Look Ma! Let's put it on the fridge! Websites - Freako Suave

This job came to me during the process of building my portfolio website, so the both of them became a learning experience. The creativity of this site was motiviating, but also frustrating. In the end - I think it became a litle too flashy even for a musicians site.

This site was also released in 2005, but I think only lasted until 2007. The client played on his own and with this band. The updates didn't get posted too often and the site died. Was it because of the site? This is one of those questions I ask for all the projects that fail. I guess if I didn't care, I wouldn't enjoy working in this field, but I did care.

I had worked on another design for this site which was a little more outside the box, and becuase the client was looking for something different and possibly had hopes of self-maintenance on the site, the web design was toned down. But here are the screenshots:

Look Ma! Let's put it on the fridge! Websites - BHCreative

The first live website I created was my portfolio website. While I created the logo bad in the design of the website, I created the website based of another site I saw which was simple.

I released this site in 2005. By 2008 it was losing it's flare. I was ready fir an overhaul. I wanted to do a Flash website, and haven't yet. I didn't like the address - it was too long. www.bhcreativemediadesign.com. This link no longer works. I let the domain name expire and I am planning to launch my next portfolio site from a new name on a server that allows a little more.

This site was hosted off FreeServers.com. I was satisfied with the service, but I was looking to move my site to ASP, which I didn't have the capabilities for with that site.

I think I'd have to lean more towards some lighter colors and a better, cleaner, look and feel on the next release. Instead of relasing something out there sooner, and being less satisfied with th results, I hope to build something I like, then release it.

Here are some of the other pages from that site:

Look ma! Let's put it on the fridge! Logos - Hobo Interactive

One of the more casual, and possibly most offensive in presentation. Hobo Interactive was another daydream product that started with a small sick laugh and esculated to a fully offensive branding design.

The idea derived from brainstorming a name to represent the type of services I hoped to provide. Cheap service to those who didn't want to pay the high price but still desired some quality. I had fun packaging this idea. And had fun creating it.

The hat on the lower right was created in 3D studio max. I put a single spotlight on it to display the shadow. The "Hi" inside the circle was where the laughter came from. I think I was probably drawing this somewhere and luaghed to myself. Meanwhile, someone probably walked by me thinking what a wierd little man. I thought of the video advertisement for this. The "Hi" logo drawn with a finger on the morning dew of a car window. As the water on the logo starts to drip down, you'd see the hobo in the backseat, with his clothes, his hat, his vodka, his laptop, and his business card. I still hope to shoot it soon, so don't steal this pleasure away from me. I can't afford the prescriptions. And it's also a greeting, "Hi". A beggining. "This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship"

I believe this was previous to later attempts at the full package, the letter head and business card. I may not remember this correctly, but I think it was inspired by a job rejection I got from a design company. It really deflated the blow a little when this design company, "Hill" and something or other sent me a branded envelop and letterhead to tell me I didn't match any openings at the time. In my small efforts and big mind, I was honored to be rejected so professionally. (Got that one ladies?). And so this collage was given life and existence.

Look ma! Let's put it on the fridge! Logos - BH Creative

Wow, why am I posting this one again. In color here. Before I had any conversations with others about design and logos, my creative little dreamer came up with this big no-no. Not really appealing anymore, the maiin font is probably a poor choice. And the icon or symbol come only in a Photoshop effect metal glaze.

It worked well on the web though. Unfortunately, the domain name expired and I have no portfolio site. Hence, welcome to my effort. One of the worst parts was that my pride & joy in this idea was misinterpeted by several. The icon is intended to display an slightly abstract representation of the letters "b-h-c" for "bh creative". The "h" is capital. The line between the "b" and the "c" make up the middle ine of the "H" - there's a name for that line which a professional logo designer would know and most likely have to explain in a proposal I would guess.

So here's the downer of my designs. the one where you have to explain it to mom and whoever else looks at the fride. "No, see it? SEE IT? It's RIGHT there? It's the line between the 'b' and the ... nevermind ..." The design you have to explain. And no one wants and explanation. they want clarity in design. Most branding probably doesn't need a tag of explanation on it. But it got a little better. It was the base of an idea that may develop.

The hat was a sketch that drew my little misunderstood icon closer to my heart. It was like that loving hug a mom could only give her smallest ugly kid. And no-one else could touch that feeling or would ever want to. Get out of here you ugly little !@#? !!!

