Oh Canada! Logo Project for Iron Oxide Design – Part 2 of 2

In Part 1 of this post I outlined this project from inception until completion of the finished art. But the part that was the most fun for me was when that artwork was finally placed in the client’s hands—a client who himself is a master signmaker, and who had ideas about how to take the design to the next level. I had never worked with someone like that, and was anxious to see how my art would be interpreted by such a craftsman. Because I was unable to be up there in Canada to see the fabrication first-hand, I asked Blaine Casson to photographically document the different stages of his project. In the end the final photos of the finished signs were taken by Blaine’s good friend, photographer Bryn Gladding. Following are Blaine’s notes on how he translated my 2D art into 3D signage.

The Making of the IRON OXIDE DESIGN Sign. Three-Dimensional. 40 1/2" high x 138" wide x 5 1/2" thick

“With no available drawings of the 105 year old building I began by photographing the destined sign location below one section of my third floor windows. I then scaled that photograph up, made a full size card pattern and checked it in the installation area to prove out the dimensions and arch shape.

“It was decided that the full version of the logo would not work well in this space so I made a scale model of the sign blank for Michael. I sent him vector art of the sign blank shape and dictated the background of the sign would be oxidized metal sheets and that his Iron Oxide script was already committed to be 80" wide. Michael took over the design from there and I began to plot out full size paper patterns of the script and it's background shield.

“I milled rough cut select Pine, glued and clamped it up into oversize blanks for the different layers that I had decided to use in the multi-layered three-dimensional logo script. As my sign was on a third floor in height and to be viewed from about 150 feet away I thought that to really convey the three-dimensional effect I was after I would have to be aggressive and chose to over compensate in layers and thickness. I assigned the first layer to the metal clad sign blank then broke Michael's vector art up into the red shield and the gold tail of the "e". These were on the same plane but of different thicknesses. Next layer would yield the black outline of the Iron Oxide script and finally the actual cut out script characters. The pending design copy from Michael would be painted directly onto the oxidized metal background.

“Patterns now generated, I transfered them to my Pine blanks and cut out all the individual letters and logo elements using either my 50 year old Oliver pattern makers scroll saw or my slightly more modern Hegner scroll saw. Vector art was flawless, so it was just a matter of splitting that pencil line as I cut.

“Translating Michael's logo design into the three-dimensional realm was simple enough but proved a little time consuming at the stage where I had to descend the tail of the "e" by 2" from the script layer to the metal sign blank layer. As well, it had to pass under and through the red shield. I built up wood on the end of the "e" and between the band saw, chisels and plenty of hand sanding I was able to fashion the profile. I routed a path in the underside of the red shield to accommodate the tail.

“All wood characters were then primed and sanded three times and sprayed with two coats of exterior paint."

Et voila! The finished sign finally emerges. The following photos were taken indoors by Bryn Gladding, prior to exterior installation.

The making of the IRON OXIDE DESIGN interior door sign. Three-dimensional. 28" wide x 40 1/2" high x 3" thick.

The interior sign was scaled down considerably from the exterior one, and utilized the full logo as designed. Blaine Casson writes about its fabrication:

“Working in Poplar wood this time, the production of my interior door sign was basically a downsizing of the exterior fascia sign project.

“I changed things a little bit given that this time I was reproducing the full "as designed" version of my logo. I eliminated the separate cut out layer for the script's black outline and made it integral with the cut out shield layer, differentiated by painting the outline profile. I also painted "DESIGN" rather than individually cutting out the characters as I had on the fascia sign.

“I routed out the back of the shield to accommodate the "X" element as in the logo design it peeks through the area between the shield and the underlying tail from the "e". This guaranteed alignment over the other option of cutting up the "X" and butt jointing the sections against the shield."

Finally, below is the full version of the logo as used for interior signage in Blaine’s loft building.

Client, Signage Fabrication, Progress Photography: Blaine Casson – Iron Oxide Design

Photography–Finished Signage: Bryn Gladding

Oh Canada! Logo Project for Iron Oxide Design Part 1 of 2

When I was first contacted for a logo design project by Blaine Casson, who runs a one man shop up in Cambridge, Ontario (near Toronto)—that handcrafts three dimensional wood signs, custom promotional pieces, and presentation cases—I was absolutely blown away by the quality of the work he was producing. Blaine specializes in raised letter wooden signs—something one doesn’t see that often in this “Age of Vinyl”. I have not seen his extremely high level of craftsmanship and attention to detail in such a looong time! He wanted me to design a logo for him, and saw in me a “kindred spirit”. We both gravitate towards a lot of the same types of vintage graphics and ephemera for certain types of inspiration. So I felt absolutely certain that whatever I did for him would be manifest perfectly in three dimensions, down to the smallest detail. I also knew that certain problems which I could never forsee in the fabrication of dimensional signage would be handled with sensitivity and with an extremely high level of problem-solving. Blaine wanted to move the design in a direction that I totally concurred with—using vintage motorcycle decals as a source of inspiration: Blaine writes about these graphics:

“Beautiful cast metal logos affixed to the radiators of the automobiles of the day. Fantastic, colorful and complex water slide transfer decals on the gasoline tanks of the many hundreds of brands of motorcycles. I am mesmerized by the logos on antique motorcycles and have actually once added a motorcycle to my collection based on the decals over the mechanical attributes of the machine. A most interesting fact to me is that in the first year of some motorcycle companies existence, when they only produced a single or two or three machines, they would send the gasoline tank over to the local sign writer to get the company name hand lettered onto it. Sometimes the sign writer's style and skill on this lettering became the genesis of the companies logo. As production increased in later years the sign writer was replaced by transfer decals but the hand lettered look often remained and was carried on.”

I saw working on this project as an opportunity to tap into this rich history—an area into which I had not delved in quite a while. There is so much in this tradition to sink one’s teeth into. I love the limited color palettes, predominently using gold and silver, the thick, heavy, black outlines, the swashes (you know I love those!), and the way type and lettering are organized within banners and shapes.

Blaine had quite a bit of information he wanted to be included in this design, because it was not only going to serve him as a logo, but as signage outside and inside his business—an old brick factory building in Cambridge. Words like “Signs • Displays • Promotionals”, and “Memorable • Effective • Unique” suggested advertising slogans from a bygone era. Never one to shy away from a challenge, I started putting my pencil to paper. It’s important for me to try different configurations, to see how organizing the words in different sequences and relationships might either hide or illuminate what we’re trying to communicate. When I came up with the layouts above, I was directly referencing the Excelsior decal seen at the top of this page. I could easily justify turning the “cross” into an “I”, and using the “X” as a motif definitely seemed to fit in with the word “Oxide”. But the layouts seemed to be overly busy and a bit confusing, so I took the elements from the center of the design and re-worked them, playing down the secondary slogans quite a bit. I was quite happy with how the design was shaping up, and Blaine concurred. Then, placing my rough drawing on a Template layer in Illustrator I proceeded to flesh out this artwork. I used my font DeLuxe Gothic Condensed for the slogan words, and set up various arcs and curves that I would follow closely. Before I worked digitally I would have done a much tighter pencil drawing, working out all the fine details before inking, but now I do that in this Illustrator stage, using a rougher pencil drawing. I hadn’t figured out color at this point in the process, so in Illustrator I just randomly assign different black, white, and grays to the different elements so that they separate and can clearly be seen one against the other. Also at this point I hadn’t yet decided what would get an outline, and what would be solid, but it’s still important in this phase to work out shapes and relationships to make sure everything is going to work. When I completed the artwork Blaine wrote:

"You nailed the feel, the era and the complexity that I was after. The outlined gold script, the swoop of the tail on the lower case 'e', the big 'X' element and especially the slightly cramped and varied kerning and stacking of the lettering within the 'X' and the 'I'."

