hand drawn type and web design - what a process

A few years ago, I met some fine gentlemen that were working on a game design. They needed someone to draw what was on their minds (and some stuff that wasn't). I knew, when I met them, that their talents were great and that I wanted them to appreciate my skills in their future. That intro brings me to the now. I was asked about a month ago to design a layout for a website. Calob Hess is a computer geek (geek is used here to mean super smart / ultra-talented person in his/her field) who needed some design help. I thankfully got the call. He has started a web design company but was in need of a landing page and internal experience.

Not knowing half of the terms listed in his "skills" column on his current website, I was at a loss for where to start my designing. Creating visual interest with a webdesign company usually results in photographs of the design team sitting around a fancy hipster table in a high end conference room (probably in Portland). Not that there is anything wrong with Portland, but this is north central Pennsylvania and we are not hipsters. I did not want to design something standard....predictable. 

My first thoughts were toward his logo. Good starting point since he had one already.

pics of logo and color bands

I liked the colors but it didn't strike me as something compelling or memorable enough to lead me in an artistic direction. I needed an image.

As I teach young students all day, I am constantly attempting to boil things down to the "element" level. I though about the purpose of his business. "Move other people's businesses forward." Pretty simple. Showing this is difficult but I knew I wanted a single image to get that across. I boiled the sentence down further to just "forward" and an arrow came to mind. I went outside to my garage and found some of my children's sidewalk chalk and began to draw an enormous arrow that I would photograph from a ladder leaning on my roof. As I was finishing it, I thought maybe my son would pose for a picture so it would look like he was finishing it. It was sunny....perfect weather for this shot.

orig pic of matt

The shadows were great and the sweater was interestingly simple. I made sure I was high enough on the ladder that the viewer would not see his face. 

I still wasn't sure if a kid drawing an arrow would work for a web design site so I set out to work on the word "forward" in the mean time. 

pics of forward tries

Finally, I stumbled upon a solution for the type. I overlaid it on the picture of my son and it just seemed right.

pic of matt and type

Now...how to make a whole website based on the look and feel of this image. I shot the image over to Caleb and he shot it around to some of his trusted friends. The feedback was immediate and positive. It was working for them so I ran with it.

I set out to simplify the other three pages he needed at that point and had to boil them down to a single image and single typography concept. Since the arrow was not perfect and made to look as though a young person drew it, I purposely used hand drawn type to impact the viewer first. "Seriously whimsical" were the two words I kept present in judging my designs. I wanted it to show that even when dealing with simple solutions, the business is serious about your business. I did lean toward hand drawn type because I love it, but, if it didn't fit, it was out!

Luckily, it seems to fit.

Often Design has limitations. This stinks. I like design to go as planned. Many of my wood projects have been less than my mental picture of the final project due to some of those limitations in the wood. Web design has some inherent limits that are not there in print. BOOO HISSS!

We will see how it all goes but the whole process sure is fun. Learnin' lots and lovin' the new venture.

new logo for the Northern Tioga School District

I was asked quite a while ago to redesign the logo for our school district. I tossed out multiple ideas and none were accepted. I sat on the project a while, as no deadline was given, until a concept popped into my mind a few months ago. I sat down at the computer and pushed it to its current state.

They decided that this was ready.

I wanted to represent the 3 communities in which we have buildings.....avoid looking to industrial or too elementary school as well as still remain simple and easily understood. School is the foundation of a quality life and the teachers I work with do an amazing job at giving students an Opportunity to succeed. Well, this is it. (there is also an upward arrow lurking in the general layout)

reel island charters logo and tee shirt image completed

I was contacted a few months ago by some fine folks down in Boca Grande, Florida (Chad and Penelope Lach) who were starting a fishing business similar to my brother's charter fishing business. They were looking for some artwork, specifically a logo that could be expanded out into a tee shirt design. Calling the business "Reel Island Charters", they had some ideas about the end result. It was to feature a snook (a popular game fish in southern Florida) and some rod and reels to set it all off. 

