We interrupt our regularly scheduled Design Quota to bring you the June 7th, 1776 edition.
It's a pretty important date in American history, one of the most important. On June 7th, 1776 Richard Henry Lee brought the following resolution before the Continental Congress of the United Colonies:
"Resolved, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved."
This is our declaration of independence. The Virginia Resolution on Independence was the catalyst to our freedom.
Thanks to Katie for her inspiration and passion for American history ;)
P took a walk on the wild side. Hanging out in the jungle, blending in with it's elements. If you didn't know it was a P, you would just think it was a tiger taking a bath. So stealth...
Decided to reintroduce some imagery. I was enjoying the vector logo goodness for each letter, and I will return to that. Maybe tomorrow or the next day. For now, wrestle with this...
This morning's design quota brings you a quick P. Just looking at what designs P can come up with on it's own. Pretty straight forward without any real idea. I think P is moving a little slow today from the camp out last yesterday...
The letter P invited us on it's camping trip. A very resourceful letter, P is. No pan to boil water? Not a problem, the letter P is like the MacGyver of the alphabet. Nice move P, nice move...
By the way, that water was for my daily oatmeal breakfast, a must have... And yes, I go camping with letters.
DISCLAIMER: I am not an A's fan, nor is this logo even remotely real. It's just another fun Design Quota post. Good, now that we got all the legal jargon out of the way...
Here is the design for today's design quota. The letter O has morphed itself into an Oakland A's icon. Probably more of a random graphic than team identity. You have the O, the A and the baseball diamond shape. I think this qualifies, eh?
To all of you in the A's front office, drop me an email or give me call. I see some real potential here :)
Welcome to the special edition of The Design Quota. Took a break from the alphabet to focus on the day at hand.
Happy Memorial Day to all, and God bless all of our troops that have fought and sacrificed their lives for our country and the greater good of the world. We can never repay you for what you have given...
O. A simple letter with subtle variations. It's amazing the amount of ways you can create a circle. Each typeface has it's own character and it's own O, and yet it presents the least opportunity for change or originality of all the letter forms. The one above is the geomtric Neutra, with a strike through the middle, keeping with the geometric theme...
I have created hundreds if not thousands of 'O' variations during my years working at Oakley. Many Os were sketched, rendered and sketched again. Maybe I will post some of those variations for my next design quota. Is that cheating? It's good to be king...
The last few days have been my bachelor party. Yup, getting married in a few months and all the bros took me golfing, camping and surfing. What else do you want? We took over Cardiff and let the good times roll. Here's a sequence I took of all the guys in action around the campsite. Thanks again for rockin' out for a few days to celebrate my last days of freedom. Joke, laugh...
N is quite the entrepreneur. It has decided to start North South productions. They make compasses? Good call N, everyone gets a little lost from time to time. What better tool than a compass. As long as they all lead to In'N'Out you shouldn't have problem with business...
I know you see the 'N' hiding in that circle. Could be a dot on an i too. hmmmm.....
N picks up where M finished off, intertwined letter forms with a nice vintage cleanliness to them. Taking the letter N and creating another logo for a fictitious Design Quota project, "Nation Divided." The obvious split/divided 'N', and the cliche red, white and blue color motif, and bam; you have a divided nation logo. N wanted to get political. It's never a popular place to be, but N insisted. We can all agree, we are a Nation Divided indeed regardless of your leanings. N just calls it how it is.
I tried to have some fun with this one. Made up some initials, which happened to be short command for 'MOVE'. The MV is intertwined like DNA (coding) with some good movement to represent the name. Of course there are some things I would already change. Some spacing issues, tag-line font and other nuances... But this is a Design Quota, so it's time to move on. And now I present the MV logo for 'move'.
"mv (short for move) is a Unix command that moves one or more files or directories from one place to another. The original filename or directory name is no longer accessible. The new filename may be same in another directory and/or a different filename. When the original and new files are on the same file system, mv will rename the file instead. Write permission is required on all directories being modified." - Wikipedia
I told you M was ambitious. It went off and started it's own airline. You know how much money and time that takes? Yup, leave it to M. They are headquartered in Chicago, as you can tell from the background image. I took this photo out of the window on my way to Madison, WI a few weeks back... Oh and yeah, that;s Wrigley Field in the bottom left-hand corner...
