Dear friends,

You can help me get my design printed by going to Threadless and scoring it. If my design is printed, Threadless will pay me $2,500 in cash and prizes for it! Please help spread the word! 

Thanks!

This makes total sense to me, I notice myself and the other designers on staff doodling during meetings all the time. After viewing this I think I'll do it more ("doodle makes three").  I also love this presenting challenge of only having 15 seconds per slide and no control over slide transitions. I often find myself sitting in presentations wishing the presenter would get to the point. Remember that next you present to a client.

So I've been working on our new identity for the studio, this is me just playing and exploring possibilities of randomness. I've seen this style before but have never tried to re-create it until now.

I'm working on some new business cards for "The Lab." I'm thinking of a one color metallic silver letterpress with custom laser cut rubber stamps for each of our full time designers. If this turns out any where near what it looks like in my head then I'm thinking of submitting it on FPO. Let's cross our fingers. I'll post an update when we get them in!

My brochures came in today and I must say that I'm quite impressed with the quality we got with PS Print. We typically only use them for large runs of flyers/postcards but I had this large (tabloid) tri-fold that needed to be rushed before the semester started, and PS Print was having a 60% off brochures sale, so I said what the hay let's give them a go. They turned out great!

I wouldn't tell this to our local printer but I don't think he could have matched the price we got for 10k of these, nor the quick turnaround we got from PS Print. Kind of sad but it worked out for us.

California Central Valley Flood Control Association. Yes I know, that's a long name to try and create a logo for, but that's part of the challenge when doing work for a government agency. CCVFCA is a lobbying organization, representing various reclamation districts throughout the central valley. I was approached about developing a new identity for the organization in October of 2009, and yup, It's now almost September of 2010. It's been a long process and the epitome of Design by Committee and Redesigning the Stop-sign (see video below).

There was a lot they wanted to incorporate into the logo. It was a struggle to include a levee protecting 3 main elements: 1) A cityscape (which represented urban environment) 2) A valley landscape (which represented the rural environment) and 3) some sort of wildlife. Combine that with a really long name and you bet that's one tough design problem to solve. For the most part I think we've come up with something that solves the problem, it may not be my favorite logo, but it is light years better than what they had before. I'll definitely chalk this one up for experience, but I can finally say that this project has been completed. Now to create letterhead & business cards. Let's hope that doesn't take another year.