For the very large sign that was to be installed outside the third story windows, we needed to make some major alterations to the design. It needed to be fit into a long narrow space between the two floors, and have a very long arc along it’s bottom edge. Blaine sent me these sketches (above and below) as a suggestion for how he thought it could work. I then came up with this rough sketch on wording and placement—some of it could be typeset, other parts needed to be hand-lettered: With the designs for the main logo and the horizontal exterior logo completed, the one other adaptation that needed to be addressed was for the Iron Oxide delivery van. We opted for a simpler solution, reverting to the original design, but adding a few elements. The tendency these days is to “wrap” a vehicle, covering it completely with graphics, but we decided in this case that simpler was better, opting for a cleaner look, having the white background of the truck set off the logo. But the most exciting part of this project was yet to come. For me that was the actual fabrication of the signs by Blaine in three dimensions, cut out of wood and metal, and painted. Exciting for me because this was going to be an interpretation—not a literal translation. I would get to see how someone else chose to solve certain design problems that were inherent in translating something from two dimensions into a truly dimensional piece of art. So stay tuned for Part 2 of this story . . . where I document how a master signmaker exercises his craft . . . coming soon!

A New Logo for American Contemporary Ballet

Earlier this year I had the pleasure of meeting Lincoln Jones and Theresa  Farrell—respectively the Artistic and Associate Directors of Los Angeles' American Contemporary Ballet. They describe themselves as producing "original contemporary classical ballets in Los Angeles, California–works that are built upon the foundation of classical ballet, and which extend the art into our own time". When we first met their studio space was less than ideal, but it wasn't long after meeting them before they lucked into a fantastic space on Wilshire Boulevard directly across from the main entrance to LACMA. At the time they had a professionally designed logo that did the job, but their new space presented them with a challenge: outside, directly in front of their floor-to-ceiling windows was a fountain, and centered in the fountain was a large, white, blank "monument" whose purpose obviously was to support signage for whoever was the tenant of the space behind it. Occupying their beautiful new space, and realizing that the "monument" in the fountain was the wrong proportion for their existing logo, Lincoln and Theresa asked me if I'd be interested in designing a new logo that would also work for them as signage. Lincoln described the process of our working together on this project:

"In my experience, it is rare to be delivered a design product and love it unreservedly, at first sight. With Michael it happened twice, on the same project. We needed a sign to fit the large monument in front of our new building across from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Our current logo didn't work, given the size and shape of the monuments face, and I hadn't been able to imagine even a vague outline of anything that I liked for the space."

The previous logo superimposed over the blank "monument".

"I asked Michael to make some suggestions, and he came to the studio and made a sketch in front of me. What he drew was something that I had never considered, but which was beautifully alive, eye-catching, and seemed to capture the spirit and aesthetic of our company in just the right way. It was also totally unique within our market. I told him to do it exactly like that, and that it would also serve as our new logo."

Well, in case you were wondering how anyone could tell very much from the thumbnail above, I did "fill in" quite a bit with a verbal description of what I was envisaging. I went back to the studio and subsequently started developing that very loose thumbnail into a design that was a bit more coherent—

Then taking it several steps further, I digitized it in Adobe Illustrator, trying to make it work with several different iterations:

…but for various reasons I was less than happy with where this design was going. At this point I'll let Lincoln take over, describing what happened next:

"He called me a few days later to say that while he liked the art he had done, he didn't think it was right for the location. His reasons made sense to me, so he sent me a second design which retained a few qualities of the first, but was totally different in the overall feeling."

I had decided to keep the script lettering of the word "Contemporary", but shifted it to read along a horizontal plane instead of moving upwards at an angle, and I had decided to simplify the words "American" and "Ballet", rendering them in my adaptation of one of my favorite fonts Bernhard Gothic. Making these rather large alterations didn't totally change the nature of what I had imagined for the logo, but helped to make it more legible and coherent—especially from a distance. So this is how it worked out in the fountain in front of their new studio space:

I also convinced them to use a second color scheme on the "monument", alternating on its sides. I felt that this should be a "living logo" that could perhaps change appearance if its immediate environment called for an adaptation.

Lincoln continues by saying: "Despite the fact that it was a highly different approach, I again felt that it beautifully represented our company, and was a strong expression of our values, in addition to being a standout design. I love having it out in front of our building, and as our new logo. It still catches me by surprise, and delights me when I walk by our building."

More recently we made another adaptation of the logo to work with a beautiful painting created for their 2014 Season by our mutual friend Kenton Nelson. I felt that the color logo would detract from the beautiful simplicity of Kenton's work, and so created a one color version. I then organized all the information along the bottom in boxes whose colors were derived from Kenton's palette—note that all the copy set at the bottom of the poster is set in my font DeLuxe Gothic:

A better look at that one-color version—note the details where "Contemporary" goes over or falls under the adjacent words:

And here are a 2 color and a 1 color T-shirt design created using just the logo:

Lincoln concludes by saying:

"I think Michael's work is tremendous, but sensitivity to the project, its requirements, and the honesty and originality of his approach make just working with him half the fun."

For those of you who would like to read more of what Lincoln Jones has to say about his ballet company, his philosophy, and about this design, I've included his lengthier statement below.

"When I decided to start a ballet company, it was because I wanted to make and to see a kind of ballet that I wasn't currently seeing anywhere. Now in our third season, I think our product, our values, and our approach to the art form are even more distinctive than when I started. Our graphic art, indeed all of our graphic, photographic, and illustrative material is very important to me because I want it to not only communicate that we are different, but specifically how. I want it to be a flag representing our values to both our audience and our potential audience. To really see what we do, you have to come to a performance, which means these materials have a big job to do the rest of the time, in terms of getting our message out.

The sign that Michael did (which also became our new logo) is totally unique within our market. The 'Contemporary' in our name is there because we make new work, and I want people to understand ballet as a contemporary art form. It was important that the design be in a vernacular that would feel very contemporary to people, to contrast the view that I think most people still have about the art, that it belongs more to the 19th century, or even earlier. Still, it had to have a timelessness about it - a classical strength, which is what we strive for in the ballets - something that will make sense to contemporary audiences on their terms, but which also has a substance and depth that transcends the simply current.

