Ryan's race photos: a fun distraction

So Ryan had a great race this past weekend at Santa Ynez, and he gave me lots of awesome pictures to choose from to play around with in Photoshop. Below is our favorite, in a couple different variations. Ryan, I hope you like them! You look HOT!! :)


The original


Brighter colors, deeper sky...

almost same as last one, no saturation...

Switch up the composition a little!

my personal favorite

ok one more... for schitzengiggles:

My Docs Online Color Treated Logo Concepts

Welp, we're getting close to the having the new logo completed!! As you can see, my client chose the concept from last week's post with the lock and envelop merged together. And I couldn't be any happier he did. The others had potential, as I try to come up with nothing but quality concepts, but I can't help always having a favorite, and it's always awesome when a client picks the one I think is best!

Below are the 4 color concepts I've put together for them to decide from. They're pretty similar since a blue and gray color scheme was already determined, so here's what I came up with:






Next up is one more round of revisions to the chosen concept, and if all goes as scheduled, I'll be posting the final logo by the end of the week!

To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong. -Joseph Chilton Pearce

Next up on the freelance projects list: logo and website revamp for My Docs Online, a secure, online file transfer service.

I'm really excited to have been chosen for this project because, as you can see, I get the opportunity to completely revamp a brand and turn a great company's identity completely around. Hopefully, its new look will bring in loads of new business and also give the clients they already have an even greater sense of confidence in their services.

We're already about half-way through Phase 1 of this project, which is designing the initial black and white version of the logo. My goal with these designs is to represent the decade-old reputation of My Docs Online (Loyal customer service and secure file transfers) without getting too complex. I wanted to create something strong, something anyone can easily relate to file transfers, and something memorable. Here are the 4 promised concepts I put together this past weekend (+1 more just for personal kicks):







The chosen logo of the group will be modified and color-treated this week and should be ready for next phase by Monday!

"Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known." Oscar Wilde

Well, I have barely even scratched the surface of the craziness that wedding planning can be, and already, I feel an overwhelming amount of small tasks coming on that I didn't quite see coming before I started reading all the books and magazines family members gave me. BUT, my family is awesome. And I definitely won't have any trouble finding help so it's not overwhelming after all. :)

I am really excited to see what all Ryan and I can come up with since I'll be using my design skills to create all of our printed stuff and our website, which has already been a lot of fun. All we've done so far is the website (which actually took me a little more time than I thought it would, but now that it's up, I know it will save us a TON of time and money since most of the info will be posted there AND people will be able to RSVP through it, which is just sweet) and the Save-The-Date design, which is actually what I'm posting today.

The final product is going to be a magnet attached to a card. We saved about 100 bucks on doing these ourselves actually instead of ordering the things online like most people do. Instead, we bought 10 sheets of 8.5 x 11" adhesive magnets, fit 12 of the designs onto each of the 10 pages we printed out, put them onto the magnets, then cut each one giving us 120 magnets total. So it should be pretty cool and definitely unique when they're all done. ....and I might post the final deal with its card and all later. Have to figure out what it will look like first, though. haha.

I have to laugh at the process of designing this project because, completely unexpectedly, my sister/MOH and mom looked at the first draft, said they liked it a lot (and I believed them) but then gave me a funny look and said something like, "Well that's not Ryan... his hair isn't crazy." So, I added some crazy Ryan-volume and got the approval on that. :) They also said, "...and your butt looks huge." haha so after I explained to them it was supposed to be his hands on my back and not my massive booty, I just stopped talking and fixed that up too. Here's version 1 so you can see what they and I mean:



So after that, here's how the final version of our Save-The-Date designs came out (yay!!):


In case you guys are curious about how they were done, I went off of these images that I found online and then edited them in Photoshop so they looked more like us, a little artsy and just... cuter, I guess.





Hope you guys like them! Next up are the invitations. We're thinking of sticking with a "unique, personalized and just a little bit different" kind of theme (not very surprising if you know us, I'm sure..), so we'll see what I can come up with next. :)

Whether we like it or not, our legacy as designers is ugly. We’re largely responsible for fueling a culture of consumption. -— Eric Karjaluoto

The man's gotta point! :)

Anyway, a couple days ago I had to complete an animation test for a really really awesome company called Ayzenberg. Here were their specs:

Flash Banner Mock up Project Make a 300x250 banner at 150k or less. Most banners are at 50k but we gave extra room to allow you to really show off your skills.

