Just Creative Design

Recently Completed Work

I’ve been pretty busy of late so I thought I should show you what I have been up to. Here a small showcase of my most recent freelance design work along with a brief description of each. Read more »

New Just Creative Design Store

Inspired by Von Glitschka’s simply awesome Zazzle store, where I just recently bought his Tickles “Evil Clown” t-shirt, I thought I’d see how opening a store of my own would go. You never know, right?

Though before I did that, I thought I should wait to check out the quality of Zazzle’s products and overall service. I didn’t have to wait long - just 5 days after ordering I received my shirt (and I’m down in Oz). I was also pleasantly surprised at the high quality of their products, especially considering their very competitive pricing.

Anyway, I’ve compiled a few products for you below, though the best thing about Zazzle is that you can customise the product to anything you want - ie. you keep the same graphic and then you can change its sizing, spacing, alignment or even change the product itself to a women’s hoody or mouse pad, among hundreds of other products.

If you want to take a look at my store, click here or click on any of the shirt photos below. All the shirts are on sale from a small $12.95.

Sultan Of Sultans

‘Sultan of Sultans’ means King of Kings and is a mixture of elements relating to this theme. Lion (King of the Jungle), Crown (Symbol of Leadership) and Space (King Of The Universe).

Excelisor Bot

This little robot is created entirely out of the Excelsior typeface. I recently wrote a tutorial for Layers Magazine on how to create your own font monster if you’re interested. There is an angled version (1st pic below) or a straight version (2nd pic below). Remember you can change the t-shirt colour to anything you like! You can also change the sizing, alignment, etc.

Just Creative Design Logo

This one I am really curious about but I thought I’d chuck it in anyway. Judging by some of the emails (one marriage proposal so far), you just never know.

Love Christ, Love Life

Although I am not a Christian, this was a recent piece of work I completed for University for an advertising campaign promoting the life of Jesus (as above). After I shared it on Twitter I had a couple of requests to actually make it into shirts, so I thought why not. Here are a few combinations below:

The below version features a small logo on the back, as well as a larger version of the “Love Life” text on the front.

Comic Sans?

This little character, like the Excelsior Bot, is created entirely out of Comic Sans. The idea is that he is saying “What!? Comic Sans?”.

Below is a version without the text.

Lightning Bolt

This is a minimalist retro t-shirt design of an electric lightning bolt coming down from the skies above.

Love Life

Similar to the other Love Life shirts, but without the cross.

My Zazzle Flash Store

You can scroll through the products using the Flash application below.

If you find anything else in my portfolio you would like made into a product or if you have any requests at all, just let me know and I will put something together for you. Anyway, interested to see how this goes.

If you have your own store, tips or suggestions, please share in the comments below. Thanks!

Recently Completed Work

Things have been quieter than usual on the JCD blogging scene so I thought I should let you know what I have been up to - here is a small showcase of my most recent work along with a brief summary on each.

One a similar note, I’ve just recently reached another milestone - I’ve now had a client from every continent of the globe, except Antarctica. This is something I never would have dreamed of 2 years ago when I started this blog and I find it amazing how small the Internet makes the world. Thank you for all your support and if you know a penguin, please do let me know. Read more »

Car Vehicle Wrap Design Process & Tutorial

Earlier this year I had the pleasure of rebranding Luke Arms‘ photography business One Fine Day Photography and as part of the rebrand, came the job of designing his car.

In this article I will guide you through how I designed a “custom car vehicle wrap” along with tips I learned along the way… but before I launch into that, I would like you to meet Caroline, Luke’s new company car.

Read more »

Identity Design Process for Butterfield Photography

I’ve recently finished designing the identity for ‘Butterfield Photography’, a photography duo based in Southern Arizona, USA. In this article I share with you a bit about the process & decisions made while working around the constraints of this particular project.

Butterfield Photography is run by Maria and Robert Butterfeild, who both focus on two different areas of photography - wedding / family photography and commerical / sport photography.

Below you can see the old and new Butterfield Photography logos.

Design Constraints

Without going into too much detail, these were the constraints I had to work within.

• The logo design had to be elegant & sophisticated yet not too feminine (ie. had to be usable for both weddings, commercial & sport photography)
• The logo had to portray a natural, warm, friendly yet sophisticated style.
• The logo had to be be usable across a broad range of businesses (ie. the logo still could be usable for a construction business) and could have no association with photography.
• The logo had to work in one colour only as the logo had to be able to be used across a variety of applications such as clothing, vehicles, cameras, etc.

Brainstorming

Below you can see the very first stage of my very messy creative process - that of mindmapping and brainstorming. There were many more pages of these sketches however I thought it best to save your eyes.

Design Decisions

Minimalism: To work around these constraints mentioned above I decided to go for a very minimalist approach to reflect both elegance and sophistication. This would allow for the identity to be versatile and reflect those values stated above. I used the typeface ‘Gill Sans Light‘ to support these values.

Colour: The particular orange colour used in the Butterfield identity is fresh & vibrant and evokes Maria and Robert’s style of photography… natural. The colour is not too bright, nor too dull which allows it to give off an aura of warmth and friendliness. Do you know your colour theory?

Concept: After many sketches, concepts and experimentations I came down to the concept of using a burst of lines radiating out from the initials BP. Although this is entirely up to the perspective of the viewer, one could see the mark as a sun, a flower, a camera flash, a face, a camera lens, a light, etc. but what ever way one sees it, in the end, the mark still communicates a feeling of warmth, radiance and friendliness.

Delivery

Pitching a minimalist design to a client is quite a hard task, so it is best to show the logo in context. This may mean you will have to mockup some examples of letterhead, websites, etc.

You can view the PDF file I sent to Maria & Robert when pitching this concept.