The 'American' in our name is also very important, in that we are continuing the forward-thinking work that was done in the art form in the United States in the 20th century, but it goes deeper than that. I have a strong connection to the values that this country was founded on - independence, principled thought, and a break from convention to forge new, better paths. These are not values that are necessarily automatically associated with ballet, which is often thought of as being heavily traditional.

I thought Michael did a beautiful job of creating a design that felt both contemporary and American, but it is also such a strong, balanced design with a timeless feel that it can rightly be called classical.

It is also a beautifully integrated design. The way that the 'Contemporary' playfully bursts between the strength of 'American' and 'Ballet' can suggest a new view of the art. But the playfulness isn't cheap, it is strongly located within the other two words, which to me suggests not only playfulness, but substance, which are the two qualities that any great dance must have."

60 Second Green—An Eco-Friendly Logo

This logo was selected for inclusion in Graphis Logo Design 8 Much of the design work I do tends to be seen by many as “vintage inspired”. I do frequently look to the past for inspiration, but it would be wrong to categorize all my work that way. Case in point: the logo I designed for “Sixty Second Green”. This website will have a series of tips presenting simple ideas and products that are “green” and eco-friendly. The site will propose simple yet powerful ideas on how people can save money and at the same time do good things for the environment—all within videos no longer than 60 seconds. My challenge was to create a memorable logo that would be reflective of the green/sustainability movement.

Working with Mark Pruett, owner and senior editor at Storyville Post (whom I had previously worked with some years back designing their logo) I came up with several loose ideas:

Many of the roughs used the obvious element of a leaf as a motif, but one was reminiscent of the design of the Universal Recycling Symbol, designed back in 1970 by USC student Gary Anderson.

Fortunately this rough was what the client reacted most strongly to, and we were able to develop a unique logo that didn’t resort to the usual visual clichés.

So to develop this design I first had to figure out its geometry by placing my original rough drawing in Adobe Illustrator and working over it:

Then I created a new drawing using the inner mechanics derived from my Illustrator sketch. One really cannot set type around a circle without it looking somewhat awkward, so you can see that the verticals in each letterform I’m creating point directly towards the center of the circle, and are marked in the pencil drawing with angle notations:

Using the angles I had earlier jotted down on the drawing, I started building the letterforms and the logo.

Note that the letterforms in the upper portion of the logo flare outwards at the top, while those at the bottom are pinched in at the their tops. Yet they’re all consistent within the logic of the design and don’t read as different sorts of letters:

I then created a version with a bit of shading and a black background:

This iteration was used for the animated version that Storyville Post created from my art for the Sixty Second Green videos:

COMMENTS WELCOME!

“Sweet!”/A Logo Project–Part 5 of 5: TINSELTOWN

Please read Parts 1, 2, 3, and 4 of this series before proceeding!

Finally, we arrive at Tinseltown, and the last of the logos I created for Sweet!

Being the beating heart of Los Angeles, Hollywood is Tinseltown. And Tinseltown is, of course, the movies. So it’s only fitting that the Tinseltown boutique is the beating heart of Sweet! In Tinseltown you’ll find all your movie theater favorites in theater sized boxes, plus more Hollywood memorabilia and nifty trinkets than you can shake a stick at.

Gary felt that this logo should look like a classic theater marquee. I had an image in my head of what that might look like for this logo. But for something like this I always need do some research, to help me get the right attitude and not to just rely on my memory. There are some fantiastic theater marquees in downtown Los Angeles, but I found one that really was going in the direction I was visualizing in, of all places, Erie, Pennsylvania—The Warner:

Although this marquee was a bit too intricate for my taste, and there was no neon (I must have neon!) I loved the whole sun-ray thing going on behind the letters, and decided that this marquee—although it would not be my only point of reference—it would be my main inspiration point. So I started puttin my thoughts to paper:

In the first rough above, I was heading in a direction, but still groping around for specifics. By the second rough, I was firmly on my way to solving the problem. And by the third rough, more or less nailed the basics of the design:

At this point, the design was approved, and I went on to build the design in Illustrator. I do it in values of gray before assigning color, just so I know that certain shapes are separating from others properly. Below I’m building the graphic over a template of the rough pencil drawing (above). To be honest there were many, many more steps than what you see depocted below, but it would be impossible to show them all, and very difficult for a viewer to decipher exactly what’s going on. Suffice it to say that I built this art in layers, and in many ways it may have been similar to building an actual neon sign:

I didn’t want to literally appropriate the color from the Warner marquee, so I started doing my own color solutions, but I didn’t think they worked the way I wanted them to:

So I pretty much went back to a color palette more reminiscent of that Warner marquee:

Building the art like a real sign apparently had its advantages because Gary loved the art so much that he decided to have it made into a real lifesize neon sign for inside the store.

To do this would be quite an elaborate project, and so Gary and his Store Architect Richard Altuna enlisted the services of SignMeister Robert M Fitch (who was already working on other signage in Sweet!) to oversee the implementation of this complicated project which included three types of sign illumination: chasing light bulbs, neon script and internal LED illumination. So together with Robert’s assistance I’ve put together a very abbreviated photographic synopsis of how this sign was assembled and finally installed in Sweet!. I think the sign really turned out well, and ended up looking surprisingly close to my graphic.

This is what’s called open face channel lettering which, in the case of a connected script type, becomes a “sign can” which defines the letterform and houses the neon. It's constructed from sheet metal, the returns (sides) are hand formed and welded to the letterform back plate. My Illustrator vector art was used to cut out the basic shapes. As in my art, the letters were formed out of only four separate pieces:

Robert specified different colors for the inside and the outside of the can lettering. Here the different planes of the letters are being masked off and painted:

Here the sign box in which everything goes is being created. The sheet metal sides are being pieced together, and you can see some of the specialized tools—the sign hammers—in the foreground:

These are routed Sintra pieces that are applied to the sign face and perimeter details to help create dimension. The scale of the sign wasn’t large enough to form some of my details out of sheet metal, so this non-traditional material was used since the sign would only be used indoors:

At the site, the final sign box is hung, awaiting it’s innards...

…which are finally placed in the box:

Robert designed and had fabricated side extensions for the marquee, nicely picking up some of the design elements of the sign graphic:

When the sign's neon and chase lights are illuminated, its color appearance changes dramatically:

That's all Folks. See you at Sweet!

COMMENTS WELCOME!

“Sweet!”/A Logo Project–Part 4 of 5: YUCKY

Please read Parts 1, 2, and 3 of this series before proceeding!

Whether or not you are aware of it, there’s a #%@*load of gross and disgusting candy out there—either in form, or in content—or both. How much there is—is incredible. Who’s eating it? Juvenile boys and immature adults! So Gary Shafner thought: wouldn’t it be fun to gather all the gross candy together under one roof? And thus “Yucky” was born. In this boutique you will find every form of revolting, sickening and nauseating confection imaginable. Eyeballs, severed fingers, blood, snot, maggots, poop, insects, zits, scabs, worms and earwax will be among the delicacies you’ll be able to choose from—and many of them dispensed directly from toilets!

