go.

Update: 8/31/2004

The site for which this logo was designed is online. Visit Little Creek Sanitarium.

Why I’m Painting

I’m in the middle of an exercise that I didn’t expect and I’m not qualified for. I’m painting. For a client. I’ll explain how I got myself into this.

I’m working on a logo for a nursing home. This logo will be used on the website that I am designing for them and possibly carried over to other applications (assuming they like it enough). They are trying to revamp their image. Currently, the name of the organization is Little Creek Sanitarium. They’ve had the name for a long time, and the word sanitarium doesn’t enjoy the positive image it once did. The name may change in the near future (to something like Little Creek Estates), but a website is needed immediately (aren’t they always). There are renovations going on around the grounds which will include a stone bridge. I was asked to incorporate this bridge into the logo. So, to recap, I need:

• solid, traditional look
• a stone bridge
• not too reliant on the word sanitarium
• friendly

While thinking about this project and browsing books of logos at B&N, I saw one that I liked and worked stylistically. I don’t remember the company, but the logo was a watercolor giraffe and the logo had the word “Africa” in it. My girlfriend is a painter (be on the lookout for heatherthielen.com), so I decided to have her paint something with a creek and bridge. So far, so good.

Long story short, Heather is in Costa Rica, and she wasn’t able to finish the logo. She did some rough versions, but we were still far from a final version. I was pretty much sold on the idea, and I have access to Heather’s art supplies while she is away, so I decided to give it a go myself. It’s not the first thing that I, as an entrepreneur, have done without proper experience or preparation, and it won’t be the last. Such is life when one runs a small business.

How I did it

This morning I sat down and started painting. An hour later I was nowhere. I needed help from my computer.

I started by modeling the bridge in LightWave Modeler. This took a fair amount of time, as I am not a 3D modeler. I ended up with a bridge that pleased me, though.

Next, I used Illustrator to add some basic shapes to suggest a river and trees. Now I had a complete scene, but I didn’t wanted the painting to be as simple as possible.

I created greyscale outlines of the shapes, including the bridge. I then shrunk the image and added a logotype that I had added early as a reference. I made a pattern out of this and printed a full sheet of paper in this pattern. Now I was ready to paint.

I had about 80 1″ x 1″ logos on the sheet of paper, and all I had to do was fill in the colors I wanted. I painted quite a few bridges and trees before I was happy.

Next, I scanned a section of the logos I had painted. I scanned the images at 600 dpi. Next time I would work with larger logos or raise the resolution of the scan. The images were what I would consider the minimum resolution for my task.

Finally, a little touch-up in Photoshop and voila, finished logo. I’m quite happy with the logo, but the journey was the best part.