Random Design Finds

Alright, enough sour milk posts. I found some funny and interesting design related sites recently:



The "Hotdoll" solves an interesting dilemma...how do you save your soft animals, spare pillows & boyfriend's jeans from you dog Spot's incessant lovemaking? Well, give him a love doll of course. DUH. Awww...look at the little guy. It's almost romantic. Product design prototypes are always interesting.

I stumbled across this fantastic site by a couple of artists over in Washington State. The site is called Fleet Street Scandal and it offers these incredible prints inspired by 60's and 70's pulp fiction artwork. I love it. These guys show great talent in style, color and composition.

These guys over at the Cardboard Monacle offers a blog that's perhaps a little more on-topic then mine when it comes to finding design related interesting news. Anyway, they created this list of what they thought was the top 20 Animal-Themed Comic Characters which I thought was pretty funny.

Yeah, you really had to have been a comic geek to appreciate this list. But I've always admired comic art. Some of the artwork that these comic designers create on a monthly basis are sometimes so beautiful I think they belong on gallery walls more so then the ridiculous stuff that gets passed for fine art these days. I got 3 boxes of old comics stuffed away in storage somewhere...I hope my fiancee doesn't toss them all away someday.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

I'm in a bit of a funk this week. I think it's a combination of being maybe just a BIT too busy (I know, I know, that's a good thing), and the fact I've been having a little trouble with a client.

This client refused to pay his bill the DAY before I was supposed to turn everything in and finish the job....saying they didn't like the design and that they're now not obligated to pay. Keep in mind this was after 2.5 months of work for me and more then 3x as much effort on my part because if their numerous requests. Even though up till now, I've recieved nothing but good comments from the project manager & I've had numerous happy face-to-face visits to their office, I was told she was just trying not to hurt my feelings and that they didn't like it all along.

Apparently what they wanted to hire was a psychic designer who was supposed to automatically know that they didn't like the work, all the while they've been saying they did. O....K.

Frankly, you know what it is? They just don't want to pay their bill. /sigh.

So I've asked other professionals if I did anything wrong....I've even asked some other designers who've had 20 years in this field if I did anything wrong, and so far they all agree this is bullshit.

Folks....if you hire a designer, you're obligated to pay his time just as you would be if you hired for any other service professional like an accountant, programmer, or lawyer. Yes, the designer should ethically try to do something you want and try to rework it as often as you want, but not at his or her expense. Getting sticker shock on work performed is no excuse either... I was shocked by how much my accountant charged me this year for my taxes, it doesn't mean I don't have to pay the bill.

Anyway, this is full of shit. I've got a lawyer working on this. If my contract doesn't hold water, the worse that can happen here is I get no money for my lost time. I got nothing to lose and everything to gain by pursuing this because my time has already been lost....

In the search for solutions to this problem, I stumbled across the following site that lists the "11 Clients You Need to Fire Right Now". The very first example is almost EXACTLY like what I'm dealing with here. Summammabeetch.

A word of advice to any of you getting into a career in design. 90% of your working experience will be dealing with people.... only 10% of your time is actually doing the work. You may think it's easy at first while you're working primarily with friends and family who are pretty much the easiest clients you'll ever find, but you'll soon realize it can get very frustrating at times.

It's funny...in college they may teach you accounting, help you improve your design skills, even help you with your business planning. But there's never a course about customer relationships & dispute resolution. This is just stuff that comes with jumping in head first and dealing with it.

Beyond that, I shouldn't have much to complain about, business is steady and I'm getting married very soon.... but I'm just in a pissy mood altogether. I feel like wringing somebody's condescending little neck. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Caffiene and Sugar.

Holey Moley Gorgonzoley...has it been over a week since I last posted? I left you hanging on my weird dream too. People must think I've gone completely wackers by now. I don't blame you.

You know, I've talked to my invisible imaginary shrink here at home and I think I know what some of that dream must have been about. I've been feeling kind of stuck on my work because there's been a bunch of big projects that have been in limbo right now... not because of me, but because my clients just disappear and don't respond.

