August 29, 2008

Baby Book Complete

So, I've been working on a baby book for my baby sister's baby for the last ... well, let's not go there. Finally, the book is done and ready to be shipped out to mi sobrino in the morning.

Click through to thumb through the whole book.

And, if you're interested in having a custom baby book made for you, use the contact link here on the blog. I'd be happy to discuss your needs with you.

Posted by Red Monkey at 3:44 PM | Comments (2) | Design | Sketches | Stumble

August 21, 2008

Oppositional Design

What's up around here lately? I'm swamped trying to get the baby book finished for my sister and simultaneously getting really serious about setting up my freelance website, Oppositional Design. (Why didn't I link to it? Cuz it's nothing more than a placeholder at the moment!)

I finally wrote a mission statement today and now I'm working on a tag line. Some of these are shite, some are all right. I'm putting them here more so folks can take a look at the process of coming up with a good business tagline.

• Oppositional Design - not argumentative, just different Yeah, that one sucks - gotta start somewhere
• Oppositional Design - creating what's right for you
• Oppositional Design - Discover your design
• Oppositional Design - Bringing the unexpected to life
• Oppositional Design - unexpected. sleek. motivated.
• Oppositional Design - You, re-invented.

Random related notes:

• oppositional 1: a configuration in which one celestial body is opposite another (as the sun) in the sky or in which the elongation is near or equal to 180 degrees


• oppositional culture

So, why did I go with Oppositional Design as a name when it presents some challenges just within the name? It was one of those flash of inspiration moments for me. I was speaking with someone who wanted me to write with my left hand - then she looked at me for a second, her intuition working overtime, and asked if I was left handed. "No, but I practiced writing left-handed as a kid because it was different." She shook her head with a small smile and said, "Oppositional."

To a certain extent she was right. I was not and am not someone with Oppositional Defiance Disorder (though I adore that the acronym is ODD). I'm not a confrontational person, but if there's a way to do something different, I usually find it - or find it more interesting than the "normal" way. So, calling my freelance site Oppositional Design seemed a natural despite the challenge of spinning "oppositional" into something valuable. Probably because of the challenge.

So, when coming up with a tagline, the first one was simply a literal definition of the problem, not a real competitor for tagline. "unexpected. sleek. motivated." has more to do with the crappy tagline on my business card right now - the typography of the ascenders ("tall letters like L, lowercase D and to a certain extent the lowercase K) just looked beautiful in the font I was using. So, I'm still playing with a three word tagline in which all three words end with an ascender.

It's an ongoing process and one I must complete before I can even begin the design of the website and the re-design of all my identity paraphernalia (look of the letterhead, business card, invoices, etc.).

Posted by Red Monkey at 12:48 PM | Comments (1) | Design | Stumble

June 15, 2008

Done Right

When I was born in 1968, my mother thought she was getting a nice, docile Shirley Temple child. A daughter she could bond with, could dress up, teach to dance and sew and sing and be a delicate flower of baby-woman-hood.

Instead, she got a wild li'l red monkey baby, whose first words were practically, "I can do it myself."

In short, we were at odds from day one.

We fought about the length of my hair - my scalp is sensitive and I had very fine, very straight, very fly-away hair. My mom insisted on combing my hair with a very very fine tooth plastic comb. This meant screaming, crying rebellion every day.

We fought about appropriate toys. I wanted airplanes and cars and trucks and six-shooters and drums. And a banjo, but that's something of a digression.
Mom wanted me to have pretty dollies and Barbies and play dress-up princess.

We fought about clothes. I preferred to live in jeans and t-shirts. Mom wanted me in if not frilly dresses, at least cute li'l jumpers. I came home in tears on more than one occasion in kindergarten because some little boy tried to look up my jumper whilst we were on the jungle gym or slide or swings or what have you. Mom's solution was to not do those things in a jumper - my solution was not to wear jumpers.

The problem was more in the time period than anything else. Parents at that time had been led to believe that children could be told this is how things will be, and so mote it be. At the same time, however, it was the time of "Free to Be You and Me" - where kids were encouraged to be themselves.

