I recently had the Awesome opportunity to design a book cover for an up and coming writer who is publishing her most recent book offering. This was a fun and challenging project as I got to do something slightly out of the norm for me. The challenging part was not the Illustration process or the book cover design itself but the methodology that goes into making a book cover stand out amongst the sea of selections at your local Barnes and Noble.

Although it is always a primary part of the process of any design to create something that will stand out, that process differs for each part of the MultiMedia spectrum.

More to come!

A successful Thirty One leader asked for a Mark that would represent her leadership group and downline of aspiring successful ThirtyOne leaders. The mark is to represent the communication efforts to this group giving them a sub brand under the prime Corporate Identity of ThirtyOne and allowing for particular identity within that group. The circle was chosen as it is an easy shape to integrate with marketing and communication efforts as well as physical items such as buttons or t-shirts during conferences where they want to stand out amongst the other groups.

I received a call from a dear friend looking for Lower Third Graphics for a video he was doing for the School they support and currently send their kids too. I contested that finding some video graphics that would work would be harder than just creating a look, but the only time I had available was for a lower third, and as my friend shoots with a Canon 7D which was an upgrade recommendation from yours truly, I knew the footage would look good and some complimentary Graphics would be in order.

So I created the images you see below using the school logo in a background dealy as well as prime identity. I have included the video also so you can see the lower third in action. Not a big deal but worth a mention, I thought.

The real purpose of this blog is to show the evolution of design and interactive work that comes through my doors along with the DIVERSITY and COMPLEXITY that seems to keep me on a roller coaster, while hopefully creating a replica of the journey I am on with design, technology, etc.

I posted a few weeks ago some logo comps for Finishing Touches, they were line art black and whites and although I dont want to get in the habit of posting beginnings and endings of projects and flood this blog with every detail of what I am working on while in the proverbial soup, there are some things that we will get to see the "Start designs" and then get to see the "Final Designs" while other posts will just be like hey look what I just completed.

So without any further "Adieu" here is the final versions of the Finishing Touches Brand Identity design work. I am working on their website now and will have results to show soon.

The top version of the Mark is the high res, Raster texture version, primary use will be all things that it fits on and within without going Large Format. The second version is the B&W vector version and the final version is the color vector version of the texture. The final version will be used on anything Large scale like Banners, trade show booths, signage, etc.

See ya.

I get it........, clients get excited when they find someone who can design for Web, build websites, create functional Flash media and Interactive stuff that looks and works, Shoot Video, Edit Video, create 3D and 2D Animation and Compositing, genrate a Brand ID along with a Branding Campaign, Ads for their Advertising Campaign, Trade Show booth, displays, Large Format Printing, Mobile Apps, E-commerce Applications, etc.............. and tie it all together, while working with their staff to reach a high level of success. But......... lets set our expectations of the people we hire and their ability to achieve greatness before we sit down behind the computer and begin the creative process.

I love a good challenge, I do. When I saw this image (above) it said a lot to me and reminded me of many projects I have been involved in. I also love collaborating on a vision and finding that one great thing that makes a project greater as I have often found myself to be the guy in this image with his hand on the mouse.

The take away here........ Get Excited, please, I love that, but set your expectations and your decision makers and pull the trigger. If you love great design & Interactive that trancends and you need a studio that can bring new life to your  marketing or Branding world, no matter where you are, Tampa, Los Angeles, New York, Seattle, Colorado or Mars, call 21C DIGITAL at 727-461-4555 and let us help you set a new expectation.

Peace out.

Some of the best shooting I have done or seen was captured with a prime lens. I recently borrowed what I guess is being hailed as the "Fantastic Plastic"! A 50mm lens surrounded by a plastic casing with great optics, offered by none other than Canon photography equipment. Wow! What a lens. Not perfect by any means but offering an aperature with an F stop of 1.8, again, WOW! Talk about letting some light in with great depth of field. So I had this lens and wanted to try it out, but I needed a project, a subject with some kind of purpose to utilize this lens and see what it could do.

Well the Annual Halloween Rant on evil was coming up and although we were not able to produce another chapter of Demon Squad, we decided to use Demon Squad - chapter 4: Bewildered, which actually was perfect for this years rant as it was focused on distractions the devil places in our lives. You can view that here. Something was missing tho, and since the primary topic of the rant was "The Cinematic and Commercial effect Halloween has on us", which boils down to why we seek evil, i.e. movies, haunted houses & theme parks, the pull evil has on our curiosity and what we are pouring into our lives, an illustration was needed. I had now found my purpose for trying out the new lens.

