Taking you to Funkytown.

First official design post. Nice! So like I mentioned, I’m working for Faust Haus this summer and every week (or so), Leah assigns me a blog entry. My most current one was for creating functional pieces, you know...like checklists, etc. She directed me to a wonderful site, Knock Knock, a design company who manufactures witty, functional art pieces. I got a few pointers and started brainstorming. Here’s a little look at my design process.

A little glimpse at the ole sketchbook:

First draft:

I worked on the pieces one at a time, not really knowing what direction I wanted to go. They worked well individually, but as a set, I wasn’t feeling it. Leah suggested that I stick with a specific color palette and family of fonts and everything will just come together. I trust her, so I took her advice. For me, I really enjoyed the Hall & Oates inspired piece, “My List Of The Best Things In Life” (like the song “Your Kiss”). I liked how it was kind of funky, and it steered away from the way the functional pieces from Knock Knock looked. So I researched and found a color palette that would quench my 80’s thirst:

80’s-tastic, if you ask me. I also went back to the drawing board (ha ha ha) and did some more sketches for a redesign. 
   
Final pieces (pictured above). I’m REALLY happy with how they turned out and am excited to make them into real notepads and post-its. Oh, if you click on the images, they get bigger so you can take a better gander. The first one includes short descriptions.

Here’s one more for the road:

Title: FUNK’tional Art


As for other news, I can’t believe tomorrow is Friday. A week from Saturday, I will be flying back to KCI. Sigh. This summer went by so fast. I don’t mean to sound like a broken record, but I don’t want to leave. But I guess at the same time, I’m anxious to see what this year has in store for me.

In not-so-emo news, I am starting to work on my personal logo. Stephen posted a great blog entry about the difficulty of branding yourself (though he’s moved on to more difficult problems, like branding this wedding). I will have to say “affirmative” to Stephen’s observations. I want my logo to say so much, but in the simplest way possible. So I guess that is what I’m struggling with. I just need to keep reminding myself that I can always change it, it’s not like it’s permanent. I’m not going to get it tattooed on my butt or anything (hm...). I have also been working on the layout of my new and improved portfolio, which I am super stoked about.