There’s a great little furniture store in downtown SLC that refurbishes/repurposes old furniture called Urban Antiques. Last time I was there I spotted this little gem which had just come into the shop, a 1970′s Castelli® chair. It’s a great example of Italian mid-century modern furniture and I just had to have it. I got it for an amazing price with my purchase of a custom-made coffee table and side table. Sure, it’s kinda rough around the edges but I think that with a little elbow grease, some sandpaper, and a lot of polishing It’s gonna be amazing.

First step: Take it apart!

Next step: Sanding… (to be continued)

Here is a sampling of some recent iconography I finished for the company I currently work for. We did over 80 icons. Many of these icons would be used in a context where they would have a label. I’d love to hear your feedback.

This is the first font I’ve created completely from scratch. There are things I really like about the letters and some troublesome areas— for instance, I’m not sure the descender is working on the A of creativity. Also, I don’t think the corner embellishments are right…but I’ve seriously had to walk away from this for a while. Now that I’m ready to come back to it…any thoughts before I get going again?

So, it turns out that envisioning and even designing a game for mobile devices is a lot easier than actually creating the thing. My brother and I have been working on just such an endeavor for the last 8 or so months and let me tell you that it is a huge undertaking. They seem so simple on the surface, but even the simplest program or app or whatever is surprisingly complex and tricky.

I am now on the third design overhaul and I thought I would break my veil of secrecy to hopefully get some good feedback and thoughts. I don’t want to go too much into the functionality for now, but I would like to know if you find it visually appealing. If you saw somebody tapping and swiping away at this on their iPad while riding the train, would you want to find out what it was all about? Is there anything you specifically don’t like about it? Etc.

Thanks. I really appreciate your thoughts.

ps. I’m testing some new tools for linking facebook and the blog a little better so please be patient if weird things happen.

I would really love to design a typeface someday. I’d even be ok designing a really ugly typeface, but at this point I can’t even draw a single letter without cheating and looking at an existing font. When I look at classic typefaces, I have so many questions that I get overwhelmed. Let’s take stem weight in a serif font, for example:

Why are some stems drawn with a bold stroke and others with a light stroke?
Why does the letter H have two bold stems, but the letter M only has one bold stem?
Why do some letters have a bold stroke on the right side and others have a bold stroke only on the left?
Are these choices made to add balance to the letterform? Do they add momentum or draw the eye in a particular direction?
Are these line weights just vestiges from the days of calligraphy pens?

That’s just one of a million issues that trip me up. Anyway, I have no idea where to start, so I’d appreciate any suggestions. I can think of dozens of drawing exercises that artists use to improve their skills. What do type designers do? Tell me what they teach you in those fancy universities!

This week I decided that even copying a font would be better than nothing. I tried to embroider the word “Type” on a piece of paper (really original, I know). Unfortunately I ran out of thread toward the end. My wife suggested that I change the word to “Typo” and I just started criss-crossing to fill out the shape of the last two letters. I now know how to draw 4 letters in an obscure House Industries font. Baby steps, I guess.

Here are just a few graphics I was playing with for a blog post. The Knights Templar were wealthy, but they weren’t always that way. Their symbol was 2 riders on 1 horse to signify their poverty when they were first commissioned during the crusades.

My husband wanted a a themed birthday party this year—and since we’ve been watching a lot of Walking Dead around here—guess what he picked? And of course it had to be a costume party.

We sent out video invitations as if they were coming from the last safe-house on the planet. “Doctor Zenk was researching the Zombie outbreak and asked all Zombie Hunters to bring one Undead to the safe-house for research.” Ideally out of each couple that arrived, one came dressed as the Hunter and one as the Zombie, giving us instant teams for all our games. (ALL the guys chose to be Hunters of course.) And in the end, the Hunters won. The human race will live on.

Above: Target practice—pin the bullet or the brain on the zombie, depending on which team you are on. Below: A few signs we hung on the walls.

We boarded up all the windows, doors, and fireplace. The room was lit by candles and flashlights only.

Some of the food included brain cupcakes, cookies shaped like fingers, gingerbread men with their heads, arms, or legs cut off, labeled drinks, and some human food as well.

The evening turned out awesome. I only wish I could have spent more time on giving the design and icons a little more originality, but for a party, it’ll do pig. It’ll do.

Note: The Zomcon name and tagline were a tiny side note on a poster I saw, but so poorly done I wanted to give it a re-brand of sorts.

I have an addition to the alphabeard / beardface project (Z!) that I will post soon, but in the meantime I just wanted to share a great thing that happened for my little shop the other day:

http://www.underconsideration.com/quipsologies/archives/september_2012/arminvit_15.php

It was great exposure, our traffic increased sevenfold, and subsequent traffic has been great and diverse (via twitter, pinterest, designspiration, etc.) While the design of the product is in a decent place (though I’d like to add & refine some more), the design of the brand and customer experience is still lacking significantly. This exposure is motivating me to improve this somewhat dormant side project. Here is the bigcartel site: www.moderntrees.com and the Etsy shop

First, I’m interested in re-branding this. I’d like to redo the identity, and I’m considering updating the name. Something shorter would be nice. I’d be interested to hear initial thoughts on these two items as they exist currently, and maybe ideas/inspiration on where to take it next. I have some initial sketches/ideas, but not quite ready to share.

Second, I know the site, the process, the brand experience is lacking. I need help from a good developer…and money. So I’m tabling that part for now, but definitely thinking about it for the not-too-distant future.

Here are some revisions and additions to the site redesign. I focused a lot on the authors so readers can put a face and bio with the work. It will also be much easier to link to their other work throughout the interwebisphere. What do you think? I want to hear from both members and readers so I make sure and give everyone the experience that they want. I might start slicing and dicing from here, so speak now or forever hold your peace. Thanks.

Home Page

Post Page, Author Page & Search Results

Just something I did for fun.

Updated to orange from pink.