Canon always comes thru, this lens along with the Canon 7D is a great combo, like I said some of the best shooting is done with Primes and that is my new focus, along with either the 24-70 or another lens. More on that soon.

Enjoy!

Funny, no matter how we try, not everything works in every browser, it is just simple basic fact, but we try anyway and most times succeed......it is somewhat rare to not succeed or to at least modify your efforts or functionality and succeed differently. But........Not everyone in the browser game is going to do everything the same no matter how many standards are set. Period! So the question remains, "Do you use Mulitiple Browsers"?!

I ask because even tho Browsers can be different and we are successful at making things work correctly, there is always the gap of the Mysterious non working browser report. Dah, Dah, Dahhhhhhhhhhhh!

So, Clients continue to demand HTML5 type functionality with pixel perfect results everytime from every browser including the extremely obscure OPERA browser. Let's see now, there is still Internet Explorer, version 9 now, Safari, FireFox, Chrome, Opera, BlackBird, and a few mobile browsers that may not make life so hard as they dont have huge following, unless you are speaking of the firefox mobile version.

So let me take a look for us at why I am ranting about this right now. The other day I was doing a bit of surfing and file downloading and such, when I realized Internet Explorer just would not do what I needed it to do or at least it wasn't doing it, something was keeping it locked up, so I switched........ Yes people I SWITCHED, on the spot, in the moment, on a whim and even with a Wing and a Prayer, I just close IE and opened SAFARI ....... Done!

How hard was that, I mean seriously, within seconds I was up and running and doing what I intended on doing. So Why oh Why do I have battles with people over things not working when it may just be someones browser version, there Computing setup or some unforeseen I dont know what type thing, when we should not really be complicating these websites as much as we are anyway.

The TAKE AWAY here, browsers are FREE and plentiful, so if you are going to ask for complex functionality (I have no problem with that, I can even cope with making it work in all browsers within reason) expect that peoples computers are not always and exactly the same and people are willing to switch browsers understanding that sometimes you just have to. Just because I can make things work on my Virus Free, updated, Core i7 or Apple i7 workstations does not mean they are going to work on the rubble out there that people call computers.

Rant Complete - comments welcome!

This past weekend Harborside Church hosted the first annual Men of Harborside Conference. Coming up on the heels of the conference is the second annual Mens Action Day or Mad as they like to call it and a promo spot was needed to advertise one event during another and play continuosly until the next event takes place. 21C DIGITAL had a short time frame to shoot the leaders of each of the daily events that will take place so it was quick and dirty time, but I hate quick and dirty video shoots, so to the grind with some still and motion graphics we go before we dive into Final Cut.

Once again looking to Adobe's After Effects for some motion visuals to get things started, but not until we incorporate the Haborside Primary brand in the form of the motion logo I animated earlier this year for the Harborside Theatre spot, you can view that as soon as I post it, a bit behind on my blogging, I am.  Below is the final piece after I massaged it a few times, please dont have high expectations for the talent pool we had to choose from. Some dedicated fellas, but Brad Pitt they Ain't!

Although this Blog post is under the category of Motion Graphics, it does show off the Brand Id for the event also, along with the Brand Id for Harborside and the Men of Harborside. The primary Branding Identity with graphical treatment for the upcoming event is shown below along with a few stills from the promo spot. This image is also being used in an email marketing blast for additional promotional effort. 

Thanks for viewing. Comments welcome.

ThreeFold Student Ministries uses a contemporary Branded and focused theme, a Brand Campaign which was first created by the former Youth Pastor Tommy Shelton some years ago. I decided it was time to bring the Brand to Motion and here is the result. This Animation will play as the primary Video ID before Youth Small Group settings as a marker that events are about to begin with a short message about Wisdom and a lively Motion Brand Id.

Recently finished some black and white composites for a new Brand Identity for Finishing Touches a window film application company specializing in LLumar films for Residential, Commercial, Auto, Boat, RV and many other applications. As you can see from the lower comps, a focus on energy savings and the "green" Eco Friendly approach has been integrated through the icon leaf representing an Earth Friendly initiative, but there are many other applications and effective reasons for Window security film. Many of these will be outlined in the coming marketing materials.

I will post the final Brand Identity mark in this post as soon as it is finished. More to come...