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Featured Project: Woody Drums

derek — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 20:24:41 +0000

If you’ve ever read much of what we post around here, you’ll know that the GCG team are music junkies. You’ll be hard-pressed to find a time when music isn’t blaring from speakers somewhere near us. Thus, when I was introduced to Rusk Jones from Woody Drums, I wanted the chance to do their site and I wanted it BAD. Luckily, Rusk was game and we’re off and running on the project. I’ve seen these drums in person and in action and you don’t have to be a musician to appreciate the craftsmanship. These things are genuine artisanship from another time, yet a big modern leap for drummers in terms of quality. I’m gushing, I know, but I can’t wait for the world to find out about Woody Drums. Right now, all we have up is a landing page and a design that is going into the coding stage as we speak…or type (you’ll have to wait for a look at that!)

So we’ll be doing things a little differently with this featured project in that we want to show off the different milestones. Stay tuned for part 2 and beyond and get a glimpse into how the process usually plays out for us and our clients. Next step: a live site!

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Featured Project: Social Media- The Naked Truth

derek — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 21:33:59 +0000

As a designer, sometimes I’m lucky enough to have someone hand over the reigns on the design and just say “go nuts”. That was what happened, more or less with Social Media- The Naked Truth. I met Phil Gerbyshak, appropriately enough, through social media where he was asking if anyone could do an edgy ebook design. Shortly after, we were in touch and the project was a go. Phil told me that he thought most ebook designs were fairly boring and hated the idea of doing something derivative. I can’t necessarily say that the final design is edgy, but I do think the layout fits well with the content in that both are kind of “in your face”. The book is actually a collaboration among several authors. Thus, I decided to go with a different pattern in the side bar for each author to make each one distinct, yet the same (border-line obnoxious) colors to unify the book. For the cover, I thought, “since it has naked in the title, why not actual naked people on the cover?” (I had some interesting adventures searching for stock photography of naked people)

I have to admit- when I sent the first draft off, I half expected Phil to say “what in the hell is this?!?” But no, Phil proved to be adventurous and up for just about anything. That, to me, made the project a blast. I’m not trying to toot my own horn on the layout, but when you can get on the same page with someone and feed off the enthusiasm, it makes for a really fun work environment and satisfying results.

So what is Phil doing with the final product? He’s selling it for the low low price of zero dollars. That’s right, anyone with a computer can be the proud owner of this ebook. I read it and I thought it was really insightful into the current state of social media and goes a long way to debunk a lot of social media misconceptions and urban legends. If you’re interested, just go here and you can download the book. Make sure you let Phil know what you think about it!

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Photoshop is Dead, Long Live Photoshop

derek — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 19:41:58 +0000

I know what you’re going to say before you even say it…”I use Photoshop every day, how can you say it’s dead”? Well, I use Photoshop every day too, so hear me out.

Photoshop and I became pals somewhere around Photoshop 5, before it was ever integrated into a neatly packaged Creative Suite. This was early in my college years when I was taking my first design classes. My professors, veterans of design who honed their skills literally cutting and pasting, constantly preached not to rely heavily on digital effects but to use effects to augment otherwise solid designs. Despite my professors’ advice, I was enamored with some of the effects that were available. Particularly, I wanted to bevel / emboss, dropshadow and outer glow the hell out of everything. I got a book by the pre-eminent Photoshop guru, Scott Kelby, that showed how to recreate famous logos, most of which made liberal use of the effects pallet and the effects for me pretty much became an automatic; the last steps in an assembly line process.

Today, we’re in the era of clean, user-oriented, minimalist design. You can thank companies like Apple and Google for ushering in a focus on subtlety and restraint, and doing so because it makes for a better user experience. I look back at all those cheesy effects that I was overusing with the same regret as having paid good money for a 4 Non Blondes CD. In other words- ugh, what was I thinking?

Though I didn’t really get this concept at the time, I was more like a kid with a box full of toys that I was anxious to play with than a designer. Over Photoshopping things had little to do with the end user and everything to do with me saying, “Look at me! I’m digital and I can use Photoshop”! It would be the equivalent of a musician using auto tune on every single song just to prove that they have access to a producer and a studio (or maybe to hide a lack of talent?). A lot of Photoshop effects have simply outlived their usefulness because we no longer need to have it pointed out to us that something was done digitally – it’s understood. Likewise, doing anything digitally is hardly novel or praise worthy anymore.

