Waldo Lee, Can I Work for You?

OH my goodness. I randomly came across some of this guy's work. And I love it! Waldo Lee. Go to walee.com to see his (pretty sure it's a design firm with the work I've seen) so to see their work. Love his ideas. How does he execute these so well?

Waldo Lee, can I please work for you? Pretty pretty please with a cherry on top?

Clever. Anyone could think up this idea, but to execute it so well is serious bad ass skill.

Love this idea! Treat yourself to mouth watering design/photography/illustration goodness and go to his website! walee.com

I'm Faced with a Dead Brand Issue.

Working at KSM Music, I have tried to improve their advertising and branding. This is VERY hard to do, because the owner is extremely set in his ways. My dream would be to re-create his entire brand. Logo and everything. They have no direction right now, no rhyme or reason to the way they advertise. They are a tough company to design for, because the boss is very particular about things, and very stuck to...15 years ago.

I have a big dream to present an entire re-brand development to him. But before I do, I need to get everything prepared, so he can see it. And then tell him, and prove to him why this will improve his business. KSM Music is hanging by a thread constantly, and part of it is how we are perceived! OK, a huge part of it. So many customers that have been KSM customers for a long time mention that KSM Music hasn't ever changed. Kevin loves that it hasn't changed, because he wants to drive home "brand recognition." But if a brand is dead, and we are still driving home a dead brand... It is bad news bears. I am intimidated by my boss, he is very loud, and like I said, set in his ways. This would take a LOT of preparation, but if I can find time to devote to his business, I would love to present it to him. Because I'm afraid KSM Music is running out of time before they have to close the doors and surrender to our online competition and competition in Ogden and Salt Lake.

This is a flier I created yesterday for a Concert Clinic we are putting on. It's so much different than anything has put together for KSM Music. I'm interested to see the reaction of students while I hand these out to different schools. If they act a bit more impressed, and feel like KSM is more professional. Normally, someone throws together a little word doc with a couple pictures inserted, and of course the KSM Logo (that is terrible...I just have to say.)

Just note, that KSM Music is still only paying me the sales rep wage to do their design work. They don't have much money to spare, so this is going to pretty much be volunteer work if I'm able to find the time to research and prepare a branding brief with my boss. I love KSM Music, and my boss is such a hard worker and a great guy. I want to help them as much as I am able to. I worry though, that I put in hours and hours of work, and get pumped to show him and fight for a new branding direction, and for him to be extremely defensive and shut it entirely down. But I won't know unless I try, right? The worst that could happen, is I have something else to put in my portfolio, and just take a little pride hit if he says no.

I just picked up a HUGE client, that I am stoked about! So my time is mostly devoted to that business, but as I'm working on other freelance work, I can probably start researching music marketing and begin the filtering phase.

Branding is too much fun. Now only if we could add a few more hours in our days! Hehe

Personal Brand Inspiration

Some great personal marks of identity. Good inspiration. Click here to view more from the website I found these on!

My Re-Brand has Begun.

I've been re-thinking my branding strategy for my personal brand. My current one looks something like:

But this doesn't really nail my design work. It's a good logo for me in my personal life, but not me as a designer. So, I have began reverting back to the logo I designed awhile ago. I never designed it to use, but the more I look at it, the more I've decided I would like to implement it and use it as the core of my design brand identity. It looks something like this:

The basis of my design philosophy is: Simple, quick to recognize, memorable, bold, clean, smart. I'll be posting as I go through the new stages of my re-branding project and let you know how it goes! What logo do you like better for a graphic designer? Any critique of these logos? I'll take any feedback!