This is an energy drink where we give back to the those who have fought for our nation.

Just finished up the Can Design and Mockup. The goal from the client “Need it to look like Captain America”.

The Old Logo was Designed around the name “Zeus Printing“. Turns out “Printing” is to vague when speaking of screen printing. So the name was changed to “Zeus Tees”.

It sounds like an easy change just swap the word “Printing” for “Tees” and your done. Well we did try to swap the words and somewhere in the name shift the overall design balance was lost. The Design also lost power. I took a lot of cracks at the design and it got to a point where we were settling on a design that did not suck.

So after a bumpy night of bad sleep and a vision of a possible new direction to explore. This is the solution I was looking for.

In this post I try to illustrate how we designed the Dirt militia Logo. I cut the actual images from 60 to 30 in hopes of showing the clear evolution of the design.

The story starts with the client meeting. We talk about purpose, we talk about goals, we talk about dreams.
Basic info: Billy Schuller is a BMX racer. Billy LOVES his sport, he is passionate. (this is a requirement for a great story) and has decided to start a business surrounded by that passion.

Billy has a name and Loves the name “Dirt Militia” We feel that the name Billy has chosen is perfect for the BMX world and the story make for a compelling brand. or a good fit of name and story.

We brainstorm with the BIlly on visual elements associated with the name and story. Billy’s story is “a bad ass group of riders banding together in an aggressive take no prisoners style of riding”.

1 Doodles
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The brainstorm kicks out a slew of visual elements i.e.
Militia: Dog Tags, Camouflage, Badges, Stripes, Helmets, Skulls, airborne, etc
Dirt: Tire Tread, Mud Splatter, Goggles, Jumps, Dirty Jerseys, etc
Story: Crew, brotherhood, aggressive, fight to the end, etc.

You can see on the post its a strong military direction. I have left out some of the other veins that were considered to focus on the dev of this particular train of thought.

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2 “DM”, “CM” whatever
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Starting with the initials “DM” making them look like a modern stencil and using a reversed “D”. Yes I know at this point it looks like a “CM” but I belive that I can over come this issue with further refinement.

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3 Moving right along

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Try to make the “CM” less of “CM” and more “DM” by adding the military style badge. Still clearly a “CM” so the slight of hand is not working.

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4 Back to the drawing board
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Still trying to salvage the reversed “D” creating a stylized Stencil look. Here the graphic is really strong and so I think I am on to something.

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5 Not so Much
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I try to get the strong graphic into the badge concept.

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6 Another try
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Still pushing

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7 Yet again
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This is going to work in the baadge, I can feel IT!

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8 I know, I know
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I am forcing it! I see that it could be read as “GM”, great maybe I can get a government bailout. Maybe not the log looks like Citroen motors.

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9 If you can’t make it good make it shiny (or add color in this case)
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Even at this point I know it’s a bad idea. Some thing happened with the Dyslexia and I am now reading it as “MD”

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10 One last try with the crow bar
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Yup Spelling it out reaffirms my suspicion it is Dead! Time of Death? Anyone?

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11 Second guessing. Back to the post it notes.
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At this point I give up on the badge thing idea. It just did not feel right so I go back to the post it notes at the top for some fresh perspective. Billy in our first meeting felt strongly that lower case “dm” was the way to go, so I think maybe he was onto something. But here we lose the military story.

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12 Hey I might be onto something
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The shapes are really working well together. why didn’t I think of this before?

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13 Did someone say Delorean?
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The shapes are really playing well together and there is a really good feel about the readability and the balance. However I notice it looks like a 1980s yuppie logo. It no longer matches Billy’s vision. No story.

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14 Military Police look
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back to the story in a bland way.

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15 Back to the Stencil “DM”
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Now this icon is readable, It also has a powerful presence.

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16 Playing with other possible elements
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Trying to get a feel for how the icon will work or play with others.

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17 trying to incorporate “Militia” symbols
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Keeping it simple makes it look like Chevron.

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18 More of a badge
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Still keeping the chevrons but in a badge sort of way.

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19 Flip it
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In my research I learn the British military chevrons point away from the head. U.S. point towards the head. So being a U.S. company we gotta go towards the head. Seriously it just looked better.

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20 I think I am onto something
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I really like what is happening with the icon so it is time to start woking int he other elements.

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21looking for balance
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Trying to keep one element from over powering the other.

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22 More of the same.
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Subduing the “militia” looking to emphasize the “Dirt”

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23 Another shot
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It is amazing how often simple is better. Not so much here but we have to try.

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24 Seeing Stars
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Nautical Stars. This element came up i our brainstorm. The nautical star as a symbol is pretty well know to be a tattoo icon. But the “Star” theme in the military is a good vein to tap into to. So we thought we would give it a go with nautical to get some of the “Bad Assitude” (new hybrid word Ass + Attidude).

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25 Just the Stars Folks
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Billy was not a fan of the icon. Said it was a little to “Tonka” so we tried this. Cool but a little generic.

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26 Sharpening the Chevrons
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Made the badge a little more real and less graphical.

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27 Now we are cooking with GAS!
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Icon, Star, and badge are all looking good.

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28 Add Color
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Still Feels right!

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29 Client is Happy
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Billy is happy with the icon but says “it needs to feel more punk” or “punch you in the face angry”

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30 Punk
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It is my belief that the icon needs to be clean for readability but the way you use it can be versatile and should be “punch you in the face angry” Billy now LOVES the logo. Not just the logo but the story the real heart of a brand. Now Billy is making shirts whit this logo plastered all over them, that is when you know you have something, it goes on a tee.

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The Great thing about being a Designer is the diversity of the work that I get to touch. One of our latest projects is Risqi, our client Dawn Griffith came to Skybend looking to start an apparel company from scratch. Dawn like every client had a lot of great ideas but the reason Dawn has been great to work with is that she communicates her ideas and then lets me use my imagination to create.

The nice thing about the relationship is that Dawn trusts me, the designer, to produce her concepts into visual representations. Dawn also comes to us regularly with “half baked” (in a good way) ideas where we then brainstorm and develop her concepts into realistic and visually rich solutions. So far it has been an awesome collaboration with a lot of great results and a lot of fun, it has also been very artistic where Dawn encourages the use of imagination and values the collaboration and serendipitous nature of the process, rather than viewing the designer as merely a production tool.

Here is the Dawn’s Logo for RISQI and an initial tee design concept, The best part is Dawn is Happy. Dawn said “I am Beyond lovin it! Lovin it x 3!!!”
My logo sketches can be found below.

risqi sketches

So this idea is about a year or two old and Designed up about a year ago and I am just now getting around to it. So I now put a stake in the ground for Kockadoodle. The Early Bird Creative Network.
Salt Lake City, Utah
Traction kockadoodle

Here is my progression in Sketches:

A while back we did some work for a skate company called kockeyed. We did some Skate Deck Designs and in this process I needed a realistic rendering of the final product for mock ups. So I created a PSD file that would accommodate the original deck designs and give them a realistic look. So here is a preview and a .zip file with the PSD.

PSD Preview

I have a higher resolution version if you need it contact me to work out pricing.

DOWNLOAD This file is 35Mb.

Just finished a new Flyer for the Agile Roots Conference.