QUEEN MEDIA

Last week I began a new job as a full-time Graphic Designer at Moosejaw Mountaineering’s corporate office in Madison Heights, Michigan. I was very excited to take this step in my design career. Especially with a company with a notoriously odd and fun work culture. 

My first project on the Moosejaw brand was to promote a 48oz Moosejaw Nalgene water bottle product. The marketing team thought it would be funny to have the photographers photograph the water bottle with a footlong hotdog to emphasize the bottle’s size. With that photo taken, I knew this has to be a bit silly but it was difficult shifting into this “off-the-wall” design mindset that I surely was not used to. 

I initially played with the larger typography in Adobe Illustrator so I could get the sizing and tracking all concrete. I’m not a fan of editing type in Adobe Photoshop so I was more comfortable importing it from Illustrator. Due to the composition of the photograph provided, I didn’t have much flexibility in the placement of information. I was able to work with it despite this restriction. After showing the above image to one of the other designers, she made some really helpful suggestions like playing more with the background (which was really bland as is) and experiment more with the color of the typography. She suggested maybe pulling blue from the blue water bottle for some cohesiveness. 

From that feedback, I hopped in Illustrator and put together some icons for a pattern. I created a minimalistic hotdog and water bottle, tilted them on an angle, and repeated them in a sequence. I drew a clipping mask around the background/along the water bottles so I could implement this pattern in the gray background and also made the background a light blue to compliment the bottle. After that, I used the Moosejaw red color to accent a now white piece of typography. 

The last edit I made to this design was tilting the typography to contrast the direction of the tilt of the pattern in the background, making the overall composition a little more dynamic. 

A client I’m currently working is launching an organization called C.U.R.E. (Cultivating Unity, Renaissance, & Evolution). C.U.R.E. is purposed to function as a network bettering the metro-Detroit community by developing resources pertaining to skilled trades and apprenticeships. The organization would promote mentorship and social responsibility for the community, primarily operating in the form of a phone application that is being developed by another party.

My sketches show that I really wanted to try and promote the acronym as the main piece of the project as the full name is very long and hard to work with for a logo design. This design needs to be adaptable for small communications like phone screens so the long name isn’t going to work very well. Arranging the four-letter acronym in an interesting way was also a key objective of my early ideas and sketches. 

I was initially experimenting with DDC Hardware as a typeface for the organization’s logo, but I became concerned about the licensing that would be required for what C.U.R.E. is trying to accomplish. Agency became a great alternative typeface, which I modified in letter structure to make each letter perfectly square without it looking distorted or wonky. I aligned a lot of the edges and weights of the letters to make them look consistent despite having a lower x-height. 

The original teal color that I was working with shifted to blue instead. This blue is Pantone 313, chosen to both represent the blue-collar demographic of the organization’s audience and the geographical demographic being Detroit (area code 313). This blue is very neutral too in brightness, allowing for flexibility on the use of black and white with it whether the blue be the background or the the foreground. The space between the letters was also increased to allow for better readability when the logo mark is scaled down to the size of an app on a phone screen.

A horizontal, non-squared structure of the logo was also put together for when the square one is not practical (such as on letterheads, contracts, and other media). The letters retain the same proportional spacing as when they are in the square structure. The horizontal version is also inviting to the full name of the organization as a secondary element (a slogan?). 

This design has been presented to the client and the client has given very positive feedback. The next phase of this project will be demonstrating the logo in use on various media that the organization will be in immediate need of. This will probably include the organization’s business card and some mock-ups of the logo in digital platforms such as a phone home screen or on social media. 

Liberty Bar is a bar located in Pontiac, Michigan. The bar is known for its LGBTQ-friendly business (it’s often referred to as a gay bar despite not advertising itself as one). The bar has been in business for a very long time in the historical building it operates out of in the downtown Pontiac area. The building has a very bold appearance; its front being a bright blue color with the pillars of the Statue of Liberty’s crown atop the building. The back has a very colorful graffiti wall. 

Because the bar doesn’t really have consistent or evident branding, this personal project of mine was initiated. I wanted to create something that was representative of the bar’s customer base while not being so obvious. 

