ART 235 - Project 5 - Part 4

Hey there! I am done with all of my projects, assignments, etc., and I don't feel any different than I did before. However, finding a leftover bag of cookies in my pocket from earlier today made me feel AWESOME.

Clocked in about two hours of lab time today, and I still have $0.60 left on my printing budget. What should I do with all of that? Whatever. I also bought a can of tennis balls for my three-dimensional piece. I guess that can is where I will begin.



Here is the label as it looks before I printed it out and attached it to the can.



The label on the can...



And a nice little logo placement on the top of the cap. I found a great, cheap can of Penn balls, and the red cap really helps with my color choice. I think you can see the little window that I cut out of the label, too. That was an afterthought, really. I noticed that a lot of the cans has the transparent plastic for their labels, but that material was not available to me, and I don't think the printers have the capability to print on transparencies.

And I know what you have really been waiting for: the poster. (I realized this may be a gigantic size...)



Yup, the puns were rolling deep. Balls deep. Wow, that was a metapun. I'm on fire today. On an unrelated note, my puns were on fire last night regarding a certain Crayola Crayon joke that ended with me saying "That gives a whole new meaning to 'Tickle Me Pink.'"

Now you've seen the parts of the identity guide, the postcards, the poster, and the three-dimensional piece of packaging. That's pretty good. All that is left to see is the full identity guide. That will be the last installment of this project, and the series of me posting all of my logo designs to the blog.

ART 235 - Project 5 - Part 3

The decision to not go to the bar last night positively affected my work habits this morning in class, so much so that I don't have to do any work this afternoon. Tomorrow afternoon, however, that's a different story. I will be printing off the final pieces to my project.

I put the finishing touches on my identity guide this morning and printed that out (a whopping $5.12 worth of printing...), but I was unable to bind it because that certain lab was locked. You've seen parts of the identity guide already, so I will save the rest of that stuff to show off in a later post.

The other items I completed this morning were my postcards! I put the finishing touches on the two I had already worked on, and did the third all this morning. While sitting and listening to reports in my sports writing class last night, I made some sketches of postcard ideas, and I carried the best one into class this morning.

To get us started, here is the first postcard:



This postcard is for a cleverly labeled "doubles sale," where you can buy one item and get one free! A connection I doubt people will get is that the portion of the court I'm showing is doubles alley. I really like the colors.



This next postcard is also quite clever, and believe me, the puns don't end here. The design of the tennis racket is really basic, and I probably should have put more effort into this one, but I didn't find a better color to use in this situation than black.



This one is definitely my favorite postcard. Prices so low, you'll drop a deuce! I love the vibrant orange used, and the simple net design adds a piece of visual interest. You should also notice that I have used some of the secondary colors in the logo for these postcards. I would show you the backside of the postcards, but those are honestly the least interesting part of this entire project.

So what is left to work on? My poster is a work in progress now. I drew up some sketches for that in class last night, too. Trust me, the puns keep coming. I did some Photoshop work today to add a really appropriate image to poster, and you will see yet another use of a secondary color in the logo. It's so versatile!

I will also be working on a new label to put on a tennis ball can. Still brainstorming a bit on that one, but it is going to be pretty basic, but colorful. Maybe I could do two or three different cans... Maybe not. I've spent over $20 on printing this semester alone.

ART 235 - Project 5 - Part 2

I sadly did not get a whole work done last Wednesday, mostly because a wicked hangover made it really uncomfortable to sit in front of a computer monitor. I more than made up for that time today.

I stuck around for the entire class again (which amazes me every time), and got about one and a half postcards finished. Unfortunately, I forgot to save an image of the first postcard while I was in the lab, and I cannot show that one to you now. Maybe tomorrow or Wednesday. I'm playing with tennis puns a lot.

I put a really solid dent into my identity guide today, mostly outside of class time. That's right, I spent roughly two hours this afternoon in the computer lab. I did a lot of the brute work done, such as the Appropriate Uses page. I still want to edit what my mission statement and history are. They aren't quite as clever as they could be, and if anything those need to be the most clever (and most pun-filled).

First up is a teaser of the Appropriate Uses page. It is the second of two pages, and shows off the secondary designs, because you have already seen the primary.



If you recall, red is the primary logo color. Secondary colors as blue, yellow, green, and purple. Why am I explaining this here? Read it on the page for yourself.

Want to get an idea of what the guide looks like when you open it up and see a spread? Then I present to you the least exciting of pages: the colors and typography!



