random humor

ok so my dad called me, as he normally does with his witty comment of the day. today was good enough to share. go to www.google.com. click on 'maps' go to 'get directions'. type in 'atlanta, ga' for the starting point and 'paris, france' for the destination. scroll down and read line item number 21...
HA HA.. ha ha. programers do have a sense of humor!

title for book

so not feeling like scanning in the comp but here is the title i've been kicking around for my book. my book is going to be on different songs having to do with paper. it will be focusing on images the lyrics convey. like the title, not sure if i like the idea of make the word 'note' into a note somehow. that might be too corny. hmmm...

no pictures

i'm trying to get use to the idea that i don't have to post a picture and talk about it every time that maybe i could use this like other people use blogs and just vent. at the risk of sounding like i'm trying to get sympathy i feel compelled to say that my father is having heart surgery. i just found out about a week ago. a week after my sister's wedding. he is scheduled for May 3rd. Ironic, huh? Regardless, i am still looking forward to my grandma's ninetieth birthday in the desert this month. i've never felt so swamped with things that i'm not even doing. it's not my birthday, nor my surgery but all i'm all stressed about it. wondering if distraction is showing in my work. i'm hoping not and now realizing i should probably be working on that instead of typing this. not very good about personal stuff so if anyone has read this far, thank you and i would appreciate you not confronting me. that you read this you have done more than enough.

other two ads

figured i should probably show these with the other ad for comparison.

second idea

just trying to fix those things i was complaining about. i like the black background better since it ties more into my other ads. but i do miss that white space i had going on in the first one. no ribbon, so wondering if this means i need to rework my other ads or keep trying at this one. maybe both. anyway like the way the text falls into that picture, but not crazy about my copy otherwise. nothing particularly memorable about it. might have to call it a night soon, my puppy dog wears me out!

something i was playing with

so feeling a little clueless on the large ad. went back tried to introduce another element while still keeping the ad tied in. obviously this one is just a draft. don't like the rag on the paragraph text or how the image is 'blurry' doesn't speak well for a printing/paper company. even if i do like to visual effect. so on to new ideas... maybe pause to work more on the book. i'm quite excited about my book, i know all the images i want to take... now i just have to figure out how to pull them all off. this should be fun.

vegas design

i guess what i learned is that vegas is the home of both great and horrible designs. here are some things i noticed.
so where to start... the first couple pictures were taken inside the wynn hotel. the coasters were really cool. they looked like they were embossed, but they weren't. the only thing i kept wondering was why they didn't just replace the period at the end of 'wynn' to the "r" trademark.. it felt redundant to have those two shapes at the end the same size.
the parasol up, parasol down was the cafe. that picture was the cover of the menu. i really like how it shows restraint, and still feels elegant and fancy.
'the buffet' was a cafe inside the hotel as well. this particular shot was on an add in the elevator. i don't mind how they playfully threw the type in a bowl, but they could have at least payed attention to the layering of the letters. there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to the order. and i can't put my finger on why, but the colors seem off to me.
lol. and next is AHH the mosaic floor. this huge EXPENSIVE hotel has this mosaic throughout. i couldn't figure out why, but i saw carpet with the same pattern. so, i'm assuming they were inspired by it or something. however it totally threw me off. this elegant hotel on the outside and then i felt like i stepped into maybe latin america?
moving on.. random logos i enjoyed. MESA grill chopped off a little, interesting i thought. Fendi nicely backlit. and the window display were F's, not genius, but still good clean design.
OH, but then the STACKED type. ahh, why... they could so easily have just... not done it. ha ha. thought the directional columns were interesting with small caps... i'm assuming replicating roman capitals of the time.
coming to a close there was the chocolate store that makes all sorts of exotic chocolates. ones with weird things in them like grits, tobacco, and other interesting ingredients. anyway the design was so beautiful. they showed restraint and payed attention to every detail. the shelves were backlit and lit from underneath to really show off each product which wasn't crammed all together. The boxes were made to resemble everyday things such as DVD boxes, hat boxes, chinese take-out boxes and lots more. i really enjoyed the store.
last but not least, caesars palace. i don't mind it since it kinda fits with the whole gimmick, but the way the the stroke on the p hits the stem of the p really bothers me. that tiny little gap doesn't show up in any other letters. it just feels weird.

