Food Day Logo #1

Over the weekend I created a couple logos to enter in Alex Bogusky’s Fearless Revolution Food Day Project. I have tremendous respect for Alex Bogusky and the work he has done with CP+B and I’m fascinated with what he’s doing now with FearLess Revolution. The project implored designers to submit logo design concepts for a brilliant idea, Food Day.

I was drawn to this project because I love the cause… I think national awareness of the effects of the food industry is an incredibly important issue. If you are a creative and interested in offering your talents to a good cause I suggest checking out this blog, signing up as part of the FearLess Force and following these guys on twitter.

Anyway, the concepts I submitted are the 2 featured here. I would love to get some feedback on these… So if you like them, please leave a comment!

Food Day Logo #2

Social Butterfly Logo

I just finished a logo design for a client that I’m totally loving. As an attempt to get back into regular posting on my blog I figured I’d share a little bit about my process for designing logos.

My creative process starts with a sketchbook for really rough ideas… Then once i have some sketches worth developing I open up Illustrator. If I have any really detailed or well developed drawings I’d scan them and use them as a guide, but in this case I didn’t.

With logos I don’t like to spend too much time perfecting every little detail until I figure out what the final few designs are going to be. Instead I like to iterate, create version, after version, and so on… I usually end up with a monster .ai file like this:

All the different logo concepts I explored

After filling about 10 artboards or so I came up with this concept of a butterfly made out of comment icons & and rss feed symbol. I love logos that combine elements in a clever way. I think the best identities out there all do this. So, I was especially psyched with the way this came together.

For me the concepting phase is the most important when it comes to logo design. I started out this project with an idea that it should be a retro 50′s inspired design… and ended up with something completely different! The creative process always unfolds for me as I create. One idea always leads to another, and my best ideas are usually not the first things I come up with.

So, that’s a little glimpse into my logo design process. Hope you enjoyed it.. Would love to hear about your creative process, please leave comments.

I launched a new theme for my website today. I read a fantastic post recently on Think Vitamin called Cookie Cutter Websites, that really inspired me. It talks about how similar a lot of website’s look these days, but what resonated with me was the quote:

So, this is a mini challenge to designers out there (including me!) to take a look at their designs and make sure we get them to reflect the personality of the person, company or product.

Upon reading that I looked at my site and thought to myself “this is crap”. It looks nice but it doesn’t reflect my personality, there’s no real design theme and it looks a bit “cookie-cutter”. A day or 2 after that this “natural graphic design” concept popped into my head. So I decided to go with that theme and let the design take a natural progression and see what I came up with. I decided I wouldn’t look at anything else, especially other sites for inspiration, and just see what flows out.

I’m pretty pleased with the results. Sure, it has elements and techniques that may be similar to other sites out there. but I feel like it fits me much better. I’m a big fan of natural products, I eat organic whenever I can and I’m straight edge so the “chemical free” thing has a nice double meaning for me.

It’s also a bit of a parody. Everything from coffee to tires seems to be “all natural” these days. Even though I own an “all natural” pet supply shop with my wife, I wanted to poke fun at the trend a little on my site.

Now I just need to update the backlog of new work I’ve done recently.

I’d love to hear your feedback on the design, please leave a comment!

Here’s what I did on the 5th week of 2010…

Day 29

Walked around Manhattan taking pics yesterday. It was ridiculously cold outside so most of my street shots were rushed and came out looking that way. Anyway, I went to this great lighting store on 7th ave called Sunshine Lighting. Cool place, loved these paper lanterns.

Day 30

Wanted to try to capture Lindsay’s pregnant belly from her point of view.

Day 31

Testing out my new birthday present… Not this super nice car but the 50mm f/1.6 lens i used to shoot it.

Day 32

A yellow monkey. Spotted while driving through Westchester yesterday, Cross River I think. Been taking a lot of pictures of signs the last few days. Might make for an interesting photo set.

Day 33

Big fan of the clementines. Bigger fan of this 50mm lensthough… This thing makes everything look great!

