But there was one idea I kept coming back to. I had tried to avoid it because of the clichéd nature of it. I decided to give it a shot, after the first round concepts were rejected. After living in Orlando for almost a decade, I know first hand that it’s an inspiring city with lots of fun and entertaining elements to choose from. I wanted to capture the fun and excitement of the city but wasn’t sure which element to settle on, so I just decided to throw a different one in for each letter.

This concept unitized the different entertainment themed elements forming lower-case letters. I was most concerned about the readability of the “r”. With it being inside the “o” I was afraid people wouldn’t see it as a letter.

Once completed in Illustrator, I added a splash around the dolphin to emphasize the “r”. Even though I was very happy with the final result the client rejected it due to poor readability. When tested, people thought it read “Atlanta”. I still don’t see it, but if you’re reading this and you’re with the Convention Center and Visitor’s Bureau of Atlanta, this bad boy is available if you’re interested . . . of course, I’m only kidding. I wasn’t ready to completely give up on this concept, so I decided to change from lower-case to upper-case letters.

I scrapped the idea of using the dolphin as the “r”, but I couldn’t have the hoop without him so I moved Flipper to the top left and kept the splash. Now he was jumping more into the “o” as opposed to out of it. A flamingo would now form the letter r. With all the elements in place, I dropped black letters in behind the illustrations and placed it back on the blue field. This helped to make everything pop and poor readability was no longer an issue. This version received final approval.

Here’s some close-ups of the different elements.

Here’s the logo in use on a promo poster.

The client loved the concept which allowed me to get straight to work in Illustrator.

Once I had all my lines and shapes in place, I brought everything into photoshop to finalize and add in the dramatic atmosphere.

The original illustration lines were dropped on top and a layer style was applied just to help the edges pop. Once I had finished it in Photoshop, the left side felt a little empty, so I added in a dead tree, and a murder of crows. I left room at the top for the mast head and along the right side for the mailing address. This was presented to the client as my final draft which they were thrilled with. Best of all there were no changes needed. Final approval was given and they were sent off for printing. I was really quite happy with the final product once it arrived.

Editorial illustration for Momentum Magazine which is published by the University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment.

Rather than trying to redesign the exact image of the coiled snake on the Gadsden Flag, I decided to take the three coils and re-imagine them. I did a version from the side and two different concepts head on. Since the audience is the Marine Corps I decided to wrap the snake around the Marine’s famous sword. The “banner” design was ultimately chosen and is slated for t-shirts as well as challenge coins.

The hardest part of designing the logo using the apple theme, was trying to set it a part from Apple. While working on the logo I kept wondering if audiences, not familiar with refresh would think this was only geared towards apple users. I have no idea if this played into the decision to scrap these initial concepts by the client. While they were well received, the client was a bit leery of using the apple, and even seemed to think twice about centering the logo around it.

Round two saw the apple pared down to only a slice. These concepts were overwhelmingly well received as it negated the apple concerns and looked like it belonged among the other Refresh chapters. However there was the issue of the refresh “icon”. Since they were happy with the apple slices as they were, adding the icon to them was not an option. So, I decided to play with the text. I choose “Rezland” for the main font because of it’s clean, round, modern feel. The “E’s” made perfect circles, so I chopped the diagonal line and added arrows to form the refresh icon. Another clean san-serif font, “Engravers Gothic” was chosen for the secondary font on the city name. I pulled in the red from the apple and left the “e-icons” black.

The final apple slice was decided upon with one minor tweak; loose the shadow. With that change made, the new text was added and the logo was complete. You can see the final logo in action here: www.refreshwinchester.org

No, not the old 2005 Daniel Powter song (although it’s been playing in the back of my head since I started this post). I’m sure I was subconsciously inspired by Pixar’s short “Partly Couldy” (the one shown before “UP”) when I had this thought about happy clouds floating along until one storms by in a really bad mood. As he spreads his lack of cheer around, the other clouds just try to stay outta his way. I wonder if Bob Ross ever painted “happy clouds” to go along with his happy trees. (for personal use)

While perusing the Christmas card isle I noticed they were stocked full of pretty cards featuring Mary and Joseph en-route to Bethlehem. The star is shining bright. There’s peace in the air. Then it hit me, if donkeys are notoriously stubborn, wouldn’t this be more like it?

To all a very Merry Christmas, and happy new year!