Sometimes . . . people don’t think all of my designs are stunningly fabulous. It hurts, but sometimes it does happen. (Actually, I’m pretty desensitized.) So, instead of letting my rejected designs sit in silence on my hard drive, I’ll start posting them, so you can add your 2 cents if you like. Was the rejection justified?

This is a design that I submitted for Querétaro’s newly formed rugby team. (In case you care, they broke off from the Celaya team which had won the championship in Mexico every year until last year. They lost to Mexico City’s team. It was an emotional loss. In the aftermath, since most of the players lived in Querétaro, they decided to form their own team.)

Their team name is the “Cuervos” (crows), hence the black wings which were drawn in Adobe Illustrator. The shield shape is traditional for rugby clubs, and QRO is the abbreviation for the state and city.

I did other versions with a rugby ball on the shield below the QRO, but I didn’t like it, and since it was rejected anyway, I decided not to post that version.

In an attempt to sell my design to the team, I created this poster (it could use more work). The caption translates as “Join our club.”

By the way, am I the only one that finds it odd for Querétaro to have a rugby team? But it is a beautiful city. You should go sometime! It was ranked in the top 15 historic places in the world by National Geographic 2008.

I just finished up this poster for a friend that is sponsoring (I guess that’s what you call it) a study abroad program for USC Upstate. She told me that sometimes they have difficulty convincing students to join or even getting them to notice the program among a sea of posters on the bulletin boards. Hopefully, this will work. If not, I will switch out the frog for pretty ladies on a Costa Rican beach.

The poison dart frog is all Photoshop – does it look it too much? I added some paper texture and then drew in some texture for the background. It’s nice to get to do some illustration periodically. Feel free to offer feedback!

I’ll post some pictures once it’s been printed.

I’m working on a project at the moment for another artist and I am struck by how easy it is to get a vision for a project when the person I am working for has the ability to put ideas into words I understand. Are artists any different than accountants or salesmen. Why do we use different words? As I thought about it I immediately began recalling all the times I’ve been told that something needs to be different without much explanation to back it up. Every freelancer would agree – this drives us crazy sometimes. So what can we do about it?

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Listen to the way Jonathan describes visual elements of type.

Once upon a time (earlier this year), the beautiful Heritage Park Amphitheater was born in Simpsonville, SC. And so, it needed a logo. They showed us some ideas of what they wanted, and we did our research. The venue itself wasn’t built yet, so all we had to go on was renderings of the stage and some words like “colorful”.

Our initial drafts didn’t go over so well. I kept hearing things like “more color!” and “more modern!” and so forth. As many designers have said before, there is a measure of difficulty in communicating visual ideas using a verbal medium. But hey, that’s my job: to figure out what exactly people mean when they say things like “You know . . . more trendy.”

The difficulties and meaningless revisions continued. Frustrations mounted. Deadlines were approaching rapidly. It was time. I played my trump card – The Live Design Session.

I know you may not believe me, but this has NEVER failed to produce a satisfied client (I’ll let you know when this changes). The Live Design Session is simply sitting down with the client and my computer and doing kind of a group design. It may seem crazy to allow this kind of interference in the design process, and I wouldn’t recommend it as a regular practice, but it does have some key benefits.

1.) It puts distance between you and your design. You wake and realize, “Hey. It doesn’t matter what I like. What matters is what’s effective.” As a designer, it’s easy to pander to your own personal taste and disregard the research of your team. As basic as this next sentence seems, I find myself needing to hear it frequently. Commercial design is not the place for prima donnas.

2.) It creates a healthy respect for your craft. This one may seem a little manipulative, but honestly, it’s a good thing. Just watching you work will create some understanding of the high level of skill required to design a good logo.

3.) It speeds things up. For one thing, it just doesn’t work to have 15 people sitting around one computer giving their opinions. And it speeds up communication. The client asks for a specific color. You say, “I don’t think that will work.” They say, “Let me see it anyway. Oh, that doesn’t work at all.” When they are sitting with you, this happens in 10 seconds – instead of a week of emails and versions being emailed around and discussed by everyone that could possibly be involved in the process.

4.) But the ultimate reason that the Live Design Sessions are so successful is the sense of ownership and partnership that it brings. Sending designs back and forth sometimes reminds me a tennis match. You serve up your best design, and they send it right back. Somehow, when you are sitting side by side, facing the same direction, the atmosphere changes. The sense of opposition disappears, and good things happen.

Of course, this won’t work for every client. A primary point of contact is needed, and you will need define a general design direction before jumping into a session. But sometimes, it may be just what you need.

See the evolution of the logos in the video below. Music courtesy of Super U. Visit their website at www.myspace.com/superu.