I also grew up with two very creative parents. My father played honky tonk piano for hours, completely losing himself in the music he generated. I never heard him play anything other than "his" song, but it was an endlessly mutating and developing creation.

Mom also played piano, although she played less frequently and always played from sheet music - not because of any lack of skill or desire, but, I think, because she feared doing it "wrong." And, in addition to her piano playing, my first memories of her are of her painting and drawing and sketching. Whether it was Toll painting some wooden box or serving tray or actually doing a pastel portrait or acrylics on canvas, Mom was always creating something new.

But like with her piano playing, Mom seemed scared of somehow "doing it wrong." She laboured over every detail, often stressing herself beyond belief to get every detail exactly "right." And, she was far too hard on herself when a shadow wasn't perfect or some tiny detail was out of alignment just the slightest bit. I would watch her scrape paint off, in tears, sure that this was another example of her failure as a human being. And I would watch her, once she was finally done - put herself and her work down. I didn't get it. Her stuff looked easily as good as things I saw in the stores.

I think it was sixth grade when I took a serious interest in drawing myself. I was interested in cartooning, in comic strips, and in technical drawing. I enjoyed drawing fictional maps and would spend days creating new lands. In social studies, we had an assignment which included drawing - and I discovered a latent talent for drawing flintlock rifles ... and then more modern rifles ... swords ... and airplanes. (I have no recollection where that jump came in except I loved F-15 and F-16 planes.)

So that summer, when told I needed to take a summer enrichment class, I picked a class on drawing. I had a blast with it - it was mostly just a scheduled time to draw with the teacher critiquing us gently and there was little actual teaching of technique or theories of perspective or something along those lines. The class went along swimmingly for quite some time.

And then we had to do a still life.

I set up an apple on the kitchen table and scrawled something. Erased, re-drew. I hated it and I couldn't get the chiaroscuro to make the apple look 3d instead of flat. I finally got it "done enough."

Mom looked over my shoulder. I don't remember our exchange, but the gist was "You'll sit here and re-do it until you get it 'right.'" I sat there for what felt like weeks, and I think I switched from pencils to pastels or pastels to pencils. Eventually after much temper tantruming and fussing, I had something that did resemble a decent still life of an apple.

But the shine had gone off of it. I didn't see it as an exercise in improving my drawing eye. I didn't see it as a learning experience in shading or use of colour. Drawing had become just another thing that I didn't do well enough to please my mom ... and so I stopped sharing that with her ... and eventually decided that I simply could not draw since it didn't come easily and perfect the first time I attempted something ....

Instead, I turned to writing stories and novels - and simply didn't share most of those with my mother. The bulk of them involved children in peril from kidnappers or evil parents - not things Mom would actually approve of.

I doodled now and again ... I reveled in Chaim Potok's My Name Is Asher Lev - kind of the Jewish Portrait of the Artist as He Develops. But I had stopped drawing "seriously."

Then, in the mid-90s, I discovered this nifty thing called the world wide web. For ten years, I learned digital art in the form of creating website designs with Fireworks and then Photoshop. And I re-gained my interest in art and creating imagery.

But I still insisted that I couldn't draw.

Then, I took a job as a copy writer who was to also help with web design at a large e-commerce company. I worked with a gentleman who'd had his own design company at one point ... and another with a degree in graphic design. And as I observed them working, I realized something. The skills I had honed over the last ten years were comparable to theirs. I didn't have all the techniques nor all the same knowledge and theory - but I had the skills and the instincts. I started reading theory and observing more - asking more questions, learning more programs, growing more confident.

And then I picked up pencils again.

I'm still more confident with my digital art than my sketching, but both have improved dramatically over the years. There is no doubt that web design is more forte, at least for now, but my ability to create brochures, flyers, layout manuals, create signage, all of that has suddenly exploded - because I stopped being afraid about how to do it "right" and began studying theory, studying good design and began trusting my self.

I'm tickled to be in the process of designing a tattoo for a friend over at Cre8Buzz. I started out sketching it by hand until I had the design the way I liked it - and then I transferred the design to the computer to clean it up. I'm beyond flattered that she likes the design so far.