Day 34

Day 35

A chandelier at my company’s booth at the Javits Center. I think I’m just going to leave the 50mm lens on forever…

Day 22

A red door.

Day 23

Boats in the marina.

Day 24

Completely beat from painting our bedroom/nursery I figured I’d try the”photographer” self-portrait thing.  I’m not too thrilled with the results… I’ll have to revisit this one when I’m not about to collapse from exhaustion.

Day 25

This cool sculpture caught my eye so I decided to shoot it. It was fun trying to frame the moon and power lines  in the rotating circles.

This was at Silvermine Art Center in New Canaan, CT. There were some other great sculptures there, I’ll probably go back there for more P-365s.

Day 26

Charlie the dog… Caught this one by accident as I was taking pics around the house last night.

Day 27

Lookout for werewolves! (might want to avoid cheesy teen movies about them too..)

Day 28

Ash Creek in the snow.

That wraps up Week 4. Follow me on Flickr or Facebook for daily updates. Later.

On the other hand I captured a couple that I’m really happy with. Either way, it’s been 3 weeks now and my camera hasn’t left my side. That alone is pretty cool.

Here’s what I shot this week:

Day 15

Another St. Mary’s landscape shot. This is right by my house so there will probably be a lot more of these, lol.

Day 16

This one was fun because it had the element of danger. I had to lay down next to the train tracks to capture this one. My wife Lindsay is not a fan… of the danger part that is.

Day 17

Best houseplant ever. This bamboo pretty much takes care of itself. We’ve had these guys for 6+ years and they’ve survived several droughts!

Day 18

This is my favorite landscape shot so far. I was really surprised how good this one came out. It was super dark when I took this.

Day 19

I was in Easton, CT on Tuesday night and I saw this rusty old tractor sitting under a floodlight at a farm. Made for some pretty cool pics, I like this one best.

Day 20

I love this one! I wanted to do something with our future daughter’s adorable little shoes and Lindsay came up with this idea. Funny thing is we saw a very similar shot on a book cover at Borders a few days later… Great minds.

Day 21

Had no clue what to shoot yesterday and was kind of in a rush. Luckily there’s a lot of beaches around.

That’s it for this week. I came away with a couple decent out-takes too. Started another set on Flickr for those.

I realized yesterday after reading a post on Kyle Steed’s blog (a fellow Project 365-er) that this isn’t so much about needing to come away with “great” photos but really about sticking to my commitment and “doing” it. In the result of “doing it” I’ve come away with some pretty cool photos. Either way, I’ve shot tons and my camera hasn’t left my side. Hope I can keep this up…

Here’s my shots for week 2:

Day 8

My first attempt at HDR. It was so cold, I could barely even feel the button by the end of setting up this shot. I added a yellow filter in PS but it’s weird how warm it came out.

Day 9

Community Theater in Fairfield, CT. Love the glow of the neon on the brick wall.

Day 10

Sunset at Sherwood Island in Westport, CT. One of the most beautiful places in Fairfield County.

Day 11

In a Photoshop haze… This pretty much sums up my day yesterday.

Day 12

An old church I drive by each day in Vista, NY. Lit by a floodlight and passing cars.

Day 13

Been wanting to try to get a bokeh effect in a photo for a while. Figured before we take down the tree I’d try it out. The dog is a toy for our future daughter (coming May 2nd). We put pink lights on the tree this year in her honor. Corny, maybe… but it looked great.

Day 14

This is Oliie the cat-dog. (Cat who grew up around dogs and thinks he’s one too).  Took almost 120 pictures last night and this was one of the only decent ones.

That’s it for week 2.

I’m no pro, but I really enjoy photography. Hopefully, I’ll improve my skills in the process. As each week of my journey progresses I’m hoping to do a post showcasing the photographs I took that week. So enough talk, lets get started!

Day 1

Lindsay on our walk with the dogs.

Day 2

Saw this on our walk the night before and thought it was kind of interesting. Not too crazy about this one now that I look at it though, lol.

Day 3

A snowy St. Mary’s by the Sea in Bridgeport, CT.