Use the storyboard PSD as reference as the general direction for the banner, but feel free to makes changes to really bring it to life. If you have a great idea that doesn't follow the banner but is way cooler, feel free to do it. Feel free to import video or 3d or anything you want to make the coolest banner possible.

The only requirement is that everything needs to be embed in the 300x250 banner. oh yeah no sound in the banner.


My goal was to take the best of what they gave me (and they gave me a TON of great resources including the storyboard with some really great images from the game and a couple of movie clips from the actual game as well) and really focus on the strongest points of it, which I thought were the details in the characters' costume designs and facial expressions. Then I wanted to tie those images together with a clip from one of the trailers they gave me that had the ring kind of whirling around while coming at you... a pretty awesome shot. So originally, I had 3 images show -1 at a time- with some zooming effects applied. Then on top of them, I added the trimmed-down clip of the ring slowing coming through. I timed everything so that the clip of the ring started playing when the 1st image began to fade away, then ended.. all close up and in-your-face-like right after the 3 image faded out. Immediately following the end of the clip was a chunk of text I got from the storyboard that said "Play the PC Game of the Year for $9.99" which was then followed by an image with the Lord Of The Rings Online logo and a button/link underneath it to find out more info.

Butttttttttt the file size was enormous. I tried everything I could think of to get it down from over a massive 800kb to the 150 requirement. I got to the point where I thought it would be better to basically start from scratch, eliminate the trailer clip and still aim to get the same effect. So, here's what I came up with and although it doesn't have a piece of the trailer embedded, I can honestly say I think it's pretty rad:

http://www.huddydesign.com/SarahHudson_AnimationTest_02.html
NOTE: If you're using FireFox 3.0.6 the second and third images might get stuck but will function properly the 2nd time through, so just let it run... I'm working on a fix! :)

Lesson learned: I seriously need to spend more time focusing on mainting a low file size. That means planning out the design better before I start development so that I don't have to keep my fingers crossed before testing. And, I just need to flat out learn more ways to do that because that hasn't been my focus in training too much over the past 6 months.

Well, the great news about the final version is they liked it and I'll be meeting with them on Monday for an interview. So woo hoo!!! I'm so excited. I'm feelin some good vibes with this company and I'm really looking forward to meeting with them. :)

Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity. -George Smith Patton

Welp, I just finished putting together the new introduction to my website, Huddy Design. I got the idea for this intro from an After Effects tutorial on Layers Magazine's website, and right away I wanted to try it out myself for 2 reasons: 1, I wanted to brush up on my After Effects skills (the program I used to create this movie clip) and 2- It just looks rad! I also wanted to show off my new logo, in a way that would give it an intense, "let's get down to business," but totally unique feel, just the way I see it as.

I think my new logo design is pretty awesome and I really couldn't be happier with it. It's actually pretty weird to even be saying that because I very rarely say that about any of my work. But for some reason, I love my new logo. If I had to guess why I do, ironically, it's because about 4 out of the 5 people I've showed it to so far (all family members- so go figure) said they didn't "get it." And to that I say with an honest smirk on my face, "even better." It's different, it's out of peoples' comfort zone in terms of design, it gets people talking, and it's not sacrificing the character of my company; It's staying true to what I think Huddy Design is about and to what I want it to become- a solid resource for design and development. Yeah, I guess that's why I love it. :)

Alright, here it is:

"The last kiss is always sweet than the first."

Pretty cool little story- Jana Harvey of Jana Winery and Scott Harvey Wines, who I've worked for in the past on some cool projects, RANDOMLY found my last blog post while searching for some quotes related to love and wine for an upcoming project. Extremely luckily for me, not only did she happen to find it, she loved it and asked me to help out with the project!!

The project is an 8.5 x 11" case card or sell sheet for one of their wines, One Last Kiss. Jana liked my idea behind the holiday postcard and wants to implement it somehow on the case card, this time using the quotes she's found to make up the man and woman's profile.

Here's the first concept's rough draft:



Today I plan on playing around with the text inside the profiles... want to to see if alternating word sizes will give it a more interesting and emphasized look (I started to do this in the man's profile) and also, if more quotes or less might look better than the amount that's included in the design now. We'll see how this one comes out!

Here are the other 2 layout designs (also, both very rough drafts):




The possibly final draft, as of this morning (1/13/09):


Hope you guys like it. Whether you do or don't, you should still buy a bottle or 2 of One Last Kiss... just in time for Valentine's Day!! :) You can order it online here.