W, the performer.

A couple years back I proposed a billboard for a Charlotte republican who has the same middle initial, "W". It was presented as a big "W" with that republican's name below it. The decision maker immediately recognized how effective it could be. But wisely chose not to go with it because it wasn't much later when things got really hot in Iraq.

To write about these posters I feel that I must mention that I am biased towards Bush. I did not vote for him or the republican party and like most Americans I feel really let down by this administration. Since the tide turned early last year the white house has been a sinking ship with the fingers pointing to everyone else. It seems like lately there's been a new story every week from some inner sanctum cohort that's been burnt. The first thing they do is write a juicy tell all book about the real "W". I guess we're all a little curious about what makes this bozo tick?

I remember during Bush's first election seeing "W" bumper stickers everywhere. At the time I didn't know anything about Bush, but thought branding him as "W" was a brilliant move. It very simply separated him from Bush Senior and also made him seem friendlier by using his nick name. I guess it was too clever 'cause here we are.

So when Oliver Stone decided to do a movie about our president what else could he call it! For the last three months posters have been popping up all over the web. And just recently in Denver where the Democratic Convention will held. They should do it at the Republican Convention too. The art was done by Crew Creative, an awesome agency out of LA that was responsible for all the great Dark Knight stuff. Click here to see there work.

All of these posters are really unexpected. The first sets the tone by reminding us of his friendly nickname and his famous quotes. Here's a golden oldy, "too many OBGYNs aren't able to practice their love with women across this country." What an idiot.

The next series is just as good. Dub-ya is getting ready to go on stage. They've purposely been shot non heroically. Definitely more matter-of-fact and awkward in tone, as though a camera was secretly hidden in a corner. What I also like is that the focus isn't "Josh Brolin as dub-ya" and more like "Josh Brolin, who?" Which goes to show you that dub-ya is center stage. It's as if he's about to perform and do an act. Which makes me wonder is that was Oliver Stone's intent with the marketing. Is he trying to show the "W" is really just a performer who can do a dance, a magic act and crack a joke, but really has know substance? We'll see.

Another thing I like is the use of "this fall" at the bottom of the desk posters. Sure it's opens this fall but I think it's also a little tongue and cheek.

I really have to say that these posters are perfect and the guys over at Crew Creative have done an outstanding job. I'm really curious as to what they do next as we get closer we get to the release/elections date. But before we part I have one more quote by our fearless leader, "don't misunderestimate me!", we won't.

Beijing, Moving Ahead.

A week ago, only a few had seen the 2008 Beijing Olympics logo. Well, all of that changed on Friday evening. Since I started watching the Olympics, I've seen the logo everywhere, which made me curious, what's it all about?

I went online and found the previous Olympic logos and to be honest, the Atlanta, Sydney and Athens logos are really quite simple and obvious, almost too obvious. So I took another look at the Beijing logo and began to analyze it.

The first thing that jumps out is the figure. I assume it's running and not dancing. It's running in a left to right direction which typically means looking ahead. Another thing is that it's drawn in clean, smooth, straight lines, not a brush like you'd expect. This speaks to modernism. To contrast this modernism, they drew the text under the logo in thick brush strokes to give that eastern feel. The other interesting aspect is the red. Red and black always look good, but in this case it was done deliberately because red is the prevalent color in the communist Chinese flag.

An additional interesting aspect is that the figure looks like traditional Chinese character. I had to go online to find out the back story. Apparently the logo is called "Chinese Seal - Dancing Beijing" which alludes to three Chinese characters: ren, person; wen, culture; and jing, capital city. I find that absolutely amazing, what depth! I had heard that the Chinese have thousands of characters in their alphabet compared to our measly twenty-six.

"I will use the word 'simple'- in that it works well in all the different ways it needs to work - small occasion, big occasion, internationally, nationally," said Copeland, the IOC Look of the Games advisor.

"In a word, it conveys simple but important concepts. It will take its place in Olympic logos, a prominent place," he added.

This is just another example of how the Chinese have taken the extra step to blow us away. We all saw the opening ceremony, it was big. Seeing that ceremony, the Chinese athletes so focused on obtaining the gold, and this logo I am now positive that China has an impressive culture. It doesn't matter if you agree with it or not, their culture has a way of bringing the people together to create excellence.

While I was surfing the web and trying to understand this logo better I ran across a controversial video that shows another side to this logo.



I touched on it earlier, the red speaks to communism and when I think of Chinese communism I have to think of the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre. Is it fair to take what happened then, throw it into the faces of the Chinese people? People that so desperately want to be recognized as a proud and strong country in the international community? Isn't that what the Germans tried to do with the 1972 Munich Olympics? I don't know, but as well done as the video is I think this video is crude and probably unfair.

