Two New Cool Tools

For my latest logo design, I've added two new arrows to my quiver of illustration tools: Google SketchUp and The Complete Color Index by Jim Krause.

The logo job was for a new software application called Topshelf. According to the software authors, Topshelf is a "lightweight framework for building Windows services using the .NET framework." This means nothing to me. But programmer, web developer, and beefy flinger of heavy steel billets Dru Sellers asked me to design a logo for the new app. Read on...



To get the basic layout, I used Google SketchUp to build simple masses for the shelf, bottles, and text. This free 3D modeling program has become my go-to tool for quick perspective and shading studies. (I'll be writing a lot more on how I use SketchUp in the next week or so.) After spinning the model around to get the POV I wanted, I sketched over a printout of the model, and then added details like shapes for the bottle caps, the liquid inside, the labels, and the white glassy highlights.

For the color scheme, I cracked open my new copy of The Complete Color Index by Jim Krause. It's a fan-friggin-tastic reference for quickly scanning and finding the perfect combination of colors. Dru told me ahead of time that he wanted greens to be prominent. That was enough to go on, but had this been a big job, I probably would have toted this compact, two-volume treasury to the kickoff meeting and guided the client through several color combinations. As it turned out, the very first combo I picked was enthusiastically approved.

In the final design, Dru and his cadre of creative code-cronies decided on a slightly simplified version, but the basic design is intact.
Now back to the drawing board.

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Game Dog Guardian Logo

After months of drawing and tweaking, and six trash-cans-full of wadded-up trace paper later, here's the logo that Killer Kite and I came up with for a new pit bull rescue operation.

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Software Logo

The client, Dru Sellers, wanted a logo for his new software application that manages data traffic through a very complicated system of...well, trust me, it's complicated.

To emphasize the bulletproof quality of their coding, he wanted to use an image of a bus that looked so tough, it couldn't be busted by a sledgeroller, which is his term for a steamroller made out of sledgehammers. (edit: The term "sledgeroller" actually belongs to my buddy, Jim Sowers, who is known among his peers for highly creative use of language, as evidenced by his nickname for me, "Slappy Bitch-Pants.")

Here's the logo we came up with:

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Which Pit Bull would you pet?

(Loosely to the tune of the beloved Sesame Street song, "One of these things"):

One of these Pit Bulls is not like the other.
One of them's happy and the other one scowls.
Can you guess which Pit Bull is feeling much better,
Before the angry one growls?
And now the angry one's growled..."



Funny how really good clients can point out subtleties that I somehow missed. My first attempt at drawing this client's Pit Bull for a logo I'm developing with Justin Kite, turned out to look meaner and angrier than what the client wanted to express. I was going for "tough and strong," but I guess I ended up with "pissed off." And a pissed-off pit bull is not the message we want here, kiddies. So, I reworked the eyes and the mouth, and softened the sharp shadows.

Still, I don't think I'd try snagging a bone from either one's mouth.

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