a peek into the process

"The big problem is that the speed with which this machine (the computer) operates is so fast that the normal contemplative time that one needs to do a design that makes any sense is not there. When you're sitting and drawing, you make a stroke and you fill in areas. There's a time element involved. But with the computer, that time element does not exist. It takes up your physical, spiritual, and psychological time and your design time is just not there." -paul rand

Believe it or not, a frequently asked question by our clients is, "Will my design be original?"

Sadly, amateur designers and clip art/pre made logo sites along with crowd sourcing sites have left many business owners with an unclear idea of what quality of work they will be receiving when making the decision to invest in a logo design.

At Different By Design, we have a thorough design process that you can read about right here.

Every logo we design is uniquely created for our specific client and designed to solve the problem we describe in detail when we write up our client's design brief.

Having a design process vs. just hopping straight onto the computer and moving bits and pieces around is crucial to a good design. I believe famed graphic designer Paul Rand states it best in the quote above.

When choosing a logo designer for your business, make sure that the person you are using has a valid design process that starts (after a consultation and thorough knowledge of your company) in a sketchbook.

While we typically do not share sketches with the client during the process, we most definitely start all ideas in our sketchbook. It is a great part of the creative process to get any idea out on paper.

The reason we do not usually show sketches to clients is because the client hired us for a reason. We are professionals. We understand the elements of what is going to make a great logo design across all applications. Sketches are simply rough ideas and we know better than anyone the concepts that will actually develop into the best solution for our client.

Though we usually present 2 (sometimes 3) logo concepts to a client, we never recycle design ideas. We assure our clients that the work we are creating is specific to their needs and their defined values.

Above our some of the sketches we created during the conceptualizing/sketching process for our client Heads Together Salon & Day Spa. I love seeing how everything comes together for the final result.

"When to use computers is certainly as important as how to use computers. In the school environment, they should be a part of the curriculum but not the curriculum: nothing can replace the hand in the early stages of design education." -paul rand

Hope you enjoyed the tiny peek into our process!

above and beyond

Last week we had the privilege of attending the ribbon cutting ceremony for our client Heads Together Salon & Day Spa.

Linda (owner/stylist & esthetician) and her team did an excellent job of cultivating a fun, relaxing party...everything was so thoughtfully detailed from the wide selection of beverages to having Rolling Stone Pizza baking gourmet pizzas out back! Delicious!

Another highlight for the guests was a photo booth Linda had rented from Feather River Entertainment. Linda's adorable granddaughters popped over to our table and asked Billy and I if we would go take pictures, and of course we could not tell them no!

After our pictures printed, we were delighted with how Linda had even incorporated her Heads Together Salon & Day Spa logo on the header of the photo strips!

*the first picture makes me literally laugh out loud! Guess we should have asked Linda's granddaughters to stick around and show us how to use it.."Hmm..what's going on here?"

We had a client meeting an hour before the event was scheduled to end and so we had to duck out a tad early. We headed to the studio and back home, photo strips safely in hand...however the next day when I went to grab them to pin them up on our inspiration boards at the studio, they were missing!

I mentioned on Linda's page that I thought the photo booth (and whole night, really) was absolutely lovely and that I was currently on the hunt for our strip of pictures...

Well, tonight when we hopped online to check our email before winding down, what did we find but an email from Russ Brown of Feather River Entertainment with our (digital) photos attached.

At Different By Design, we try our very best to cultivate a wonderful experience for our clients and anyone who may walk through our door...and more often than not our clients end up creating "wow" experiences for us! What a blessing and great example of the type of business owners and people we want to be.

From the bottom of our hearts, thank you Linda and Russ! You went above and beyond to retain something special for us...we hope that our clients feel as cared about and important as you made us feel!

Thanks again!

P.S. Doesn't the Heads Together Salon & Day Spa logo still look amazing scaled that far down? That's the power of a good logo, people!

leave it to google

I was pleasantly surprised when I clicked onto Google last week, on June 21st (the fist day of summer!), to be specific and instantly recognized the art work of Japanese artist Takashi Murakami.

It reminded me of the Murakami Louis Vuitton pieces commissioned by Marc Jacobs a few seasons back.

Not exactly my personal taste (though I was obsessed with the panda he drew for Louis Vuitton), but you have to admit those cherry, bright colors make you smile! Very fitting to kick off one of our favorite seasons, Summer!