One thing can not be disputed, the Chinese have a devotion to excellence, we could learn something from that.

UPDATE 08.15: While watching the Olympics on NBC last night they showed a brief segment about the artist, Han Meilin, who designed the 2008 Beijing Olympic Logo.

A very soft spoken man who explained though his interpreter how he got the job and created the logo. He explained that during his stint in prison he delved into the Chinese alphabet so as to understand the relationship between Chinese words and images. He began to understand the long and complicated path from a drawing of a turtle to the written symbol of a turtle and how they can mean many other words. This knowledge made him an ideal candidate to design the Beijing Olympic Logo. During the interview he showed the original logo drew by the Olympic committee which apparently meant "Beijing". Then he showed his original sketches of how he was he was able to add more depth by incorporating the words of "person" and "culture" into the logo. Not only did he design the logo, he also designed the FUWA. The Official Mascots of Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, see below.

What Goes Into a Logo?

Everyone knows what a logo is. But how does the process work? To figure that out we have to begin with Websters definition of a logo.

Logo: A graphic representation or symbol of a company name, trademark, abbreviation, etc, often uniquely designed for ready recognition.

A logo can be a complicated thing to develop and even more difficult to describe how it was done. To get that "uniquely designed" logo every designer has to work with a process. This process makes it a fun and quick experience for both the designer and the client. The best way for me to describe this process is to showcase a logo I did for a friend of mine, Tracy.

There are five phases to designing a logo and it typically takes three to five weeks:
1) Discovery
2) Logo options
3) Choosing the logo and adjustments
4) Color options
5) Final logo and treatment

1) Discovery
Tracy needed a logo for herself and her husband (the Egans) and her friends (the Walker's) to use for the trips they make together. They've been doing it for years and this year they decided to make a logo to distinguish themselves from everyone else.

2) Logo Options
Once Tracy explained why she needed the logo the next step was for her to decide what message she wanted the logo to give. She told me that the logo needed to be as much an Egan logo as a Walker logo. It had to have a 50/50 feeling so that both couples would connect with it and enjoy wearing it. This told me that the audience was the two couples, nobody else. The logo had to be festive and fun while also being strong and masculine, since men need to wear it as much as woman.

So I designed four logos.
v.1: Martini and beach water spoke to having fun and relaxing.
v.2: Screamed the hot sun and had a tribal feel to it.
v.3: A badge/stamp was fairly generic. But the middle letter could have been an "E" or a "W" depending on how you looked at it.
v.4: "Laze". This logo was all about being fun and crazy.

3) Choosing the logo and adjustments
This is the part where they might hate all of them or love one or two, you never know. In this case they liked three of them and asked me to modify them a little.
v.1: I flipped the type and made the "E" and "W" a little more edgier.
v.2: Got rid of the "&" because it confused the "EW" message.
v.3: Changed the olive to an umbrella playing off the martini glass and making it a beach.

4) Color Options
By this point most clients have typically picked one or two of the logos but again, they liked all three. With three logo choices, I began the color options. With each logo I made three color versions. The first two were what I thought the colors should be. The last, I always do in a completely different way so that the client can see something different.

v.1abc: With the first two I did blue, which is the the opposite of what you'd expect.
v.2abc: This logo is all about fun and relaxation, so I focused on the colors that best represented sand and beach.
v.3abc: Since this was a stamp, I looked at the first two logos for inspiration. I also wanted to show them how the "E" and "W" would look at different angles.


5) Final logo and treatment
Once I created the color options, Tracy and her group quickly made a decision. The Martini Glass Design was too feminine for them. The stamp "E" and "W" logo was cool, but in the end seemed to fall on the side of the Egan's and not the Walker's. So the logo they all liked the most was the screaming sun logo. They liked the opposing colors but we adjusted them some more and we were done.


I was really happy with how the logo turned out. It represented the clients perfectly. Out of all the logos designed for the group, my personal favorite was the Martini Glass design because it had a simple, cool twist to it, making it more memorable.

Logos are fun. They are simple and true, they don't lie. You quickly know whether they suck or are brilliant. That being said, I think that reason alone is what drives most designers crazy. I love logos because I have all the freedom in the world to design something unique that will stand above all the others.

Heads-Up

Shot by Jim McGuire and edited by me using Final Cut Pro and Motion.

The Outfits Have Finally Come Off

Every year there's a San Diego Comic Con and we get new spoilers about upcoming movies, tv shows and comic books. It's considered the biggest comic book convention in the world and it continues to grow because Hollywood has totally flooded it with all that is summer blockbuster. So the fans flock to the show to get Hollywood star autographs, comics or just to have fun.
















