I have been working with RawData's, www.therawdata.com, CTO on the visuals for the next generation of our MoARC, Mobile Audio Recognition Client, application for the Android mobile OS while simultaneously working on the visuals for our survey app, I'm calling it QQs for Quick Question Surveys. Both apps will have nearly the same splash screen with only the app name swapped out. Here are my initial mockups for both.

Again, these are nothing more than the simple splash screens shown only while the program loads and both will go to unique landing pages that help the users into the apps and its' features. Those screens are forth coming.

Also, in VERY big news... at least for me... I am designing a promotional iOS app for the NBA team the Utah Jazz! My good friend will be doing the coding and development based on my designs! As I make progress on this I will be posting mockups here as well.

-Jake

Some new shirt designs:

Titled 'Wire Wings'

Titled 'Skullburator'

Titled 'Oil Bag'

WrenchFist

Did up another tshirt design recently. While browsing the web one day I found a shirt that had a new style that I liked a lot so I wanted to try it and this is what I came up with.

What do you think? Would you wear it??

-Jake

Wire Wings t-shirt teaser

I've been working on a tshirt design for a long time and I've finally made the jump to starting the digital work on it. Here is a teaser of the base work that has been done so far. I'm calling it the 'Wire Wings' for now.

Hope you like it! More to come on this for sure.

-Jake

RawData Web Project

As promised, though a couple days slow, here is a link to the RawData website which went live earlier this week.

http://therawdata.com/

There are some holes in the site as far as database integration but that is not what I was responsible for. There is also some bigger functionality stuff that will be revised in the near future but for now here it is!

-Jake

(Here is a screen shot of the home page.)

Quick update, I've been cramming on the previously posted RawData website. The site design was completed awhile back and then we started development but had to fire the development company when they didn't actually do anything do anything after multiple weeks. Now I'm taking a more active role by doing the front end coding as well as the original design. When the site goes live look for a link.

-Jake

Photochopped Larry

Been working on figuring out and learning a new technique for 'photochopping' a car.

Here is the base photo:

Here is stage one in progress:

And here it is currently:

I plan to white out the grill and headlight bezels and see what I think. Then I will flatten it all, add some noise, and try putting it on a different background.

-Jake

Been awhile and needed a new skull

here is my newest skull design:

I originally did this design a few years back I recently wanted to do a more Adobe Illustrator friendly version so I put this together. Shortly I hope to actually put this in Illustrator and do a digital version.

-Jake

Hotrod Wagon that is Hotrod done

Awhile back this itch crept up on me to build a hotrod wagon for my 1 1/2 old son. He has a little plastic wagon that he liked to be pulled around in but he is already wayyyy to big for it.

This is what I started with:

And this is what I built:

My son really likes to ride around in the wagon. Here is a pic of him just last night after we had taken three different walks around the neighborhood!

The wagon was over built to handle the future terror that he will rain down upon it so its a bit heavy for him right now, here is a pic of him attempting to move it on grass!

And apparently he got the urge to look like Kareem Abdul Jabbar while riding and busted out my protective eye wear.

Had to throw this out there but I promise I'll get back to other design stuff!

-Jake

Bullet holes, rivets, and a smashed skull

So my friends and I liked the smashed skull image so much that I added our motor club name to it and then built a custom wallpaper.

Ta Da!

I also began working on a new skull design that isn't for anything in particular other than fun... or maybe a shirt....

-Jake

Hammered Skull v2

Here is a newer version which so far is by far my favorite!

-Jake


Edit:

Here is the design after digitalization:

Hammered Skull

A new doodle of my anvil smashed skull.

A little sadistic bad luck

Had an idea rattling around in my head for the last few days and I finally decided to build it. The illustration goes along with the idea of The Luckless, here it is:

I had fun putting this one together! I actually built the skull out of pieces to get the right angle on it and also to get the jaw jacked out like that. I'd probably wear that on a shirt!

This will be an evolving design as you are seeing it in version 1.0 so stay tuned for updates to it.

-Jake

Skull Appreciation Day!

I have been following the blog over at skulladay.blogspot.com and love the work they are doing and have been considering doing my on 365 day project. (more info on that here). SkullADay has declared June 4th 'Skull Appreciation Day'. Click the image above to get some more info and also to see the work happening on that site. Great creative stuff that is also inspiring!

-Jake

Could have waited but didn't

So I know I've done a large number of posts in a short amount of time but I just had to share this piece.

This is the newest and what I could consider almost totally finished version of the new The Luckless logo.

Hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

-Jake

"Branding Ninja" - my new title

My father took on a new job a year or so ago. The job was with a startup called Raw Data and involved some pretty amazing goals that required equally amazing levels of development skills and talent, both of which my dad has plenty of! Well the company made some awesome progress over the last year and, unlike Matchplay in a previous post, they have continued to grow and flourish. I was approched by the CEO about coming on in a branding capacity. This isn't a regular job and I only earn equity in the company for my efforts but the opportunity is one that is pretty incredible for any designer this early in his/her career so I accepted. With the new side job I also got a new title... but its one I got to CHOOSE! So I am the 'Branding Ninja' for Raw Data in Salt Lake City, Utah.

