I was asked to come up with a logo for a community-based radio show here in Lincoln. I’ve kept it simple and using only two colors; staying away from gradients and drop shadows can save your client money in the long run when in comes to creating promotional materials, plus I think it creates a sharp, clean image.

Here’s my attempt to properly illustrate how the Outer-Spacemen will rock your brain into zombie mush.

The colors aren’t set in stone, but I’d like to print this on cardboard colored paper.

Due to me not being able to come up with anything clever until the last minute, I scrapped my original idea leaving me with only a few hours to get this done last night.  I’m not thrilled with the bees, but it’s got to be printed today so that’s how it goes.  I’m going to spend a little more time on it and maybe make some silkscreen prints for the actual show.

Much of my 9-5 involves taking franchise sign packages and photoshopping them onto photos of new locations.  The work can often be tedious and extremely BORING, so to shake the cobwebs loose, I’ll spend my nights coming up with logos or t-shirt designs for friends.  One of these days I’ll figure out how to make money doing this kind of thing.

If drunken shenanigans while biking are your thing, then this club is right up your alley.

Every now and then I get a customer who has a neat logo that might not be quite right for sign purposes, even though it looks great on packaging or labels.  Signs’ main purposes are to draw your attention, and reflect the ambiance you’ve tried to create within your business, and sometimes to accomplish this, a logo might need some tweaking.  Taking someone’s original logo and modifying it can be tricky business.  Do it incorrectly and you can even insult a designer or business owner, losing their business.

We reached out to Serenity Cupcakes here in Lincoln, and offered to come up with some ideas to brand their new location.  The owner forwarded me a cute logo that I thought would work great if I just changed it up a bit.

Even though the original designer’s logo would probably be fantastic in getting people’s attention; the colors are inviting and the cupcake makes you hungry by just looking at it, the name might be a little small when it come’s to brand recognition.  I decided to enlarge the badge element of the logo, making the cupcake a little smaller.  I enlarged the copy and reduced the colors in the cupcake to make it a little easier to fabricate.

I’ve made the cupcake much smaller, but I think that it still remains the main focal point of the design.  I decided to change the color of the secondary copy to make it stand out a little more and I kept the original gradient in the background color.  I can mimic that look by using a metallic blue when we fabricate the actual sign.

I’ve heard that initial response has been positive, so hopefully we’ll have a chance at producing this one.