the lex.ikon journal

Business card: Dylan Dearinger

klumsden1221 — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 22:20:56 +0000

Dylan’s a drummer by trade. He was looking for a business card that showed a little personality while emphasizing professionalism. Here is the result. The drum rim at the bottom was created entirely in Illustrator. The drumstick element was pulled into Photoshop from Illustrator for refinement.

Filed under: Uncategorized

Flyer: Certified Life Coach Suzi Entwistle

klumsden1221 — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 20:32:20 +0000

Suzi’s a friend of mine through our sons’ preschool. Her son and my son are classmates. When she approached me to design a flyer for an upcoming mothers’ workshop, this was the result.

These were the design components I started with…

Image courtesy of Flickr

Attribution unknown - wish it were mine

Filed under: Uncategorized

A Sampling of Brochures

klumsden1221 — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 09:26:05 +0000

Again, these come courtesy (for the most part) of Rock Paper Scissors Creative. But the handiwork was mine. You’ll have to click on some of these for a larger, full-width view.

Bearse USA

Front cover

Inside panels (folded to meet @ center)

Full spread

Back

GRACE cancer research & support

Tri-panel: side 1

Tri-panel: side 2

Foster Care Justice Alliance

Four-panel: side 1

Four-panel: side 2

Institute of European & Naturopathic Skin Care

Two-panel: side 1

Two-panel: side 2

Broadview Assisted Living @ Tallahassee

8x8 tri-panel: side 1

8x8 tri-panel: side 2

Posted in Uncategorized

Some past logo work, for kicks

klumsden1221 — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 09:35:09 +0000

It’s good to go back sometimes and review my design history—mostly to see how far I’ve come (i.e. how far I am from the bad early stuff). Here, in no particular order, are some not-necessarily-recent samples of my logo work, for the most part shown courtesy of Rock Paper Scissors et al. A few are logo comps off the clients’ reject pile…but I was fond of ‘em.

Oooooh, spooky.

Well, at least the shoes were fun to draw.

This project got scrapped, but it was so much fun. I especially enjoyed the one on the far right. She tosses her spices with a certain flair.

These were destined to become bar tap handles.

Posted in Uncategorized

Technical illustration

klumsden1221 — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 16:58:08 +0000

This was created for a client earlier this month, to some very precise specs. This is done entirely by hand (not 3D rendered) except for the slightly cone-shaped piece on the left end, for which I used Illustrator’s very basic 3D rendering tool.

Posted in Uncategorized

Royalty: Final designs

klumsden1221 — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 20:06:51 +0000

I love projects that allow me to really stretch my creative muscles. This was a gem of a project.

Posted in Uncategorized

Progress on royalty

klumsden1221 — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 19:20:14 +0000

Here is the queen of hearts, take one.

King of Diamonds, first draft.

Jack of Clubs.

Posted in Uncategorized Tagged: drafts, Illustrator, projects, sketch

Work in progress, June 23

klumsden1221 — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 00:00:43 +0000

Here are some preliminary rough sketches for a client. The project centers upon card games. These sketches were done in charcoal; the final figures will be rendered in Illustrator. The trick will be paying extreme attention to minute details while keeping the figures light, whimsical and flirtatious…cartoon-like rather than portrait-like, but not childish. I’m still trying to strike a good balance.

I’m thinking of using my crazy children as models for the joker. They can bend and twist in some amazing ways!

King of Diamonds and Jack of Clubs

Thoughts on the Queen of Hearts

King of Spades

Fashion study

Rough jokers

Random set

Posted in Uncategorized Tagged: charcoal, drawing, illustration, Illustrator, preliminary design, sketches

Flashmob Marketing?

klumsden1221 — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 20:23:08 +0000

Something about this whole flashmob craze has me jazzed. Public displays of infectious improv creativity, flashmobs grab the accepted rules of social interaction and bend them over backward.

A train depot is suddenly a dance floor for a crowd of two hundred.

A California mall becomes the set of a musical.

A public fountain turns into an Olympics trial site for synchronized swimming hopefuls.

