a winning book cover

Concept and design of book cover for Doug Moore Financial which included an original cartoon illustration.  I usually draw cartoons by hand and then import into PhotoShop.  I tweaked and colored the illustration in PhotoShop and used Adobe InDesign to layout this book's cover.

white and negative space

I just put the finishing touches on the Doug Moore Financial logo a few days ago.  This has been a fun project.   It was challenging developing a corporate image with an eye-catching use of white and negative space.  The reverse arc is symbolic, and also adds a pleasing contrast to the square corners.

I'm still in the process of designing print layouts for Doug's marketing campaign.  One of the first applications for the logo is a presentation pocket folder.  I look forward to seeing this image embossed on the front cover.  It's really going to pop.

a grand logo

The good folk at Baker Piano and Music wanted to keep the founder, Gerald Baker.   Though I do a good bit of cartoon illustration work, I wanted Baker's presence to be simple and light but not cartoon-like.  Rendering a satisfactory image for the late Mr. Baker was the most challenging aspect.  I rendered version after version until I came up with the one I knew would work.   Much of the logo was rendered in CorelDraw and then imported into Adobe PhotoShop.  The portrait was in pen and ink, scanned and imported into PhotoShop.

During my initial work I had submitted two versions, a version with Baker text against the grand piano lid backdrop and another using Baker's illustration without the piano lid.  The keyboard rendering was present in both submissions.  The folks at Baker Piano wanted both ideas combined.  I was a little hesitant.  It was too easy for the head illustration to distract from the piano lid.  There is a lot of text in this logo...a lot going on.   I usually push for simpler imagery, but this really came together nicely, very strong.  Jay Holland (of Jay Holland Communications) and I worked together to merge the two concepts and make it all work.  I'm very proud of this logo and confident it will serve Baker Piano and Music Company well.

School Safety Security logo

Here's another logo for a local community service.  The School Safety and Security Committee was recently formed to ensure that our area schools stay safe in light of the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting last December.  Gun free zones are not safe zones.  This bipartisan group are working on ways to ensure security for our children.

A reversed image of Etowah County was placed within a shield.  There was a little challenge making a name with seven words work as one image.  As you can see, the logo  is red, white, blue and black and also works fine as a gray scale image.  The logo was developed in PhotoShop.

Local Heroes

I just finished this logo this afternoon with J. Holland.  This is pretty straight forward, simple look to it, but strong imaging.  The ECRS logo was built in CorelDraw.  The hard hat was a quick mouse drawing, shaped via node editing.  The Etowah County Rescue Squad wear white hard hats with red jump suits.

J came to me with a good idea of what he wanted.  He just needed someone to put what he envisioned into an actual image.  I really like how it worked out and sure this branding will be used for decades to come.  I look forward to seeing this branding on their future red jump suits, safety helmets and vehicles.

The image below will go on their letterheads and documents. Their original logo was pretty busy with a lot of elements.  The image below includes most of the previous logo's elements, but simplified and cleaner.