Tomorrow, I'll take a copy or two of the design to the hospital with me so I can continue to tinker with it whilst I wait three freaking hours for them to prep me for surgery on my leg. (Will someone explain to me WHY I need to be at the hospital at 6:30 a.m. for a 9:30 a.m. procedure???) Over the last couple of years, I've taken artwork to the hospital to keep me busy whilst my other half had surgery ... it's a wonderful way for me to focus on something other than the stress at hand.

Like my mother, I do still worry about doing my art "right" ... but I think of that a lot less nowadays than I used to. Instead, I'm spending time looking at what other artists do "wrong" which actually gives them their own distinct style - and then working on my own style.

Today, if I sit down to draw a still life, I'm still not going to enjoy it. It's not the type of art that I really enjoy. But today if I sit down to draw an apple, it's because I know that really concentrating on capturing the form and essence of an apple will help hone my eye and my hands and that I'll apply those skills to my own way of doing things.

Meanwhile, I have to laugh at all the times I told my students who were afraid they were not writers simply because the first draft of their essays were not perfect ... no one is perfect on the first draft. There isn't a writer today who completes a short story or novel or academic essay or even speech writing in a single draft. What makes you a writer - or an artist - is a passion for what you do so that you are willing and wanting to do it over until you get it as close to that picture in your mind as you possibly can.

I get that now. There's no way to do it "right." There's just the way you enjoy doing it.

Posted by Red Monkey at 6:06 PM | Comments (7) | Design | People Say I Have ADHD, But I Think - Hey Look, A Chicken | Sketches | Stumble

May 24, 2008

Marketing Tava

I discovered that Pepsi is putting out some new products ... and I found their website and marketing concept REALLY interesting. For those of you not so interested in design - this is probably not a post for you.

The site is for Tava, a new drink which looks to want to capture a young and Latin market. Let me break down the site and marketing design.

Technology
The site is Flash, which definitely targets a younger audience as most oldsters don't want to mess with a fully Flash based site. It includes a nice amount of movement in order to keep attention focused whilst other parts of the site load - even the cursor develops a little "loading" icon when you've clicked something - and that little loading bit follows your cursor around the window. There's a nice MP3 player located at the bottom of the site - or, if you click the Music link, you'll get a better MP3 player that lets you make more choices.
All of this says, young, hip audience which has certainly been Pepsi's target audience from the beginning of their company advertising.

Look & Feel
The site is a nice, spicy red - taken from what they apparently consider the flagship flavour of this line - Mediterranean Fiesta. They make a nice use of the current trend toward the shiny reflection of product and the background area utilizes a really nice, understated background image in a darker or lighter version of the background red, depending on the image being shown. Those background images are particularly nice as they are simply "primitive design" icons - each one matching one of the products in this Tava line. The first one we see as the site loads corresponds with the flagship flavour, but as we navigate through the site and other flavours come to the forefront, the background also shifts and changes so we can see the iconic design for that particular flavour. The colours of the bottle labels pretty closely match the colour of the drink - I don't even wanna think about the artificial colours injected to achieve that effect.

The site is framed at the top and bottom with a wallpaper which utilizes a small version of the main Mediterranean Fiesta icon (which appears to also be the main logo for the product since it appears in a small form at the bottom of each bottle's label design). The wallpaper fades into a lighter, brighter red at the bottom of the page (to match the HTML background colour).

The links at the top of the Flash piece indicate the marketing emphasis: Products, Events, Music, Art. Again, given that Pepsi's campaigns always align themselves with "the young generation," this makes sense. Products is the first link since the main goal is to sell their new drink. But, the way they're going to do that is to align themselves with fresh, hip, new music ( and you can even download some of the music) and by using young or "edgy" art.

There's also a distinct graffiti/grunge feel to the site - and yet it's also a really nice, solid and clean design. I like to think that's a blending of the audience - grunge/grafitti - and tasteful design (and I think a lot, if not most, of the younger people targeted do want a clean design so they can find what they need from the site).

