I love doing edgy designs, and that’s why I love this client.  Team Quest MMA (mixed martial arts) and their Fight Club is putting on a huge tournament for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Gi/No-Gi type fighting.  There was quite a bit of info to include on these small 1/4 page sized postcards, but I really made use of the space.  They requested that I use the “Fight Club” logo, which has a green fist instead of the usual white one as seen in the postcards below.  I was also asked to come up with a logo of sorts for the title of the event “NorCal Classic 2010″.  We used the trendy North Star over the state of California, and I added a little flair to the sides with what is actually an exclamation point punctuation from the font called “the King and Queen” (thanks dafont.com).  I had to convert those punctuations to outlines & give them a bit of rotation (obviously).  I also included their “burst” background to this layout because it’s kind of become a branded look for them.

Along with this order was another postcard for their “Back 2 School” specials.  They supplied a design for the front of the postcard, so I wont take the credit for that.  I was also given a word doc with a table for the schedule of classes to go on the back of the postcard.  What I did was, export the word file as a pdf and then I placed it into my own design layout for the back of the postcard.  I kept their design theme going with their official logo and the elements from their business card design.  Most all of this is vector art, and it really lends itself to the overall theme.

Love these folks… I’ve done a couple of other labels for their bottles, this one will go on the lid of their 1 pound tub of creamed honey.  If you have never had creamed honey, you’re missing out!  This product is absolutely delicious!!!  You can find Mincer’s at the Redding Farmer’s Market at City Hall on Cypress Ave.  Find their booth and eat their honey!!!

We’re going to print these full color labels on pre-kiss-cut 2.5″ label stock.  There are 12 labels on an 8.5×11 sheet, so at $1.50 a sheet for full color, the labels are pretty cost effective in small quantities (each circle label costs $0.125).  You can’t get full color labels for less than 12 and a half cents wholesale unless you buy 10,000 or more.  (I checked with an outside vendor on that one).

So I wanted to update this post with the card design the client picked out.  He decided he wanted to use a lime green so blacklights would highlight it when he hands his card out at a dj event (I guess there’s always a blacklight on at all times?)  I actually like it green, don’t you?  Out of all the designs, he actually picked the one I was sure he wouldn’t like because it had so much going on in the background… Well, whatever floats your boat!  This card really does look awesome in print, it has a high uv gloss coating over all the color and it’s just slick and pretty!

——–end of update———-

I haven’t posted any business cards in a while, so I thought I would share my most recent project proofs.  I’m pretty sure these folks went to vistaprint and were not satisfied based on the sample I saw and the whole “we need awesome cards fast” request.  I can’t say this enough, “YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR”.  There is no such thing as “free business cards”, because you pay for the shipping… and then you pay a REAL print shop to make you better ones in about 2 weeks when you get sick of looking at the cards you thought you could design yourself using a crappy flash based design generator.  C’mon people, seriously… quit supporting the corporate internet monsters and go to your LOCAL printer!

Whoa, enough ranting…

Back to the project:  So we know the client likes illustrations and line art (or vector art in designer’s lingo).  I wanted to give him something more than the lame template he picked from vistaprint (bastards)… so i mixed up 3 and 4 vectors from vecteezy, manipulated some of them so the highlights and good parts of the background would “caress” the text (like in #1 & #2 in the proof shown).  I used a rainbow gradient in a rectangle to cover the whole design & set it to “multiply” on the transparency palette.  I got kinda carried away with the different tweaks to each design, hence there being 2 similar in a couple of the choices.  In design #3, I found that vector of the turntable with the record, there was different text on the record, so I thought it would be cool to use the client’s name on the record instead.  A simple tweak to some text– I opened the vector file from vecteezy in illustrator, got rid of the stock text on the record, then put in my own.  I had to convert it to outlines, skew it and do some rotating to make it sit just right.  I only just emailed these proofs yesterday, but I will tell you #1 & #6 are my favorites.

–updated 8/26/10–

Final design for KIXE Easy Street Sweepstakes (click image for larger view):

KIXE (PBS channel 9) is having their annual sweepstakes, and again this year we get to do the design & printing! It was nice this year to have a little more creative freedom with the concept of everything. When the marketing person asked me what came to mind when I heard the name “Easy Street”, I thought of monopoly type line art/cartoons.

I had Tony draw the street sign for me, while I did the rest of the flyer. I thought it would look fun if I put the sponsor logos in clouds at the top. The clouds were easy in indesign, I just drew several ellipses, then merged them together with the pathfinder->add command. The wood signs I downloaded from vecteezy (thanks guys), and I drew the rest in indesign with the pen tool.

When I first presented the layout to the staff, they were all excited about it. No constructive criticism or bad comments! I love doing work for KIXE because they always want the designs to look fun… and if you know me, I love doing “fun” designs.

This flyer is going to be used as a handout and a mailer, so I put the order form for tickets along with the Rules & Regulations on the backside.

We’re going to print this puppy offset on 100lb. Gloss Book paper (kinda like magazine paper), and it will only have an aqueous coating so you can still write on it with a ball-point pen.  The next projects to work on with this order will be the tickets and the large posters.  I will post the tickets when the art is approved

Final layout for ticket (front only):

I really wanted to keep the ticket layout simple, so I only put on the pertinent info.  The sponsors were put on the back of the ticket along with the portion of the stub that the entrant fills out.  These tickets will be numbered (also on back) so they can keep it legit.

I’ve done a few projects for this client, including their grand opening posters & postcards.  This project was pretty easy once I understood that it was actually an advertisement for 2 different things!  On one side (the blue side), they wanted to advertise to new MMA (mixed martial arts) students for summer sign ups.  I use the burst looking dealy-ma-bobber behind their logo on a lot of their stuff. It’s kinda part of the look ya know?  The client really wanted to put photos on this project so newbies would really know what they’re about: they are not a karate class, they teach everything from physical fitness to down and dirty fighting.

The red side of the card advertises their MMA camp to the same age group as new students, and explains what is covered at the camp.  The client actually suggested the different colors so that folks reading the advertisement would get the idea that it actually is 2 separate things being advertised.  I gave them an awesome deal on 14pt UV Gloss coated cards, and even printed 100 free digital cards so they could start handing them out the day they approved the artwork.  The Team Quest people have become great clients, and I really enjoy doing their artwork because it gives me an opportunity to do something different than the stuff I normally do.