So the design challenge in doing a logo for Yucky was to capture the gross nature of what this store was about, doing it with a sense of fun, but not to create a graphic that was itself repellant. This was a true challenge!. Then I remembered one of my favorite illustrators from when I was growing up: Basil Wolverton—the self-professed “Producer of Preposterous Pictures of Peculiar People who Prowl this Perplexing Planet”! If his name isn’t on the tip of your tongue, his “outrageously inventive” work (below) may be familiar:

It occurred to me that to design a logo in the spirit of his illustration might just be the ticket. After pondering this for a bit I decided that the central letter in YUCKY—a “C”—could be created as if it were a Basil Wolverton head, mouth wide open, and hurling over or through the letters to its right. The other letters surrounding the “C” could contain or support other items expanding on the revolting candy idea. And so I began my “homage” to the great Mr. Wolverton, starting with some very rough sketches:

I liked where this was going, so I got a little tighter, developing the drawing a bit further:

This was the point that I presented this idea to Gary, not knowing how he’d react. Fortunately, he was familiar with Basil Wolverton, and was totally in tune with my idea:

I felt I needed to refine some of the detail in the drawing and develop the character a bit more, making it more “Wolverton-esque”, so I did some pencils like these:

Then finally I had the pencil drawing base on which to build the final art of “Yucky”:

At first I believed I could create the art as would have Mr. Wolverton, with pen and ink. My first feeble attempts only proved to me that he had incredible control over the drawn line, and I had virtually none. So, with my tail between my legs, I went back to my Mac and started drawing the logo in Adobe Illustrator. Gary decided that the character at the center of the logo should be appropriately named “Chuck Dupp”:

I tried to imagine what sorts of colors Wolverton would have used, that all at once could be disgusting, yet “candy-freindly”. I couldn’t come up with a good reason to NOT make Chuck a sickening shade of green:

A further development of the color, adding bloodshot eyes, a background color and dropshadows:

And finally some stippling all over, and highlights in the barf—giving the whole thing a bit more dimension, grit, and Wolverton appeal:

The back wall of Yucky is tiled, very much like a public restroom. And like a restroom it is fitted with toilet bowls (as I mentioned earlier) from which candy will be dispensed. Here’s the wall as it was when the space was being built:

Gary figured that what could be better than to bring back the idea of the old arcade photos—you know, the ones where you could get a photo of you (and your pal’s) head(s) popping up behind—and apparently on the body(ies) of—some life-size painted, ridiculous looking figures:

 

Gary’s reinvention was that here you could get a photo of yourself sitting on one of the toilets, and in front of your legs would be a painted cut-out of a pair of legs with pants around the ankles. To cap it all off and make this Kodak Moment more memorable Gary wanted to have painted on the tile overhead a large version of the “Yucky” logo. Sounds good to me!

So Gary hired the very multi-talented sign-painter, fine/guerilla artist, and sculptor Richard Ankrom. Not having any talent at all myself for doing this kind of difficult handwork, I decided to look in on Richard as he worked on this and brought my logo to life. I couldn’t have hoped for this to be done any better than what Richard did. Below, a few shots of the logo as it materialized on the tile wall, starting with a shot of Richard in the space, in preparation mode (notice the "1-Shot" sign painters' paints):

A shot of the paper roll, taped to the tile wall, and through which Richard will pounce the linework he’ll need to follow:

The pounced linework can clearly be seen in this shot before any painting had started. Also clearly seen in the reflective tile is my hand taking the shot:

Gary uses all sorts of various methods and techniques to achieve his results, from laser or hand-cut friskets, to airbrush to regular old old-fashioned handwork with paintbrushes:

Here we are at about the halfway point, the pounced lines still visible:

Richard said he really got into painting the bloodshot eyes:

One of the later stages was when the black linework gets added in. Here Richard is doing some of the stippled, textural brushwork using a “mahl stick” to keep his hands off the wall and prevent them from smudging the wet paint. The paint can take up to a day to fully dry:

Finally . . . it was worth all the hard work! When I selected color for this logo, I had no idea that a color had already been selected for the tilework. Fortunately everything meshed together beautifully:

And here’s the “Yucky” photo-op minus, of course, the dropped pants cutout—picture yourself here:

Next up . . .  in our final installment we’ll take you back to where it all began—Part 5: “Tinseltown”.

COMMENTS WELCOME!

“Sweet!”/A Logo Project–Part 3 of 5: Route 66 / Candy Americana

Please read Parts 1 and 2 of this series before proceeding!

“Won't you get hip to this timely tip / When you make a-that California trip / Get your kicks on Route sixty-six.” Well, If by “California trip” they meant the Sweet! candy shop in Hollywood, and if by “kicks” they really meant “candy”, then there’ll be plenty to be got in “Route 66 – Candy Americana”.

The real historic Route 66 still runs through Hollywood only a few blocks south of Sweet!, on Sunset running west down to the ocean ending at the Santa Monica Pier. But the Route 66 in Sweet! harkens back to a sweeter, simpler time. In this shop you’ll find an actual, built-to-scale gas station built out of porcelain enamel, just as you’d see if you were driving down the original Route 66 back in the ’50s, before the Interstate system made the road obsolete. You’ll also find a scale reproduction of the famous Wigwam Motels—you know, where you could have stayed on your road trip across America (“Sleep in a Wigwam!). All this to house the finest selection of classic American candies, some that you may not have seen in a while.

Obviously the logical place to start a Route 66-ish logo would be to use the iconic road sign as a base. So with that as a given (which I gave myself) I started with some very rough sketches like these:

One of the most critical parts of this direction was to figure out how to successfully integrate all the different elements. I had a sign, a map, and several different styles of lettering/typography. I also felt it had to have the authentic look of classic American Automobilia, yet be playful and colorful enough to represent a candy store. So I started to work out exactly how all the elements might fit together. After combining a map of the USA and a standard Route 66 sign I started designing my own “66” numerals and the words “Candy” and “Americana”. Not only was I trying to integrate the two words , but to do so with the right amount of playfulness in “Candy” and the right amount of gas station-y feel in “Americana”. As you can see below, there was a lot of drawing and redrawing before I felt I was close to how it should be:

Once I was happy with the balance, In tightened up the drawing in preparation for redrawing the whole thing in Adobe Ilustrator:

To help give this logo a bit more candy store appeal, I envisioned the individual states in five different “Good ’N’ Plenty” colors (which I’ve always loved):

So first I needed to create an accurate (but graphic) map of the USA in Adobe Illustrator where, for separation purposes, no two states touching each other were the same color. So as a working model I did the file in black and 4 grays, then made it the “Good ’N’ Plenty” USA map in 5 colors:

. . . and here are the map, sign and lettering all put together in my first draft:

But to me it was all feeling way too flat. I decided that I wanted to give the states a soft, dimensional “marshmallow-y” feel. So I first added a darker extrusion on the right and lower portions of the states (left side of the map, below), and then a lighter area on the upper and left portions (right side of the map, below)—the Marshmallow States of America:

. . . also adding a dropshadow to the word “Candy” and to the Route 66 lettering and badge, and an outline to the map:

I wasn’t too happy with the mauve-y color, so I gave it one last tweak, warming it up a bit. Everybody loved the way it now looked and felt:

This graphic will be used in the store on packaging, T-Shirts, bags, etc.