My initial response was to solidify a script lettering style to set it apart from whatever fish was going to be created. 

I figured that with this design they could easily letter a vehicle or scale it down to business card size and still have a solid look.

From this point, after they gave the thumbs up on the lettering, I moved on to sketching out a vintage looking layout using all the information that they supplied. I adjusted the "Reel Island" script to fit around the snook and used an oval as the general shape of the total image.

I did some minor adjustments to the title and set up an image that I believed would work as a smaller center chest design for the front of a tee. 

Looking forward to hearing from the Lach family and hope the design is met with a positive response in the local community and patrons and it helps them to get the word out. If you are near Boca Grande, Florida, give them a call and do some terrific fishing in one of the most beautiful spots in the U.S of A.

new africa themed design for this years "fall into the arts"

My wife is setting up another Fall into the Arts event at Westfield Elementary School where she is the Art Teacher. It is a great night of music, theatre and the visual arts geared toward young students. 
The act of drawing type is something that never seems to diminish in the joy that it brings me. My hope is that I am continuously improving with my skills. Each project has a feeling attached to it and the goal is hopefully reached. The viewer might not be aware of each specific goal, but I sure am. I don't think I will ever be fully satisfied with anything I do and that has been a good thing in my life. I never reach the carrot. I just keep pulling the art cart up the steep grade of living.

mort's meat mafia

I am still not sure of the person I designed this for but it has to do with someone who knows my wife's best friend (his name might be Mort). He wanted a cow, pig and chicken designed into a logo for his new venture, Mort's Meat Mafia. I googled this idea and found that it had been done about a billion different ways. Three animals and the concept of meat, well done! It has been tweaked and twisted and designed over and over. The problem is that it is kinda necessary. You can't just show one of these animals or it gives the audience a much different perception about the product(s). I really didn't know how to bring my own spin on this universal concept. I decided to lead the design toward a more simple end by just giving a cleaver some type. 

I used some inked Styrofoam to get the cleaver and chopped out the hand drawn lettering via Photoshop. Love the natural texture that ya get from Styrofoam. Never gets old!!! 
This design was liked but still the client wanted those darn animals. "Less is more" was thrown out the window. I drew up some suited animals wearing shades and merged it all together and.....

As individual characters....I kind of like them. That chicken looks like a real killer!...an unflappable dude! I think I would still prefer the cleaver with about 40 variations of lettering to the one with the animals. It seems like a bit much. Then again, anything that takes away from type is something to rethink in my book. To be honest, I have not had time to ingest it all. Maybe weeks from now I might come around on the whole thing. Sure do like the chicken.

mansfield university jazz ensemble and the mansfieldians cease and desist cd design

Before I type any further, I'd like to thank Dr. Sheryl Monkelien from the Mansfield University Music Department for giving me the green light to design another CD. It is an honor to work for her/them and to try to capture a mood and design a fitting layout. Their reputation as a talented department is the only inspiration I need when sitting down to work. The student performers they teach are amazing!

It all begins with Dr. Monkelien sending me the information that must fit into the layout and a CD of the tracks. The best part for me is that I am allowed to create what feels right. For the first few days I listen to the CD with my daughter while driving to school. Brainstorming is a constant. Sketching and bothering my wife with possible ideas can last quite a while. All I knew was that I wanted lots of hand drawn lettering...

Nothing has garnered more of my creative attention during the last decade than letters. Lettering is a never ending landscape that is impossible to truly conquer. The learning never stops....the struggles continue....the possibilities keep popping up.

I began with a red theme but accidentally stumbled onto some gray scale distressing while brainstorming in Photoshop. The type just seemed to fit that dark gray.