Now you know exactly what colors and fonts I used in the logos! The line on the bottom of the pages used to be red, but I thought that was too dominating and really uncomfortable. The switch is to the same blue that appears on the covers. It's more subdued and feels more natural. I'm trying different things in this guide, too, hoping that it is a little more distinguishable from my last one. However, there are many similarities between the two, and it will be super obvious that the same person designed them.

So what's left to do after the identity guide? The other postcard and a half, the poster, and my three dimensional packaging. I proposed a tennis ball can as my object, which my professor confirmed fits the criteria for what we need to design, then me shot some ideas back and forth about a different way I could possible package any number of tennis balls. I still like the easy idea of slapping a new label on a pre-existing can.

I put more than five hours of work into this project today, and fully expect to put about another two hours in tomorrow, and at least three more in on Wednesday. I really hope to get as much done as I can by Wednesday night so I can coast through this weekend and have everything printed before Monday.

ART 235 - Project 5 - Part 1

Here's the first update of my final project, which if you recall involves a bunch of work. If you need a refresher of what it entails, check out this post. Otherwise I will get right into showing you the logo of my business.

The first logo I want to show you is one of the two designs I was working with.



This design shows an intersection of lines as you would see them on an actual tennis court, and it creates the letter T, which would have worked very well. It was my lesser favorite of the two designs, and I knew I could eliminate it once I found out the Tennis Channel has a similar logo.

So my next design is a lot less rigid and blocky, and more natural. The typeface looks smooth, and there is a lot of implied motion displayed.



At first the arc was black, but I played around with some colors and I found that red added a great contrast to the logo, and a lot more motion. The "Tennis Co." type was the same at first, but I changed it to create more of a separation between the fun of "Topspin" and the business of "Tennis Co." I am actually keeping a lot of the colored variations as secondary uses which will appear in my identity guide.

Speaking of identity guide, I did quite a bit of work on it this morning, and I expect to actually be finished with it by the end of Wednesday's class. Here is a shot of the front cover:



The blue court is a staple of the US Open, and it creates a very fun and professional visual for the cover (DYK: "US Open" refers to tennis, and "U.S. Open" refers to golf?). I even looked up the dimensions for a tennis court, and modeled my identity guide to be the right proportions, so the lines are exactly where they should be. When you open the booklet, you will see a full court:



I had the thought of using the court design on the inner pages, but it would have been way too distracting, and the lines/colors would be very difficult to place text and images over. But as a cover, it looks awesome. I know it's simple like my AJGA booklet was, but I find it less distracting and more business-professional.

I am also playing around more with how I use space on my pages. When I started my last project, I upped my pages from 8 to 12, and I found myself this morning starting with 12 and then increasing that to 16. I doubt I will go any further than that, because I really don't want to pay those printing costs.

I am also having some fun writing my mission statement and company history. It's going to have some tongue-in-cheek humor and quite a few puns, such as how we "serve the community."

I have yet to begin work on my postcards, poster or three-dimensional packaging. I've got some ideas for the last one, but it doesn't go any farther than sticking a new label on a can of tennis balls.

Men's Volleyball Logo - DENIED

My logo design was denied by University Communications this morning. The action lines and underline are a part of the registered logo, the Flying C, and the design is just too close to the original. This much I understand, because the logo pretty much is the Flying C.

When I spoke with the woman who rejected the design, I was very cooperative with her. I think she was expecting me to put up a big fight, but I know the deal, and instead of trying to argue in my favor, I just asked what could be done to fix this issues. All of the action lines would have to be removed, but then we are left with just a volleyball. She suggested adding a drop shadow, but a ball and a drop shadow seems really weak. That loses all character.

She told me that it was still a great design, but it was too great.

Since CMU doesn't have a mascot, the Flying C is their athletics branding. There is absolutely no way to incorporate Chippewas (or anything Native American) into a logo without it creating controversy, or even being borderline offensive.

The decision whether or not to try to come up with a new logo is still up in the air. None of my ideas are as strong as this one. Sigh...

Men's Volleyball Logo - Complete

This is my legacy.

I finished the design for the CMU Men's Club Volleyball logo, took it over to our club sports director, and should hear back tomorrow from the university if it is approved for our use. Yay! I don't see any problem in them allowing the club to freely use the design, because we can use the Flying C with permission, and the equestrian team has a similar design, too.



