I finally finished a logo design for a friend after 3.5 months. I kept getting busy or sidetracked with other projects and she let me know she needed it sooner, rather than later, so I did the final touches today and knocked it out. This is only a portion of the design. I’m going to wait till she reveals it before I show off the whole thing.

Today I got a covid test and it was much more pleasant than the last time I got in June. I made some minor tweaks to my heart-eyes logo and uploaded it to Instagram for Valentine’s Day. Several friends said I should make it into a shirt and I just might. I also finished the “Scents by Drea” label design for my friend. I’m still working on a logo design for another friend which I’m almost done with.

Here are the three designs my friend liked from the 10 sketches I sent. They’re slightly cleaned up and with a bit of color. I’ve sent her these samples now I’m waiting on feedback before moving forward.

Here’s a sneak peek at some rough sketches for a 2” x 2” label I’m designing for a friend.

Here’s a couple snippets from a design I’m working on. Still in the early phases, and a bit rough, but slowly coming together.

The next time someone requests my design services and drops that line, I’m charging double! I’m currently working on two design projects for friends and both of them told me the same thing and gave me little to work with, expecting me to pull ideas from the ether. I came up with an idea for one of the projects, after asking my friend a bunch of questions regarding what they need from the design, and sent it it to her today. Sure enough it wasn’t what she was looking for. She then sent me a photograph as a reference to what she wants it to look like. If she had sent me the reference picture at the start it would have saved us both lots of time. So the next time a friend, or client, says to do “whatever I want” I’m gonna raise the price then offer to discount it if they come to me with a better understanding of what they’re looking for in a design.

I’ve been changing my car’s oil & rotating the tires myself for a while. A few years ago I made this doc to help make the process a little faster. I print out a copy when it’s time to change the oil and every time I write notes and make edits to help improve the process. Tonight I geeked out a little extra.

I finally got a physical copy of the Wet Bandits' CD, "Elysian." I did the cover artwork then the CD layout at the end of last year. The only thing I'm not too happy with is the way the setting sun gradient came out but oh well.

...with the EMN Layla-Mae & Phoenix project. I printed them out on adhesive vinyl sheets and cut them to size tonight. The blue fill on Phoenix’s stickers didn’t come out as clean as the green fill on Layla’s which I’m not happy about. It’s something to do with the vinyl sheets. All I gotta do now is find an envelope to ship them out.

The Layla-Mae & Phoenix sticker sheets are ready to print! I’m waiting on the client (my cousin) to let me know how many of each he wants. Then I’ll print them out on adhesive vinyl sheets, cut them and mail them out. While I’ve been waiting I pulled out the spare Raspberry Pi, attached to a 7” touchscreen, that I had laying around. I installed the latest OS and managed to get Disney+ to run on it, but not very well. I also tried installing Retropie, to play old school video games, but had no luck getting that to work. I’m on the lookout for something cool to with my second Pi computer but everything is either lame or above my skill level.

Mira, mira! I printed the names in 5 different sizes and cut them out to see how they look. They look great! I’ll probably skip the smallest size since it’s not much different than the next size up. Besides that, they’re about ready to print on adhesive vinyl sheets and get turned into stickers.

I keep saying that about this project. I printed both pieces after going over them with a fine tooth comb and cleaning up all the little imperfections. They look super crisp at full, half & quarter sheets. I want to see how small I can print them so I'm waiting on my printer to spit out the 6-up & 9-up sheets. It's taking forever so I'm going to bed. They should be ready when I wake up.

Kept it low key for New Years, cause of covid and I'm old. I made a little animation for those who went out and gathered in groups. If they get covid, fuck em! After 9 months I'm tired of feeling bad, plus we should all know better by this point. If they get other people sick, well then then they're assholes too. Besides folks ringing in the new year with covid, I've plotted a short hike at Grant Park, to do later today with my buddies, and got back to work on the EMN Phoenix project I should have finished by now. Happy New Year... even though not a damn thing's changed!

Before printing this out I brought the artwork into Illustrator and went through every eye, mouth & nose to clean them up. I also a brought in the vectorized Layla-Mae, instead of the rasterized graphic I'd been using in it's place, so now the name looks way sharper. Tomorrow I'll print smaller versions to see how they look.

I think it’s gonna need one more pass to clean up any of those pesky leftover slivers. Then Layla-Mae will be ready to print!

These remind of when you’d get your assignment back from the teacher and they marked all the mistakes you made. The best was when you had the opportunity to fix the mistakes and turn it back in for a better grade. That’s basically what I’m doing here. I’m going for that A++++

I’ve been saying that for weeks. Hopefully it’s for reals this time.

I’ve been making edits to the EMN Layla-Mae & Phoenix artwork based on the notes I scribbled after printing them out a couple times now. Some details were too small or busy and had to be made bigger and more defined. I’ve also been going around erasing a bunch of thin slivers which are partially erased brush strokes. They’re so thin they’re practically invisible on screen but on paper they print out as black marks and they’re all over the artwork. Going forward, I gotta be better about drawing & erasing so I don’t have to comb thru the whole image at the highest zoom setting looking for tiny blemishes that can ruin a print.

I finished another round of tweaks. I’m going to print it again tomorrow to see how it looks before moving on.

I'm almost done with these. I printed them out in different sizes and scribbled some notes on what needs tweaking. In the end they'll be printed on vinyl stickers.

I got 2 orders ready to go out! One to be delivered tomorrow via The Frankie Mcfly Express (that's what I call it when I drop it off myself) and the other via the USPS on Monday. I also edited a short video with a crawling banner to promote my sale going on till December 25, 2020. Use the coupon code: IGOT5ONIT at checkout and get $5 off each t-shirt.

Incase you missed the sign on the front page or my Instagram posts earlier this evening... I put my t-shirts on sale for $25 each (including shipping & handling) by using coupon code IGOT5ONIT at checkout. The offer is limited to t-shirts currently in stock and runs until December 25, 2020. This sale is in response to Black Friday, (which was today) Small Business Saturday, and all live vending opportunities being shut down due to covid. It’s a small effort to make a few sales before the end of the year and get rid of some inventory that’s been sitting in boxes all year.

I also made my FRANKIE MCFLY kiss-cut stickers 2 for $5. No coupon necessary.