My first move was to sneak up on and judo chop the logo. The logo was designed early on and while solid had some fundamental problems. Here is a comparison of the original and my modified version:

Original:

My first edit (top) and my second edit (bottom):

It was important to me to add some visual weight to the mark and also to tighten up kerning of the lettering. There is still some work that can be done on the kerning but this is pretty close. I also wanted to flip the divider/underline bar so that instead of dropping down and then to the left it dropped down and then swiped to the right. In the west we read left to right and have a sense that moving forward means to move to the right from the left. Having the line the way it was suggested, even subconsciously, that RawData was moving backwards and they are doing anything but that!

The website is also under construction. We started with a registered user section since the major reason for the site is to facilitate the dissemination of info to and to assist the registered users. After that it is to inform potential user. Here is the page that I've title 'Panelist'er' (since our registered users are actually members of a user panel):

The column on the left is a blog format panel that allows Raw Data to post information to and for the general population of the panel.

The column on the right is specific to the panelist and allows the user to see and manage their account, settings, see usage stats, and provides direct links to the panelist to communicate with Raw Data.











The second page, as mentioned, is an informational page designed to inform and inspire prospective panelists, a page I've titled 'Prospect'er':

Similar to the panelist page, I have use a three column layout with the column on the far left being a quick reference column and the two on the right being combined into one and used to provide the more detailed break down of what is required to be a panelist.













The project is based on a concept of washing away the old archaic way of doing things with a digital, streamlined, and more fluid solution. To visualize this I used a white wash idea of Raw Data and its process flowing down and over the old way of doing things, which is represented by the orange color filled with blurred and cluttered spread sheets, the current standard in the industry. The fluidity of RawData is conveyed to the viewer by the flowing liquid but the rigid three column and very geometric shapes of the body of each page shows the predictability of the data format that you can expect from RawData.


This in an ongoing project and changes will happen and more pages will be added, I hope to provide samples here as I complete pages.

-Jake

MatchPlay Identity & Site Design

A good friend passed my name along to a guy he knew that was interested in building a website that provided stats tracking for rec. or comp. teams for youth sports. The site was based off a system that his grandfather had developed through years of involvement in youth sports but was totally paper based. My task was to update the brand and design the initial website, front end, design.

Here is the mark in its updated form:

(I always display my mark designs the way I did in college, with a full sized version in color followed by the same mark in reduction and in black and white.)



Here is the site design. Keep in mind that this is the first iteration of the site and ultimately the company failed to take off and the project was killed so this is as far as it went. I put it here because it shows an early step in my process and hopefully you can see the direction I was taking it. The developer and the owner of the idea were both thrilled with the design and concept.

Like I said the company ran into some logistical and financial issues so this project, unfortunately, didn't come to total fruition.


-Jake

Americana Redux and Redesign

Awhile back I was contacted by a woman and her husband who were interested in developing a patriotic line of shirts, hats, hoodies, bumper stickers, etc. The concept was based around the name of the line "Got Freedom" but they wanted to avoid the traditional patriotic themes or at least present them in a less obtrusive way. A lot of the time patriotic gear is only worn on holidays like the 4th of July or Veteren's Day, my client wanted their clothing to be designed in a way that the customer might wear it any day of the year and wear it proudly.

Initially I started with the shirts and hoodies. Here are some mockups of the designs on a sample shirt or hoodie.

After the shirts were done I moved onto some hat designs, here are a few:

Following the hats I moved on to the other products in the catalog like bumper stickers and some view through truck/SUV window decals. Those designs are very similar to the ones show here so I won't add of them.

This has been a fun project to work on because of the illustrative nature of the project. Allows a bit more creative freedom I think where a layout doesn't provide quite the same level of freedom, to create a working and appropriate layout anyway!

-Jake

Nazis and a Redesign

When my friends and I chose the name 'hard luck' for our moto club we did some searching around the net looking to see if the name had been used. It had but it was just a band so we figured we were ok to use it. After nearly finishing the ambigram logo I happened on a Flickr photostream for another moto group that had used the name. Maybe we could still use it right? Well it turns out they have swastika's on their cuts, I'm not down with that. So we had to come up with a new name.

This time we arrived at 'The Luckless", obviously we want to make a point we work for and fight for what we have! This time I decided to try something else for inspiration and I also wanted to be a bit more light hearted with the concept. That is when Wile E. Coyote came to mind and how he always seems to get mashed in the head by a falling ACME anvil. So taking that inspiration I created the following logo:

This is just round one for the design but I liked the idea so much I busted out my Waccom board and did up a digital version. Looking over it now I'd like to simplify this and also clean up and scale down the volume of impact spikes and maybe shift the anvil to a steeper angle but I love the concept! It would also be cool to break the square in half's and have the kick up at each end to emphasize the 'crash' and make it more dynamic. I can just see this as a wide patch on my jacket/shirt across the top back of my shoulders!

