Digital Design Media

Logo design client checklist template and notes

lumo — Tue, 10 May 2011 14:44:53 +0000

So you have a new client who would like you to look into a new logo design or do some general branding (like business cards). Often this first step can set the tone for future business and therefore this Digital Design Media checklist and general logo design notes article is more of a guideline for communicating to your client what you need so that there is no room for error.

Many successful logo designs follow these methods!

The points and questions are broken down into a few core categories below for simplicities sake, also one thing to be aware of is not to bore your client with an overload of technical questions, as often when dealing with business owners this type of stuff is the last thing on the clients mind. These points below are for you to create your own actual questionnaire either for yourself or for the client to complete, using checkboxes, radio buttons, single line text, multiple line text etc, take from the notes below – take what you like and make your own client checklist template for a logo design brief.

Logo Package Options

This is the base of the entire process, deciding on what amount of work gets done and finding out what a client actually wants from you. Choose your work package below according to your hourly rate – however this fits in with your client.

Basic Logo Design Package
Small to medium logo design solutions.
Logo Design & Brand Identity
Logo and identity solutions for people serious about their business and overall identity.
Tag line creation
Not everyone likes doing these, but I find it really challenging and rewarding.

Schedule and Timeframes

This section gives you an idea on how flexible the client can be over the long haul and as to how much time you have to work with!

Project Start Date
Give a few realistic time frames and alter these depending on your current work load.
Project Completion Date
It may be easier for a client to indicate when the project has to be completed by. This helps you decide if you can take on the logo design project at all, from a realistic timing point of view.
Express Logo Design
We recommend trying to avoid these, as most designers will tell you good creativity does take time. Important to add a premium if you offer super fast turn around.

Brand Information

This is where the juice is, getting the specific information relating to what your client needs a logo for. This is the section where ideally need the more detailed and descriptive responses.

Logo Wording
This is the full written name needed for the logo, and also sometimes the tag line or slogan.
Tag line
If separate from the logo criteria, your client’s existing tag line.
About your client
A general overview of what they do etc.
Appropriate keywords and descriptive words or phrases
Similar to above, but listing keywords that best sum up an overall impression that the logo needs to convey. This is all about creating the appropriate perception in your target market.
Perception
When consumers/clients/customers view a logo or brand identity; what should be the ideal feeling or emotion you would like them to feel?
Target audience or intended market
A list of people that need to be influenced by the logo when they see it. For example, who is the decision maker of the company that may be using your business.
Your competitors
This includes: local, regional and/or worldwide. We absolutely need to know how a clients competitors brand and position themselves before we can work on building a visual identity. This is VERY important; you must familiarize yourself with the competition before starting.
Number of staff
Useful to know exactly how big or small the business is.

As a last note, it is also nice if you are able to factor in certain visual styles that you know the client will appreciate. What visual style of logos appeal to you Not always so important but I do find it useful to understand what sort of design might initially appeal to the client, for example a client might like specific colors or other specific visual requirements.

Don’t assume that the answers you get for this initial questionnaire are all you need; this is far from being the end of your questions to the client. This first stage allows you to make some initial decisions and get a good overall feel for what is needed, then you take it further with more intimate and focused questions.

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Micheal Stipe’s (R.E.M.) Collapse into now film project

lumo — Mon, 02 May 2011 16:40:54 +0000

The alternative american band R.E.M. have just released there 15th studio album “Collapse into now” which we have just received here at the Digital Design Media studio, this in turn is gearing up for the band to roll out the Collapse Into Now Film Project, a selection of films accompanying each song on the the new record album, directed by a selection of notable artists and filmmakers and personally curated by Michael Stipe, the bands font line man. One of our favorite films and which is growing strong popularity online is “Überlin” directed by Sam Taylor-Wood – you can watch the music video for yourself below.

Sam Taylor-Wood’s “Überlin”

The list of directors includes Oscar-nominated actor James Franco, filmmaker, photographer, and conceptual artist Sam Taylor-Wood, and Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker Albert Maysles. While writing this the new album is on in the background here at the office, and while having seen some of the music videos a few times, the direction, style and flare of these music videos are very special and seem to fit into the unique world of site and sound which is R.E.M.

Dominic DeJoseph’s “Mine Smell Like Honey”

Tom Gilroy’s “It Happened Today”

Thus far, three films have had their debut, all shown above including Dominic DeJoseph’s “Mine Smell Like Honey” and Tom Gilroy’s “It Happened Today”. The other nine other films will be unveiled for viewing at broadcast and web outlets over the course of the next several weeks, so please stay tuned to R.E.M. official site for a schedule and details. Looking forward to “Blue” directed by James Franco, but for now it is time to turn up the volume on itunes and enjoy!

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Portal 2 “Aperture Science” Movie Campaign Videos

lumo — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 16:10:22 +0000

Still eagerly awaiting for our Portal 2 discs at the office, Digital Design Media has been feverishly browsing the internet for more information on this classically styled art piece of a game. We found the Portal 2 “Aperture Investment Opportunity” campaign videos, of which there are 4 and they have a great “old school” video direction style, kind of like a 1980′s advertisement. Digital Design Media loved them so much that they have placed them below for you enjoy some coffee over.

