So I’ve wrapped up yet another project this week. This time, it was a logo design for Cameron Shaver: Digital Media Solutions. This was a pretty cool project, and I’m glad to report that the client was really happy with the final product, which you can see below.

Final Cameron Shaver Logo

The real challenge with this project was simply that the client’s business offers a wide range of services, from photography to digital recording and from DJ-ing to website design! Clearly, Cameron is a very multi-talented guy, but trying to wrap this up into any single service offering was something I really had to wrap my brain around.

Just a few things to note about the design of this one. First, because of the wide variety of services that Cameron offers, I elected to focus primary on his initials to create the mark. I sketched out several pages of concepts and created several concepts before the client eventually settled on this one.

After we had determined the primary mark – which I designed to encompass the C and the S from the client’s name, and to very vaguely resemble a camera  – I added in to the round box, in order to make it look more like an iPhone App button. This was actually the client’s request, so I can’t take credit for that. I just did my best to make it work.

I also can’t take credit for the colours. The client had a very specific palette that he wanted used, and even went so far as to email me paint chips as samples. So, I sampled the colours from those chips and built them into the overall design.

I should also note that the client wanted the logo to be flexible. Given that the client had significant experience in Photoshop, I took the time to make the PSD (which I always include in my final file packages) a bit more flexible, so that the client could move and extract the different elements, according to his various needs.

To learn more about Cameron Shaver: Digital Media Solutions – or to just see the final logo in action – visit their website at www.cameronshaver.com.

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Well my brother is married now. The wedding went really well, with no complications to speak of (other than being way too hot in that tuxedo). As the best man, I had a few responsibilities, such as carrying the rings and delivering a toast at the reception. As a designer, I was also given the responsibility of designing wine labels.

My parents brewed their own wine for the occasion – a shiraz and a chardonnay – and they wanted to have special labels designed. My brother came up with a basic concept, which featured his initial – A – and his fiancee’s initial – E – at the top left and bottom right hand corners of the label. Other than that, the only other instruction that I was given was that he wanted the colours to match the colours of the foil caps.

With that in mind, I started by taking a picture of the tops of the finished bottles.

The photograph I took of the foil caps

From here, I sampled the purple and the gold out of the bottle on the left (the Shiraz) and used them as the base for creating my design. This little trick actually worked really well. The final labels ended up matching the caps almost perfectly.

Next, I went to my favorite font site – daFont.com. I was looking for something nice and cursive and appropriately wedding-like to use in this design, and finally decided on Porcelain, a really sweet font with lots of awesome swirls and flourishes. Next, I decided to make use of my Imperial Leaf pattern, which I added into the background for a bit of added texture and visual interest. I combined all of these elements into a single Smart Object, and then applied a lighting filter to the entire thing. Finally, I added a bit of text, using Porcelain again for the name of the wine (decided upon by my brother and is fiancee), and a font called Oregon for the rest. The final Shiraz label ended up looking like this:

"To Love" - A Shiraz

To create the second label, I just took the first design and reworked the colours to match the foil cap of the chardonnay. I also had to tone down the lighting effect which, when applied to the much lighter colours, was just a bit too strong. The second label looks like this:

"To Cherish" - A Chardonnay

I had the labels printed off at our local UPS store, and then my mother and I got together to stick them all on. They ended up looking really great, and everyone who saw them had nothing but positive comments. Here is a picture of the final product:

Bottles with the labels applied

I have to admit that I was a little disappointed that the waitresses at the reception actually served the wine, rather than having the bottles sitting on the tables, where guests would have had more of a chance to look at them. I’m not sure that most people even realized that there were custom labels.

Still, my brother and now-sister-in-law were happy with the finished product and so was I. So, with the wedding over, and a lot of the wine consumed, I think it’s safe to say that’s a wrap.

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