As you click each link, you get a little bit of nice movement and then the short, pithy phrases in the background change, keeping you visually occupied whilst the new portion of the site loads. Some of the sayings include:

• "admire art history. experience art present."
• "set your mind to shuffle."
• "keep an eye out for the invisible"
• "if you travel off the beaten path, you're on the right road."
• "open the window of opportunity"
• "what if you had never tried your favorite food?"
• "sometimes it's good to let the world pass you by."
• "cultivate yourself and see what grows."

These phrases seem to set a tone for trying something different, something edgy and creative. It's a bizarre and yet very slick mix of "hey, we're different just like you" and encouraging people to expand themselves.

Music
The site features a nice array of up and coming bands (yet another clue that the site is mostly targeting a younger audience). But the bands? I didn't hear a single one which sounded either international or Latin. When I went back and really looked at them for this post, I saw LA, Orange County, Vermont, NY (but in the UK now), Virginia and NY. With a product and a look which seem to cultivate a young, Latin following, I was really surprised to see NO Latin music here at all. Granted, I think Pepsi wants to market this product to everyone, but with this looking to compete with both Fanta and Jarritos for the Latin market, I was honestly shocked to not hear any Latin or even international music in this small line-up. Perhaps those bands are coming later when they see where the marketing is taking their demographic?

Edgy Art
Now, frankly, one person's edgy art is another person's kindergarten squiggles the way the phrase generally gets bandied about. In this particular case, Pepsi is leveraging "edgy" in a nice way. Just as the music is from "up and comers," the art also purports to be from up and comers. (I'm not sure Amy Guip is up and coming - she sounds pretty darn established to me - but her art does have an edge and a distinct style to it.) I only saw Amy Guip listed under Art and I found that curious. Did she design the site's look? The logos? The look of the bottle? I found nothing at all about her connection to Tava or the site except she's listed under Art. And she's the only artist listed there.

Why use multiple musicians but only one artist? I've got to say, if their little mottos are talking about exploration and experimentation and seeing the world around you - the use of a single visual artist seems ... well, rather stupid and inconsistent.

Product
The product looks like it's positioned to compete with both Fanta and Jarritos. With flavours like Mediterranean Fiesta, a black cherry citrus combo, Brazilian Samba, a passion fruit and lime combo, and Tahitian Tamure, a tropical berry blend - these certainly evoke the same feel as Fanta and Jarritos without actually copying their flavours wholesale.

In an effort to remain more hip and edgier than Fanta or Jarritos - possibly a nod to a kind of yuppy or up-and-comer demographic, Tava lists recommended food pairings for each drink. Honestly, I thought this was a pretentious wine-lover's nod, particularly in the way the copy is written here. For the Tahitian Tamure, the food pairing text goes like this:

Fruit forward, with a bold, round sweetness. The perfect fire-quencher. Try it with spicy food from warm weather climates. Suggested Food Pairings: Santa Fe Steak | Jamaican Chicken Wings

Interesting. Why suddenly leave hip and edgy behind for the stolid and rarefied air of wine terminology? "Fruit forward"??? Come on!

What I find really interesting, however, is the choice of the made-up word Tava evokes (in most Americans, at least) a Spanish feel. The spicy look of the site, says probably Latin America. The flavours are Mediterranean Fiesta, Brazilian Samba and Tahitian Tamure - two of which definitely evoke Latin America (with a flavour of Italy as well which maybe explains the wine phrasing?) and the third is from the South Pacific.

Conclusions
To me, the product and look seems to imply a Latin or somewhat international flavour. However, the music does not and the weird language on the Food Pairings section of each drink's description also give a mixed message. This speaks of an interesting inconsistency in a site/marketing theme that really looks cohesive and coherent and I have to admit I'm really confused by the music choices. Frankly, I think they ought to add Alejandro Florez and Ricardo Gallo to the music mix.

I've gotta admit, I'm impressed with the site and would love to know what design house came up with this concept. It's an intriguingly beautiful site. I'm wondering if some of the inconsistencies, however, don't come from some Pepsico executive deciding to use bands and artists they'd already signed rather than purposefully select bands for this demographic. All that said, I'm curious to see how this works for them - I find it a very intriguing site and strategy.

Posted by Red Monkey at 1:53 PM | Comments (3) | Design | Stumble