Hallmarks, Logos, Icons etc.

[A logo] should look just as good in
15-foot letters on top of company headquarters
as it does one sixteenth of an inch tall on company stationery.
[Steven Gilliatt]

No matter what you call it, the mark by which a business or organization is identified requires careful design considerations. Once the design process is past the angst of what best represents the organization, my biggest concern is, how might it be used? A Time to Knit, LLC is a publishing company. Its hallmark needs to fit on book spines, business cards, and stationary. It needs to render just as well in black and white as it does in color.

This brings me to my first guiding principal—a logo usually needs to look as good in one color at a low resolution as it does in more sophisticated applications.

Unlike the logo above, the mark at the right does not render well at a low resolution. In this instance, that is okay. The lighthouse mark was designed to be used only to identify a series of publications that will be produced in high resolution printing—a collection of garment designs called, Great Lakes Chill Chasers.

A second guiding principle asks the question, “Will the mark be put to a specific and limited use or will it be used for an extended period of time across many media applications?”

The logo at the left is the most detailed one I’ve designed—usually simple line art is the ideal choice. This was done with a purpose. The city of Dayton has a logo that features a Wright Flier circling a globe. This guild is closely identified with its geographic location so the Wright Flier is used and the globe has been translated into a ball of knitting yarn.

Even though this is complex for a logo, it has been successfully reproduced using silk screening and embroidery—two uses best rendered with a simple design.

At the other end of the spectrum, the Shepherd’s Moon mark at the right was designed for website use only. Although the original art is high enough resolution to be printed commercially, it would lose a lot of its impact if rendered in gray-scale.

Willowgreen Online

Communication is depositing a part of yourself in another person.
[Author Unknown]

Willowgreen Publishing’s online presence includes a large website, two photoblogs, and an email newsletter/blog. Unlike the businesses featured in the September 15th post, the Willowgreen sites are not designed to be identical. They do, however, share similar structures and Jim Miller’s nature photography. The main website includes over 1,000 pages and a shopping cart interface. Although it offers hundreds of pages of advice and inspiration at no charge, its main purpose is to sell Willowgreen Publishing products.

The Contemplative Photographer is a non-commercial photoblog that Jim Miller maintains to share his interest in photography. Its basic design is subtle so that it doesn’t detract from the featured photographs.

The Thoughtful Caregiver is also a non-commercial photoblog in that it offers support and inspiration to family caregivers free of charge. One of the most popular features of this blog is the free monitor wallpaper offered with each blog post.

InSight is both an email newsletter and a blog. The email introduces the topics and the blog publishes the full version of the stories. The email is produced and sent through Constant Contact at web.com. That technology allows us to make the newsletter and the blog look almost alike.

Apples and Oranges

Create your own visual style…
let it be unique for yourself and yet identifiable for others.
[Orson Welles]

I love challenges. One of my favorites is adapting a client’s visual style to a variety of media and different technologies. For example, my Colwell Colour client wanted to coordinate the look of the corporate website (above, left) with their publications and graphic standards. We used fairly standard technology to achieve that look. Their color stylist who travels the world wanted a blog where she could discuss current trends. We were able to adapt the corporate look to her blog by customizing a WordPress template. Different technologies—same visual style.

Life coach, Cheryl Gardiner, wanted her site (above, right) to coordinate with her business card. She also wanted to be able to update it herself without knowing HTML so I adapted a template using ImageCafe at web.com. Since their blog service is a journal format and doesn’t allow comments, I restyled a WordPress blog template to match her site.

On the other hand, I designed and produced the Trilobite Media website with its Flash movie introduction before I created their business cards. I started with a scan of their logo from a piece of their stationary and developed the design in Adobe Illustrator to avoid image resolution problems when we sent the job to print.

My Web

A man begins cutting his wisdom teeth
the first time he bites off more than he can chew.
[Herb Caen]

I’ve lost count of the number of websites I’ve designed and produced in the past decade. I’d only done illustration work and print publications before I started. I’d never seen the internet when a client handed me a book about HTML and said, “I need for you to produce a website for me.” I used a text editor, a web browser (still not connected to the internet) and Painter to produce his site. I drove out to the office of his service provider to deliver the finished files, and was amazed and pleased when I finally saw his site online. In the years since, I’ve used Adobe GoLive, Dreamweaver, BB Edit, and Photoshop in my web design work, but I’ve always been thankful that I started by learning the basics of HTML.

I’ve also helped other people learn the basics. I share my website (photo–right) with Jolene Treace — she learned website design and production as I helped her produce this site. This site is now ancient in internet terms, but still serves us well. It’s structure is simple, basic and stable.

A year ago, a client asked me to set up a blog for one of her clients. To teach myself the basics, I started two blogs of my own. I set up my first one on WordPress using one of their templates. Although I’ve toyed with the idea of customizing that blog to look similar to my website, I continue to use the template because I like the left-column navigation and the neutral color scheme. Although most of my site visitors are hand knitters, I also post samples of my writing, client projects and illustrations on that blog which had logged in over 24,000 visits in the past year.

I set up my second blog on Blogspot (blogger). Here again, I used an out-of-the-box template but with a slight modification. I inserted my logo and a cutline in the header. I’ve tried out Google AdSense on this blog, but do not get enough traffic for it to pay off.

Using these blogs taught me enough to start customizing similar sites for my clients. After I volunteered to mentor students who are setting up blogs, I set up this blog, Graphic Design Notes, so I’d have a place to post design-related information. I started with the “Cutline” theme (screen shot at right), purchased the CSS plugin access from WordPress, and modified the colors, typeface and header image.

Multimedia Packaging and Production

A lot of times when a package says, “Open Other End,”
I purposely open the end where it says that.
[George Carlin]

This audio CD was authored and produced by Willowgreen, Inc. When I designed the packaging, I selected one of the author’s photographs as the main element of the design. Since Disc Makers™ was going to manufacture the CD and packaging, I used their specifications and blank Adobe Illustrator templates when I assembled the layout. The wallet, which opens like a book, was 4-color printing and the CD label was silk screened.

This data CD contains a knitting pattern book published by A Time To Knit, LLC. In an attempt to make the contents of this book user friendly for both MacIntosh and PC users, I composed the content files in formats that use cross-platform applications. The readers can browse a number of pages using their internet browser (without having to be connected to the internet). When they find a pattern they like, they can select a link, open, and print a PDF file that contains specific instructions for that project. This allowed me to produce a full color version at a considerably lower unit cost than a 4-color book. It also allowed me to use audio clips and other features that can’t be included in a printed book.

I used Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, and Adobe InDesign to prepare the book files. The packaging and CD were also manufactured by Disc Makers™. I must commend Disc Makers™ on their fine craftsmanship. Not only is the 4-color printing on the wallet excellent, but the 2-color silk screening on the CD is amazing—the fine lines are perfect.