Had the opportunity to design the festival days logo again for 2011. My sister’s role on the festival days committee is probably going to change in the future so this could be my last year to design the event logo. My sister Sarah Hale, always does a good job coming to me with a rough idea of what she wants. In this case she liked the idea of an expedition badge and paying homage to some of the landmarks of Farmington’s future primarily their new city building and the FrontRunner train and an eagle (my least favorite inclusion but whatever). I threw in Colossus from Lagoon since that has always been a symbol of Farmington for those of us who drive through Farmington every day but aren’t lucky enough to live their.

The development of this logo was a bit different than my typical process. Because I knew that their would be a lot of detail required to bring together all the landmarks, I basically started by finding source material, digitally collaging the elements together in photoshop, then printing that out and redrawing all the elements on separate sheets of tracing paper (see original line drawings below). One of my favorite processes (mostly because of the amount of time it saves) is to then scan the black and white line drawings back into the computer, create a work path over each in photoshop then exporting the vectors into Illustrator. from their I can refine lines and clean up shapes but usually I leave a lot of the imperfections since I like the hand drawn quality it can achieve even in a digital format. Let me know what you think.

Back in December I posted a picture of my storyboard for the 3 minute MarketStar Impact video I was writing and producing. I’m excited to finally be able to show you the finished product. It was done with the help of my friends Zach and Ben from Mighty Clever who helped take my storyboard and create the visuals and motion graphics. We premiered the movie at the MarketStar annual company meeting on January 20th to rave reviews. Let me know what you think…

I seem to be getting more and more requests for commissioned illustrations. I wish I was more efficient and had more time so I could take more of them on because I do enjoy the process. Unfortunately I can’t seem to strike a balance between making it affordable and making it worth my time. Brian is a good friend who love to golf so when he asked me if I’d do a family portrait I knew I had to incorporate golfing somehow. The baby on the way was a last minute request and since the portrait was 90% done I had to get creative on how I could integrate the addition….

First Quick Sketch to get Brian’s approval on concept

refined sketch to scan and digitize

Since I walked in the door at MarketStar, one of my least favorite logos has been the StarPerks program logo. I finally had time to work on a redesign and it has been well received. Let me know if you agree in the upgrade.

Before

After

My co-worker Phil Mickey asked me if I would be interested in helping his family with an illustration for a holiday card. I’m always sensitive to how many side projects I take on during this busy time of year so I challenged him to come back to me with a fun and creative idea and if it peaked my interest I would help them out. He held up his end of the bargain by pitching to me the idea of making a movie poster based on the Incredibles and turn the characters into their family. When he showed me some pictures and source material – I was hooked. It took a lot longer than I hoped but in the end turned out really fun. I ended up spinning it into the cover of a comic book. Phil tweaked it before printing it back into a fun movie poster. Here is my final version.

Here is an original sketch

Just finalized the logo for Farmington City after many months of contemplation. It was a project that started with what I felt was a lot of good energy and momentum and then fizzled out for a good 4-5 months until they settled on the typographic variation above. As I look back on it now, with a more objective eye, I think they made a good choice stripping out the iconography and going with a very simple yet sophisticated type only identity. I hope it will serve them well for a very long time.

Below are some of the concepts from the original presentation.

I have been working on an exciting new project. It’s my first real opportunity to script, stage and direct a 3 minute motion graphics video. Below is a picture of my initial storyboard. I tried writing a script but I’m just too visual and needed the ability to share my vision and get insight from stakeholders in the project. I pretty much commandeered a conference room and made it my studio for a couple weeks. It really helped to have a visual map to illuminate holes and weak spots. It’s formally off for development now. I’ll keep you posted on how things go.

My new corporate design job at MarketStar keeps me plenty busy and we’re working on stuff incredible stuff I can’t reveal yet. Sometimes a simple freelance project comes along and despite my best efforts I can’t help but have some creative fun. I thought this flyer for my friends at Spring Creek Realty came together very nicely. Hope they have a successful Ski Day.

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted anything. I’ve changed jobs since the start of the summer and have been busy adjusting to a new path in my career. More on that later. It’s amazing how early we start to promote holidays anymore. Seems like were so concerned about promoting the next holiday at some point we are going to forget to celebrate the one we started buying stuff for 3 months ago. Anyway, this week I got to create a poster for my new company’s Halloween party. I thought it turned out pretty good. We have a cultural initiative about being “orange” this year so this poster kind of pays homage to that and ties in the holiday. enjoy.

I designed this illustration for a friend of mine who’s husband is serving in Afghanistan. It was a fun illustration to work on and it’s cool to think it might be worn by the men and women protecting our liberty. Hopefully it conveys the message and feeling of accomplishment they intended.