Enlarging a web page

This cropped picture is taken from a poster whose purpose was to mimick a website. As the poster featured a web page but had to be printed more than one metre across, there was no way to use a screenshot. A font which is 10pt high on the screen can never be displayed with excellent resolution. So the whole screen was designed anew, which took two days.

First the image of the website was imported as a background image, then each graphical element was typed or drawn by hand, exactly where it was on the underlying image.
The result? A printed poster which features a 3feetx4 feet screenshot with no visible pixels.

Project for a child daycare centre

A daycare centre in my area approached me for a logo. Their name is not chosen yet, but their marketing positioning was a focus on learning through play. Therefore the logo had to reflect this essential choice. The three projects above were presented, where for example the letters in a musical set are here to symbolise the formal learning (letters) through play (using music). Similarly, the elephant, a symbol of intelligence, carrying piano-like keys on his back.

The last concept is designed to be more appealing to children, but slightly out of target.

VoteSmartIndia - final project

The client indicated a more exotic font was prefered (Prakrta, a shareware font). On top of this colour logo, a black and white version was also designed, for example for engraving on supports where no ink is available.

http://votesmartindia.blogspot.com/

VoteSmartIndia - a flag project

This is the latest project submitted to VoteSmartIndia, an organisation covering the elections in India. The font is free. It is ADF Albertis, from ADF foundry. The logo is basically a stylized outline of India, using the two colours from the Indian national flag. The section of the wheel is subconsciously evoking the democratic process of electing representatives. Project submitted to the client, pending.

An old CV

A while ago I created this fairly pretentious CV. So there you go, you can now see my real face.
The design makes liberal use of the URW Classico font, which is an approximation of the otherwise famous Optima typeface. The overall layout is somewhat eye-catching, and a twist on the traditional "mugshot in the top right corner". 

The trick here is that the photograph was taken at waist level, therefore making me look way taller than I really am.
Don't try to peek at my address or phone number, they're edited out and replaced by incoherent text.

An old project

This is a first draft for a logo done a while ago. It is an unfinished project for my client, a mountain guide. The cross at the top of the mountain is meant to mimick a real cross at this location. In progress.

Font licenses

All fonts have a license which protects their copyright, and some of them are free to use, others not, others only free for non commercial use.

Fonts are like software or images or texts really. Someone worked to create them, they deserve payment for their work.

The issue is that as a lot of people have bunches of TTF, PS and OTF files that have no copy protection, there is a widespread belief that fonts are free to use and that they have no license.
Nothing further from the truth.

Typically a font licence will be around 25 USD, and there are quite a few online shops where you can buy the font licence. Having the font file is not having a licence, just like breaking into a car parked on the street is not owning it.

Imitate, don't innovate

One way of creating something nice is by imitating stye. This document, while created by me, was done from an existing document, which uses the same colours, photo inserts. This document (not sure who the original author was) was originally created in Adobe InDesign, but litterally recreated from scratch, but with exactly the same layout.

Breaking apart someone else's work and imitating is one way you can understand the principles of design and build your knowledge 

Don't hack software, just don't buy it

Had a look this morning at www.adobe.com

Creative Suite 4 is now happily priced at 1,799 USD. OK it is an impressive piece of software. Upgrade from CS3 (itself a very impressive piece of software) is 599 USD.

Adobe hires designers and they need to sell many licences to pay them. True. But what if, like my clients, you get your money by fund raising, or small university grants? Well that sort of money is just not there for software. So there you go, find a torrent and hack the thing. Bad Bad Bad.

By cracking software, you are first of all doing something illegal (but for which the chance of getting caught remains small), and most importantly you are promoting the release cycles of the software industry (is CS4 not just CS3 + a few fixes + the odd feature or so?) and not promoting alternative solutions.

I run all my logo projects on Inkscape (vectorial design) because while Adobe Illustrator is the standard, Inkscape does awfully well, and for no money at all, including the fact that SVG files are an open standard.

Brochure projects are run on Scribus, which can help my clients rework them and reduces their dependancy to me. Of course Scribus is not better than InDesign. But when something is 90% another one but the price tag is 0, some wheels can start turning in your head.

In short I believe it is wrong to steal a developer's salary, but right to promote a shift in the business model that's in place.

Logo redesign: Spanish Speaking Organization

The Spanish Speaking Organization (Georgia Institute of Technology) has a very nice logo, but unfortunately the only files left they had were too small to be used.

Which implies that enlarging the logo would not be possible. Also I spotted that the spaces between the letters was not harmonious (and that it would be a shame to spoil such a lovely logo with a detail like this). You can see what exactly was done above. The pink letters show where the difference is.

I suggested making this amendment, and delivered pure EPS logos to them.
Logo is property of the Spanish Speaking Organization, original designer unknown.

http://cyberbuzz.gatech.edu/sso/

Orang Utan Land Trust

I have started doodling for the Orang Utan Land Trust and submitted several pre-projects.
The purpose is a new logo design, to be used on products containing palm oil, but that respect orang utan habitat. If you have ever seen "dolphin-free" tuna, you will see it is similar. 

