Logo Design - Donegal Kitesurf School

So I have been sent a request to create a logo, the rough idea had already been doodled down so this project is more how to turn a doodle into a completed logo rather than any initial conception of ideas.
I was sent this sketch and so based all my work on the notes it gives.

I had a look at the mountains first and looked around online to get a good idea.

This is the coors light mountains he was thinking about.

Using this I created the first idea taking a section of the mountains and drawing a path around on Illustrator.

Although I quite liked these I felt it wasn't quite right so created the mountains myself.

I also added the sea and the kitesurfer as the sketch and notes requested to make these 4 variations.

These were almost completely created using Illustrator (CS4) from paths and solid fill or gradients, there was a little photoshopping at the end to finish this off.

The bottom right is nearest to the design requested however I quite like the design with half or no circle around it.

Van Vinyl Design

I have worked on other designs for vans, however it is always difficult to show how it would look with the designs on 2D drawings of a van, this time only the design will be done by me and not the vinyl cutting or fitting which is the tricky part for a rookie.

First looking online to get some ideas of what the customer needed and the best colours to be easily readable. Here were their top choices:

A key point here is that the vans are either black intially or have a full wrap on them which will be expensive so the aim will be to design something similar but keeping the white.

Here was my initial design that I send off to gain quotes. We expected that the large blend on the blue wave would end up increasing the price quite dramatically but we liked the design and so wanted to keep it. The budget for the van was around £500 including VAT so we would have to keep the design within this limit.

I received a range of quotes from companies from £425+VAT all the way up to £945+VAT

I checked that they would all be using the same material and methods and proceeded accordingly.

Below shows a slight redesign by the vinyl company making it possible to be fitted.

There are a few slight differences, some so that the van can have the vinyl applied a little easier, others are because they simplified the design/missed some of the detail.

One of the differences I notices the most was the blend on the wave and how it was not quite as smooth. I will add the completed picture of the van once it has been fitted.

Banners

As many of you might have noticed a majority of my design work is for kitesurfing companies, and most of this is for The Kitesurf Centre, this has included, logo's, clothing, websites pages, flags, vinyl for vans and now includes banner designs.


The aim of this project was to create a banner 8ft x 3ft that would be visible from the road and catch attention of passing traffic. I started off with a few rough ideas to try and get to terms with how they wanted it to look.

Here it was decided that the top banner goes well with the new van design as the sweeping wave shapes links in.

However we wanted to work out a way to show what the sports were to new customers, We tried two methods, one with photo's the other with silhouettes, this was most effective at the photo's were difficult to see at a glance and so not good for traffic.

I then integrated the designs together, changed the font and came up with a couple of final designs to choose from.

The first was more of a concept, just seeing if using a vector wave in the background could work well, the colours were quickly inverted on the silhouettes to see how they might look. It was decided that this was not clearly visible and that the the other design the details were far clearer.

To finally complete the design, Shop, Lessons, Hire, Club were added which involved moving the logo over, you will also notice that the sports have been moved around throughout so that stand up paddle boarding does not have a priority spot as this is a less important sport for the centre.

I liked this final design as it is clear from a distance while still having extra detail in the design faintly which will be noticable to those standing in the car park which should make it more interesting than standard banners.

Since posting this I have also added a Facebook F as shown below so that passers know that The Kitesurf Centre can also be found on Facebook.

Oystercatchers Holiday Cottage Camber

So for this latest project I was asked to design an entire range of marketing material for the customers, this included Website, leaflets, Logo and even some stickers for marmalade and Jam pots.

Initial Planning

Logo and colour choice, while this began the customers chose a name for the cottage - Oystercatchers. This we deemed showed that it was good for birdwatchers but without alienating families who were looking for something near the sea but might not know the connection with something less obvious.

From there I had a few ideas but the main one revolved around making a bird in flight look as basic as possible so that it could be used in a vector style design.

Here you can see the type of bird I was using and the variations in flight angle that I could use.

This I decided showed the most shape to the bird and colours however I did like the look of it with both wings up.

Here is my initial ideas

The clients liked this idea of the other designs so I went ahead using this.

Leaflet

The first issue here was getting a decision on how many sides and the size of the leaflet. To make this easier we collected a large number of competitors flyers/leaflets and any that we liked the look of and laid them all out. This was a very simple way to find the clients needs and preferences, size, colour, fonts layouts were all roughly agreed upon, I went back and made a few ideas of fronts and backs, here are the two final ideas:
    Front                                                                           Back

  

These were about the 5th or 6th edit, there weren't really any big changes the key this was the readability, I enlarged some text, removed others and simplified the map. We all liked these and after some editing to the photo's to lighten some up and make the roof look a little tidier it was off to the printers.

Note: Always make sure you image is saved as CMYK for this otherwise it will usually come back looking not quite as bright as it the RGB that you would have been looking at one your screen. Easiest option is to always work in CMYK and when working online use websafe colours so there is no change on different browsers.

Website

With the rough idea on leaflets sorted through seeing others I used the same method to help diagnose their true wishes for the site.
The key parts that we were aiming for was a "light" site in more than one way, firstly keeping it bright with a white background and also something that is simple and not too overwhelming.
For such a simple design I decided a basic wordpress site would be most efficient so with an appropriate theme installed (lenora) I began.
The header

This I found showed not only the name but also what the site was about and roughly where while also covering up some of the wordpress theme's standard header.

I then took a few photo's of the site for use in the galler (gallery) and on each page before creating the front page (Holiday Cottage Home page).

From here the further pages were designed each with an important section just below the menu, such as an image, map on where it is or a booking calender. To complete the booking and gallery NEOgallery and Bookings plugings were both used. The site was created entirely using free plugings and themes keeping costs down while still keeping it simple enough so that the owners can organise bookings without need for technical support.

Check out the site here: Camber Holiday Cottage

All of my designed sites are hosted at JustHost and usually purchased through GoDaddy.

For further detail, a breakdown on any of my work or interested in having me design for you please don't hesitate to contact me or visit my site - www.rupertcawtedesigns.com

Camber Kite Club Logo Design

Camber Kitesurf Club Logo
The club had been running for around 10 years will little happening the head association (BKSA) said that it had to start running or would be disaffiliated (funding removed)
One of the main points in getting it going was a facelift as all it had before was the bksa logo with a slight alteration.
All members were given a week, here are my ideas and thoughts on each.

1.
2.
3. 
4.
5. 
6.
7.
8. 

When posted online there were many thoughts, number 8 was a recolour of the first as they thought the colours were a little girly so i switched them to match the BKSA colours instead.

Painting sunsets

So this week I have been working on some leaflets and other marketing material for a holiday home but I took one day off from this to do some painting for a friend.
I hadn't done any with a brush for many years, just a few with spray cans, sponges and silhouettes a few years back.
We found some photo's online that she liked the look of and I went from there.
Here is the first one, just in in the latter stages, items used were a few small brushes, canvas and some cheap water colour paints all together costing no more than £10.

Background made it's time for the sun and some land

One painting finished, time to try the next, fairly happy with this one I decided it was time to try a different style.

Colour 1,

Colour 2,

Colour 3,

Colour 4... can you tell what it is yet?

Colour 5, 

Complete, although I did use soe water colour pencils to touch parts up afterwards.