Balaam’s Donkey is a Denver-based classic rock band, and they commissioned us to produce a logo for their band.  The logo imagery was to be, not surprisingly, a donkey.  In keeping with the light-hearted, cheeky personality of the band, we decided to create a logo with a bright, cartoon-like feel to it.  We started out by making several pencil sketches of the donkey until we had a sketch that we were satisfied with.

Our finalized donkey sketch

After we had a finalized sketch, we scanned it into the computer and traced it out in Adobe Illustrator.  First we drew it out as a series of fixed-stroke-width lines.  Then we converted the stroked lines to solid shapes so that we could refine the line thickness.  That way we could transform the chunky, single-thickness line drawing into something a bit more elegant, as you can see in the below example for the lines of the donkey ears:

The donkey ears before and after we manually adjusted the line thickness

We worked on the Illustrator drawing like this until we produced the final black and white version of the logo, seen below.

The finished logo in black and white

After that we started adding in color and shading…

Added the background…

And finally added a subtle drop shadow between the donkey and the background to give the illustration some dimension.

After this was finished, it was time to choose an appropriate typeface to match the illustration.  In logo work, when the lettering is such a prominent part of the visual design — and indeed sometimes the only component of the visual design — finding an appropriate typeface is of utmost importance.  We needed a typeface that was both solid and easy to read, but still with a bit of a whimsical flavor to it.  It took a lot of experimentation to find an appropriate typeface, and we looked at many different typefaces side by side.

Some of typeface finalists that we considered

Finally, after choosing an appropriate typeface, we had our finalized logo.

Balaam’s Donkey was very pleased with their new logo and will be using it on all their official band materials from here on out.  We enjoyed working with them and wish them the best of success in their musical endeavors.  Whenever Balaam’s Donkey needs additional graphic design and web design work in the future, we at Chris Strom, LLC will be happy to work with them again.

The finished ARMY360 logo

Recently we pulled out some of the doodles we had made as we was brainstorming the visual identity of the ARMY360 software application for InVisM and figured we’d share some of them on our website.

As stated in the project description, the design spec simply listed the product name and called for an ellipsoid, “360°” shape.  Given that this application was built specifically for the US Army, we turned to imagery of military crests, medallions and patches — such as these — for most of our brainstorming.  We also added in part of the application interface — the 360° directional marker — and added it to the center of the image.  The bottom center sketch below became the basis for the final logo.

Various sketches made while brainstorming

The official logo for InVisM, Inc.

This past six weeks has brought a lot of big changes around here. In addition to some big projects such as the ClearPivot logo and accompanying website design and some other projects we haven’t yet talked about, the biggest recent news is that I (Chris Strom) have accepted a full-time position as Senior Graphic Artist at a company called InVisM.  InVisM (formerly called Intelligence Gaming) is a Denver-based startup company that makes simulation and training products.  Our clientele up to now has been primarily in the government and military, and now we’re beginning to branch out into the commercial sector. The company has very aggressive growth plans, and—despite the state of the economy right now—is actually well on the way to achieving those goals.

So what does my job as Senior Graphic artist consist of? Maybe a better question is: what doesn’t it consist of? Since I’ve started, I’ve covered the gamut of graphic arts and production: web design, print design, logo and identity design, video and animation design, branding, DVD production, Flash, HTML, XML, jQuery, licensing and copyright issues, you name it.  Heck, I even chose the colors for the wall paint (we are a startup, after all).

I’m still doing some side work that I’ll feature on www.cstrom.com; in fact, I’ll be launching two new websites over the next 4–8 weeks.  And I’ll still update this blog when I can—though, of course, the frequency of updates will slower than before.  In the meantime, come visit our newly launched InVisM website, designed by myself, of course.  I’ll have to write about the design and implementation process for the site—there’s a bit of story behind that.  Maybe in the next one or two blog postings…

www.invism.com