This is not to say that we need to purge most of the effects from Photoshop, only that we should use them with a sense of purpose, like making elements stand out or directing attention. It took me way too long to figure this out, but designers should ask themselves with nearly every click of the mouse, “Is what I’m doing making the product better for the user”? Anything that gets a ‘no’ is extraneous and should be evaluated as such. In the end, it’s important to treat Photoshop like every other piece of design software that’s ever been created: it’s a tool and not a means to an end.

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Featured Project: Taste of Tucker

derek — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 14:05:56 +0000

For the past three Octobers, one of the events in Tucker to have circled on your calendar is Taste of Tucker. Taste of Tucker brings all the best restaurants in the Tucker area together in one area for a smorgasbord of food tasting. There’s live music and a kids’ zone and a family-friendly atmosphere that makes for a fun day. We got involved with Taste of Tucker in its inaugural year and started by creating a logo with fun, bright colors and a style inspired by the golden era of roadside diners and drive-up burger joints. This year, for the promotional materials, we wanted to preserve the retro vibe that we’ve used in the past for Taste of Tucker. The primary challenge: preserve a minimal design without sacrificing any of the information that needed to be present. The other factor is that the design needed to be versatile. We had to use (more or less) the same design for 12″ x 18″ posters, 5 1/2″ x 8 1/2″ rack cards and 8 1/2″ x 11″ program. Here’s what we came up with for the poster:

We’re happy with how these turned out and even happier to see them hanging in restaurant windows throughout Tucker. If you’re able to make it to Tucker October 13th, swing by, say hello and sample some great cuisine all while benefiting a good cause- NETWorks. Need more info on Taste of Tucker? You can get that here.

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Generating a Buzz: What We Can Learn From Led Zeppelin

derek — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 15:51:28 +0000

A couple weeks ago, rock legends Led Zeppelin posted a cryptic “Five” on their Facebook; no context, just the word “Five” in a style similar to the artwork on the album Led Zeppelin IV. Heads were scratched and people generally had little to no clue what it meant. The next day, a “Four” appeared on the page and it was clear that Zeppelin was counting down to something. Speculation ran amok- where the surviving members going to reunite for another show? Better yet, were they going on a scorched Earth tour of America and Europe? Radio stations and bloggers were talking about it, people were tweeting about it and a simple picture of the word “Five” got over 2,000 comments on Facebook. The numbers ticked down to 1 and then, on September 13, it was announced: Led Zeppelin was releasing a DVD documenting their 2007 one-show reunion. Ok, so maybe that announcement landed with a bit of a thud (although reaction on Facebook was overwhelmingly positive). From a marketing standpoint, what was announced isn’t nearly as interesting as how it was announced.

What can we take away from Led Zeppelin whipping their fans into a mild frenzy? Think about the great lengths people will go to in order to promote their latest book, movie, or album. Publicists make a ton of money arranging spots on talk shows, ads in magazines, and ridiculous viral campaigns in hopes of generating some kind of buzz. Now, think about how nice it would be to have people do all that work for you, without paying them anything. People love a good mystery. They love to speculate and theorize, so why not let them? Why not sit back and let your name pop as people discuss it over and over on blogs and social media?

It’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of a new product launch or big announcement and fire it off the second it’s ready. There’s something to be said, though, about slowing it down – even for a day or two, to build up a little bit of buzz around what you’re up to. This is not to say that every announcement needs a dramatic countdown, Led Zeppelin style; On the contrary, that kind of build should probably be used sparingly. Building a little anticipation can be as simple as a tweet that says “exciting announcement coming in a couple days”. While there’s no guarantee that your audience is going to get the announcement that they want, piquing curiosities can increase the likelihood that people will at least be there, giving you there attention, when the announcement is made.