A random innocent bystander finds himself the center of sudden, frenetic attention.

The real genius of flashmobs is their “now you see it, now you don’t” nature. Flashmobs come and go in a white-hot burst of energy brief enough to keep them from outlasting their welcome.

The lasting effect of a flashmob sort of parallels the desire of any earnest designer or marketer — to create projects and pieces that enter viewers’ minds like an explosion, but leave them talking for weeks and months afterward. Social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, [fill in the blank here], help accomplish in marketing (of any product, concept, school of thought) what improv enthusiasts do with mob mentality: get a simple, crowd-wowing image or message out in force and en masse, in an instant.

These be interesting times for professional eye-catchers. How can I, as a designer, hop on the flashmob bandwagon and use it to my advantage?

Posted in Uncategorized Tagged: design, Facebook, flashmob, marketing, twitter

Working from home and paying for it

klumsden1221 — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 01:33:27 +0000

I think I mentioned this in a previous post, but working amidst the clutter of home is not easy. It doesn’t take much to get my random-abstract mind off-target anyway, but really, the moment my eyes stray from the screen, they land by default on some pile of junk screaming for my attention.

To the untrained eye, these junk piles look innocuous enough…a few magazines stacked here, a remote control there. Yesterday’s mail. Two months’ worth of school art projects, capped with a lone shoe (never a pair). But chronic procrastinators will recognize these junk piles for what they are: demon-spawned mischief bombs designed to derail the time-crunched freelancer from the most pressing deadlines and from some much-needed self-marketing.

How can I concentrate on the task at hand unless my environment is calm, my spirit peaceful, my view an empty horizon and nothing more? To be truly efficient in my work, I must leave my desk and attack the distracting mess! Beat it into subservience! Banish it from my sight forevermore!

Oh…if only.

Ten years ago, my knee-jerk reaction to the clutter would have been to clean it up. Nice and easy. Eight years ago, when our second child was born, I burned out on the clean-up method and took on a more defeatist perspective – why bother when it would all be out of place again in 30 minutes?

The defeatist mode dug its heels in even more deeply a few years later, when I formally hung up my shingle and began working from home for pay. I’d strap on the blinders and ignore the mess and the rising toxicity levels until my own sense of dignity protested within me, or until my family complained … whichever happened first. Usually it was family, since I had by that time embraced the philosophy that a high school friend once jokingly promoted:

WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS, LOWER YOUR STANDARDS.

Fast-forward to 2009 and to a chronic procrastinator who’s still not quite inured to mess, but who has perfected the techniques of clutter-induced-pain management…or so she thinks.

I’ve bought stuff on Ebay and I occasionally browse my local Craigslist, but for some reason, when I caught this post on a friend’s Facebook wall, a little tinkly bell went off in my brain:

[I] just sold some goodies on Craigslist…nearly enough to pay for my Puerto Vallarta trip! Gotta love CL!! … I buy and sell all the time on CL. Our area is pretty active though, I know some places aren’t quite as busy as ours. I sold [my daughter's] American Girl dolls that she doesn’t play with. Those things are like mommy crack…moms can’t get enough!

Babe, you had me at Puerto Vallarta.

Are you kidding me? All this STUFF…this whole icky swamp of self-indulgent, useless, unplayed-with STUFF…could jet me off to a sun-drenched beach somewhere? Why did I not think of this sooner? Where have I been?

And more to the point, why have I been wasting all my time slaving away at the keyboard when I should have been milking the cash cow that my worldly possessions could potentially be? How is this not a win-win for my freelancing situation — getting rid of the distracting clutter and making money, thereby not really losing any of the time spent sorting and selling that should be spent working?

I may not be back again for a while. I have some sales to attend to. But I’ll be sure to post photos and prices. You may find a great deal. My project managers will have to wait.

Posted in Uncategorized Tagged: clutter, Craigslist, deadlines, Facebook, Facebook friends, freelancing, housekeeping, housework, making money, paying for it, Puerto Vallarta, self-promotion, working from home, writing