These are part of a series of seminars for the Thrive program at EMC Insurance. I’ll add more when they are ready.
Digital Poster Series - Thrive Into Thursday
Teenage Master Ninja Designer
When I moved earlier this year I met my new neighbors, a family from Ghana. Noble is their boy in junior high and has an interest in design and animation. He has a website nobstarverve.hol.es where he creates educational videos. Check him out and give him some support.
He asked if he could design a logo for me and I said I would love one. He came back a day later with 3 options. He really surprised me with his style and the quality of the logos. My favorite is the middle one below, so he mocked it up on a t-shirt for me.
Noble's company NobstarVerve
Keep it up, Noble!
A couple more years of practice and you will be further along than me at that age.
Happy Thanksgiving
Some photos from my family's Thanksgiving.
My Creative Process and Ice Cream Cones
At work last week we had an hour to talk about our creative process and to try and make our own out of the crafts supplied. I saw fuzzy balls so I made an ice cream cone and related it to my work. Afterwards while searching for other people's creative process I found an agency that had an ice cream cone infographic! What a world.
Ice Cream Cone Creative Process
http://www.kellerey.com/2013/08/08/infographic-our-creative-process-defined-via-ice-cream/
GD USA Cover Contest
GD USA and NEENAH Paper is having a cover design contest based on their papers. I just entered mine yesterday. It is one of my photos and I chose it because they have this paper called Epic Black. It is going to be digitally printed so they can do white ink. I added the "Enter Epic" in Photoshop. The more colorful version is my first try and then I ended up zooming in and desaturating it in my final version.
Push Loyalty
Introducing the first place winner of Startup Weekend Spencer, Push Loyalty. RXA Technology invited me to join their team for another Startup Weekend. We worked all weekend on this idea and got version 1 designed and built. I worked on the brand and graphics for the presentation. I also worked closely with the developers to create a color scheme and app icons.
Sign up at PushLoyalty.co and check out our big story on Silicon Prairie News.
RXA Technology
I am now doing some freelance design for RXA Technology in Sioux City.
I didn't make their logo, but will be helping with their designs and photography.
Check them out if you need help with your product or service.
Altoona - An Epic Ride
In 2011 RAGBRAI stopped through my hometown, Altoona, Iowa. City Council ran a contest for the logo design so I made this.
I didn't win as you can see in the gallery above, but I wanted to post this so I could critique myself. The contest rules stated that we use the four spot colors chosen by the council and that the slogan is "An Epic Ride". I honestly didn't spend much time designing this. The bike is from the DOT's Bike Crossing sign used by the government. The colors were chosen already. I didn't add them til the end, as a background. I thought about the meaning of Altoona, which comes from the word altitude, because Altoona is supposedly the highest point in Iowa. So that idea put the "mountain" behind the bike. The bike is supposed to be going across Iowa with Altoona as the highest and middlest part of the RAGBRAI race. If I were to change anything now that I have 2 more years of experience, it would be the font. I still like the style, but I think it would've been more epic if everything was a little more jagged, as if I cut everything out of construction paper. It also might help if the weight of the stroke on the bike wheels equaled the thickness of the ALTOONA font. The white box shape would've been cool to use in other applications such as name tags, signs and maps for the riders.
Let me know what you think.
ROCKSTAR SATELLITE Vinyl Graphics Part 2
Here's a snapshot of the back of the van that my client, Chris Brennick sent me. While they work on that over at FastSigns, I am laying out similar graphics for his truck and trailer.
And here is the final product. I will post some pro high-res photos on Monday.
ROCKSTAR SATELLITE Vinyl Graphics Part 1
Here are some initial concepts for one of my biggest client's van. I will post photos once it is finished next week.
