Hey its GREEN DAY NIGHT!

Thanks to mad man, JC Pasion of Crank Music Relief and Joey Valverde of Warner Music Philippines, and the rest of the guys responsible for this event, you are making the world more 'greener'. Teehee!

Kikofied logos

Angel Perez of Glass_Onion asked me to design a logo for his new band Kilda. I also designed Glass_Onion's logo, sometime ago, the concept was Angel's but I executed it in Illustrator. It's always easier to work with clients who know what they want. The key to minimize revisions and 'boljaks' from your clients is to listen to what they want, then show them your own ideas, propose to them possible designs as alternative. Most of the time, if not, they would surely go and agree more to your alternative designs.(But in this example the clients insisted more on their idea hehehe, which is absolutely fine.)

Members of Kilda would like to have their logo in dark blue and silver. One tip I got from a colleague of mine, when designing a logo, design it one color muna, preferably black. Of course hindi ko alam yun nung una. This must be a no brainer for guys who had formal design training, since I did not have any, I just took it as a new information, hehehe, because I always design my logos meron nang kulay, because it is easier to create a logo nowadays with the help of vector softwares, one click lang you get the color you want. Pero nun malaman ko na one color muna, I changed my process in designing a logo. Bakit kailangan one color muna? Kasi once your one color logo looks nice na, you'll never go wrong with the colors what your clients wants. That's the time you can play with colors, kung saan mo ipoposition ang kulay. At most of all, lahat ng successful at mga tumatatak sa utak na logos like, nike, adidas, puma, coke, google and many more, they always look good sa one color printing. Meron kasi logos na maganda lang in full color, pero once na kinailangan na ilagay ang logo nila na required one color lang, hindi na maganda ang kinalalabasan. There are corporate logos that looked good in full color but the logo suffered in corporate giveaways, letter heads, receipts etc. because most probably the designer did not foresee the brand as one color to be used in such instances.

Ok let's go back to what Kilda wanted their logo to be like, just what I have said it was a breeze to work with these guys because they know what they wanted. So, they like it in dark blue and silver, they like to show letter k in a circle. It was a bit easy pero still mas maganda if I ask them what else they like to show in their logo and what genre do they play. In this case Kilda is alternative pop rock. Kilda came from the sentence 'Kill the Third Party', which was the original name of the band, but the name was too intense for the genre that they are into, they decided to tone it down to a more poppish feel. With that in mind, I checked some existing logos on the net that has something to do with bands, pop rock, rock, heavy metal I searched it all hehehe. In that way I won't miss interesting logos that might work for my client. There are so many of them so you need not to worry where to get references, or if still you cannot find one that will inspire you, go to Power Books, you can always browse on their design books they are very helpful (whenever I have a chance, I drop by at any branch of Power Books, Graphic Arts and Architecture is my favorite section.) Here are some images that I created for Kilda.

I sent Kilda thumbnails of the logo I designed, they are all in black. I gave them the one they wanted the letter 'k' in a circle 2 versions of it, plus I also gave a number of alternative designs for them to choose from. It seemed that they are really decided on the letter 'k' in a circle so they choosed the reversed 'k' in a round background. Since according to Angel he sort of signs his compositions for Kilda in reversed 'k'. I didn't know it, sinabi lang nya sa akin yun nung makita nya yung design. hehehe. So there you go. There was a story behind the logo pa. I informed Angel na sa one color na design, na pinadala ko sa kanila makikita nila na un effectiveness nung logo for low budget tshirt print, button pins, and stickers, which will be very good to market their band. But they wanted the logo in dark blue and silver. So I came up with two versions. Here they are.

My first version.
My second version.

Now, this one is kikofied. hehehe
please visit my site. http://www.kikomartinez.bravehost.com/

The business dimension... well sort of

Okay, I'm going to post a quote what Carlo Ople included in his presention from his talk last Friday September 11, 2009 in Seminar room, Hall 2 of SMEX Convention Center in MOA for the Gonegosyo Youth Summit. He quoted Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari Computers, and it goes,

"The critical ingredient is getting off your butt and doing something. It's as simple as that. A lot of people have ideas, but there are few who decide to do something about them now. Not tomorrow. Not next week. But today. The true entrepreneur is a doer, not a dreamer."