Look ma! Let's put it on the fridge! Logos - Creative Lab

This, I think, is the first logo work I experimented with. I enjoyed it at the time, but this logo fails without the color - and I'm sure someone out there says it fails with the color too. Keep in mind, I said FIRST LOGO, so hold the arrogance for now.

Always brainstorming for a name, hence the blog name, this was one of my first attempts. But a generic name like this, not personalised, I think would get a bad rap if all the work behind that logo fell short of professional. And at the time, it did.

It's getting late now, but these entries for this part of my series, "Look ma! Let's put it on the fridge!" is motivating. Now my arrogance might show when I say, after a few entries, some of the self-harshness is deflating. What I realized about this though, was that it was purely digital. Designed in Fireworks, with the Fireworks alien effect in the background. Probably not the best idea to use a built-in feature, with little customization, as a trademark for your logo. I think they have legal names for it.

NOTE: No individuals were paid for this logo in any way. It is strictly a gallery object measuring and observing technique, education and growth within this area of my career. Hell, I didn't even pay myself. I started too. I put a buck in the jar, but took it out the next day out of self-loathing for my current state of affairs at the time. Note, also, the desired web presence.

Look ma! Let's put it on the fridge! Logos - Admo Energy

What's that there? Is that color? No grey-scale or black and white? BAD designer! BAD!

With this design, I, of course, was not set out to design a logo for the client, but to create a website for the client. The client had no useable or appealing logo that cuaght me, so this was a side-project. The results were that the client paid me for the logo design work and the website was scrapped twice and remains as a stagnet temporary page years later to this day with this logo right smack dab in the middle of it. If you're actually taking the time to read the older blog entries first, you know the score is now - logo design: 3, web: 0.

I know it looks familiar. I think it unconciously came from something I saw somewhere. One day driving, I thought I found the hidden source of inspiration, but I didn't make a note of it right then and forgot it. A short entry here, I don't have any other packaged items available to post. (Or I don't want to look right now). This one suprised me a little when the results came out the way they did. The website had some positive aspects to it but was most likely too amatuerish and artsy to market for the business. And on the site, I went white text on black backgrounds, which I see work someplaces, but it hasn't popped out in any of my design work. It worked okay with this logo though.

Look ma! Let's put it on the fridge! Logos - 529 Landers

While I was working at PAX as a master control operator I'd do a lot of dreaming but didn't always have a lot of knowledge behind it. My first logo I ever created was for my website, bhcreative media&design. On occasional smoke breaks I'd chat with a guy named John that worked for a custom home company. Talking to him sometimes was exciting and educational. At other times it was discouraging. I was never going to be that focused, motivated and smart.

I remember one time he pointed out solidly, logos have to look without color. So I always try to think of how they look in black and white and greyscale. Now that I work for a company that handles designs, and I work for an employer who is color-blind, I realize one of those life lessons, people don't see things the way I do.

My friend Jay had gotten his own website. I already liked his title better than my own. I had taken this nickname with "Wolf" further than he cared I think and set an identity for him he may not have wanted. In the end, I came up with somethiing that popped to me, but never really cuaght with him. This is why you design logos for the client, for the client, and not for your portfolio. It's called a provided service job. You're providing a service for them, not the other way around.

I think once you got somthing that looks good and clean in greyscal or blacck and white, I think, what you're supposed to do is apply color to it. My guess is that the first stage would have even been in less detail, more outlined. And here's the truth for me, why I am not a professional at this. I design in color. What pops to me is style and color. Below I threw in a few extras. he snazzy design and the applicable design. The applicable is th one where I look to see the multiplicity and duplication of this logo or identity. Hoes it work on business cards, on the web, on lettterhead? Packaging an idea and presenting it on different mediums is one of those aspects of design I enjoy.

I'm, for the most part, a brand name junkie. I see the recognizable identity marketed across different platforms and I get a creative juice that gets a taste of something good. If they marketed and packaged a product for me, I'd unfortunately, have less tendencies to do the right research on the full value or benefits of the product and get subjected to being a potential customer all to the thoughts of, "Ooh, that looks purty!"

Enjoy the last one - no paragraph to package it with, just a sore thumb on the bottom of the entry.