It's really weird. I've been paid my standard way...I have my advance payments from people. Then I've started work and submitted things to them. And then......nothing. Silence. Once in a while I might get a response back telling me they're really busy with other things. But other times I don't hear anything from people. It's so weird....I'm unaccustomed to leaving things hanging like this, and I'm a little surprised that people have money to burn by just paying for something and then not following up. Straaaange. So my frustration last week about this must have triggered that dream.... the fat ladies must have been these projects kinda nipping me in the back of my mind. And I think I must have been trapped in this colosseum because I've been feeling trapped between my work. Does that make sense?

I still don't know why I'm a monkey dressed in pink. But just that week I know I pulled out my pink bass for the first time in like 6 years so that color must have slipped into my dream somehow.

Oh man I'm certified nutz for sure.

At least I haven't had a dream like that since though. This week however has been crazy. I don't know where it all went. I guess I shouldn't complain because business is good. But I'm at a point where I'm starting to be really cautious of what business I pick up because I can't fail on the commitments I've made.

After announcing to my clients that I have this wedding coming up where I'll be gone for a month, everyone's needing me to do everything. OH MOMMA!

And then I still gotta finalize some of the details of that wedding too. Luckily I got help from friends and family on that or else I'd really have my head blow up.

What do I do to get past this? Well, I write all my TO-DOs down on paper each morning and each night before I sleep. Cross them off as I finish them. I got my sticky "No Fucking Around" signs stuck up on the wall in front of me to remind me not to fuck around. I got my PDA programmed with alarms to signal me for any appointments I have scheduled. And then I got my candy and coffee to supply me with sugar and caffiene to keep me running.

Now you know why my writing often doesn't make any sense?

Nightmare

I woke up with a very bizarre nightmare yesterday...it gave me a horrible headache for a good part of the day too. I think Sigmund Freud would have had a party trying to interpret this one.

So I'm in a giant stadium almost resembling a Roman Colosseum. There's people watching from up above. I'm apparently one of a few dozen people in some kind of celebration or show. We're all wearing costumes...and one joker gives me some fake rubber teeth, a pair of pink shorts and some pink rimmed shades. "Ha ha ha" I say in my dream, really funny. What am I supposed to be some kind of gay monkey? OK, so I'm not so happy with it, but I go along with it because the show must go on.

So the giant group of us gets ushered out into the colosseum grounds. The showman that I am, I'm walking around doing my best interpretation of a monkey's walk -- I'm strutting around with hobbled legs and I do a lot of arm swinging. I guess even in my dreams I'm trying to entertain hehe.

OK, if all this isn't weird enough...it gets even weirder. Suddenly the gates open and giant fat women come running out and start pulling some of us entertainers away and killing them off. I don't actually SEE how they're being killed off, but I notice there's less and less of us and there's blood stains on the sandy floor.

Yet here I am STILL walking around doing my monkey walk just as if this is all perfectly natural. I'd be like the WORST lucid dreamer because even a dream as bizarre as this doesn't trigger any recognition from me.

Now finally another fat lady comes running out of the gate and does a beeline right towards me! Now I panic... I start getting a little more frantic jumping around trying to get away. YES! I'm STILL doing the monkey thing.

Now somewhere along the line, I figure out the ONLY way out of this auditorium of death by cellulite is by having a 1 on 1 interview with another person in the auditorium. ............ what? Somehow, part of my work slipped into my dream. In my weekly business networking chapter we regularly get together sometimes with other members in what we call "1 on 1 interviews" to get to know each other better. So somehow this got mixed up into my dream.

So you're still with me right? I'm a monkey in a gay pink costume jumping around a roman colosseum while a fat lady is chasing me down, trying to catch me for some bizarre hot animal love or something. My only way of escape is to find a partner for a business meeting.

So I'm jumping frantically around...and I recognize a face. It's one of my former coworkers. This guy named Tony. He's this computer admin guy...super smart, but we used to nickname him "Who huh what?" because he'd be so focused with his work, whenever we talk to him he'd answer "Who huh what?"

I jump my over to Tony, the fat lady still on my tail... I grab Tony by the arms and say, "Tony! Let's do a 1 on 1 interview!". Tony answers, "Who huh what?" I don't even wait for an answer, and I yank us both out of the colosseum.

Then I wake up.

SOMEONE check me into an institution. My subconcious is telling me I'm insane.

Punk is Dead

So I jammed with an old college friend and her bandmates this past week. They needed a bass player for their newly formed band. I don't know how to decribe this band.... I'd say it's kinda rock-punkish stuff. Kind of this genre they have now with the likes of AFI and whatnot. Heck, is there really any really such thing as real punk anymore? As far as I'm concerned the punk movement died out in the early 80s and what we're all playing today is punk-ISH.

