Jake Armerding, new business card layouts

This was a simple project; my friend, a musician, was getting some business cards printed to promote one of his new albums, but knew that the layout he cobbled together wasn't working. The typeface and image were set, based on the album cover, but what could I do rearranging these elements?

Here were the initial front and back card designs he came up with, for front:



and back:



In the next post I'll share my critiques, as well as my suggested solutions.

Skyline Home Theater 2: logo/business cards

Once we'd settled on the business name and the basic idea of using a/v components to create a skyline, I had to figure out the best way to lay out said elements. With all of them, you'll see that I used a cream-colored background, because doing that versus a white card stock gives more of an impression of an older, established business, a subconscious message that I thought important in this case.

Option A shows a grounded feel with the components on the bottom; A puts his name in the foreground and makes the graphic elements way smaller, and C extends the skyline. He wanted to combine elements of B and C, and we'll see the final result in the next post.

The Green Grocer: logo (part 2)

After discussing the initial ideas with my sister, she wanted to focus on a simple text-based logo that incorporated a food element, like a tomato--cute, colorful, and distinctive. She also gave me a few sites that she liked to give me a sense of her preferred style, and used the words "clean" and "modern." Ok, I said, we can work with that. So here are the variations on the theme that I came up with; I went with the vertical layout because it worked better with the logo shape and information we needed to include:

The Green Grocer: logo (part 1)

My sister and brother-in-law were starting a local/organic/sustainable grocery store up in Windsor, a small town up in wine country (Sonoma county). So for their logo, my first sketches explored the idea of location, of food iconography, and of plants. (See sketches.) Regarding the design process, I always start with pencil on plain white paper, so that I can quickly explore as many ideas as possible without wasting time on paths that turn out to be dead ends. Plus, many more visually talented people than I advocate working with sketches first, computer afterwards--Michael Bierut is just one example.