After sending through the first PDF, Robert replied:

“I really liked the logo from the first time I saw it, simple (which is exactly what I was looking for), easily reproduced for embossing, stamping, embroidering etc. You nailed it right out of the gate…. GREAT JOB!!!”

The hard work paid off and no more revisions were made. It is important to note that you should only pitch your best logo design concepts.

Below you can see the identity system in use.

Business Card

Letterhead

Website Mockup (used when presenting the logo)

Mockup of fictional business (shows adaptability of logo)

The logo was also applied to a racecar of which you can see some of the pictures below.

1st Attempt

2nd Attempt

To be honest I was a bit disappointed to see the logo at such a small size and also to see the grey colour of ‘Butterfield’ changed to a dark orange (see second picture above) as the text loses contrast against the blue, however thankfully the owner of the racecar also agreed about this and they removed the stickers and reapplied them at a much larger size (see the last picture above) which I think looks much better. Maria also told me that the car came first place too which was great news!

The logo will also be appearing on a variety of other products of which I will upload when I get the pictures.

Testimonial

Below you can find the official testimonial from Maria Butterfield. You can read more of my client’s testimonials here.

We hired Jacob to design our new business logo and were beyond pleased with his professionalism and creativity. He took our ideas and needs and transformed them into a logo that reflected all of our desires. We were particularly impressed with the thoroughness in the questions he asked us concerning our wants and needs. Jacob exceeded all of our expectations! We have no hesitation in recommending him to anyone looking for branding that will truly reflect who they are.

- Maria Butterfield

There has also been great feedback from the followers of Maria’s blog:

I’m loving your new look Maria! So clean and fresh. Looking good.

- Angela

I’m loving the new look! Very modern.

- Rachel

Very very nice - I love the new design!

- Cheryl

Comments from my readers are always appreciated too - thanks for reading!

My work exhibited at Melbourne Museum

Back in early April I announced that I would be attending two Australian design conferences, one called Semi Permanent (that I reviewed here) and another called agIdeas which is in May.

Well the agIdeas conference (sold out) also had a side design competition called agIdeas NewStar that allowed you to enter some of your previously designed work for judging to see if it would be worthy for exhibition at the Melbourne Museum. Well I entered, and have just got word that my work got short-listed and will be appearing at Melbourne Museum! (For those not familiar with Melbourne, it is Australia’s second largest city.)

The NewStar exhibition will be on at Melbourne University from 24 April to 24 May (10am to 5pm). I will also be in Melbourne from May 4th till May 7th so if you’re in the area and want to say hello, please do let me know!

More info about agIdeas 2009 NewStar

agIdeas NewStar is an awards program for design students and new graduates. The Collie Print Trust Award’s the winner with a 2 week international scholarship including flights, accommodation and 2 weeks work experience at one of the following studios: (Ahn Sang So Korea, Browns UK, Guerilla Games The Netherlands, OJ South Africa, Pentagram USA, Prologue USA, SeymourPowell UK).

agIdeas NewStar Exhibition is part of the Designed to Inspire program at Melbourne Museum. The program offers public recognition of the work of talented emerging and practicing designers. The role of the museum is to increase design literacy in the general public, to broaden national and international awareness of the quality and diversity of contemporary Australian design, and to enhance Victoria as a centre of design excellence.

Entered Pieces

You were allowed to submit as many entries as you wanted however each entry had to have 3 pieces in it. I only submitted one entry (with 3 pieces inside) and you can see them below. I assume all three pieces will be on display at the museum as I haven’t been told otherwise.

FITTUCI Custom Windows & Doors Logo Design

Description: FITTUCI Custom Windows & Doors is a comprehensive source for superior custom doors & windows. They specialise in luxury state of the art doors & windows. The logo depicts an illusion of either windows or doors.

I wrote about the design process of this logo in full here.

Wedgetail Premium Citrus Vodka Bottle & Packaging

Description: Brand and identity development, 3D rendering, packaging and photography for Wedgetail Distillery’s Premium Citrus Vodka Premix alco-pop marketed towards 18-25 year olds.

I wrote about the design process of this project in full here.

Photoshop For Right Brainers

Description: Book cover design for a book targeted towards creatives who wish to use Photoshop for photo manipulation. The illustration depicts a man’s right side of the brain and the vertical text forces the viewer to tilt their head to the right to read the name of the book (hence right side of the brain). The word Photoshop also depicts an exclamation mark.

I was approached by John Wiley & Sons (one the world’s largest book publishers) to design this book cover back in September last year.

Check me out in these magazines!

Back in January I wrote the cover article for Layers Magazine on the topic of ‘Negative Space’ and now I am back again, but this time in the form of a poster boy - well not that kind of poster boy.

If you have a quick look though the April/May edition of Layers Magazine you will find my little mugshot on one of their advertisements along with some of my CD artwork. See the image below.

You may also be interested to know you can test drive Layers magazine by grabbing a free copy over at their site or you could look through their last issue online.

Also, check me out in next months edition of the mag, I will be appearing in their “Instant Inspiration” section with an interview and a showcase of my work.

I will also be appearing in the Photoshop and Illustrator tutorial sections over the next few months of which I will post on here once they are available. Stay tuned!

Computer Arts Projects Magazine (Issue 122)

After posting this article, I was told by Chris Spooner (big thank you) that I’ve also been featured in Issue 122 of the Computer Arts Projects Magazine -  three times!

A big thanks to Chris Spooner for sending me the pics below.

The front cover of the magazine.

The inspiration directory page.

Tips for marketing yourself page.

Personal recommendation from Paul Wyatt! Thank you!

DG Magazine Portfolio

Update #3 - Just got word that my logo got approved for the “DG Portfolio 8″ magazine. See the pics below!

Front Cover

The page that I am on.

Close up of my logo.