Final post of Final Project, really

Here's my final final ( for real this time). I think some of the positives of this logo include:
1) It has an economy of design that translates well to very large or very small and in color or black and white formats.
2) It represents an important aspect of the company - the legal profession - with the scales of justice.
3)It has a sense of place. Crown King is a gold mining town and scales were used by gold prospectors. The colors are taken from traditional Southwestern art. And the gold is in the scale trays, hinting at the gold of Crown King and success for the company.

I moved the text to the side to reinforce a better visual hierarchy and it makes the text easier to balance.

Thanks to John and to all my fellow classmates for making this a fun and satisfying project.
Ann

Final Project Part 1

I'm dividing my blog posting into two sections, the ones I liked the best in this entry and then some "process pieces" in the blog posting below.

These two versions are the same design with a different layout of the text.

I originally did this design as the scales of justice with some Southwest landscape colors in the background. We discussed this image in class and I got positive feedback. But we also discussed the concern that C K Books might expand beyond the legal profession. Is it wise to limit the logo to a legal theme? I thought that was a valid concern. So I tried some designs with a desert theme. They are shown in the posting below. They just didn't melt my butter. So I put some more thought into my original design and had a light bulb moment.

Crown King is an old gold mine in Arizona. It's in the mountains and I'm not even sure that it is in a desert, well, maybe a high desert. It's history is all tied into the gold mine. And gold mines remind me of gold prospectors. And gold prospectors used scales to weigh their gold. So I'm thinking that when an attorney sees this logo, he or she will think of the scales of justice. But maybe, when someone who has been to Crown King sees it, they will think of gold.

To reinforce that idea, I rethought my colors. I moved the gold color of my earlier design to the scale trays. It's a subtle hint of scales filled with gold. Then I used the blue of an Arizona sky and the dark red often seen in Southwest landscapes for the other background colors. To reinforce the gold theme even further, I used gold for the text. I've tried this image in black and white and in many sizes and I think it will work in multiple formats.

Thanks for viewing. Comments welcome. And good luck on the final to all of you.
Ann

Process Pieces for Final

These are some of the process pieces I worked through for a logo for C K Books. I liked the combination of the scale and the desert colors. But I thought I would try making the scales gold and the "sky" blue. I was pleased with it in color. But when I tried it in black and white it was a total failure. I'm sure this is because of the low contrast between the gold and the blue hues. I could probably adjust the colors and fix it in black and white. But it wasn't my favorite so I didn't.
In class we talked about the desert theme, or at least a theme that wasn't totally tied to the legal profession. So I tried a few desert theme designs. The thing I like best about the top one is that it looks like a sun in color and a moon in black and white. But I'm really not crazy about them. So I didn't polish them up for the final. But I thought I would have them here just in case I need a backup plan.

Rough draft for final

Here's a sample of what I'm working for on the final project. I was going to do a book cover. But all my ideas proved hard to execute. So I decided on a logo project instead. I wanted to combine a legal theme and something to tie into the desert. So I decided on the scales of justice with desert sunset colors in the background. I was going to have someone holding the scales. But it's too busy for a small logo.

For the type I used CopprplGothic Light. I like it because it's clear, simple and easy to read. I don't like that it's all caps. So I tried Monotype Corsiva. I'm not sure about it's legibility in small print.

I'm trying this out in color and in black and white. I think it closes some of its impact in black and white. But then most any logo in color losing something when printed in B&W.

It's still a work in progress. Thanks for viewing. All comments and suggestions welcome.
Ann

Time - Project 7

I think that once again I didn't really understand this assignment. I thought we were suppose to pick a phrase, divide it into 4 or 5 sections, make a piece of each one and then put them all together for one final piece. That doesn't really make any sense, but that's what I did.

I picked two phrases: "Age is just a number!" and "Time is an illusion." I did a few versions of each and decided they were both suited to a starry night, space background. I recently received an antique watch and was inspired to put that in somehow.

This is really two pieces stitched together. First I made the starry night sky on the left half in Photoshop. I started with a blue layer and added depth using the leaf brush in the dodge and burn modes. Then I added the stars with a brush and pencil in several layers and blurred all of that. I duplicated my sky, moved it to cover the right side of the canvas and then flipped it over so it wouldn't look like a mirror image of itself.

Then I added my text. I used a font called Viner Hand. I wanted it to look hand written across the sky. For the linear element, I used the line of text. I did each phrase separately. On the right side I used a mask layer on the text and applied a gradient to make it look like illusion was fading away.

Next I added in the pictures of the timepiece. And I put a flare on the face of the watch just to add a little cosmic detail. I had originally done this as two separate pieces but in order to get it balanced, I had to redo it as one piece, moving the text and watches around for better balance.

Before I decided on this composition, I tried several other versions with the same phrases. One of the "age" pieces that I did and liked is the phrase, "Age is just a number." repeated over and over - like someone saying it over and over trying to convince themselves it's true. I superimposed the text over a calendar. I used browns and reds for the text, the same colors in the vintage calendar. I liked this one but couldn't figure out a similar image for the "time" phrase I was using.


I did a "Time is an illusion" with a starry sky. I liked this one. But I thought the text I choose - abduction - was hard to read. Abduction doesn't have lower case which bothers me. I oriented the text to the right and used a vertical line as my linear element. Afterward I decided to delete all the stars to the right of the line. So I guess that line is the end of time. I liked the starry sky background, so I decided to use that background but different type for my final image.

I fiddled around with several other ideas. Most of them I trashed before they were finished. Well, here's one that I didn't finish but didn't delete. I decided I didn't like it as a simple clock. I wanted to do real ornate, scroll work hands and that was harder and more time consuming than I thought it would be. This was just a rough draft. I didn't line up all the dots for the numbers on the clock. And it was a challenge to get the text lined up and sized right. This one was just more time and trouble than it was worth.

Proportion Study with Line, Point and Edge

Here is my proportional study with line, point and edge. I wasn't really clear on these instructions (so what else is new). But I was thinking about a wave as my force of nature. I started on a standard arithmetic grid. I tried to get the center of the wave a little up and right of center of the canvas. My hope is that the viewer's eyes will move from the busy bottom left to the center of the wave. I did this in blue and white instead of black and white. Then I decided it needed a little more depth. So I made a layer using a gradient of ocean colors and liquified it to mimic the swirl. I then lowered the opacity of the blue background so the color variations showed through.

Letterforms

Our assignment was to produce a compilation of 9 letterforms into a 3 X 3 grid. I decided to use the letter D since I'm from Big D (Dallas, TX). The center D has a flying Pegasus, the old logo for Mobil Oil. When I was growing up in Dallas, there was a neon Pegasus spinning on top of the Mobil building. It was the most recognized landmark of downtown Dallas. I took a picture of a smaller version on another building and used photoshop to have him leaping through my center D. The other Ds I did in black on white background. It looked rather dull, so I decided to add a little gray as a background. When I did, the letters created a mask, leaving their outline in white on the background layer of my image. I thought the white letters on gray looked better than the black on white. So I made all the layers invisible except the background and the center D. This is one of those assignments where I am taking John's word that the process is more important than following the specific details of the assignment. So I decided to ignore those instructions that I didn't like - such as having all black and white and having all the letters the same size. This, I think is much more interesting.
Thanks for viewing.
Ann