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9 Really Good Musician Websites

derek — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 16:42:04 +0000

You wouldn’t think it, but as a whole, musicians have some really crappy websites. They are too often littered with annoying autoplay elements, useless intro pages, an excessive reliance on Flash and digital clutter. Thankfully, the awful musician sites are a different post for a different day. Here’s 9 musician sites that nail a memorable web presence with eye-catching design without sacrificing efficient navigation.

1. Flight of the Conchords

Flight of the Conchords are the Beatles of comedy-rock and the site perfectly reflects the wacky tone of their awesome show (may it rest in peace). They get a pass on having the whole thing done in Flash, mainly because the layout is so much fun; employing tons of custom illustrations while keeping it simple. Do yourself a favor and spend a couple minutes putting different outfits on Jermaine and Bret.

2. The Decemberists

The Decemberists always have great album artwork, so it’s no shock that an attention to detail and design translates to their site. Here’s a site based around the band’s blog with a clean navigation system at the top of the page. The crowning element, though has to be the hand-drawn artwork. The illustrations are integrated seamlessly into the site without using Flash- so it even looks great on almost any mobile device.

3. Pearl Jam

Pearl Jam has a ton of irons in the fire; with a 20+ year career, bootlegs of all their live shows, activism with various causes, merchandise and solo projects from the different members, it would be easy for Pearl Jam’s site to spiral into a hell and mess of links, photos, video and music clips everywhere. Thanks to a tastefully restrained design, Pearl Jam is able to manage their huge cache of information without being overwhelming or confusing and the grid layout used throughout the site is a work of sheer beauty. According the tag in the top left, this a beta version. Here’s hoping that the general design makes it to the final stages.

4. Aimee Mann

Launched a mere 8 days before this post was written, Aimee’s site takes the artwork from her latest album and extrapolates that to a cool web site. The concept works and makes a lot of sense, especially considering that the latest for a musician usually dominates his or her existence. From this we can take away a good marketing tip- take what’s most important to you as business person, put it front and center and base all of your marketing on that.

5. Third Eye Blind

Usually, when someone visits a musician’s website, they have one of two things on their mind: What are the tour dates and where can I buy some stuff? Third Eye Blind gets that and has stripped their site down to the most basic elements. The site is almost shockingly sparse- there’s a forum, a store, a twitter feed and a pop-out window with tour dates and…that’s it. That’s the entire site. For Third Eye Blind, it works and it represents a refreshing departure from bands that are often out to bludgeon us with too much information.

6. Jay-Z

Ok, so this is a musician’s website only in the loose context that Jay-Z was a musician before he was a media mogul / NBA court-side fixture / Mr. Beyonce Knowles. In truth, the site is more a digital lifestyle mag comparable to GQ or Details. Still though, the grid layout is all the rage these days and Jay-Z’s lifeandtimes.com is one of the better examples. Any time you can make a user want to navigate and aimlessly explore your site, you’ve done a great job as a designer.

7. She and Him

I’m sure my wife will acuse me of including this only because of my mild crush on Zooey Deschanel but I can assure you that’s only part of the reason why I included this one. The minimal design really works here as does the offbeat yellow and brown color scheme. Even though there are no instructions to do so, mousing over the yellow squares to reveal band photos seems instantly intuitive. Best of all- the site was done with HTML 5, which gives the site the staying power of on-the-cusp technology.

8. Bjork

There are certain kinds of websites that only bands and artists are able to pull off and this falls into that category. The layout is as weird as an actual Bjork album and yet, kind of serene and mesmerizing. Watch the white on black line-art rotate, contort and react to the placement of the mouse feels like being pulled into a 3-D, Tron-like space-scape. Taking a concept this out there and actually making it usable is a pretty impressive design feat.

9. Foo Fighters

Is it a coincidence that both the headliners from this year’s upcoming Music Midtown Fest in Atlanta made this list? Probably. Arguably the biggest rock band in the world these days, Foo Fighters convey a sense of grandeur and magnitude with their site. Pushing all of the links and indo to the periphery in favor of huge, beautiful photography is a bold design choice and it works. All of the bells and whistles, zero compromise on streamlined navigation.