*top image taken from Google, bottom image is a result from a Google search

gregg berryman and alan rellaford

While planning a date for our ribbon cutting-grand opening, we knew that we really wanted to work around having two of Billy's former design professors from California State University, Chico in attendance.

We knew we wanted to hold the ribbon cutting in May, because not only was this the month we moved into the studio, it also marked our first year in business as Different By Design, not to mention that in May Billy also celebrated his 30th birthday!

We got in contact with the two design professors (Gregg Berryman and Alan Rellaford) immediately once we picked a date and we were so thrilled when they assured us they would be there!

I remember Billy speaking highly of both Gregg and Alan often during his years at Chico State. It's funny because there are some students who were not fond of these professors and when I personally met them I didn't understand why they might be disliked. When I asked Billy about it, he said it was because both Gregg and Alan were honest. They gave honest critiques of the students' work and pushed them to be better. They didn't just tell you what they thought you wanted to hear, they challenged you to put out your very best work. Billy not only admired them for this, he appreciated the fact that they were disciplining him to be the best designer he could be.

Gregg Berryman actually founded the design department at Chico State over 40 years ago. He is also the designer of CSU, Chico's logo and current seal. CSU, Chico was the first university in the  CSU system to develop an integrated visual identification system. ("Traditions"; www.csuchico.edu)

Gregg has won many national design awards and is the author of several articles and books on design theory.

Alan Rellaford is actually another former student of Gregg's and a fellow CSU, Chico alumni. He previously worked at some of the best design firms including Sargent + Berman, Bright + Associates, and Landor Associates before returning back to Chico as a design professor and he is now currently the Creative Director for CSU, Chico.

Not only did we have the honor of having both of these well respected men in the design community at our opening (along with Gregg's lovely wife), but they both also spoke about Billy before the ribbon cutting and it was by far one of the greatest moments of the evening.

In one of the pictures you can see Gregg holding up a marker sketch Billy created while still a student. It was a mockup sketch for a book cover for Watershed and the drawing is of a needle in a haystack (Billy had 2 of the top 3 designs, and his other design went on to win and be the cover for that year's book).

I love that Gregg took the time to locate Billy's old work and it was perfectly fitting for the opening. Gregg spoke that while he knew a few good designers in the Yuba Sutter area, these designers commuted out of town for work. He joked that in the design community they would say, "Finding a good graphic designer in Yuba City would be like finding a needle in a haystack!" He went on to say that when we mentioned to him back in October we were thinking of opening a full time design studio in Yuba City he said, "Why?!" However he went on to discuss that he remembered Billy for his tenacity and strong work ethic. At the time Billy was a student, he not only commuted two hours daily for school, he worked weekends at Sam's Club, worked a design intern on campus (where he was later hired), volunteered on the AAF sponsored NSAC student design competition (where he was selected to be one of the lead designers), and we had our second son the second to last of Billy's semesters out at Chico during finals' week! Gregg recalled that despite all of these commitments, Billy always put forth exceptional work and that he was sure that Billy's combination of tenacity and quality design work would insure success.

He also mentioned our business name and how he liked that we were "different" because of the added value an educated and professional designer can bring to small businesses, helping differentiate them from their competition as well.

Alan was also kind enough to speak and he recalled how you usually remember students for 1 of 2 things: being great or being bad. He said Billy always stuck out to him and it was for being a great student and designer. Alan actually headed up the team Billy was lead designer on for the NSAC design competition and talked about Billy's role in helping their team win first place in their region.

We cannot even begin to thank both Gregg and Alan enough for coming down to Yuba City for the opening of Yuba City's first creative print design and art studio by a former CSU, Chico graduate! Gregg mentioned that he was bringing the needle in the haystack print back "home"; he was right! We hung the print up in the studio and we love that it reminds us not only of the path Billy completed to get to this point this far, but also of the great instructors that helped to get him there!

We were truly blessed by their presence. Thank you Gregg and Alan! Your being here meant the world to us!

Heads Together Salon & Day Spa

Last month we were contacted by Heads Together Salon & Day Spa owner Linda Lomeli about designing a new logo for her business.

Although Linda has been in business as Heads Together for 17 years, she recently expanded the services offered in her salon and day spa along with relocating to a beautiful historic home which she had completely renovated.

