Facebook 3x5 Challenge: Day 4

I apologize to my enormous fan base. Both of you have surely been waiting for this post. I was out of town a couple times recently. Those days when I was home were busy days, leaving little time for blogging, I'm afraid. Finally, we can continue with Day 4 of the Facebook 3x5 Challenge.

The Logos

Today I am taking a folder from the file cabinet marked 'Logos'. Officially, I only worked a few years in the graphic design field. Unofficially, I have never really left that line of work behind, when you consider the art that I make is often defined by the use of type and advertising-esque compositions.

I still pick up occasional projects that require a logo or t-shirt design, or even laying a brochure or mailer. Honestly, I was trained well and I have great skill in that arena. There is a small number of people, who know my history and abilities, that still come to me for design work. The infrequency is comfortable and very rewarding. Simply put, I enjoy graphic design when it is on my terms. When it becomes 'production art', I enjoy it far less, and that is what caused me to learn a different trade.

1.) The first Logo is that of Solid Rock Engineering. The company was looking to incorporate a feeling of patriotism within a simple logo. I do not remember a great deal of time going by before the choice was made. For me, the right side of the star following the shape of the R is perhaps the greatest element of all the logos I have created.

The one thing I did not design was the middle 'stripe' in the E. My design had all 3 stripes ending equally. That seems so minor, I know, but that is how I think when I get down with logos, dig?

2.) The second logo was for a folk music act out of Idyllwild known as faultline. If you read the video posts I made a couple days ago, this is the band that was used in the staircase video. They used it for the CD cover, and I recall getting a t-shirt with the art on it. I am not sure how much life the logo had. I know it does not show up anywhere online that I could find.

In any case, I am pleased with it. The picture I show here is pretty crappy, but you get the idea. The seismograph resembles a turntable, and it has an unintentional retro feel to it that I think is really groovy.

3.) The third is not really a logo, but something I assembled for my neighbor. Charlie is stuck in the heavy metal era of decades past. One day, while I was looking at the Ozzy logo, I saw how the 'O' could easily be a 'C'. That lead me to browse all of the classic logos, studying the typefaces, and tracing select letters in Illustrator. In the end I had assembled a font, A to Z, using heavy metal and rock band logos. From there, it was a simple matter to put together Charlie's name. He loved it, of course, and it still hangs on his living room wall to this day.