Initial designs had varying typefaces going on with different color schemes. A rainbow color scheme was also considered but came off as too in-your-face and stereotypical for a gay bar.

I wanted to incorporate the Statue of Liberty or imagery of it somehow in the design. I had a hard time figuring out how to implement it because I was still struggling to commit to a specific type face. I ultimately did an image-trace of a front-facing Statue of Liberty and had to revise a few times due to jagged traces and odd proportioning of the face and crown pillars.

Once the face was first put together and placed in a circular icon, I added an outer stroke to the circle that mimicked a circle left behind by a beer glass. It wasn’t translating as much as I thought when showing fellow graphic designers so the circular stroke was refined to be a consistent stroke. Bolder typefaces began to become favorable for the design to work with the black circle icon.

I also thought it would be neat to emphasize the location of the bar considering its history in the Pontiac area. It’s the only bar of its kind in this area as other gay bars are more common farther south. I put placeholders “1933″ and “19XX” as years of the bar’s establishment; this is another design decision to emphasize the long history of this bar. 

Wholistic Rianna is an online visual identity for a health and lifestyle blog. The blog features a variety of content ranging from healthy eating to workouts to general mental health. The word “wholistic” (a varied spelling of “holistic” being used in this case to emphasize “wholesomeness”) is helpful with representing the blog as the various content ultimately works hand-in-hand to improve the well-being of the overall self.

Initial sketches played with different shapes and potential typefaces that could be used for the logo mark. The client identified a desire for dual-type in their mark and perhaps an icon that could represent the blog even on other platforms outside of Instagram where it is primarily housed. Another note the client provided was that her blog sees a lot of attention and engagement with women, meaning that women are the portion of the audience engaging with the blog’s content the most. This was a demographic to consider in the process of the design.

The different kinds of content the blog features led me to consider a working logo system that would change depending on what kind of content is being featured. I initially identified four categories of content on Wholistic Rianna being food, fitness, networking, and mental health. The first design concept that was presented to the client features a primary logo mark in bold Brandon Grotesque and four secondary marks each representing the different categories of the blog.

For this round of proofs, the type was modified to remedy inconsistent kerning and the letters themselves were also edited to allow for the “wholistic” portion of the mark to sit atop the secondary word without having to rest on certain letters’ ascenders. This proof, while like by the client both in visuals and concept, was rejected as it didn’t necessarily meet her expectations of dual-type and iconography. I had dismissed those details in favor of a bold, bright appearance that wasn’t delivering what the client was envisioning. She did give positive feedback for the different categories identified for the secondary marks, however she recommended dropping the networking concept and renaming the other three to fitness, nutrition, and mindset.

The next round of designing for this, I selected two different typefaces (one script and one sans serif) to compliment each other, allow for adaptability, and provide an inviting feel. The client loved the selected typefaces but feared that the lack of an icon would make the design look too generic.

I developed the “Wholistic” icon in response. This icon is a rounded triangular shape that visually represents the three elements of the blog being fitness, nutrition, and mindset. The icon makes small appearances as regular triangles replacing the dots of the “i”s in the primary mark that was creating before the icon. The icon then replaces the primary mark in the secondary marks; complimenting the Century Gothic names of each category. The “w” in the icon is pulled from the “wholistic” portion of the primary mark to create a sense of cohesiveness. 

At this point I am still awaiting feedback from the client on this new logo design proof I’ve provided. I’m hoping that the concept that has gone into the new logo mark and icon will win the client over this time around.

The Clarkston Cobras is a new southeast Michigan-based nonprofit organization/flag football team. The organization is led by people breaking from an already established organization of the same kind; these people seeking a fresh and clean start.

An initial sketch for this project had an oval-shaped cobra mark with the typographic element of the logo being both above and below the oval. A type of green was the desired color of the client for the nonprofit organization’s brand, so early Illustrator sketches included green. 

The logo icon was designed to be symmetrical with oval shapes being the skeleton underlying the mark. The width of the ovals align with the typography which has shifted to be totally below the icon with two type sizes. The skeleton also indicates smaller details of the cobra itself including the placement and shape of the eyes and the curve of the top of the cobra’s mouth.