OK, so it may not qualify for a legit logo of brand identity, but I do feel more thought and effort was put into this airline identity in my 10 minute Design Quota post, than was put into UNITED's new identity. If you have not seen one of the most flat rebrandings (if you can call it that), take a look here. United and Continental merged, and have kept the United name, but everything else screams Continental. Wow, United gets rid of one of the most iconic and timeless identities (designed by legend Saul Bass) and settles for a generic, unimagintive identity that is the Continental 'globe'. Not to mention taking on all the emotional baggage that Continental has. I have purposely never flown on Continental because of all their headlines they seem to make, and now I have to be reminded of them when I fly United? No thanks...
An ambitious letter, M is. It got bored staying in side, fireside. It went for a hike and really found itself. In touch with mother nature and all that hippy stuff. Right on M. Bitchin.
This guy is is a professor, you can tell by the look of him. Maybe even a knighted Sir of England. Either way, he was curious about the letter M and it's origins, so he stopped on by. Please make him feel welcome...
Something about brown, red and white. Good colors, and they look good on L. Hmmmmmmmm
Happy Friday, and good weekend to all. I will be taklng a short break from graphic design this weekend to finish up a painting. I will post some pics of the paintings as it nears completion...
The letter L has broke on to the scene and forgot to leave the 70s behind. Looks like a bad version of one of those wolf and moon tees. What was L thinking?
It's OK, letters have a hard time of letting go of the glory days, just like people. Here's to cut off shorts and mid-drift tees. Wow.
It was up to Rhythm yesterday to set up the photo studio. Working with some automatic, remote, flash bulbs. Funny, at the higher shutter speeds, the right umbrella flash lagged slightly behind, creating a shadow on the right side. Conundrum.
Overall it was succesful, and we found the magic aperature, iso, shutter speed and lighting. It's all a formula. If one is off, good luck...
Thanks to Paul for being our stand-in test model for the shoot. Real classy.
If any of you real photographers out there have any input or advice on product photography, my ears are open...
The letter K has gone incognito, invincible and all those other stealth, sneaky descriptions. Doing it's best impression of the Cheshire Cat. "You may have noticed that I'm not all there myself." Can you stand on your head?
The letter J letting off some steam. It's been a long week for j, give it a break. Sticking to the whimsical hand lettering. Trying to change it up a bit from just typing a letter. Can't wait to have some letterpress and screen printing options. 3 months...
Have a great weekend. K will be here on Monday with arms wide open. Please show it the respect you have shown J...
The j took a visit to the Getty yesterday, and so did I. I as in me, not the letter i. Such a great place with more than enough to keep the camera busy. Then you have the Da Vinci exhibit, and that took it to another level. The 'sketches' and sculptures were something else. If I was an art writer or critic, I would have all sorts of great words and emotions to describe the pieces, but I am not. So, I say, they were fantasmic. Got it?
The statue sculptures by Rustici were my favorite. Their scale and emotion immediately captivated the viewers, and they were drawn in from surrounding rooms. Keep in mind, when looking at the photo below, that I am about 6'4 and I came to just about their knees. Wow, dudes are big.
Photo Below: John the Baptist Preaching to a Pharisee and a Levite, 1506–11, Giovan Francesco Rustici. Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Florence. Courtesy the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore, Florence. Photo: Mike Jensen, 2009
It looks like the alphabet has taken a turn to the hand-drawn side of things. Getting a little burnt out on the computer this week. This screen is frying my brain! OK, so it's not that bad, I just felt like doodling some letters, alright?
Heading up to The Getty to check out the Leonardo Da Vinci exhibit. A true inventor. Can't wait. I will post some pics, in a post to come... For now, hold hands and keep the letter j company.
The i remains lowercase. However, it decided to let lose and take off the 9-5 suit and tie. A little more loose and laid back, taking it easy at the beach. Might need a wetsuit, as the water temps are staying rather chilly.