I am now waiting for a direction to take. YES I have some favourites in there. The last one is (for curious visitors) based on traditional Borneo tattoos, but my pet doodles are the left and center doodles on the bottom line. 

Designing a poster

This is a project done a good while ago. The interest of this poster is twofold:

- it shows a tone, here a child-like design (eg a naive flock of birds), the use of primary colours, the use of a font recalling children writing (and non standard use of colours).
It means putting yourself in a child's shoes, to illustrate the campaign's slogan "child's play" (which is there to sell a piece of software by the way).

- then there is the translation side of the poster, which was originally designed in one language, and translated.
In that particular case, as the font did not include any accented glyphs (this is the name DTP weirdos give to "letters, signs, numbers"), they had to be created. 

How do you create glyphs that don't exist?
Well in a case like this one, it's all bubblegum and sellotape: you take a comma here, you chop a letter there, you copy a dot, and then you create a new group which is your own letter. Et voilà! Oh it's highly impractical, and perfect hell to change just anything after that (the colour, the size or just anything) but when it's only for a few Polish characters, a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.

Redesigning a logo - details

My Charity fee for a new logo is 150 USD.
You promise God to give this money to the charity of your choice, regardless of whether you're happy or not with my work. Remember I don't actually charge you.

You will need to sign my terms, which basically say you can't sue me and that I can use your name in my portfolio.

If you already have a logo, I would first want to work without seeing it.
You will need to describe your current logo (NOT send it to me)
You need to tell me what it evokes, which concepts it is related to.

If you do not have a logo, you will need to tell me about your organisation. Values, ideals, customers.
You may suggest a basic idea for the logo, whether it should represent something or not, if yes, what? You may also tell me about which colours you expect.

If you have a clear logo idea and would need it delivered, scan it or take a picture and send it. I will vectorize it (which bascially means draw it again) so that it can be used by whoever does the rest of your material.

Nord Espaces

Today I got some news from this logo design. The in-house designer thought it over and produced this, which is nice.

From draft to design

This project started as a logo revamping. I only had the verbal description of the existing logo, which in a way was nice because I could resist the temptation of doing something too closely related to what already existed. First, came my first image of the logo (top left), then two projects, going towards more and more simplicity. The logo on the top right keeps 4 wave crests as a symbol for the 4 founding partners of the company.

The last project turns the drakkar, a fairly traditional warfare symbol into a symbol for a travel agency into a much softer symbol, with a human (woman in this case) face in the sail.
One of the signs it is a good logo is when you reduce it to a 32x32 miniature. If the logo can be identified at that size, you've got a winner.

The project is still pending final approval.

Can you afford software?

A while ago, I was answering a query for this pro bono work. My correspondent was very happy for work I could do, and then asked me "Can you work from existing InDesign files?".

Well technically I can. I know the InDesign interface and can use the software. I even have access to it.
But as a private designer, and a professional in the IT industry, I cannot afford to give the wrong example. Using InDesign without a proper license is a criminal offense. A large number of people think "it's okay to use a cracked (=illegal) software if you can't afford to buy a legal copy anyway".
This certainly does not apply to me because I could afford an Adobe InDesign license, but I don't want to spend this money there, so I don't use the software and certainly will not go into the easy road of cracked software, because somewhere down the line, a fellow programmer is losing out.

Which brings us of course to "what can you really afford?" and I guess that unfortunately if you could walk into a shop and steal your grocery and get away with it, a lot of people would.
This is what happens with MP3 downloads and software. My stand is that this is and remains illegal, and that the only reason why people do it is because they can get away with it most of the time.
I also agree nonetheless that CDs are dreadfully expensive. I can tell you that I really think twice before buying one these days and there's hardly any place left in my budget for an overpriced piece of plastic.

A logo for Arkandis

This is a logo designed for my friend Hirwen, the author of many free fonts, under the name Arkandis. His idea was to look at the Vitruvian man by Leonardo Da Vinci (the guy who wrote the famous "Dan Brown Code" or the other way around).
Here the Vitruvian Man (whose famous incarnations include Homer Simpson) is replaced by a capital A. Do visit the Arkandis Digital Foundry, it's really worth it.

Another commercial example

One of the greatest satisfactions of my job is the opportunity to be creative while serving my employer. So see what I can do for commercial projects here.

Logo project : Orient Espaces

Logo created for Orient Espaces, a travel agency in Paris.

Details are everything

This logo is a draft design for a travel agency. This is an example of how details affect the overall design beyond measure. If you look at the two logos, you will feel that the one on the right is better than the one on the left, but you will find it difficult to point out where they are different.
In fact the difference is just that the "a" has been realigned a little down.

The logo therefore seems to stand a lot better on its feet. The difference is insignificant but teaches us something: analyse what your eye feels, put a brain to your artistic heart, be conscious where your normal viewer will be unconscious.