This is the familiar design that I have shown already, the primary design with maroon being the first color and gold being the second. This logo will be used on our website and Facebook page, and if people are willing to pay for two-color printing, on apparel or posters.



This logo is all maroon, which will be the cheaper design to print because it is one color. This design will most likely appear on apparel. I think it would look really nice on a plain white t-shirt.



This is the primary reverse logo. The ball is now gold with the white tails. This design will be used when printing on a darker color, such as maroon or black.



And finally, we have the one color reverse logo, which is all gold. This is the second most likely design to appear on apparel or posters because it will be cheaper to print one color. It can be used over dark colors, such as maroon or black.

Just as with the Flying C, the Flying Volleyball (which I shall call it for right now) has a few variations, yet many practical uses. Of the four designs, I actually like the primary reverse logo the most (the gold and white over maroon). It might be because I've been working with the maroon ball the whole time and it is nice to see something fresh.

But whatever logo it may be (and waiting until university approval), whenever you see a tall, handsome lad sport some apparel with this design on it, you can say "Hey, Tim Wing made that design." Or you can also throw around the word "legacy" like I have been doing for the past two years.

Men's Volleyball Logo - Color

Okay, I was in the computer lab this afternoon working on the CMU Men's Club Volleyball logo, but I ran out of time and head to go to class before I could completely finish. I would still like to play around with some coloring options, and a few technical tweaks need to be made in the design (I won't get into that stuff, it should be an easy enough fix).



So I worked with my different layers, created a few necessary shapes and actually moved a few lines around (barely noticeable from the prime design). I quickly just filled in the patches with the proper maroon color to see what it would look like with a solid color. I will play around more with maroon and white patches, and even with maroon, gold and white patches. I don't want to add any type to this logo yet, just have the design set. I will also be adding the gold drop shadow of the ball, too. That's something I still need to bring over from the Flying C.

And as good as it looks now, I am sure that after the finishing touches, it will look AWESOOOOOOME.

Men's Volleyball Logo - Prime

After doing some brainstorming and sketch work during class time for my final project, I stuck around in the lab to begin work on the new logo for CMU Men's Club Volleyball. I know what you will see at the end of this post looks amazing, but once it is finished it will be all sorts of awesome.

To begin, my idea for the logo started with the two things that it will stand for: Central Michigan University and volleyball. We should all be familiar with the Flying C (at least I know the two people who read this blog are familiar with it, you have both graduated from CMU), so as a basis for the logo I used the Flying C.



Next, I needed to find a good image of a volleyball to use in place of the C. A quick Google image search for "volleyball ball" yielded many results, but I was looking for one that showed an angle with plenty of distinct detail, and that could rotated (if necessary) to match the movement the lines in the Flying C create.



So I placed those images in Illustrator on their own separate layer so I could work on tracing each one individually and not have so much overlap/distraction. I took some liberties in resizing and altering the images as necessary, and after a quick tracing with the pen and line tools, this is what I created.



Remember, this is after tracing ONLY. Touch ups will include removing the sections of lines from the ball, a bit of alterations to the patches on the ball, and of course adding the colors. Either tonight or tomorrow night I will be finishing this project and by Friday afternoon I will have the final product up.

And I know after numerous claims, I will be absolutely certain about the one thing I left with CMU Men's Club Volleyball. THIS is my legacy.

Future Designs

Today I turned in my AJGA Identity Guide. I thought my design was nice, and then I saw the great work that my classmates did. There are some very talented people in this class. Logo, layout, and binding designs were fantastic. Kudos classmates.

We were also assigned our final project, which will take the rest of the semester to work on. Trust me, I think I may need more time than that.

For this project you will design a complete identity and supplemental material for a small business. This project well help you explore some of the many different ways in which a logo and identity can be used to sustain and promote a business or company.

So having to choose between a restaurant or clothing store, I have decided to go with a sporting goods store. It is fairly general, and it should allow me to come up with plenty of design options and vary it up. Plus, it should be interesting enough for me to put a lot of good effort into it.

Along with the identity guide, which will include the same items and sections as the previous project, we need to develop three supplementary materials for the business. One poster, three postcards, and a piece of three dimensional packaging. That last one might be a little tricky, but I should be able to rock this project.

Another project I've been wanting to work on is a logo for CMU Men's Club Volleyball. Not a generic logo that changes every year, or something silly the printers at the t-shirt place come up with. An actual logo that will be the branding of CMU Men's Club Volleyball. I'm going to tease you with that, and by the end of the week I should have an early design ready to show off.