(I'm sure that the quote Carlo presented in his talk is much longer than this quote that I got on the net. hmmm. or could it be the same...I think.)

That quote was pretty much inspiring for me at least. It was also a good thing that I stayed for the last talk for the said convention, ok wait, it was a good thing I attended the talks from 2.30pm onwards in the convention, I learned a lot. I heard about the Gonegosyo Youth Summit just a day before the event, I decided to go alone after class, I did not invite my friends to go with me since they have plans to go see a basketball match in Araneta. And I don't think that they would go with me anyway. So it was a solo flight.

These past few months I was looking for some business opportunities, I want to have my own business, a business with a low capital, a business that I like to do, a business that will suit my personality, a business that I have a passion doing. All these time the business that I was looking for was actually under my filthy snout! Because I am my own business. Yes, you got it baby, I am my own business. Thanks to Carlo Ople, Marketing Head for the Casual Games Division of Level Up, he also do Digital Marketing Consultancy. That Carlo guy is surely is a guru. He made me see what I was looking for. Actually I was too dumb to see it. He pointed what is under my nose. There is a future under my nose! (on the background angels singing ahhhhhh. I saw the light.)

Currently I am a jobless Graphic Designer (well not really there is this one project that I will call "my break", woot woot break! Yeba! Not going to talk about it baka maunsyami.) I'm taking up Computer Programming in one of those computer schools inside the mall. hehe. I always say that I am a struggling Graphic Designer, well because I am. I have been a designer for quite awhile now. I provided my services for some small companies, because I am a sucker for the concept where one person decides to join a group, a very small company for that matter and that person grows with the company until that company becomes multi million worth, and a happy ending for all. For once I was in for that concept you know, rags to riches thing, but in my case the person who acquired the riches are those company owners I worked for and for us designers (who were supposedly part of the dream, the company grows, so do we. Not! it's just a crap!) we can share the leftovers on the plate.

For some time now I had my own website running http://www.kikomartinez.bravehost.com/, I have friendster, facebook, deviant art accounts. I was hoping that somehow I will get projects from these accounts. But I never had. I made logos, cd covers for friends and they are for free. I am happy I am capable to help them, and because of the "papuris" that I get from them, I always feel good I did a good job. hehe. Puzzled by the situation nobody would like to get my services aside from friends, thinking I had tons of accounts and they are like everywhere so people will go look for me if I just let it chill. No! That shouldn't be the case. And that is what actually I learned from Gonegosyo covention. Dapat masigasig akong nag popromote ng website ko, ng portfolio ko. I can use both facebook and friendster accounts to get projects only if I used my lagging brain in the very first place. It was an idea that I had before to promote it via social networking sites but I did not acted on it because I am so stupid and afraid. The talk which Carlo Ople had, made a huge impact to me. Fear is the main reason I do not have projects, why I do not have clients. I fear that people will have ill comments on my works, I fear that if I post my works people will mock at them, fear that I am not good enough, because of fear whenever people would ask me what is my profession is I would say 'Graphic Designer pero average designer lang ako'. I thought building my own website is a huge step to promote myself. Pero ano ang silbi ng website ko kung hindi naman ako bilib sa sarili ko. I am thankful I have real friends who appreciate my talent kahit libre sincere naman sila sa pagpuri sa akin. hahaha. And that builds my confidence. Kung wala akong clients ok lang pansamantala my friends are my biggest clients.

Cherrios to Gonegosyo. Carlo Ople you rock!

It's time to get the ball rolling guys. You'll going to see more of things I do (lunok...syet!). Hehehe. Just wait. Dito lang yan sa blog ko. You'll get kikofied. Bwahahaha.