Briefing:

Create a logo for Pixel Heist
Create a business card for Pixel Heist

For me as a designer it is always a challenge to create something for myself. I personally do not like designing for myself and usually pass on projects for myself to fellow designers. The reason is simple. The self criticism and try to create the perfect design for myself is at best impossible. Over the years I recognized the following symptoms when designing something for myself:

Very rarely am I 100% happy with the result.
Just when I though I was finished with a design I keep changing things around.
I spend way too much time on any given design.

This time I tried to come up with a logo and a business card for myself. I was close to passing it on to a fellow designer but I decided to just give it a shot.
An effective logo is a simple logo. That is my experience and that is how I approached the process. I tried to not spend too much time and avoid continuously changing things around. I fixed up a few sketches:



The idea was to integrate a pixel into the logo. Also some interaction of that pixel with the font itself. I am not a friend of taking the easy way of putting the object, in this case the pixel, as the dot of an i. In my eyes this is a valid practice but quite overused in logos. Even though I tried it within the sketching process, I actually took it a bit further and replaced the i completely with an object. I tried to add the scientific background I posses and been drilled with before entering the world of design. So a little lab gadget with a pixel coming out of it. I tried many variations and wanted to integrate something like an eye within the pixel. Building a relation between pixel and the eye. Sketching for quite some time I was happy with the lettering and the object hovering above the X.

I went into Adobe Illustrator and started to transfer my ideas into the digital vector world.

I played around with fonts and I was NOT happy with any of them. As a designer I accumulation/acquired a virtually infinite amount of fonts over the years.
So the decision was clear, I am going to create my own font. This is a very time consuming process but well worth the time investment if I can reach the desired vision I had for the logo.
I tried to integrate an eye within the pixel but it turned out to be not as effective as I thought. Still keeping the idea in mind I came up with the following result:



As shown above I decided to go with black and red as the primary colors, which I personally find quite powerful.

At this point I finished the design/creation of the logo. Now it is time for the business card part. For the text information on the business card (other than the logo) I used a standard font. To loosen it up a bit I used round background elements following the black and red color scheme. Following the final result I sent off to the printer:



UPDATE: 03/10/2009

I picked up the business card from the printer today I am surprisingly pleased with the design for myself :) ..



If you would like me to design your logo, business card, etc. feel free to fill out a contact form and let's talk.

The client approached me after finding out about my service at iToonU.
Briefing:

iToonU the complete company staff
Put all staff in business suite
Visually separate staff by position in company by using business suite with different color combinations
Deliver toons optimized for web and print use

This is one great example to show how my iToonU service can be employed to replace real life photographs in a professional way. All toons have been created with my Wacom Graphics Tablet in Adobe Illustrator. The results are vector images that can be used for web and print.



The client was happy with the results, all I care about.

The client is located in Germany and asked me if I would be able to work on an ad campaign for them.
I said yes and received the briefing:

Needed:
Print: Design for postcard advertisement to give out at various places.
Flash Animation: Flash animation that matches overall design of print design in various sizes.
GIF Animation: As close as possible to the Flash animation that will be shown to visitors without Flash capabilities.
Static images: Static images of animation that will be shown to visitors without Flash capabilities.
Content:
Picture: Thoughful/Sad/Angry woman with crazy hair.
The Picture is the vocal point and needs to carry the whole ad campaign.
Text: Jolie.de/Styler, You don't Need a Man - Just a New Hair Cut

Since the photo is the vocal point I made sure get a few images, the client can pick from. I submitted a view photos and I guess I am way to americanized :) after 8 years in the USA. I choose photos with a lot of expression, character and color. I had to pull it back a bit as the client said we need it a bit more conservative. I had to readjust a bit to the wants and needs for Germany :) I submitted a view more conservative images and one made the cut.
Based on this image I created the following print ad:



The client liked the result and I went ahead to get the flash animation started.
Following is the result that the client picked:



Based on this animation I created 3 additional flash banner sizes. Exported them to work as animated GIF and combined the animation to make sense as a static JPG file.

The client was happy, all I care about.

October is the breast cancer awareness month. What better way to show my appreciation, respect and support by creating an awesome looking pink awareness ribbon. I thought of topping it by creating a whole package containing the pink ribbon in various formats so it can be used for web, desktop and print. This package is FREE for personal and non-profit use. I appreciate any help spreading and using it wherever you can.