I was kind of nervous....I hadn't played above volume 1 on my amp for quite some time, not to mention have I regularly played the thing in over 2 years since "life" took over my own band and we just stopped getting together.

It was pretty fun I must say...although I felt like I came full circle. I went from punk >> hardcore >> alternative >> ska/funk >> pop rock >> hawaiian >> and now back to punk again. A lot of straight power chords, pauses in the middle of song parts, & drawn out endings in the key of A. I guess I'll play with these guys for a while until my own band figures out what we want to do and gets back into playing again.

I brought my 2 basses down for a cleaning this past week... reminded me I never really took good photos of my 2 little babies.


I love this bass. Had it custom made about 8 years with just about everything I wanted. 5-string fretless with a drop-key switch, active pickups, and neck-through-body build. Carvin makes awesome instruments. This even literally SMELLS nice....even after all these years there's this sweet woodsy scent that's either the finish or the wood on it. No it ain't ball sweat either...it's the wood I promise.

I pulled this bass out the other night and I got the comment that this bass was "tatadan". Do you get it? I wonder if this is a Hawaiian slang thing again. Basically that's in reference to the sound that magicians make when they reveal a big trick "TA TA DA" So basically I had to play good that night or risk looking like a poser.


As nice as my other bass is, this is her ugly twin sister. This sucker is pretty hideous but I still love her. My first bass close to 20 years old now. It's got signatures from all the current members of the Red Hot Chili Peppers on the backside...mementos from opening up for them in the early 90's. I wonder how much a die-hard fan would pay for this now I'm curious. On the other hand I'm doubtful I'd ever sell this thing.... I'm too sentimental.

The Quarter

Remember when we were kids in the playground and some bully would come up and say, "Eh, I like one quarta!"? I bet they could care less about the fancy design on the coin. Oh the good 'ol days. /sigh.

Apparently we're getting near the point that the U.S. commemorative quarters is coming up to our State of Hawaii. The State has this informal survey for public opinion on the designs.

http://www.hawaii.gov/polls/index.php?pollsID=1

Make your choice known. I don't know myself. While from a design standpoint I think the one above is the nicest, it just doesn't mean that much to me to have a surfer on our coin. It's probably the most shallowest of meanings among all the other coin designs. But at least this one has a foreground, middle ground, and background to it.

The other designs with just the islands is lame to the most lamest degree. How many uku billion times do Hawaii designers need to put the shape of the islands in our designs? Sheeeeeeeeezus. Aside from maybe Texas, I don't see any other State as fixated on geographical landscape as we are. Imagine people in Kansas wanting thier State map showing up in their coins:

Image from (http://www.netstate.com/state_geography.htm)

King Kamehameha & the Hula Dancer are good symbols. But they didn't work out a good composition for any of them except for the one where Diamond Head is placed behind the King.

Whatever, I better get back to work to earn more quarters.

Visa Approved

Whooohooooooooooo!

My fiancee is officially approved to come to the U.S. Just about 9 months since we first started gathering all the paperwork and filling out upteen million forms, a few hundred dollars here and there for applications, and a lot of dead trees for xeroxing photos and files. We did it all without any lawyers...

So da wedding is ON peeps!

Random Goodness

I need a break to let my mind wander... this blog has always been good therapy for me. Believe me if I didn't have you silent readers to "talk" to, I'd literally be pacing my apartment right now talking to myself. That's a straight ticket into a mental facility for sure...

My fiancee is going into the US Consulate tomorrow for her visa interview. This is the last and final step we need...close to 9 months after we first considered filing the paperwork to do this. It's a welcome relief to be this close to getting that taken care of although we're both still holding our breaths until the process is over and they tell her she's approved. I don't see how she could be denied that at this point, since we've pretty much cleared all the other hurdles up to this point. *fingers crossed*

I mailed out my invitations out today. All personally designed and printed on my home printer. So it's kind of ghetto compared to the normal invitations people send out these days. We just couldn't justify getting it printed professionally when there was only 25 invitations I needed here. On the other hand, I created the layout myself and cut everything by hand..so it's got this crafty feel to it. So it's all good.