The most enjoyable part of the design was the track titles. Anywhere from 5 to 20 versions of each were drawn until one looked good next to the others.

insert with cover

The real struggle comes after the general design concept has been established. How do you fit all the information and make it feel like it was meant for that space?

insert (back)

tray card

one of those speed drawing videos

I have never been on video while drawing before. I didn't like the feeling and was glad when it was over. This is a low res test run that may be used in the near future to show how the CodeMushroom guys go from my sketches to an in-game build. Dan Reifsnyder, the man behind the original music on Terrayn, threw down a track to keep you from snoring. The video was not meant to be a "how to" instructional video concerning the rendering of a structure so I told the guys at a few points during the shoot to just skip ahead....FYI. The last image you see is the final version scanned into Photoshop and merged with a weathered piece of paper. As our 30 days are ticking down on Kickstarter, I am just trying to stay busy with the concept art that is still needed...

- I am using a mechanical pencil and lousy printer paper (some of my favorite art supplies)

a hunting logo for co-worker

I don't hunt. The reasons are the same as most people. Plus several others. I like to walk along and maybe push some deer toward the armed folks, but generally speaking, just too much cold to tolerate for meat I don't enjoy....though deer jerky is mighty fine! I come from a family of hunters. I like to shoot weapons. My brother had a wide range of powerful hand guns as well as assualt rifles before all the laws changed. I was into sports that required me to move. Sitting around was out. I struggled with fishing when I was very young as well. As I am typing this, I feel that this logo should be displayed with ZERO color around it. I love black and white for it is a proving ground of design. If your design holds up to being viewed without color, you've got solid work. Color, to me, is just fluff (not really cause I use a pile of it but that statement sounds good and tough for this post).  I am changing the look of angrystrongo.com as of this post. Minimalistic. 

This logo was straight forward with a hint of Harley Davidson as inspiration. Just a hint! I weathered it a bit using some texture I created printing from a Styrofoam sheet. Not sure what "Hard Times" means but it didn't need to be understood to get this design. I tossed around a dozen or so lettering styles before settling on something solid looking. I kept it hand drawn because I knew it was to be weathered. I like bolts, screws and rivets (I think I mentioned this in a previous post). The flatheads give it some elements that eat up some design space above as well as allowing me to form the word "hunting" around something other than the outside edge.

new project TERRAYN and Code Mushroom logo design

I received a call about two months ago...maybe an email...maybe a text to my wife (I don't text yet). Whatever, it was from some guy named Jason Gehman and he needed some artwork done for a game he was designing. The local grapevine told him to contact Ashley and I. I told him that I might not be the right character for this job and explained my skill set. He said that I was the right person and that we should get together and talk out his idea. Okay. I took him up on dinner at his house. Ashley and I joined his beautiful family for a wonderful meal and some great "gettin-ta-know-each-other" time. After dinner, we were met with the full force of Jason's excitement over this project. The project was this online game that he and several other computer geeks (i use this term with the utmost of respect for the level of knowledge this group possesses) were constructing. Jason told us that they could build the game but none of them could draw....thus....the dinner. Needless to say, Jason won us over. He wasn't asking for money, he was just asking for our time. The goal was to make this work without dishing out piles of everyone's cash. He explained that if we can't make this work on our wits, then it wasn't meant to be. It all sounded good and I wanted desperately to be a part of something. There were no big projects in my life and this had some quality potential. Ashley was swamped, and still is, with graduate work and other professional obligations and has only had time to critique my attempts to please the group. 

The evening of the dinner, Jason told us that the group of geeks was calling themselves Code Mushroom. Okay. My mind instantly started rolling on possibilities for a logo. I drew a pile of the standard mushroom ideas and all felt very blahhhh like the ones below....

   

I spent a few days on some dimensional ideas because the game was to be both above and below ground level.