I've wanted to go to this show for years but it's hard to justify a trip from the east coast to San Diego just to get some comic books. But those that do go absolutely love it. This year there's been a ton of photos that have come out and the most entertaining have to be the people wearing the coolest costumes and the incredibly hot models dressed as superhero characters. I guess someone saw this and had an idea.





So while I was surfing the web and checking out the latest scoops I ran into these amazing but very risque pictures of nude models as comic book characters. I had to figure out who and why? Eventually I found out through Jo Blo that the company behind them is Nerd Core and the pics are for a calendar. I have to admit I love the idea, I even bought a calendar. Each shot has a sense of coolness behind them. They are really well art directed and photographed. Plus a lot of care was put into making sure they didn't turn out like porn. I know it's sexist and childish but woman look great in superhero outfits, look at Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman, she's awesome and I don't think I was the only one imagining naughty things. Obviously sex sells and our culture thrives on it. I think these guys came up with an idea that hadn't been done "well" before and tried to not make it look like crap. There are a few misses but overall they turned out very cool. To see them all go to Nerd Core.

Hats With Tude - Wear With Attitude.com

"It's a hat!" says Teraysa. All I saw was a bright florescent pink fluffy pom pom that for some reason reminded me of Fraggle Rock. Fast forward two months later and you have WearWithAttitude.com. Before I explain the site, let me tell you about how things came to be.


We all looked at what Teraysa had just pulled out of her bag and began to understand that it really was a hat. Just to give you a little background, I hadn't seen Teraysa in years and on the spur of the moment we decided to get together and have a drink. We all laughed about old times and how we all had changed since we last saw each other. Some of us had kids and others had traveled around the world. After a couple of beers, we began to act like kids and wear the crazy pink hat, it was fun.

During all this I was trying to work out the viability of the hat. My first thought was, isn't there a hat like this already out there? There are some, but not many and none specific to this kind of hat. Teraysa's a bit of an innovator and she came up with the hat after going to Burning Man. She told me that Burning man is a bizarre, hot/cold and dry crazy place. So to have fun at night and still party she figured that she needed to keep her head warm. Well I can attest that it does keep your head warm because I started to get hot flashes after ten minutes.

It's a cool, practical and trendy style of clothing that appeals to the flamboyant and extraverted kind of person. The only thing that was holding her back was awareness, she didn't have a website. That's where yours truly comes into the picture. Problem was, she didn't have any money to make it happen. So maybe I had a few drinks, or perhaps it's because I believe in the product. Either way I decided to do the site for free.

Teraysa has worked with everybody in the Ad business over the years and so when I came on board, things began to take motion. Jim McGuire a famous Charlotte photographer also gave his services for free, as did Jade a high end makeup artist and stylist. Our services were all gratis as were the models from the local talent agency. Trevor, a copywriter also donated his time. With all of us doing this for free, it was full steam ahead.

The idea behind the photos was that it's all about the hats. So initially I thought we should have the models wearing the hats in the nude. I thought the models could use this as a form of expressing their own form of individuality. This idea had some legs at first. The problem was that the models weren't being paid so it quickly went the way of most good ideas. So plan B was to do it so they looked nude. Once we decided upon this, it took us a little while to figure out the correct tone to shoot them. I think that the moment they realized that it was all about being expressive and animated they totally committed themselves to it. You have to realize that these models are really just a bunch of kids trying to get into the fashion/advertising world and to do something like this was really cool and good for their book.

Once we finished the shoot, it was all about getting the site up. Teraysa's husband, Wes, had already purchased a pre-built html website for this sort of thing. So the question was, could I work that code into my design with the photography? Well there were a couple bumps in the road but along the way I realized that Teraysa was looking for 80s pop fun. Once we came to this style I went to town. First figuring out the logo, then picking out the photos together. I'd say we were 90% in alignment, the other 10% we discussed and we were both open to hearing each other out. I guess it was weird because I wasn't being paid which made it an odd dynamic. So when she had a concern it was usually a real one and when I didn't like something I could freely voice my opinion. I have to say it was a very cool experience. I'd do it again but I think Nicole (my soon to be wife) would kill me.

With the design and the photography approved it was about coding. Let me tell you that I'm not a big fan of html code. It's annoying and very particular. Once I figured out how the whole thing got connected to the web and bow the backend worked it started to become fun. The cool thing abou this prebuilt site is that it already had a way for any average Joe to be able to make price changes or to remove products. What I had to do was design the generic look of the site. This took me a week in itself and became very frustrating. But I figured it out and started to make headway. A month later the site was up.

I have to say that I'm very proud of the site. I think it could use better functionality and more risque photography. If her business does well and knock on wood I hope it does, perhaps we will do all that other stuff. But for what it is I think it's pretty damn good. Since the site went live two weeks ago she's almost had 3,000 hits and taking orders daily. So please take a look and go to: WearWithAttitude.com.