Tomorrow we’ll move from the sublime to the ridiculous, from Route 66 to Part 4: “YUCKY” – the most disgustingly delicious candy shop logo in the world!

COMMENTS WELCOME!

“Sweet!”/A Logo Project–Part 2 of 5: Peace of Candy + AS IF

Please read Part 1 of this series before proceeding!

According to Sweet!’s founder, Gary Shafner, all the world’s countries have their differences—they either love or hate each other—but truth be told, we all have one thing in common: everyone loves candy. Gary wants to share that sentiment by finding some of the wackiest, and some of the best confections from around the globe and making them available in his "Peace of Candy" shop. World Peace through sugar rush!

Take Japan for example. In the US Kit Kat is licensed by Hershey, but it was originally created by Rowntree’s in England, and is now a Nestlé product there and in most of the rest of the world. But the Japanese have turned Kit Kat into something that is both uniquely their own and immensely popular. Over the years they have developed over 200 flavors of Kit Kat. The all-time favorite Japanese Kit Kat flavor is Orange. Gary says that among the many, many other candies from around the globe you will find in Peace of Candy of course there will be those Orange Kit Kats, packaged in a special “Tokyo Tower” commemorative box:

How will you find Peace of Candy when you’re in Sweet! you might ask? Just look towards the center of the store where you will find a giant relief globe (below)—7 feet in diameter—originally salvaged from Chicago’s Historic Rand McNally Building. There’ll be Peace signs placed over each and every country.

Inspiration for creating a logo for Peace of Candy was not hard to come by. Medallions extolling the virtues of Peace and Goodwill may easily be found. So it was not much of a stretch to take our design cues from some of these many and varied metallic coins.

The first pencil sketch pretty much summed up the direction I wanted to go…but then it was decided that we needed to add the tagline “Sweet All Over”:

Once the direction was approved I needed to start fleshing out the look of the medallion, giving it depth and life. At the beginning, everything was pretty flat. Then I added dimension and texture—all done in Adobe Illustrator:

We tried different iterations of how to treat the “Sweet All Over” tagline panel:

 

And the final selected version:

I’m told that they’re actually going to make chocolate medallions with this design in relief!

AS IF – Shop for Spoiled Girls

Because at least one of the shops (Yucky—coming up in Part 4) is mainly directed at boys, Gary didn’t want girls to feel left out, so he created a shop just for them: “AS IF – Shop for Spoiled Girls”. The theme of this shop revolves around two characters: Amanda Sugar (initials AS) and Isabella Fairchild (initials IF). These are two pampered, coddled, rotten and snobbish little girls. The back story is that both have a boarding school background, but have different (but indeterminate) ethnicities. Amanda is more into the club scene, while Isabella is more into period design. But over time they both realized that they had more in common than not—fashion being their common denominator—and begrudgingly became friends.

Gary, having become familiar with the illustration work my wife Laura Smith had been doing, decided she would be the right person to create a graphic of these two characters for this very girly boutique. So having been briefed by Gary on what these two were about, Laura set out to bring them to life.

The first thought was to have Amanda and Isabella back-to-back, kind of like bookends—as are these two Mudflap Twins:

But Amanda and Isabella really aren’t refusing to acknowledge each other, as this type of arrangement might suggest. But Laura decided to keep something of this back to back, belligerent attitude, only a bit less contentious.

To capture a bit of the attitude and indeterminate ethnicity of these two brats Laura looked at many, many fashion shots of female models—only these were a bit older than her subjects were supposed to be. She looks at reference like this not for any specific details, but to get a better feel for her subject matter, possibly combining many separate features into an interesting composite.

Here’s Laura’s concept sketch of these two characters. Can you guess which character is which?

First she roughed this out in pencil and went over that with pen. She usually go through more stages, but felt good about this direction:

Here’s a tighter pencil drawing, where Laura starts working out some of the details:

Once it was clear that Laura wanted to contrast the darkness of one girls hair and oppose that with the a lighter or blond color on her counterpart the piece was easier to visualize and I was able to flesh the rest out on computer. For Laura, it’s an organic process. Value or color against color, making sure that eveything reads properly:

Finessing the eyes of Amanda Sugar (on the right) was a little trickier. Laura had to play with that a little until she was satisfied. Laura wanted Amanda’s eyes to have a slightly more “Asian” look to them:

Color and background needed tweeking in a way that made them both equally important and not overwhelmed by the background pattern. And Laura decided that the two girls should be in “AS IF” order: Amanda Sugar on the left, and Isabella Fairchild on the right:

So here they are, visualized in their perpetual love/hate relationship—unwilling to see eye-to-eye, yet unable to live without each other.

Tomorrow our global trek comes full circle—back to the US and ending up in Part 3 on “Route 66 – Candy Americana”.

COMMENTS WELCOME!

“Sweet!”: 6 Logos for a New Candy Store Opening in Hollywood/Part 1 of 6

So . . . what ever happened to the corner candy store—do they have a future? For the answer, please keep reading!

Photo courtesy of Mod Betty/Retro Roadmap

I recently worked on a wonderful project—designing logos for a new concept in candy stores—and this is going to be big! It’s just about to open in the Hollywood and Highland Center in the heart of Hollywood. It’s called “Sweet!” and is the creation of Gary Shafner—the brains behind NPA (National Promotions & Advertising), one of the first guerilla marketing companies. It’s a collection of 12 boutique candy shops, each with their own identity—but all under one roof. When I met Gary at his headquarters, I was blown away by his crazy inventiveness: the only way to gain access to his office/warehouse/printing plant was to enter through an actual vintage Greyhound bus that is built into the facade of his building, the interior of which also formed the reception area.

As you enter the NPA headquarters it becomes apparent that this playful attitude continues throughout the building, as the bus depot theme gives way to a ’50s diner theme, an auto showroom theme, an outdoor city street theme, and on and on as the interior morphs into a very personal kind of amusement park, and a kitchy, friendly environment for Gary’s employee’s to work in.

Gary found my work through a friend of his: Chris Nichols, Associate Editor at Los Angeles Magazine had directed him to me. Chris brings a historical perspective to the magazine, being a passionate advocate for historic Los Angeles, and serving on the LA Conservancy’s Modernism Committee. Mr. Nichols, being familiar with my work, understood what Gary was looking for and saw in my work an understanding for Gary’s playful, eclectic vision.