where i spend my time

I'm trying to post a little more about myself while I compile more things related to design. I'm not the best photographer, and I am reluctant to talk about things without a graphic to tie to my babble. But, I am working about being more open about my opinions.
A place I am not shy about my opinions is work. We have very little time to go back and forth. I pretty much decide when I see the item what color it is going to be, unless the customer has their heart set on something else. Every once in a while a customer wants something that technically should look horrible, but it doesn't. This guy brought in rainbow towels. BRIGHT. and he wanted a boat's name embroidered across it in hunter green. I tried so hard to get him to change his mind, but he was insistent. I was shocked when it actually didn't look that bad. I learn something there every hour of every day. So since it's such a huge part of my early introduction to design, here are some photos of the machines I run.




from top to bottom, left to right: this is the face of the machine. you insert a disk in the side and use the keypad, shown in the second picture. these are all the keys you need to run the machine, other than the power. the toggle across from the screen is flat vs. hat. hats are completely different than any other item, in every way. the third picture is the heat press machine. we use this to do quick sets for shirts. normally less than 12 pcs, but sometimes in the hundreds. a very slow process since you can only do one at a time.

fourth, this is a size 13 hoop. it is used to hoop shirts, bags, fabric. whatever, really. It is pretty small, about 5 inches across. the fifth picture is one of the ways we check to make sure things are straight, such as a logo above a pocket on a shirt. sixth, this is how a hoop would clip onto the machine.

seventh: this is a fast frame. used for things that are too thick to hoop. you can just slide them on, with a sticky backing so they stay and off you go. Kind of a pain to clean up since the counters are 'stuck' inside the letters. eighth, this is a hat frame. the whole machine has to be changed over to use these. there are so many steps to changing it over that we'll save orders over the week to do all at one time. ninth, this is the four-head machine. it will run four of the exact same thing at a time. makes work much faster, but the sizes of shirts have to be exactly the same or you have to adjust their placement so various sizes can run at one time.

tenth: this is part of the threading. each head has 12 needles. therefore it can run 12 color designs at once without stopping. just imagine having to thread all 48 constantly. this is an exact process, any missed step will cause a thread break or trip a sensor - you hope! if it doesn't you run the risk of running the whole design and it looks like crap. eleventh, these are the twelve needles. you think cutting your hand with an exacto hurts? this will go through the bone of your finger... each needle runs up to 1,000 stitches per minute... in AND out.

twelfth and thirteenth: these are just more angles. of the needles and of the single head machine.

this is only the beginning, but i won't bore you anymore.

st. patty's

So, I know it's going on two weeks since St. Patty's, but I realize things at odd times. Some of my closer friends are getting annoyed when I point things out... apparently obsessively. I was just sitting in a friends apartment rather closely to a 18 pack of Warsteiner beer. Someone asked what PUSH AND PULL meant. I thought to myself 'are you kidding?' I never want to do package design. No matter what you put on a box, there will still be people that don't get it. But, the criticism doesn't stop there. I went on to look at the logo. The logo of a major beer label, a label in an industry that normally respects design (even if it's really weird). The kerning was horrible. So attached is a little proof. I know 'AR' is a bad ligature, but is this the best option?

the real 'me'

i know, i know. this makes me a loser, but i thought that some of you might be interested in the real person that posts this blog. since this page is school related i am reluctant to admit certain things or let go of the 'ideal' person i try to be at school. so if you dare, the real me...

Stationary

my first two stationary ideas. guess i'm trying for a simplified style or photographic, but i haven't taken the photographs yet.

FiberMark card ideas

these are some of my business card ideas. Top ones are newer. Still not sure, but think the black is my favorite. Figured out why my last file was blue instead of red. I thought I had saved the file in RGB to upload, but I hadn't. These colors are correct!

my business card

this is my free business card for work.
the funny thing is mine are free since the maker puts their website on the back and i think that mine are so much better looking than my manager's. you can't edit the type so it's not really as fulfilling as making your own, but their preset designs aren't too shabby.

final comp for logo

this is SO odd. just did the work on it last night, and now the circle is blue? last night i swore i had kept it red. very, very weird. i understand RGB and CMYK - hence printing a 'different' color. but from the same computer screen how in the world did it change primary colors??? however, all that being said, i kinda like the blue!?

sketches leading to logo

sketches once i decided on fibermark.



first phase of getting ideas out.

stitch patterns done from work.