Viva Creative called again. They needed a quick turnaround for a logo with a small budget. It was for a fundraising auction for a school. It was important for the logo to look good in B&W. It was to be used on the cover of the auction catalog in B&W. They were also going to use the logo on donor forms, a website, and all the publicity for the auction.
The school committee giving alot of direction before the project started. The seemed to think they knew what they wanted. But, they eventually went with what I proposed. The final is shown in B&W below.
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This project happened during the summer. I’m now allowed to chat about it.
While Mike Binder was working on the script for his next feature film project, he asked me to start designing key art to help flesh out the look and feel of the movie. No Talent Jones is a musical comedy set in Detroit. Mike was trying to sign Leon Jackson to star. Jackson was the winner of The X Factor, Britain’s version of American Idol.
Mike liked the retro Blue Note Jazz look of one of my early comps and wanted to explore that direction further. I used one of Jackson’s music videos as a resource. I presented these three designs in horizontal format that would be used for both outdoor and online.
Mike liked the top one with Jackson’s arm extended. I created a web page with the lock-up that will promote the concert accompanying the screening in selected cities.
The project was due to be shot this winter but is being delayed for six to nine months. Leon Jackson has agreed to do the project.
admin Entertainment, branding blue note, crooner, film, jazz, movie, music, musical
Working with Mike Binder was great. He’s really funny, works hard, and understands entertainment.
Mike wants to produce a national TV show after the JokeyPhone brand is established. It would be a strip comedy show version of JokeyPhone. (America’s Funniest Home Videos meets Make Me Laugh meets American Idol, meets Deal Or No Deal.) It would feature the best jokes of the site.
I created TV Guide ads to show how we would extend the look and feel to print. The show would be hosted by celebrities. I did a version for the spanish show and JokeyPhone Kids as well.
admin Entertainment, Kids, branding funny, jokes, Kids, spanish, television, TV
PhoneSpell is a website that calculates what your phone number spells. So, when picking a phone number, a business can think of a clever spelling for their number before requesting a phone number. The site has been around since 1995 but was looking for a new identity to attract more advertisers and traffic. This is their original logo.
The owner thought the original logo was fun and playful. He wanted an upgrade that maintained as much of the site’s brand equity as possible. I showed him several comps without a rotary dial, but he insisted on keeping a rotary dial in the design. So, I made the rotary dial a prominent feature of the design and stylized it in a fun way that matched the super bold, friendly font I used.
I also wasn’t going to be involved in their web design, so it was important for me to show the client that the design could work well without a drop shadow on a white background. It took awhile, but I was able to convince him that there was enough contrast when using the heaviest Gill Sans variation in a web safe yellow/gold.
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Hollywood writer, director and actor Mike Binder called me about working with him to come up with branding ideas for his new comedy web platform, JokeyPhone.
JokeyPhone is a tool to help people tell, hear, remember, and pass on great jokes. It’s a website and a phone app that allows you to access hundreds of jokes from thousands of categories in lightning quick video files.
The key to all this is the unique teleprompter which can be accessed from your webcam or phone camera.
An ad agency in New York City designed the JokeyPhone site, but Mike wanted to extend the brand. This is the JokeyPhone homepage:
An obvious way to extend the brand was to have JokeyPhone in Spanish. Another way was JokeyPhone Kids, where kids could tell jokes with the help of their parents. Here are the homepages I designed:
The versions are color coded. The JokeyPhone Kids version includes banner ads I designed for target advertisers Nickelodeon and FAO Schwarz. The spanish site has a banner ad I designed for the spanish version of Mike’s next film project, No Talent Jones.
You can check out the beta version JokeyPhone here. It’s fun!
I’ll be posting more JokeyPhone branding soon.
admin Entertainment, Kids, branding branding, funny, jokes, Kids, laugh, phone, spanish
The personal growth and development niche is booming. Especially out here in SoCal. A friend referred Inner Confidence to me and I met with them and some of their clients.
Inner Confidence’s clients were referring to the company as “IC” in our discussions, so I thought it might be a good idea to explore an initial cap symbol as part of their identity. Partners Brian Begin and Robbie Kramer were anxious to get started with the identity so they could develop their marketing materials and liked the idea of a symbol, so I started with a symbol exploration.
Brian and Robbie immediately responded well to the top left and quickly had an informal focus group among their colleagues in the personal development area. They were afraid that it came across as feminine and, since Inner Confidence is starting with a focus on the men’s market, asked if I would consider simply taking off the “flower”. I told them I would explore it along with other ideas, but because time was an issue, they asked me to just focus on this design because they liked it quite a bit.
So, I explored shapes, colors and a supportive type at the same time. Inner Confidence had a marketing initiative – IC Circle – that was underway. They also were calling their office the “IC Lounge”. My solution was to create a custom font/typeface that would support the symbol in different contexts. I went with two poles of the color blue in a circular gradient to suggest transformation. A dark blue representing the depth of the subconscious and a light blue suggesting communication. The implication being that you must go deep within yourself until the message of transformation is communicated to you.
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Before Double Down decided on their primary logo, my client John Kozan was torn between two directions. So, when he decided start a swing record label, he asked if I could tweak the comp that I presented to make it the primary logo for the company. Kozan always liked the masculine feel of the logo below.
admin Entertainment, News, identity best, music, new, records, retro, swing
John Kozan, the bandleader from Double Down sent me a photo today from their recent gig at Swing 46 in New York City. I designed their band logo a few months ago and recently had it applied to their drum set.
Here’s the photo with drummer Jay Lepley sitting at the drums with the new logo applied. John really loves how it turned out. I think it really pops. Especially in a dark jazz club.
admin Entertainment, News, branding band, cards, drums, gambling, jazz, label, logo, music, New York City, poker, records, swing, Swing 46
Warner Brothers in Burbank hired me to design a logo for Warner Bothers India. Now That’s Hollywood is going to be a WB channel in India that shows classic Hollywood films.
Their primary concern was that it would read at 2 inches square. I presented about 12 tight, digital black & white sketches. They seriously considered these three before picking the middle version to have color added. I wanted the logo to be reminiscent of the Hollywood Walk of Fame, but I didn’t want it to be a literal interpretation of it. I also went with warm colors to give it a slight old Hollywood feel.
admin Entertainment, News, identity Bollywood, branding, fame, film, Hollywood, identity, India, logo, star, television, TV, Warner Bros.
After working on a new masthead for months, Salon City magazine finally picked one. I may have done more comps for this project than any project I’ve ever worked on. I may eventually do a Case Study but I wanted to show the final now.
Steve Casciola, Publisher & Editor-in-Chief of Salon City magazine, wants to take the magazine from a beauty magazine to an international lifestyle magazine. The projected demographics are wide. Steven wants to attract readers of L.A. Confidential and well as readers of Nylon magazine. The challenge with the masthead was bridging the gap between the age groups. My solution of a classic Art Deco face was the standout for all ages in the focus groups.
The face was created by mixing and tweaking a few deco fonts to create something unique for the client. It was important that the weight was heavy enough so that Salon City could compete on the newstands. As Casciola would say, it has to be seen “from 20 feet away”.
This job was a situation where I worked completely virtually. I have yet to meet Steve or anyone on his staff. We communicated via phone and email. But things worked out well. I even ended up writing their tagline, “Where Passion Lives.”
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