So why Sweet! . . . and why now? Gary grew up in this town loving what Hollywood was, and realizing that the Hollywood of days gone by was no more . . . and that once tourists were done with the Chinese Theater, after they had seen the footprints, the Hollywood experience was basically over. He decided that he wanted to build a magical place in Hollywood, and that perhaps he could bring back a little bit of that experience by opening this boutique of 12 different candy shops—each staged differently with a different fun theme, and all about the joy of candy and of being in Hollywood—in Tinseltown . . . in a word: “Candytainment”!

I ended up designing graphics for five of these shops—each completely different stylistically from the one before. My wife, illustrator Laura Smith also created a more illustrated logo for a sixth shop. Right here, over the next few days I’m going present a case study (one or two a day) of each of the graphics we worked on, and describe briefly the inventive fun that Gary has in mind for each shop.

The first stop in any candy themed tour of Hollywood would of course be . . . Lollywood:

Lollywood

As far as anyone knows, Lollywood will be the only, first ever store in the world that sells only Lollipops . . . and there will be lollipops of every shape, size, taste, and description. Gary has gone out of his way to make this shop totally unique, building into it both a life-size Sugar Plum tree and, for the counter . . . The Good Ship Lollipop! While shopping, sugar lovers will be serenaded by clips of both Shirley Temple and The Lollipop Guild. And Gary promises there’ll be more surprises as well.

As far as the logo was concerned, the obvious way to go was, of course to reference that darned Hollywood sign. To my mind it’s been overused commercially to the point where it’s lost any design relevance. So I felt I had to bring something fresh to it while still maintaining its recognition factor. The direction I decided to go may seem obvious, but I think it actually works pretty well. I decided to embed those letters inside giant lollipops, and have this scene appear inside a giant Cinerama shaped screen in front of an even larger lollipop swirl.

This was how I presented the idea to Gary. At this point I didn’t know how I was going to render any of this (especially those hills). but I felt inspiration would come to me.

Getting the go ahead was easy. The hard part was figuring out how to do it! Here is one of the early stages in Illustrator.

Then I had a brainstorm (or at least I thought so): I’d take a photo of the Hollywood sign, then I’d manipulate it in Photoshop making it really flat and graphic. I’d use only the portions of the photo that were the actual hillside under the sign. Why go to this extreme when I could probably take any hillside photo and make it work? I’m just a sucker for “the real thing”, I guess.

I thought this was working pretty well, so I put it into the art . . . and voila!

I had already been working on the lollipops—my thought was to make the letters kind of like large fossilized insects caught in amber.

But with some further development, I still wasn’t thrilled. It didn’t seem colorful enough—in fact it was starting to feel a bit  gloomy.

This is one thing that I love about working digitally—you can almost design “on the fly”. If the colors aren’t working the way you want, just keep shifting things around until you get to where you want to be.

Please check back here tomorrow, and I'll post two more designs in Part 2: "Peace of Candy" + “AS IF / Shop for Spoiled Girls”.

COMMENTS WELCOME!

Writing Dracula: An Anniversary Edition

Back in 2009 I designed graphics for a pen and business card set for a company named Acme Studios based in Hawaii. I called the design “QWERTY” because I based it on old typewriter keys and the QWERTY keyboard (still in use today on everyone’s computers and phones).

Last year Acme contacted me to see if I’d be interested in designing a logo for “Dracula”. This wasn’t to be Dracula the Movie, or even Dracula the TV show—it was to be for Dracula the Pen. Acme had been contacted by the estate of Bram Stoker to create a limited edition pen set to commemorate in 2012 the 100th anniversary of the death of the author/creator of Dracula, and unacknowledged father of the present day Vampire Empire. It was one of the few times Acme had gone to an outside designer with an assignment—most of the pens created for Acme (like QWERTY) are designer generated ideas. This Dracula logo would be used on the pen itself, and all the packaging—which was to be quite elaborate.

With some projects I start out by creating many small rough pencil sketches to try to discover how I want to solve a problem. Somehow with this project I knew from the start what I wanted to do. In my head I had eliminated all the hackneyed and clichéd solutions that one would come to expect for such a logo. I decided that I wanted to start out with a sort of black-letter, gothic form as a base, and then transform it into something that would communicate what I thought of as a sort of “decayed elegance”. So I just started drawing:

For some reason I stopped before completing the word (guess I knew what another “a” would look like). But I liked a lot of what I was seeing and expanded it into my next rough. This one was a lot more fluid, and I really liked where it was going:

What had started out with gothic, black-letter forms, was turning into something else—but I wasn't sure how to define it:

Then, using that pencil rough as a base, I started inking over it on an overlay to start to work out and refine the weights and forms:

After scanning the inked version, I placed it in Adobe Illustrator as a template, and started creating the final art. As you can see, I ended up deviating from my inking in several places:

Finally, I was pleased with what I had done . . . I felt it had that feeling of “decayed elegance” that I had been striving for. I rendered it in blood-red against a black background then presented the final art to Acme, who in turn presented it to the Stoker estate. It was approved without a hitch:

Acme will be releasing this pen set this year in time for Halloween. It will be in a limited edition of 999 fountain pens with blood-red ink and an interchangeable rollerball option. The pen will lay within a coffin shaped box together with a bottle of blood-red ink, and a red rollerball refill:

And the entire set is encased in what appears to be a bound edition of Dracula:

The set will retail for $500 and will be availabe through ACME Studio retailers.

COMMENTS WELCOME!

An Interview With “Posting and Toasting”–Pt. 2

Yesterday I presented Part 1 of  Seth Rosenthal‘s interview from his blog (Posting and Toasting) with me about my experience in creating the identity for the NY Knicks. So without further adieu, reproduced below is Seth's second installment:

Behind the Knicks Logo with Michael Doret: Part 2

In Part 1 of our conversation with Knicks logo designer Michael Doret, we talked to Michael about the initial assignment he received in 1991 and got to see a few of his sketches and logo concepts that didn't end up getting picked. It was a prolonged back-and-forth process between Michael and the league, and today we'll look back at the steps of that process leading up to the Knicks logo that's been in place for 20 year sand counting.

Before we take a look at some more sketches, I should mention that, out of sheer coincidence, ESPN's Jared Zwerling has an interview up today with Tom O'Grady, who was-- at the time-- a representative of the league office that contracted Michael's work for this project. Though this conversation has been more about turning up old sketches than it's been about the stories surrounding them, I invite you to check out Jared's piece for another perspective on the logo's history.

Here's more from Michael:

"The development of this logo lasted about six months, and during that time there was a lot of back-and-forth in terms of which designs were developed further and which designs were shelved. I was hired by NBA Creative Director Tom O'Grady, who was great to work with. He was very open to all the ideas I presented to the league. In the one idea they ended up selecting, I had pretty much taken many of my design cues from their old Knicks logo. I had thought "I know they're telling me to shoot for the moon on this, but I know that the way these things work—they'll get scared and won't want to make a big change". So, I gave them that one as a sketch, which was kind of like an updated, contemporized and cleaned up version of the old logo."