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Branding Your Company? Dude, Slow It Down!

derek — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 01:00:46 +0000

Hopefully this post finds you months before you absolutely need to have your company branded. If so, start now! If not, at best this can point out where it might have been beneficial to handle things a little differently. One of the biggest mistakes I see people make on the client side of developing their company branding is that they want to blitz through the process like it’s a 40-yard dash. The reasons for this are certainly understandable, perhaps there’s a trade show coming up soon and the company needs to make a good first impressions, or a lease has just been signed and signs have to be made pronto. As a designer, I’m certainly not downplaying the sense of urgency that often accompanies a logo design and when someone tells me they need a design in a hurry, I take that seriously.

Still though, taking time to get branding that’s the best fit, well…it’s kind of a big deal. Think about it this way…the last time you bought a major appliance, how much did you spend? $1,000? More? No doubt, you wanted to make sure you were getting the right appliance before shelling out hard-earned money. You read reviews and pondered the aesthetics of how that new refrigerator would look with the rest of your kitchen décor. I’d argue that the logo and branding for your company is that important…and then some. So, wouldn’t it stand to reason that you would put the same kind of effort into having the right branding for your company? As soon as you get your first mock-ups back from the designer, start asking these questions:

Do the logo and other branding elements go together? Does the logo look like a natural fit with all the fonts, colors and graphical elements that you use on a daily basis or does it seem out place? If you don’t have all the branding elements in place, do you have a plan for getting those done?
Does the branding fit not only with what your company is doing now, but also with where you want your company to be in 3-5 years?
What are all the ways in which you will be using your logo? Will it appear on t-shirts or coffee mugs? Is it going to be embroidered somewhere? Again, think in terms of not just what you’re doing now, but also products that will need to be branded in the future.

If you don’t have satisfactory answers to these questions, your logo and branding just isn’t ready. Period. Ideally, the key is to plan ahead as far in advance as possible. But, when that isn’t an option, what should you do? Consider paying your designer more than the actual asking price, in favor of having the designer spend more hours in a shorter time frame (say, instead of 10 hours over a month, 15 hours over 2 weeks) and produce more variations. I know that sounds self-serving, but if you’re in a rush, that extra payment could be a very solid investment.

In the end, what’s worse? Going to one event or opening an office without branding, or going to all of your events or having your office running indefinitely with the wrong branding? A client of mine has a sign on his desk that asks “Got time to do it twice? Then you have time to do it right the first time”. I think that certainly applies here. If you settle on branding that’s less than a great fit for your company, how long before you’re at it again, starting the whole process over?

Just remember this…it took 4 years for Michelangelo to finish the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. What’s another week or two on a logo?

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Branding a Non-Profit

derek — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 19:26:07 +0000

A while back, I was fortunate enough to meet a man named Sam Scarborough. Within minutes of talking to Sam, you realize that he oozes compassion, enthusiasm and a relentless drive to help others. At the time, Sam had been devoting almost all of his free time to helping a boy named Jacob and his family. Jacob, in addition to having Down’s Syndrome, was also battling leukemia. As to be expected, this put a tremendous strain on Jacob’s family, especially in terms of medical bills. In just under a year, Sam took it upon himself to raise a lot of money that went toward Jacob’s medical bills. The amount that was raised in a short time caught the attention of some of Sam’s friends and, a board of directors was formed and the Scarborough and Friends Foundation was born.

While the foundation had a pretty clear idea of how they wanted to operate as a non-profit, they were a blank slate in terms of branding. They needed something that would resonate as a symbol, but also something with the design versatility that would allow it to appear in a variety of colors and in a variety of settings. The logo needed to command attention even when placed near instantly recognizable sponsor logos like Home Depot and Lowe’s. I drew inspiration from Jacob’s story, keeping in mind the courage, determination, and toughness it must take to go through the kind of things that he’s been through. After filling up a few pages in my sketchbook, we had the ultimate symbol for courage, the king of the jungle. After a few tweaks and a couple rounds of modifications, the foundation was onboard with the lion logo. The foundation has big plans in store as a non-profit and I am happy see my logo head with them for the ride and be a part of all the great work that they are doing.

