Lately I’ve been asked to create logos for a few local bands and businesses.  How exciting! I think it’s fun to explore my creative side, especially after stifling it having spent many years in corporate IT. Helping clients build their ideas and turn them into graphic and web design realities has been some of the most rewarding work I’ve done thus far in my career.

Some of these designs have been sent to productions while others continue to evolve through the design life cycle. Each logo or business card gives us an opportunity to showcase new design techniques and theories. Clients always have the final say in their designs, so in the end, if you don’t prefer a particular design that’s OK. Creative differences aside in the end we always strive to meet or exceed our clients’ expectations.

Leave your comments in the section below to give is your feedback! Let us know if you liked or disliked a particular design. We enjoy reading your thoughts.

The Fly R/C Online logo

Fly R/C Online is a media sharing community for R/C pilots. Watch videos of helicopters, planes, delta wings and more submitted by our members. Visit the site to meet new people and have a little fun.

Celebrate. Celebrate good times. Yeah!

Fly R/C Online logo

Fly R/C Online header image

Thank you to Fly R/C Online for their support! Do you need a logo design? Leave us a comment below.

Greenstar Concepts takes a different approach to landscape and tree care.
Fundamental company principals include selecting the right plant and tree for the right environment, designing for lower maintenance and working with Mother Nature instead of against it. By doing this, we all will reduce fertilizer and pesticide use and decrease our impact on the earth.

We realize that landscaping is like art, everyone has different preferences and beauty is in the eye of the beholder. If you need a consultant to give you a yard with an expansive thick lawn, a bunch of exotic palms and boxed-off formal hedges then you are probably looking in the wrong place. No offense intended, that just isn’t what we provide. Greenstar Concepts specializes in canopy trees and native shrubs that require minimal trimming.

To design and build the site we started by looking at pre-built templates. Brian narrowed his decision to an environmentally friendly theme from Theme Forest. I purchased the template and began work on modifying and designing the site. I’ve found that I can save a huge amount of time by purchasing pre-designed shells like this one. Of course, I take care not to claim design credit on the site, because plagiary is not cool.

Brian also wanted a custom logo design that complimented his company’s image. We described the logo design in a previous post (Greenstar Concepts Logo). By combining the color elements of the site design into the logo the two blended together seamlessly.

We published the site after going through several change requests. Changes are expected when designing a site so we made sure to follow up with the requests in a timely manner. By having the site setup in a special clients-only preview area of our site we were able to instantly share the updates with Brian. We actually had several long phone conversations where we updated the site as he watched. This method of updating and interaction with the client greatly speeds up the entire process.

The next step was to submit the site to search engines. This process is more formerly known as Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Basically, we tell Google about the site, and provide the technical details in order for them to analyze the domain. We also added the site to our Google Analytics (see our post on Google Analytics) account so we could monitor visitor traffic patterns. We also submitted the site to several social networking sites (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Digg).

Finally, Brian sent us a kind testimonial that we added to our site. Testimonials provide excellent customer feedback and give potential clients an idea as to how we treat our existing clients. Visit our testimonials page to see what he had to say.

This is the newly redesigned CWF site.

I started out chatting to other designers. Also, I dove into web design books that focused more on design practices and principles. While new to design the concept is not completely foreign to me. I wanted to balance my programming and design halves to make a better whole. Slowly, over the course of a few months, design light bulbs began to flicker in my mind. I was fascinated when I began seeing sites as complete bodies of art. I become mesmerized by sites that took a theme and flawlessly applied that theme into the site design. Design work aside, many of these designers employed innovative techniques in order to accomplish their goals within the confines of current technology.

I had two basic goals when I started the CWF redesign. First, I wanted a clean layout. Second, the layout had to have a fluid look about it. With those goals in mind I went looking for images that captured the essence of those two goals. Once I finished with that task I then began putting the puzzle pieces together. That’s where I employed many of the design and programming techniques that I’d picked up over the previous few months. I’m very happy with the end result.

Greenstar Concepts Logo Sketch

Greenstar Concepts Logo

So that’s it! Those are the basic steps involved into turning a sketch into a real, digital logo. Leave a comment if you have any questions about how to do the same.