With that in mind, here's a look at the metamorphosis of the logo with which we're familiar today:

A couple of things:

1. You can see in that third-to-last sketch where Michael started experimenting with the color scheme (which is different from the final one).

2. Recall from Part 1 that one of the initial design requests was the inclusion of the Empire State Building, so some of these look just like the familiar logo, but wearing a building hat. Obviously, that element got cut from the final logo.

Ultimately, this was the design of Michael's that the Knicks chose heading into the 1992 season. A few years later, Michael was asked to design and integrate the "New York" line above the "Knicks". Recently the logo has undergone a minor color makeover, but it's otherwise the same as it was back in '92, not unlike my voice.

Now, that wasn't the only thing Michael was working on for the Knicks project. He also presented them with a series of monogram sketches-- more compact, initial-based logos that could be used for other purposes. Here are some of those sketches:

The league ended up setting for just the main logo and none of Michael's monogram designs. But wait-- that last one looks familiar, doesn't it? Indeed, it's the token insignia the Knicks have been using as a secondary logo in 1995. It's graced equipment and merchandise since then, and was featured on the back of the uniform until recently. Michael's design drew its inspiration from the old MTA subway tokens, and, if you look back at yesterday's post, elements of it crept into early concepts of the main logo. New York's adoption of the design has a bit of a story behind it:

"Being a New Yorker and growing up riding the subways, I always had that image of the subway token with the Y cut out of it somewhere in the back of my head. I just saw an opportunity to somehow use that iconic NY image for an iconic NY team. Using it for a secondary Knicks logo was something I wanted to push for. When we started discussing a secondary logo—"a monogram or something". I gave them quite a few different ideas, but at the time, they decided not to use any of them. I thought "okay, that's fine"-- I was being paid fairly for the logo development work that I was doing. That whole secondary logo/monogram thing was dropped, and I got paid for the work I had done on it (but not for finished art or usage). Then, several years later, after this whole project was done, an old friend of mine called and said "did you know the Knicks are using that token logo you did for them in your sketches?". I had had no idea-and more importantly, I had not been paid for any usage fees for that design. No one from the organization had informed me, so I contacted the people at the NBA. I don't think Tom O'Grady was there anymore, or maybe he wasn't in the same position—at any rate I don't remember speaking to him about this. I tried to discuss it with some people there, and they informed me that no, the token monogram was their idea—they had created it, and I had had nothing to do with it.

A couple of years had gone by before I found out about this infringement, and In the meantime some of my work had been published in a book called "Design In Progress - What Happens Behind the Scenes", which was about how design projects are developed. I had picked the Knicks logo as a case study of how I develop a logo design, and so in the book were printed many of the sketches seen in this blog. It was just one or two pages in the book, but among the material published was one of the sketches that had included the NYK token monogram. This book was published just after I had completed the Knicks project, and well before the Knicks had started using the token logo. So when they said to me "well, you didn't do it, and if you're going to insist on this and say you did, you're going to need to prove it", I just pointed them towards the book, which had a copyright date of 1992. Realizing they were caught with their pants down and wanting to avoid any kind of legal entanglements, they begrudgingly told me "well, okay we'll pay you for this", and then to punish me said "but you'll never work for the NBA again". That, of course, has been borne out by history.

I felt like I was there at the beginning helping to create a look that a lot of sports teams have picked up on, and from which a lot of other designers really benefited. After that debacle it wasn't me that was being consulted for my design expertise—but other designers who took their cues from what I had begun—and you can see that in a lot of the team logos these days. I feel like I should have been part of that. But if I had to do it all over, I would still stick to my guns and fight for what's right."

Cool. Thus concludes our journey through the history of the Knicks logo(s). Huge thanks to Michael for sharing all this with us, and to P&T's normanhathaway for helping to set it up. Once again, I encourage you to check out Michael's website and blog, and to read the ESPN interview with Tom O'Grady for more logo history.

An Interview With "Posting and Toasting"

My good friend Norman Hathaway is an avid New York Knicks fan, and follower of Seth Rosenthal's humorous Knicks blog Posting and Toasting which boasts one of the biggest communities of Knicks fans on the internet. Apparently Norman spoke or wrote to Seth about my involvement with the NBA, and specifically about how I created the current identity for the Knicks. So Seth contacted me, and we talked about how that whole thing went down. I dug up a ton of my old sketches and comps for this project and sent them to Seth who put them all together, interviewed me and is now posting the story in two parts over two days on his blog. Today, I've reproduced verbatim (below) Seth's first post, and tomorrow will do so again with the second:

Behind the Knicks Logo with Michael Doret: Part 1

This is the current Knicks logo. This is what the Knicks logo looked like in 1992. Little has changed, y'all. They added a little "New York" and modified the colors recently, but have done nothing else to alter a design that's been the primary logo for over twenty years. That emblem has been a constant symbol of the team, and its distinctive big, block lettering echoed throughout several other teams' redesigns in the '90s, some of which are still in place today. So, where did this logo-- which has persisted through multiple Knicks regimes-- come from? With the help of P&T citizen normanhathaway, I had the pleasure of corresponding with Michael Doret, the man who made the Knicks logo.

Doret is a New York-raised, Los Angeles-based designer and lettering artist with a rather extensive resume. When the NBA approached him in Spring of 1991, he'd already done some work for the league, as well as designs and design ideas for the MLB, the NFL, TIME Magazine, the band Kiss(!), and a lot more. So, the league felt pretty confident in his abilities and gave him pretty much free reign to try out different logos and letterforms:

"Before starting on this design project I didn't receive that much input from the NBA other than the directive that they wanted to have something symbolic of New York CIty incorporated into the logo. After discussion we eliminated several options (such as the Statue of Liberty), and settled on the iconic Empire State Building as the only viable alternative that might work in the new logo. So in the beginning stages that was the given which, as we all know, they ended up deciding against as the logo development progressed. I think other than keeping the original blue and orange from the old logo, there wasn't that much else given me in terms of requirements. The directions I took were mostly left up to me."

It was a fairly open-ended task and, as Michael notes, the only specific request made of him didn't even make it to the final product. So, with that dearth of instruction in mind, he set about producing a variety of design concepts. In Part 1 of our magical journey through Michael's old files, he'll show us some of the concepts that didn't make it.

To generate ideas, Michael began with some rough sketches, examples of which are below.

With the Empire State Building icon relatively unchangeable, Michael focused his imagination on the lettering:

"At that time (and even still) my work was all very lettering-oriented. I was trying to open up new areas of letterform design that, up until that point, had tended to be a bit stodgy and traditional. I was just trying to do something different for the time. In actuality I was picking up a lot of cues from bygone eras, from when lettering was really in its heyday-like in the 1930s and '40s-only this time around with a slight twist."

