And Now For Something A Little Different

Thanks for reading... um... watching!

Project - The Inexpensive Gamer

Good Monday morning to you all.

Today's project comes from helping a friend better brand themselves to do what they love. For a while now my friend Luis has been running his blog about playing video games. In his own words:

Welcome to the Inexpensive Gamer. My name is Ruu, the inexpensive gamer. This channel is dedicated for playthroughs, reviews, and anything else regarding games under $20 (before tax). Working on some colabs at the moment but yes. Let us begin this new chapter of gaming, the inexpensive way.

 So naturally we were talking about our own businesses and ventures, he found out I did logos and design work, and commissioned the following, which will start appearing in upcoming vlogs:

I recommend everyone go and watch at least one of his blogs, if for nothing more than Luis is pretty funny, and while playing his games pretty much says what we're all thinking.

Thanks for reading!

Project - Repeater and the Machine

So this is going to be a link heavy post as there are a number of separate artists that came together to make the final piece possible, and a lot of history behind it.

So a while ago, a good friend of mine and excellent musician Pete came to me and said that he was going to get his musical dreams off the ground and start putting his music online. Now back in the day, Pete was Echo Response, and was contemplating using the same name to start putting his new music online. He was also contemplating the name Repeater and the Machine, and after some consideration, that's the name he went with (ask him the story behind that name, it's cute).

So he had a name, but no logo. Enter your friendly neighbourhood Spide... graphic designer Rob, who worked with Pete to come up with the following logo. Pete wanted a sort of grungy, post-apocalyptic looking design, and I felt like adding the gears to really push the "machine" aspect... and I'm also just a little nerdy:

As it turns out, Pete's aunt Anita is quite the artist, and was cool with donating a print of her work for Pete to use as cover for his first single, "Coma":

So we had the art, we had the logo, we had the song, we were ready to rock! Here's the final "cover", available on cdbaby NOW!:

As always folks, thanks for reading!

Up And Running

Hello again, gentle readers.

Official instructional classes are over, meaning that from today on, Intelligent Designs is now in the business of freelance graphic design and visual communications! It's exciting, and a little nerve wracking, to know that this is it. This is the business. This is what it comes down to. Insert inspiration motivational phrase here.

I've already got some light work lined up, namely from some fellows I'm taking the classes with, but a start is a start and they are just as much important potential clients as anyone else. In fact I'm a little excited to get things going for them, simply because this IS what I want to do. I'll double check with them to make sure I can actually mention them specifically here, so let's hope a little cross-promotion goes our way, yes?

Aside from official work, I also have two wee side projects on the go, which actually just reminded me I have to bolt to the dollar store in a little bit :) Both projects are for a wedding / bridal shower, and the client in both cases is my sister. As a personal aside, I never turn down family help, unless I absolutely have to. I'm quite excited for these projects, one being another pop-op card, the other some amazingly creative ideas from my sister to facilitate the shower. I will definitely post some progress pictures here, or maybe do what I did in the beginning and post a full post when it's over.

NEW FEATURE! I should finally start posting some fun incentives for people to read, apparently my sining and exciting words may not be enough. So I bring you an interesting video concerning the design industry and being paid.

Thanks for reading!

A Bit of This and That

I figure I would keep my keen readers up to date on a few things, as I have some time before my meeting and honestly feel bad that I neglect this blog a bit:

My self employment classes are going well! I can't believe how many subtle nuances there are to having to run your own business though. I just want to create designs and give them to you. I don't often care who you are or what you want to do with them, just let me create! Now I'm concerning myself with financing, promotion... paying the bills... I can see how many people say that to love your work you should have a hobby that you hate (or something like that) because I can imagine a lot of people go this route and begin to not care for their passion as much as they started out. Luckily for all of us, I can't not design, so really this is a means to a productive end.

I'm also very close to finishing a project I've had on the go for far too long now. Luckily this is a friend's side project, and while timelines are a bit of an issue, they've been extremely flexible. Shooting to have this finished by next weekend, and pictures will follow.

Terrifyingly, I'm also writing on the side. At the end of May I finished up the script for the first story arc of a webcomic I'm writing. This was also YEARS in the making: it started off as a Mutants and Masterminds tabletop RPG story that I developed for my friends and GM'd... twice? Someone confirm that... before I had to just write up the ending because the game fell apart. I spent so much time on it though that I couldn't let it end, so I flushed out as much of the story as I could, scoured my contacts for an artist and began building the website. More updates on this to follow, as I'd love to see it take off, but the entire point of that ramble was now that the first part is done, I've moved on to a completely different story!! We'll hashtag this one #Avondale for now.

Also working a commission or two on the side, but those aren't important ;)

WEBCOMIC ART!!!

Thanks for reading!

Free Thoughts While In Class

You do not sell the product itself, but the overall use for it. I sell a brand identity, I sell customer recognition, better marketing, and ultimately yourself to your customers. I am a means to an end: You do not see just a computer anymore, you see the brand (IBM, MAC). Apple has become more than a brand name, it’s a household word, started by a combination of Steve Jobs creating a device to fill a business need, and Paul Rand spinning it to become an icon. Few people realize that they want adhesive medical strips, or that they need facial tissues these days, because brand recognition has trained us to want a Band-Aid and a Kleenex, and that is my ultimate goal: to take my client’s concept or original idea about who they are or what their business is, and help them develop their identity to the point that it becomes synonymous with the service or product that they provide. In a world of less and less “disposable time”, my desire is to help my clients’ consumers recognize the visual brand of their product over their competitors.

Thanks for reading!

Graphic Design As A Condition

A condition? What are you possibly talking about?

Well, let me break it down for you: I feel sometimes that the way that I approach a project, often right from initial concept to final product, is similar to having ADD. That's a fairly bold and sort of odd statement, so let me try to break it down further.

When I'm given an initial design idea, some project that I can sink my teeth into and get creative with, I romance it entirely, and to use an ADD term, I hyperfocus on it. I give that initial design, and often a fair amount of the follow-up work all my attention: everything else I'm working on at the time often sits to the side because I've found something and shiny to focus on. The funny thing that once I get something out, a concept or a rough or something like that, it's fair game as to whether I continue obsessing with the project until it's perfect or drop it off for something else.

Does this make sense to anyone other than me? Can I put on a resume that I promise the most attention and love to any single project at a time? Don't get me wrong, I can absolutely multitask and work several different projects equally, but I often find myself throwing myself into a project that I love...

Anyone else do this? Is it as weird as I think? As a bonus for sitting through a deep thought process while waiting a month for an update, I give you this:

Thanks for reading!