the robotic baby free of the womb, and the back try showing the womb only. The layout features a lot of white space, which is reminiscent of the early album art of the Descendents. The scratched out type, full adjusted type and over exposed film frame added a little extra pop-punk flavor.

IF you get a chance to check out the humanoids, do so. They are a great band filled with top notch people. http://www.myspace.com/thehumanoidsruleearth

YOU MADE THE LIST!

EVERY Christmas Switch has a cd exchange that is based around making a cd that is "totally you". This is my first year being apart of the CD exchange & I must say I got to see some really interesting, out of the box concepts. From a beautiful "rat pack" themed CD to some really nice hand crafted booklets, this was a really great exercise.


MY concept was based around the fact that I sketch or doodle pretty much all day, everyday. I wanted to introduce some characters that have been popping up in some recent sketches, some creepy fears & of course my wonderful cat. I thought a weathered notebook background would give the piece a more "hand crafted" feel & the coloring should be loosely applied. Again, this was the first year I was involved and really have some more creative concepts for next year.





I'D like to thank Andy Dyer for welcoming me into this yearly tradition and hope to win next year! Oh! and Happy New Year!