In addition to the logo above I drew up a design that I liked but was less impactful and was a bit harder to understand. It is a conglomeration of good luck symbols, some common and others not so common. Here is a pic of my first version of this:

This logo is made up of a scarab beetle, a sign of luck in ancient Egypt, and a horse shoe, which is obvious. The problem with this logo is that since we are luckless... why do we have symbols of luck? The obvious answer would be that we are trying to get as much luck as we can, but it is still kind of a stretch plus, its kind of boring! This logo idea does have other versions but I think they will stay 'in development' indefinitely!

With the demise of the 'Hard Luck' name I still intend to do up a digital version of the ambigram and keeping it for my own entertainment, and don't worry as I intend to do more ambigrams now that I under took and rocked my first one!

-Jake

Ambigrams and Hotrods

Awhile back my brother and three friends and I created a moto club called 'Hard Luck'. Being that I'm a designer with such an interest in branding I decided to take a stab at a logo. I've always been fascinated by ambigrams so decided to take a stab at one and see what happened while trying to create a logo for our group. Below is what I've arrived at after nearly 20 different doodles, this is a very simple and small thumbnail type sketch to which I intend to add more embellishments.

This view number one

This is view number two

In the corner there is some small txt that says "The Luckless" which is kind of our unofficial slogan/tag line.

What do you think?

-Jake

EDIT: I just finished a new version of this design with more detail and some revisions, check it out:

Still have to deal with the L that looks like a P.... hmmmmm....


EDIT #2: Here is what I consider to be nearly final version of the design that I did last night. This is on tracing paper so there is some glare but I'm really diggin it!

New drawing

In an effort to continue my drawing for the reason listed in a previous post, I am working on a composition that uses some components from those previous drawing but on a larger scale and with greater detail and a larger design.

Here it is:

The drawing will have a distributor at the top with the plug wires fanning out like wings. I may change it so the  piston is on top of the gear when I translate this to a digital illustration. The illustration will be my first design for my new gearhead/hotrod inspired clothing line.

Stay tuned!

-Jake

Work and art

Since my last post, and actually prior to it, I've actually taken employment with a company called Dominion Enterprises, click here for company site, in their new R&D department as a User Interface Designer. The department is brand new headed up by my boss Greg Graf who just moved back to SLC from Virginia where the company is actually based. I work, right now, with two developers and Greg. Our first project is for the domain name Sold.com, click here for our splash page to sign up for email notification at launch, which were are building to be a competitor for sites like LivingSocial and Groupon, basically a 'daily deal' type site. The project is well underway and will hopefully launch in a few months.

Dominion Enterprises is a very large company with 2+ million in revenue last year. We were original partners in Autotrader, though we have since sold out but retain similar properties like BoatTrader, Classic Car Trader, etc. We also own Real Estate oriented sites and matching publications such as those you see on the stands in the entry ways of grocery stores like Macy's. You will notice the company name on plaques on those stands and we run/own all the brands on those racks.

I'm quite thrilled to be part of this company and this department, which has the feel of a startup but with the financial security of the large corporation that it really is. The only down side is they gave me a Mac to work on.... I know, as a designer I am a rarity but I strongly prefer Windows.

As for Lunacium news, I have been working on some side projects. One of which have been especially fun because the task is to create clip art style illustrations for use in a marketing collateral builder that is part of a web site oriented towards small boutique type shops. To complete the job, I've been working with my old Wacom tablet a lot. The age of the tablet is becoming more and more apparent the longer I work with it but I am getting better and better at using it; and as I said I'm having a lot of fun. This particular project has inspired me to branch out from just using Illustrator with the Wacom and jumping over to Photoshop as well and begin developing my own designs for use in a line of hotrod/kustom car clothing that I've been wanting to create.

The other project is one I've had for awhile and has progressed slowly as the client figures out their own business and makes the appropriate decisions. It is a line of products that are patriotic themed like shirts, hats, bumper stickers, etc. I recently completed the shirts and hoodies portions and have just received word that they approved my design for the bumper stickers as well. Hats are next, something I hope to be done with in the next week.

I will be posting some samples of my work from both projects soon but getting them done in the next few weeks is more important. Part of the reason for needing to get them done is two fold. One is I have a potentially large project, branding and a website, on the horizon. Second is that my wife, son, and I are going to be moving in a month. Upgrading to a larger place, from a condo to a full house actually. We are pretty excited but it is, as always, a stressful situation.

-Jake

Drawing

So I have been doing some drawing... you know, the old way with a pencil and paper! I've wanted to get back t doing more of it for the creative freedom that illustrations offer and to spur a more open creative outlet where I can whatever I want. I've also wanted to start developing my own line of hotrod/car culture inspired clothing. Here is one design that I created yesterday evening.

I have another one that I've got in the works, but it isn't done yet. However I will put it up anyway!

This image will change by flipping the view of the distributor at the top to a top view (looking down on it) and the plug wires hanging down more in the shape of angel wings on both sides. This is also quite small and almost functions as more of a thumbnail test.

These aren't designs that I will use necessarily, they are more about getting the creativity flowing.

-Jake