I've run into a few situations with friends, associates and clients who ask me, "So, you're inviting me right?" I'm like, "Errrr....... " Talk about awkward. It's not like I don't want to invite everyone, but our plans was to just keep it like a small beach wedding. I think our dinner will have JUST enough space for 4 tables anyway. So...I've been pretty good at skirting the subject these days.

So I watched the movie Grindhouse yesterday. I liked it. It was cheesy, silly, and a bit disgusting at times. But I thought it delivered. One thing I really liked about the whole thing was the marketing & production values surrounding the whole movie. I like how they set everything up to be really old school. Check out the poster and the website.

I love the grundgy worn-out designs. That poster is bad-ass! Those old fonts, cheesy illustrations, faded textures, etc. I'm noticing this type of retro designs more and more lately. Perhaps I should look for an opportunity to design something like this in some of my upcoming projects. I actually have one logo I'm trying to work out with someone that's supposed to be old-school. So maybe I'll insert some kind of feeling like this.

Gotta get inspiration wherever I see it.

Another one?

When it rains it pours...

Yeah, I churned out another logo. I got more coming don't worry. Suddenly this quarter it's like I got bombarded with logo work. I really didn't do that much promotion in this area...I guess it's just a lucky thing I suppose.

Here's one where I'll show you both the rejected version and then the final one. First the rejected one...
I think we all liked this one. I had fun creating this and my client really liked it. BUT, the problem is that this looks like he's selling diamonds. That's not the case...he runs a video and photography business. So we had to reluctantly scrap this idea....

Here's the final version. What I did was take a photo of the actual video camera they use in their business and created this illustration for them. I had recently done another logo for another photographer so the problem I had was trying to come up with a whole new set of ideas for this profession.

Finally it occured to me that I should look at some of the ideas I had for that other photographer and look to see if there were concepts here we could recycle into a new logo. We ran with it.

I modified it so that the diamond shape is still worked into the logo. The script font may not have been my first instinct on a tech-related logo...but the nature of this photographer's work leans more towards wedding & ballroom dancing video work so we kept to his original classic approach.

And...............another logo this week for the Hawaii State Teachers Association's Member Benefit Association:

This one wasn't really that hard. My client had a very clear picture what he wanted in my head and all I had was a tiny grey sketch to go by. This was more just a practice in using Illustrator warp effects and some offset work to create the bordering.

Boy... believe me it's been a struggle keeping creative logo after logo like this. I'm going to have to do some road research to come up with fresh sources of inspiration! Awe!

Something more...

A new logo created for a friend of mine who does Public Relations and Copywriting work in my BNI group. The concept is based around her idea of using an asterisk (*) symbol to represent having "something more." I thought that was clever, it ties into her writing skills and says so much with just so little. She's a brilliant writer.

So I took the asterisk symbol and I came up with this concept which I felt was just the right amount of symbolism without getting way too abstract. You can still see the asterisk symbol in here but you can call that a sun, a beam of light, whatever. I think this calls attention to itself pretty well. I like it a lot....

Of course I do.... I designed it. Duuuuuuh.

Let's Get It On

I caught this pretty neat chance shot this morning. I think they're mosquitos...they were pretty much swarming this little stream area up near Manoa Falls this morning. I got this Marvin Gaye song stuck in my head when I saw this, "Let's get it ONNNNN.......Leeeeeet's get it on!"

It's a pretty picture, I thought about sending this to my fiancee to cheer her up for her studies, but I think a picture of two humping mosquitoes is not the right sentiment I was looking to send her.

3D Design

Lowe Studio LLC has sponsored its first event. And it's a pretty fun one.

If you're a student from any high school, college or university program in Hawaii, you're elible to this competition for the best 3D design. The winner will have their 3D object phyically created into an actual physical 3D model based off of these printers they have out now that can create 3D objects just using the same technology as your normal ink jet printer.

If you're interested in applying for this competition, or if you know of a student who's interested in new technology like this, print out this information sheet, and have them apply for this online at www.thinkrapid.com/design.

Yeah... I created the flier. It's pretty fun to have full creative liberty to do anything I wanted on it.

I'll only sponsor events selectively. Once people figure out you will sponsor events, suddenly every church group and non-profit thinks they can get free work from you. I'd love to be a big philanthropist for all these good causes, but it's an easy way to run a business to the ground doing free work for no pay. I'll probably only sponsor events that specifically only have something to do with design.