Personal Branding - #2

Here are some things I've been working on. Feedback would be much appreciated.

The variations between these two are slight. Rather than being solid shapes, they're more dimensional in the second one. What I like about this look, is that I can use the shapes within the rest of the collateral to help create a cohesive look. For example, on the letterhead, I could have a row of little T T T T running across the top. (I don't necesarily want people to read the shapes. It doesn't really spell anything - ucatucd?, which is why I brought them down in value. I just want people to see the shapes. But I wonder if you all tried to read it? I got the shapes by removing the bottom half of the word HEATHER.)

I also wonder if all lowercase is better than title care? When I broke the logos down into their small look, the U with lowercase hv looked very bad. And it would probably be funny to mix the two, yes? And I'm still working out the color schemes. It's probably going to be some version of gray, or yellow or red.

Another sort of twist on the same idea:
This design actually mixes this new dimensional shape with an idea I had earlier, which was to make HV look like a pencil/exacto knife. When I pursued this before, it came out veeeery clip art. See below.


Below are two other previous branding attempts. The first I liked because it feels a bit more personable and less sterile. But it's a very tall logo which I was having issues with. The second one I liked at first, but then someone mentioned "jester" and I couldn't get that out of my head.
I'd really appreciate any feedback, critiques and suggestions. I think doing your own branding is the hardest thing.

Preserving a Language

Recently @Issue posted an article (Designing A Font To Preserve A Vanishing Language) about Juliet Shen who is designing a font to preserve the language of the Native American Lushootseed tribe. It's really amazing to see the impact design and typography can make on culture.

What was amazing about Shen was that she took their alphabet/sounds (which were being represented by a mash-up of Times Roman and the International Phonetic Alphabet, work done by Thom Hess) and created a typeface for it.

From the article:

Shen recalls, "At the first meeting, one of the oldest of the language teachers said, ‘This is a graceful language, but it doesn’t look that way.’ The sound of the language speaks of the physical environment that the tribe has inhabited – like water washing ashore, wind moving through the trees. My internal design brief was to get rid of an ‘adapted’ look and make it appear as if it has always been.”

Poster Design

Here's the latest poster for Turn Around Norman. The music is very cool and jazzy (that's not meant in a demeaning way.) I couldn't get away from a sort of 40s film noir vibe. You can listen to some tunes at: We Turn Around.com. So I tried to capture that. Real modern typeface--really, this type is categorized as modern--with some sans serif. Many shades of grey. I went with orange instead of red for readability, but I'm not sure how I feel about that. I think the circles and dots create a neat light effect--lighting being very important in film noir. I don't know... not a total film noir poster but somewhat reminiscent of it, maybe? How'd I do?

Cultural Context

Hey everyone, did a poster, and without saying too much about it, I was hoping I could get some feedback. What do you think the message is? Is it visually captivating? Anything not making sense? Are both taglines effective? Is one stronger than the other?

I'll offer up an intended meaning if I find that the poster is being taken the wrong way. Let me know what you think.

Here I Go Again

Wow, March 10th. I knew it had been a long time, but really two months? Yikes. I suppose I should be glad it hasn't been longer. I'm not hear to promise more updates. With summer school, a full-time job, and ya know, a life, it's hard to keep up.

I am here to tell you that although you may not get detailed reports on what I'm doing, I want to assure you that I am doing stuff. (I guess this is just a reassurance to myself.) I'm working on my website design, as well as other business collateral. I'm doing fun and exciting freelance projects. I've even been writing a bit, here and there. The ideas are churning and I am doing my best to keep up with them.

So check back, and I promise to do the same.

Call to Action Posters

I feel like these campaigns, sort of put us all to shame... ahh, back to the drawing board. Check it out: Design as a Force of Good from PSDTUTS.com

I like design because....

I teach creative writing girls to some high school girls on the weekends, and I was helping them with their college essays. And a girl remarked that in an interview they asked her why she liked theater, and she was completely unable to articulate her passion. I thought that was the root of why her essay wasn't effective. So we all took some to write about what we love/like. Here's what I wrote:

I like design because it combines art with emotion for an effective purpose. It makes you feel something through well crafted visuals and can make you have an "ah-ha" moment and usually all subconsciously. Design is thoughtful and enticing, always a mystery of details--why is that there in that way in that color in that font in that medium? Why do I want to look at it and touch it and interact with it? Design is the tangible creation of my curiosities.

I like this concept and feel like I articulated it well. I found a common theme in being able to speak about your passion: define--and not in a dictionary definition sort of way, and say how it relates to you specifically.

I'm curious what your interests are and how you would answer, "Why do you like...."