One of the things that I am proudest about with this logo is that I handed it to the foundation without charging them a cent. In doing so, it reminded me that, yeah, I’m out to make money as a designer but at the same time, it’s important to stop every now and then and take on a project for no other reason than it feels good to do so. Coincidentally, I’ve never enjoyed working on a project as much as this one. It felt good to be in a position to work on this logo and I look forward to doing a lot more for the Scarborough and Friends Foundation, which I’ll certainly share on our blog. In the meantime, if you want to learn more about the Scarborough and Friends Foundation, visit their website: scarboroughfoundation.org

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White Space – Doesn’t Actually Have To Be White…

mallie — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 13:44:00 +0000

Every trending topic on design tends to use the same keywords and catchphrases:

Clean
Minimal
Spacious
Uncluttered

Basically, saying you shouldn’t cram your project, be it a business card or a web site, to the gills with graphics, text, animations, yadda yadda, on and on. That’s good advice.

Many designers felt the new Google+ layout had a little TOO much white space…

So, what’s white space? Funnily enough, one of the best definitions I came across was found on good old wikipedia.org:

“In page layout, illustration and sculpture, white space is often referred to as negative space. It is that portion of a page left unmarked: the space between graphics, margins, gutters, space between columns, space between lines of type or figures and objects drawn or depicted. The term arises from graphic design practice, where printing processes generally use white paper. White space should not be considered merely ‘blank’ space — it is an important element of design which enables the objects in it to exist at all, the balance between positive (or non-white) and the use of negative spaces is key to aesthetic composition.”

But, I often find that people get a little confused and concerned that white space HAS to be white. Or cream, maybe. Perhaps even beige if they’re really WILD & CRAZY and thinking outside the design box.

We design at GCG. Most of you know that. And, awesomely enough, some of our most talked about designs don’t use a lot of white. Some use white as an accent color. Some have, SHOCKER, no white at all. I know, I know. It absolutely blows the mind.

Of course we kid. Mostly. The point we’re trying to get across is that white space is about space and spacial relationships between design elements. It’s not about your color palette. White space can be orange, red, coffee brown, even black. Careful and proper use of white space and spacial relationships draw the eye to what’s pertinent and important in a design. Perhaps a call to action within a banner or medallion ad. To your contact information or catchy tagline on a business card. Maybe to that special offer on your web site.

Simple stated, we don’t want anyone thinking they can’t make use of bold, strong and even loud colors. When you think of white space in the future, put the emphasis on the space, not the white.

(Mallie’s Note: Of course color selection is incredibly important and can make or break a design. We have talked color quite a lot on this blog. Feel free to check the archives.)

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The Eyes of the Beholder

mallie — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 12:10:00 +0000

I was in the midst of initial discussions with a brand new client who needed branding and identity development as well as some other creative services, when I, obviously, asked him about colors he preferred. He mentioned that he preferred warm colors, then contradicted himself by speaking about blues and greens. I, of course, thought that was a great challenge, and decided I would find some of the “warmest” blue/green color schemes possible.

Many of you know that I use Pinterest for color inspiration and often pin color schemes that I hope to revisit for future design use. So, I went through my seemingly endless variety of options and inspiration and chose several blue/green combos that I felt conveyed warmth. The photo below is one of them.

To my surprise, the client found all of these schemes not-to-his liking. In fact, he felt that they were all too feminine! He then thought we should try gray and maroon, but I wasn’t really ready to give up yet. I managed to put together a blue/green scheme that the client found masculine and I still found colorful without having to resort to gray (something I try really hard not to do – we’ll talk more about that in another part of this series).

What I learned from this is that we all see the very same colors differently. While I almost automatically lump blues and greens into the “cool” group, in this client’s eyes they conveyed warmth and a level of comfort. When I put my mind to the task I found several schemes that used blue and green in variations that immediately felt “warm” to me. Alas, they immediately felt feminine when viewed by my client.

The point to take away from this post is that colors aren’t black and white (I couldn’t resist the pun) in the eyes of the person viewing them. The meaning, feeling and ideas invoked by that color can and will differ greatly. Some see purple and think regal and elegant, while others see the same color and think flirty and fun. Color is, absolutely, something that changes greatly in the eyes of the beholder.

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