Some of the sketches and elements of others eventually made it into color concepts which, before the widespread use of computer design programs, Michael rendered in colored pencil (the '90s were a dark time).

Any of these could have ended up as the Knicks' primary logo (and, incidentally, Michael loves all his logo babies, but told me the first of those color logos was his favorite), but alas, they could only pick one

In Part 2 (tomorrow, perhaps) we'll look at the process behind the logo of Michael's that the Knicks did choose, and learn about how another familiar piece of Knicks iconography also comes from Michael's desk.

The "Sassafras" Logo Project (2)—The Decayed Opulence of an Old Southern Estate...Opening Friday in Hollywood

A few weeks ago I posted an article about my logo project for Sassafras, a saloon set to open in Hollywood—another brainchild of Bobby Green of 1933 Group. The timing for these kinds of openings is always a bit cattywampus, and we didn’t know exactly when the Grand Opening was gonna be. I can now tell y’all with certainty that it will be on Friday, September 14th.

I’ve been to this honkey-tonk, and I can honestly say that it’s everything you’d expect from a Southern plantation which has been moved brick by brick and transplanted to Vine Street in Hollywood.

You can start slowly, out on the “front porch”, a great place to relax with a Toasted Pecan Julep...

Photo by Alen Lin

…then I reckon you’ll want to sidle on over to the “living room” with your Southern Belle (or Beau Hunk) to enjoy some of Sassafras’ signature “Barrel Aged” cocktails —perhaps a “Between the Sheets”…

Photo by Alen Lin

…and then finally end up at the bar and take in the strains of a live band performing from the balcony...

Photo by Alen Lin

Voila...the mirror on the balcony (logo designed by yours truly, and painted in gold-leaf by sign artist/fine artist Daniel Winter [Instagram - winter_stone]), through the reflection of which can be seen the saloon’s decaying opulence. From here you will be serenaded “New Orleans” style. Well, hush my mouth and slap your pappy!

Now take a gander at what you can look forward to. (Menu Art Direction courtesy of Mr. James “Buster” Heimann, and the design talents of Ms. Cindy Vance of Think Modern Design.) Make mine an Apple Moonshine Crusta!

And Bobby Green's awesome little business card, also courtesy of Ms. Vance.

Looks good? Hope to see you there, y’all!

The "Sassafras" Logo Project—New Bar Set to Open in Hollywood

Bobby Green of 1933 Group has cornered the market for drinking establishments in Los Angeles with a string of bars including Atwater's Bigfoot Lodge, Highland Park's La Cuevita, Culver City's Oldfield's Liquor Room, and Silverlake's Thirsty Crow.

Now Bobby's about to carve the another notch in his belt of Los Angeles watering holes with the opening of the Deep South inspired "Sassafras" in Hollywood on Vine Street—which at 3000 square feet will be the group's flagship location.

Tasked with designing the Sassafras logo, I first met with Jim Heimann, who'd acted as AD for several of Bobby's other projects (and who's also an editor at Taschen America). Discussing the look that Bobby wanted, it became clear that we needed to move towards a turn-of-the-century (19th to 20th)—and decidedly decorative look,with a sort of organic/plant-like flavor . . . perhaps using decorative borders that felt like vines or roots, to try to get across the feeling of the root-inspired intoxicants that Sassafras will be featuring. Thinking I knew exactly what they wanted, I went through the following roughs, presenting the tighter one to both Bobby and Jim:

The design generally went over OK, except that Bobby wanted the design to become even more specific to the actual sassafras plant. We discussed various ways we could achieve that, and Bobby also provided me with images of roots and of the sassafras plant and flowers. He further explained that the bar will serve root-inspired intoxicants containing both sassafras (from which root beer is made) and sarsaparilla, in addition to barrel-aged cocktails.

So I went back to the drawing board and started over taking into consideration the reference and other comments from the meeting. I then developed the following layout—what I had in mind was to use the "Brothers" typeface (this font was designed by my friend John Downer) as the basis for the word (except for the cap "S"), so that if we needed to create a straighter, simpler "Sassafras", it wouldn't be that much of a problem.

Feeling confident of this direction, I presented it to both Bobby and Jim. With the exception of my needing to add a border back in, it went over well, and I proceeded to flesh the logo out in Illustrator. So here's where we ended up, both with and without borders:

Sassafras is located at 1233 Vine Street, next door to the historic Villa Elaine. During the 1940s this historic landmark apartment building was home to Man Ray, Orson Welles and Henry Miller (there is a lot of history in this town). Sassafras' opening will be towards the end of August—so watch this blog for update postings. Hope to see you all there!

Now you can see Part 2 of this post! 

Dynascript Makes Its 1953 Premiere… In the 21st Century

Several months ago I was contacted by David Klein, Vice President of Charles P. Rogers & Co. in NYC (bed manufacturing), about working together with him on a project. He described his company as "a small idiosyncratic company that has been making a quality product for over 150 years". David had fallen in love with—and purchased—a 1953 Fageol Van that had been housed in The Golden Age of Trucking Museum which had recently closed its doors. The Fageols were beautiful vans that came in various sizes and configurations. Physically the truck was in good condition, and David loved and wanted to keep the brilliant yellow color that it had been given by the Barrieau family—the van's original owners. His vision was that this truck would become a moving billboard for CPR & Co, driving around New York, conveying "the Charles P. Rogers Beds message" in a manner that this van might have—had it been theirs back in the '50s. Wanting to keep as much historical accuracy as I could, I asked about older graphics and logos from the CPR & Co archives but there was very little except for this monogram (which I kind of liked). So, I needed to create graphics that felt appropriate for this 1953 van, and which helped evoke a simpler time. The only concrete thing that I had to work with from Rogers & Co. was the monogram, so I used that design as a basis to create a "medallion" that could be used on the front and sides of the truck. Just prior to the call from David I had begun development of a new font (which became Dynascript over the next few months), and decided that somehow it felt right to use it for the supporting graphics/slogans on the sides of the van. The van is currently in the process of having my graphics applied, so what you're looking at is a Photoshop assembled composite of the truck with my design work superimposed. For the back of the van I created a logo in which I tried to evoke and encompass the over 150 year history of the company. Though it is a bit different from the mid-century vibe that Dynascript had helped give the front and side graphics, I felt it was appropriate and didn't conflict with them. Also, it might be noteworthy to mention that I used the non-connecting italic version of Dynascript for the URLs on the back and sides of the van.

Not unlike my project with Deliscript and the Canter's food truck, here was another instance of the influence that assignment work and font design had on each other. Even though they both started out as independent projects, they soon became inextricably entwined. Dynascript is probably a better font for it, because, with this project, I was trying to solve its design both from the point of view of a fontmaker, and from that of a font user.

Soon, when actual photos of the finished truck become available, I will post them here along with my development sketches and more detailed descriptions of the design process. Comments welcomed!