Aperture Investment Opportunity #1: “Panels”

Aperture Investment Opportunity #2: “Bot Trust”

These campaign videos include shifting panels, crushers and other probably equally demented gadgets in the brilliantly twisted alternate reality of Portal. As you can see above, pretty fun stuff – nice feel and direction to the videos, but any idea who is Cave Johnson? ( The voice in the videos)… sure, the voices and animation styles are a bit comedic and childish, but we think that compliments and gives an edge to the general direction of the videos. Time to get back to work here at the office and as you can tell from the videos above, we are seriously looking forward to getting lost in the warped reality world of Portal!

Aperture Investment Opportunity #3: “Turrets”

Aperture Investment Opportunity #4: “Boots”

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More updates, added features and tweaks

lumo — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 08:13:23 +0000

As the first week of Digital Design Media being online is now over, we have rolled out some updates in the form of new features and have squashed some site bugs. Getting the javascript grid and automatic width working was quite a challenge, but that has been all sorted now, if you load the home page and resize your window you will see what we talking about!

Gallery capabilities added with light box…
RSS feed now active through feedburner…
Twitter page is now online and gathering followers…
Major style changes and cleanup…

We are also busy rolling out the grid site concept as a template for WordPress and Joomla, so any great features we place inside that will get ported over to Digital Design Media. Hope all you creatives out there are enjoying the site, more updates and great things on the way – if only there was more time in between writing about that inspiring creative design world out there!

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Another great site empowering artists to sell online

lumo — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 20:40:48 +0000

You can often tell if an online art submission site is any good by the quality of the art that gets uploaded and by that standard the team at Digital Design Media like what is happening at Society6. They showcase and sell online on behalf of artists anything from standard mainstream art to full blown digital abstractions – if you are an artist, and are looking for another niche channel to sell your wares online or get some appreciation, you need to head on over to Society6 and get registered.

Society6 empowers you to make your artwork immediately available for sale as a variety of products – without giving up control of your rights. When you sell a product, we’ll produce it, package it, and ship it for you, so that you can focus on creating more art!

Another great feature from this site is that the site supports multiple mediums, including stretched canvases to iphone cases to t-shirt prints. You control the rights to your work, you set the price and amazingly you also can set the format used when selling online.

Society 6 Web Site Layout

One of the main draw cards from the Society6 site used daily at Digital Design Media is the iPhone Society6 Desktop and Wallpaper app. This awesome app features a feed of selected artist’s works – all sized and ready to be used as backgrounds. So finally there is an app which features high quality images, and it is free, here some sample images below.

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Game design concept style, Valve’s Portal 2 winning edge

lumo — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 17:17:37 +0000

You can often tell when a designer (or in this case also developer) puts a lot of effort into the style and look of a product, focusing on from concept to production giving the final outcome a unique edge or feel. In this case, Digital Design Media takes a look at the concept of Portal 2 and the design style that got it where it is today.

Above are a selection of concept images for Portal 2 which was released recently. This game from Valve‘s main challenge was to create a feel for computer artificial intelligence, giving the robots a human feeling while you play. While this game constantly makes you feel as though the computer elements are trying to emotionally associate with you, nothing draws you away from the clean lines and realistic physics which are generated in game. At the end of Portal 1 the game credits are done in such a way to show all of this, below is a typographic version, which you can watch below.

It seems that most game concepts from the team at Valve have a very unique style, for example the “Half Life” series – which uses the same engine as Portal 2. Even though Digital Design Media have not got this award winning game yet in the office, by the look of things we are going to be very busy playing very soon…

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The direction and future of camera hardware

lumo — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 23:28:10 +0000

As the gap between digital camera’s and older forms of DSLR camera’s slowly continues to decrease there are more and more hybrid models appearing, Digital Design Media takes a look at the WVIL concept camera – is this just another gimmick or a product that will be accepted by photographers and cinematographers as a standard?

Wireless Viewfinder Interchangeable Lens Concept Camera

This camera has a strange aesthetic appeal to it, looking like a DSLR lens with an iPhone stuck to it. And that is where this radical design just begins to get crazy, this piece of hardware boasts a detachable viewfinder from the lens itself! WVIL stands for “Wireless Viewfinder Interchangeable Lens” and has some pretty impressive and over-the-top “specifications” - an 31 megapixel full-frame sensor built into every lens, wireless HD streaming capability (for when you want to capture 1080p video from a lens 20 feet away), a five-inch high-definition AMOLED touchscreen display, and a magnesium alloy baseplate with adapters for mounting standard DSLR lenses from Nikon, Canon, and Leica.