Click here to DOWNLOAD the Pink Ribbon Awareness Pack

Briefing fron the client:

We need a custom designed mascot for our PDA (Personal digital assistant) hardware and sofware company.
The final product needs to be available for web (RGB) and print (CMYK) use.
The mascot should reflect our PDA business maybe a PDA in mascot appearance.

This was an interesting job. Creating mascots is always challenging because you actually have to come up with something from scratch, to avoid copyright issues down the line. At least thats how I do it. I submitted a sketch and the client seem to have liked it right off the bat.
Working with a vector program seemed naturally to me, since it needed to be available in various sizes for the web and print. I went to work and created a vector from my sketch within Adobe Illustrator.
Following the result I came up with for this project:



The client was very happy, all I care about. I ended up doing the whole ad campaign for the client which was awesome. It included the Web images, flash animations, banners, regular and oversized prints, T-Shirts, etc.

The client was in need of a large print ad design for the IFA in Berlin (Germany) and Macworld in San Francisco (U.S.A.). It needed to be available for the printer within the next 4 hours. The client asked me if I have time for this job and I said yes, since there was no other project deadlines for me today. The print ad is supposed to be 80 cm (2.6 Feet) in width and 210cm (7.1 Feet) in height. Viewers will have close up access to it, so the graphics (images/photos) needed to be at least 150dpi.

Following the result of my work along with a photo of the actual print supplied by the client:

The customer was thrilled as he saw the actual printed banner, all I care about.

This was quite a time critical job. I have been contacted by the German Xtand headquarters and they asked me if I can do an ad within a view hours. I didn't have any critical deadlines and accepted the job. If the deadline is tight like this you can easily slip into panic mode. You can not let that happen. Believe in yourself, take a slow and deep breath, collect your thoughts and tackle the job. Obviously the pressure increases when you find out the advertisement placement costs your client 4800 Euros (6864 US Dollars) and the magazine publishes only once every three months. From past work I had all artwork available to me. I have been sent a sketch of what the layout should look like. At this point I didn't ask any questions and fixed up an ad that follows the sketch as good as possible. I was not to happy with the two blocks right of the mini screen shots of the product, regarding their colors. Unfortunately this was subject to 'leave as is'. I said we need to remove some elements since they make this ad seem overloaded. The client approved and I fixed up the following ad.

This is not a WOW ad but it is a representable ad considering the time available to me to create this ad from scratch. The client was happy to have been able to pass on the ad to the printer, just in time.

If you are a freelancer and if you are not 100% certain you can finish the given job in the proper time, don't take it. It does not hurt to say NO. Do not risk to disappoint your client and cause possible loss of future work for that client, because you took the job and weren't able to deliver in time. It is just not worth it. This part takes a lot of experience, you have to know exactly what you are capable of doing especially under pressure and when time is critical to the job.

FOLLOW UP:

The client sent me an actual photo of the final print:

My friends over at chillingo seem to frequently come up with some surprise for me. This is just a short quote from the email I have received: "I have approx 24 hours to get a full page advert to Hal. Basically I'm in a huge pickle. I hope you can save me Bert!". Turned out the deadline wasn't in 24 hours it was in about 12 hours. I would be damned if I let down any of my clients. Looking at a working day of about 13 hours at that point of time I had to postpone my beauty sleep. I told the client I will get it done and start working on it right away.

The Client passed on the screen shots, the logo and text elements. I had pretty much all freedom to come up with a professional ad. My Idea was to emphasize the company brand by using the company logo in a larger appearance, yet not overpowering. I wanted to show the screenshots within an iPhone and add some nice reflections. The screenshots I received where not suitable for my idea so I went searching for proper screenshots and found them on Apple's app store. On the left bottom part I planned the text and on the right bottom part I planned the feature of a soon available app. The challenge is to make it look clean, professional and organized. At least that is my focus. A magazine advertisement always puts up specific size requirements. I also had to work within the CMYK color range for this project since it was an advertisement for a magazine. Following shows the result that I cooked up for the client within a view hours.

I passed it off to the client and he was thrilled and relieved that he got the project in time for the deadline. The job is finished and the client is happy, all I care about.