Day 4

Coming soon…

Day 5

A building next to our store. I loved the way the light and shadows looked.

Day 6

My first attempt at a long exposure shot. I always wanted to try one of these. This came out ok, I definitely want to revisit this idea later.

Day 7

My guitar that barely gets played any more… Still looks pretty good though.

1 week down, 51 more to go…

Happy New Year everyone!

I’m not a huge “resolution” person, but I’m definitely goal oriented. This year I want to try to follow through on more of my ideas and goals. So, I’ve decided to post them on my blog instead of writing them on a piece of paper that I’ll probably lose in 3 months. Plus, I’m hoping putting them out in public  will help keep me motivated–due to more of a sense of accountability. If I can complete 50% of these I’ll be an extremely happy guy. Anyway, enough talking about them, here’s what I’ve got so far…

Personal Goals:

1. Be a Great Dad – This is the single biggest goal I have in my life. We’re having a baby this year, she’s due May 2nd. This is my first child and I plan on being the best father I can possibly be to her. This may very well mean not accomplishing some of my other goals, but that’s is fine by me. This is far more important.
2. Project 365 – In an effort to do more creative projects for myself, I’m going to try to take a photo every day in 2010. I’m no pro, but I really enjoy photography. Hopefully, I’ll improve my skills in the process.
3. Blog Regularly – Start a visual blog where I post stuff I’m working on, graphic concepts, illustrations, photos, or ideas. Luckily the 365 project makes for daily content.
4. Start Playing Guitar Again – Not much more to say in this one… It’s been collecting dust for far too long.
5. Be More Present – I want to focus more on being in the moment and experiencing my life. Maybe it’s the creative curse, but my overactive imagination sometimes has me missing some of life’s most wonderful experiences while I’m planning my next “big idea.” With my daughter on the way, I don’t want to miss a minute.

Career Goals:

1. Career Growth – This year I plan to focus on growing in my career. Specifically in the interactive space.  Taking advantage of my experience and moving forward,  I want to leave 2010 with some excellent work in my portfolio that I can truly be proud of.
2. Brand Myself – Not literally, although that would be pretty badass. This year I’m going to develop a brand for my freelance web design business. Which leads nicely into goal #3.
3. Freelance Business – This year I want to really establish my freelance web design business. I’ve been working on jobs periodically on the side. I hope to develop this into a more viable business for me. I have a sales number In mind for the year,  75% of it is my goal.
4. Redesign This Site & Build New Portfolio Site – After I develop a brand for my freelance business I’m going to move my portfolio (which I really need to update) over to it’s new respective site. Then I want to transition JustinL.com into more of a personal site to aggregate all of my online social identities.
5. Design a WordPress Theme – Done a couple for myself. This year I want to design a theme and set it loose in the wild.
6. Learn a New Programming Language – Thinking about learning Ruby on Rails or another comparable framework. I really want to build a web app but don’t know all the hardcore back-end programming to get the thing working.
7. Build a Web App – Got a few ideas kicking around I think might be cool. This one really depends on weather or not I complete Goal 5.

Retail Business Goals:

1. Growth – Serious focus on growing Unleashed Pet Shop,  me & my wife’s business this year. We’re expanding to a new location 3x the current size. I hope to at least double our customer base and year end sales.
2. Focus on our Social Media Marketing -

• Twitter tips 2x per day
• Blog weekly.
• Monthly email newsletter campaigns.
• Start a podcast on pet supply product reviews and pet care tips.

1. Launch Ecommerce Site – Been in the works for awhile. Hit a little snag on the legal side of things that put a hold on this project. Hope to launch in March.
2. Hire an Employee – gonna need some help, especially with the little one coming.
3. Manufacture a Product – I want to develop a private label product and manufacture it to sell in our store.

That’s it for now. I’d love to get some feedback on this. Let me know what you think by leaving a comment. I’d love to hear about some other people’s goals too.

What are some your goals for 2010?

happy howlidays

Messing around with some stock vector I found somewhere. Ended up using it for an email newsletter for Unleashed Pet Shop.