Though her business name includes "heads together", Linda did not want a literal interpretation of having heads in her logo, as the term refers more to her business philosophy of the employees of her salon and spa working together for the satisfaction of their clients.

For the new logo for Heads Together Salon & Day Spa, Billy hand drew the ornamental design inspired by design patterns from the Art Deco era, the same era the building that houses the business was built. I love how he cleverly incorporated a pair of scissors, a hair stylist's trademark tool, into the design.

The font used in the logo was customized off of the typeface Century Gothic. The clean, geometric font works nicely with the more delicate design, giving the overall logo a balanced feel between the feminine and masculine.

We chose the colors for the logo based off of the muted interior color palette. Green is known to be a soothing color, which evokes the relaxed feel of Linda's upscale salon and spa, while the contrasting richer brown is bold enough to catch your eye without being overwhelming.

Thank you so much for choosing to think Different By Design for your design needs, Linda. We genuinely enjoyed working on this project with you.

We're back! (plus new business cards for Yuba City-yay!)

Hi everyone! We arrived back into our lovely hometown of Yuba City, California last night after over 16 hours roundtrip on the road!

Today was our first day back in the studio and it felt great to get back to work designing amazing pieces for our even more amazing clients!

Wednesday morning before we left town, we ran Darin Gale, our city's economic development manager, his order of newly designed business cards by yours truly.

Working with Darin was a true honor...he has a great understanding of how design can help with positioning and add value for the business (or city!) it represents.

The business cards that the city was previously using were beyond flimsy and so we decided to move away from that and go with a 16 pt dull cover with a matte finish on the new cards...they are luxuriously thick and they've been getting lots of great feedback!

The crate label on the back was also commissioned by Darin and was created by another local graphic artist, Randy Johnson.

just a friendly reminder!

adventure is out there!

We are huge Pixar fans and I have to say that the Pixar film "Up" just might be my all time favorite movie they have produced.

The movie opens up showing how a boy named Carl (the main character) and Ellie (his soon to be future wife) meet as children and fall in love. Both Carl and Ellie have a love for adventure and after being unsuccessful in starting a family, Carl decides to take Ellie to South America to fulfill her lifetime dream of going to Paradise Falls. Though as often is the case, "life happens" and they quickly need to dip into their "Paradise Falls" savings to pay for house and car repairs and so forth...Finally, when an elderly Carl is actually able to buy tickets, Ellie passes away and they never make it to Paradise Falls together.

In the opening sequence as they tell Carl and Ellie's love story we see Ellie placing a painting she did of her and Carl's home resting by Paradise Falls on the mantel of their fireplace.

When we decided to have Billy paint something for the studio, replicating this painting jumped into both of our minds.

Not only is the movie sentimental to us, the painting represents one of the underlying themes of Up and that is that "Adventure is out there!".

As we begin our adventure of being self employed, and honestly, the only studio of our kind in Yuba City, California, the painting serves as a great reminder to enjoy every bit of this journey.

Instead of painting Carl and Ellie's home by the falls, we decided to paint what represents our "dream" and that was to open a design studio, and we did it! Yay! (with the grace of God and support of our family, friends, and clients, of course!). So, resting next to the falls in our depiction is the building that houses our design studio.

Billy spent hours working away on this and it turned out absolutely beautiful. Though it was finished in time for the opening, we didn't have it hanging up at that time, so I snapped the top photo shortly after the opening.

I love having Billy's artwork up in the studio...his illustration and fine art skills largely separate him from other designers and I think that most people have a misconception that designers simply move around clipart and text and they don't realize that designers worth their time and money are actually true artists; the computer doesn't create designs (in our case), the designer does! The computer is simply another tool...like a paintbrush :)

Every time I look up in the studio and see this, I can't help but smile and wonder what our journey holds!

ribbon cutting!

If you follow us here or on our facebook page, then you know that on Friday, May 27th we held our grand opening/ribbon cutting ceremony.

Like I mentioned previously, so much got left undone that we wanted to accomplish, but all in all it was a great night!

We have so many wonderful pictures to share with you between having Jessica Cole Photography out taking pictures and our good friend Debbie of Wow Now Photography took many wonderful shots for us as well.

To view the pictures, just click here and then click on "the studio" tab.

You can also view all the wonderful exterior shots taken by our talented client Michelle of MTR Photography Studio.