I then began to think of more mathematical ideas. I took a square and began slicing it in half (upper left, below). It wasn't long before the chopping was getting me somewhere and I began to feel a connection with it. Soon, two triangles seemed to capture the feel of the mushroom. I knew that this was it. I kept sketching out lettering as well. I decided to work all the letters into the same size rectangle and to build them in photoshop to see if it would all work

Once in Photoshop, I manipulated the triangles in many ways. I knew I was close but it wasn't until I chopped the ends of the triangles that it really looked good (below). I chopped off the stem of the mushroom, the bottom triangle and it solidified the whole design with a cool shadow of negative space.

Then the lettering....it just kind of happened. Not much changing from my sketch and mental image. I did some redesign due to capitals and lowercase not looking quite right...but...this is what I presented to the squad. Jason showed it around and I was asked aboard. I am now a proud member of Code Mushroom.

Once I was brought on board, I set out to conquer the design of Terrayn. Terrayn is to be a Massive Multi player online game. It is set on this never ending, constantly evolving and growing landscape. The whole idea boggled my mind but I didn't have to build the game, just get some cool looking lettering. My initial idea, pictured below, had similar origins to the code mushroom lettering. Simple, box-shaped, modern looking letters. A mix of caps and lowers and minimalism. I wanted it to be wide and not reveal much of the game (that was easy since I knew very little of the game at that time). 

I also went with an above/below ground idea with the Terrayn logo. It wasn't long before I knew it just couldn't work for this project.

As I learned more about Terrayn, I knew that my design(s) were not going to fit. The game had taken on a feel of medieval times. Tools, weapons and structures would be from long ago. My lettering was wrong! So I scrapped it all and moved onto calligraphy and black letters. I drew countless versions of Terrayn. It was proving to be thousands of times more difficult than the code mushroom logo. Once I was getting close (the top version pictured below), it was just tweaking and tweaking and more tweaking. I drove Ashley nuts with calling her in for an opinion.

After solving the capital T in a way that proved to be interesting (not normal, but interesting), I had visions of it becoming riveted metal. I scanned in some well aged and distressed paper that I found at my job. Manipulated the look by adjusting the curves...and they liked it as well...

Below is how it looks on some fine 3-D rendering of another Code Mushroom teammate, Joel Tremblay. He was called in to help create many of the things I can't do, namely all things 3-dimensional on the computer. At this point, about three weeks ago,we all felt like we were on a roll.

The game is growing fast. Construction is only slowed by the day jobs we all work. As things come together and our web presence is ready, I'll be posting links up for all to see. The next two months are looking great for Code Mushroom. This geek has to get back to work.....later all.

Check us out on facebook.... https://www.facebook.com/TerraynOnline

sign for my boss's office almost done

Some time ago, my boss asked me to design a sign to hang above the Office door. As people enter our school, they need to understand that checking into the office is essential for school safety. I took on the job of creating an interesting design for the spot. The process went like this....

First: brainstorm, sketch, brainstorm, sketch, brainstorm, sketch...and buy a piece wood and cut it to size (it is always good to have that blank surface staring at you to give you that kick in the pants!)

Second: Scan the parts into the computer and begin the shuffling around in hope of finding the right composition. It has to feel right. If words are a part of the composition, choosing the right typeface is essential to the success.

Third: I did all my Photoshop designing to scale (27"x20" at 150dpi grayscale). I then chop the finished design into 8x10 chunks and print them out. The pieces then get trimmed and tapped back into a collage that looks like my final sign. I give a light rubbing of hard graphite on the back side of the collage. Tape it onto the sign board and trace it with a mechanical pencil which leaves a light pencil line to fill in with paint.

Fourth: Paint. I keep a few pieces of paper laying over the graphite so my drawing hand/arm doesn't smudge.

 FRONT

BACK

Last: I will coat the entire sign with a water based finish, Polycrylic (clear satin), to protect it. Before that is done, I will choose some sort of trim treatment to frame off the design.

I hope to deliver it to the boss soon since he's retiring after this school year. I'll take some shots of it when it hanging above the Office door.