This viral promo for WVIL shows what the camera would look and act like if it were real – and shown off at CES. The user experience shown here was created using CGI by Dos Rios Films. Either way, after having a closer look at this Digital Design Media has another item to add to the christmas list…

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Street art with love from inspiring graffiti artists

lumo — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 16:29:48 +0000

When wondering around town or similar we often come across some great examples of Street Art. Often seen as illegal by authorities due to gang tags etc, graffiti artists often are perceived as being “dark” or “underground”. However, in our opinion an artist in any form needs no permission to display his art and their creativity should have no boundaries.

Digital Design Media are fans of Street Art for a few reasons – firstly this form of art is very expressive in nature and secondly it does not sway to corporate advertising or the like. Graffiti artists also often raise political or social issues, or just express love for a particular style of design.

As you can see from the image gallery above there is no denying the skill, talent and ingenuity of street graffiti artists, a good point to note is that this is a worldwide phenomenon, sort of like a global expressive movement full of artistic expression and love!

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New concept T-shirts designs for Glennz Tees

lumo — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 14:30:05 +0000

New concept T-shirt designs for Glennz Tees showing off some eye pleasing color palettes. Strong usage of flat based screen print colors make these designs something the staff at Digital Design Media would wear.

It is so easy for T-shirt designs to be overloaded with colors or gimmicky catch frases and cheesy designs, and it refreshing to see some new designs with a bit of style. Nice work Glenn, keep it up!

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New and fresh, Digital Design Media is Online

lumo — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 13:01:49 +0000

The team at Digital Design Media have managed to launch the first version of the DDM site, which is now online! Most of this core first version of the site is in the mechanics of the site, focusing on some base SEO to get the rankings rising and also on the base framework so that a continuous flow of new features can be added to the site.

Digital Design Media is a website which showcases global trends of online digital media in all it’s forms for creatives everywhere. Built for passionate designers and lovers of art in all it’s digital forms, Digital Design Media strives to share what inspires you!

You can find out more about the direction of Digital Design Media from there information page directly.

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Custom flash video of Björk ‘Innocence’

lumo — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 07:57:53 +0000

Delivered by Passion Pictures and directed by Dimitri Stankowicz, this great flash based music video animation fits perfectly for Björk’s song “Innocence”. Both her voice and interpretation fit the video’s style – Björk (and everything that surrounds her) is in our opinion, the true definition of cool.

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3 ways to survive as a online designer

lumo — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 09:20:05 +0000

So you want to survive as online designer, making loads of money while sitting behind your laptop at an internet cafe drinking lots of coffee. You have the skills and experience, below is a breakdown of some of the many ways that it’s possible to earn a living as a web or graphic designer, and also where to get started – plus of course whether that is a good idea or not.

Some listed pros and cons are also provided for each method. Of course, the pros and cons will vary depending on each person’s circumstances, and I’m sure other things could be added to the lists – one thing to remember is as with working with or for anyone, each circumstance is unique and can come with it’s own set of rules…

Another good point to note is that while each of these methods is capable of producing a full-time income, in reality many designers use a combination of the methods to survive within the online world. With that in mind, some of the cons listed will not be so significant if there is another source of income.

1. Client Work

The most common way for designers to earn a living is to work for clients. This could be work as a freelancer, as an employee of a design agency (Yes, sometimes it is a good practice to see your boss as a client), or if you’re really ambitious you could start your own agency.

Variety. You get to work on a lot of different projects.
Exposure. You can get solid exposure that will lead to other opportunities.
Flexibility. You can do client work as a freelancer or as an employee.
People. You get to work with and meet a lot of great people.
Growth. A career path with continued growth is possible.
Tangible. You get to see the impact your work has on the client’s business.

And here are some possible key things you would have to deal with if you go this route. The client is really the boss and you may not always agree with decisions that are made. Although most clients will be great to work with, nightmare clients do exist…

2. In-House Designer

For those who want to work as an employee, client work is not the only option. As an in-house designer you could do all of your work for the company that employs you. Typically these positions exist with larger companies that have enough work to sustain a small team of designers.

Security. Although no job is totally secure, as an in house designer you’ll have steady work and a steady paycheck.
Focus. Working for one company allows you to focus completely and give everything to the projects at hand.
Growth. Career growth is also possible as an in-house designer.

Many designers prefer to work on a more diverse group of projects than is possible as an in-house designer – usually by working in-house for a boss, your creative options are very limited, for example if delving into the advertising world. Also, depending on the company you work for, you may not get as much exposure as you would working for a variety of different clients.

3. Template/Theme Sales

With the increased popularity of marketplaces like ThemeForest, a growing number of designers are earning all or part of their income from template sales. New WordPress theme shops are popping up every day as more designers also look to pursue this opportunity.

Flexibility. You can work on your own schedule.
Proven Platforms. Marketplaces like ThemeForest have shown that full-time income is a possibility.
Industry Growth. Newer marketplaces like Mojo Themes and ThemeGarden provide more opportunities for designers.
High Income Potential. The top-selling template designers can earn a very significant income.
Choice. Without having a client, you can make the decisions on the project.

Sometimes with this option client service can require a significant portion of your time. Although the income potential is high, there’s also a chance you’ll make nothing at all, also you’ll face stiff competition from a lot of other designers attempting to sell templates.

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