Since I’ve started working at a sign shop, I haven’t had much of a chance to work on any kind of branding or print design. Both of which are kind of my roots. It’s what I enjoyed doing in school and it was what I was hoping I could do for work. Not that I don’t enjoy designing signs, but branding and print is what I like most and, and honestly, what I’m best at.
That’s why I got super excited when a customer, who’s starting up a restaurant, came to us about a complete branding package; logo, menus, signs, the whole works. I get to do an honest-to-god branding package for the first time. Needless to say, I’m pumped.
Here’s a little preview, I don’t want to show too much off yet since the restaurant doesn’t really even have any logos officially up (they’ll have a ‘Coming Soon’ banner up that we’re making sometime tomorrow). But this is what I worked on today; a drink menu. This is the style I immediately thought of when I heard the concept of their company; the colors, the style, everything. They have a few examples of stuff the guy’s brothers have done (apparently Mexican restaurants are a family business), but I actually went a complete different direction as what they have. The old ones had photos of drinks and I’ve always hated photos on menus, it always makes me think of Denny’s or other places that you wouldn’t exactly call “classy”. So instead, this is the direction I went, each different section of drink will have a glass/container that that drink comes in. I’m really really hoping they like the idea of it like I do.
The logo on there is the one I created that they have already approved. Hopefully in about a month or two I’ll be posting a lot of pictures of finished products. As much as I have liked my work at the shop, this is gonna be the first project that I’m gonna show off to a large degree because it’s the most I’ve done for a single company and it’ll be the most proud I’ve been.
Something I made in some free time at work: A Minecraft sign magnet for the refrigerator, laminated so it can be used as a dry-erase board. My one roommate already left a note for my other roommate.
I went and saw Warm Bodies tonight. It was a cute movie that wasn’t exactly a masterpiece, but not shit either. Anyway, there was this one scene where they’re in the “dead zone” where zombies overrun the city and everything’s covered in graffiti. My guess is they shot it in an area of LA where there was already a lot of graf so they didn’t have to paint any themselves with the exception of tags on cars and other set pieces. But in the very back, there was a very large mural by Retna.
I almost said something out loud, but then I realized no one would care. And even if they did, I would have to explain, which I wasn’t going to do in the middle of a movie. So I kept it to myself.
But it made me kind of think how cool it would be if I had someone into that like me. All I would have to do is lean over and say, “Hey, look, Retna!” and they would see it and be like, “Oh yeah, I see it!” and it’d be over. I know that seems like such a small thing to get out of life, but I wish I had that in some fashion.
Uh oh, got bored, playing around with new logos for myself…again.
Someone finally bought something from my Society6 page! Made a cool $2.20. I think I’ll invest it.
If you’d like to join this single person in buying some of my stuff, you totally should because until the 9th, there’s free shipping! Audrey’s looking pretty sexy as an iPhone case and Old Dot State is a pretty awesome throw pillow.
http://society6.com/ChrisSiegle?promo=9004a1
New painting done!
There are 4 people who work in my office. My one coworker is liberal and voted Democratic, the other and my boss are both conservative and voted Republican. Then there’s me, I consider myself liberal, but I’m not political.
My liberal coworker immediately walks in and whistles Hail to the Chief, gloating about how Obama won. The conservatives talk about how horrible the next 4 years are going to be, socialism, etc. If it had gone the other way, I guarantee it would have been reversed. I can’t stand that. I can’t stand how politics is a “you” vs “them” thing. I can’t stand how it’s a thing you brag about when your side wins. It shouldn’t be. It’s not over after the election, it’s the beginning.
I was watching coverage all night last night. And after Obama won, I noticed how much people were talking about everyone coming together, Democrats and Republicans, working together to make this country better. To ignore party lines. And that’s absolutely the way it should be. But they say that every election and they’ll say it the next. It’s never going to happen.
So when you go into work or school today and you see that one person you don’t agree with no matter what, whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican. Be hospitable. Congratulate them if their side won. If your side won, try to open a dialogue, ask them how they think their side can help yours. Maybe if we start now, it can build up and by 2016 we will be more united than we have been.
I’ll vote if that were to become a reality. I’m not holding my breath though.
I’ve seen a lot of people posting them wearing their “I Voted” stickers. It inspired me to print out a couple of these babies.
“And what? Vote for the democrat who’s going to blast me in the ass? Or the republican who’s going to blast my ass? Either way, politics is all one big ass blasting.”
And I’m actually really excited about it. I’ve been working on it more thoroughly than anything I’ve worked on in a while. It seems like 90% of signs we make requires little to no design time. Like the customer already has a design and we just make the sign or it’s literally just text on a plain background.
But this, I’ve been working on this for the past two days, yesterday I put on some TED Talks and 99U lectures and was busting shit out, because they motivate the crap out of me (if you’re in a creative funk, open up your design program of choice along with their website and watch some TED or 99U, I bet that funk won’t last long).
Yesterday was primarily just the logo, but today, I’m doing the whole branding; business cards, stationary, a website layout, along with Facebook and Twitter graphics. I haven’t done any branding at all since I started working here, on the job or otherwise, and I forgot how much I love branding. I love creating different designs for different applications, different sizes, different layouts, and trying to make them work well together.
