Tilt Trademark
Since this website and blog are in its early developmental stages, it only seems fitting to make my first post about some of my early experiences with the design process in the colorful and exciting field of design. My first job in this field was working for a local publishing company here in New Orleans. Nothing fancy, just your everyday magazine layout and production. One of the added perks to this job was the reviews we did for the various magazines because not only did we get to experience and enjoy many of the city's many attractions, we usually got to enjoy the best these places had to offer for free in hopes of getting a good write up. Needless to say, we met many people in the process of doing this which gave me monstrous opportunities to put my name out there and gain clientele. One of these gained clients being, local DJ and Producer, Marshall Monica. Marshall and fellow DJ/Producer Trent Cantrelle had a project in the works. It was called "Tilt."
Tilt was a weekly event to be held every Saturday night at local Night Club,Tipitina's in Downtown New Orleans, that would feature some of the techno scenes hottest DJ's from around the globe. It would also be Marshall and Trent's first major production and aid in gaining them recognition as both DJ's and Producers. They were to be the events lead resident DJ’s and would be in charge of the entire production and I was approached and asked to design their logo. I was thrilled to have been given this opportunity with what little experience I had thus far. This would be the first logo design that wasn't a fictional class project. Needless to say I wanted to follow and actually put the guidance and knowledge that was taught to me to the test.
Being that Tilt was, at that time, still in it's developmental stages, my research wasn't able to include attending the event in person, so instead, I attended many similar events, gaining much needed insight and perspective on the demographics of my client. I learned from the brief that Tilt would entail quite a bit of advertising which would include fliers on a regular basis that would promote the ever-changing DJ list and headlining DJ's, web advertising, and also promotional mix CDs featuring all of Tilt's resident DJ’s. With all of this being a factor, both the client and I agreed that a simple, bold word-mark would be needed to occupy the various forms of media the mark would be used on. At that time, most of the typical rave logos consisted of typography that exhibited a "space age" feel and Marshall wanted to keep this approach but he also wanted the logo to portray a sense of style to go along side of it as this was the whole concept of Tilt, "A rave with class and style." I quickly learned in the concept development of this project that trying to visually convey all of the ideas and visions of an organization is nearly impossible without loosing the simplicity criteria of a logo. So my first "real" assignment was quickly becoming aggravating to say the least when trying to come up with "the right concept" for this job. I explored everything from the obvious, tilting one of the letters, to the not so obvious, making the dot of the "I" into a vinyl record. The problem was, nothing I had came up with, hadn't already been done in some form or another in this genre. This was the first time, ever, in my 15 years of having a passion for art, that I had to actually test and compare my work and it was a very humbling experience. It was also a very frustrating experience and had me second guessing my creativity and my career choice. What I thought was going to be a fairly easy project had turned into a nightmare. So I decided to give it a rest for a while. Tomorrow was another day. I had remembered hearing somewhere that when you hit a road block the worst thing you can do is fight it. Just take a step back and breath and when you least expect it, it will come to you. So that's exactly what I did. I had heard there was an event, like Tilt, that was being held at Tipitina's on Friday nights. It wasn't quite on the same scale as Tilt was going to be but I figured I'd go check it out and get a feel for the venue, relax and take my mind off of the logo and who knows, maybe something would come to me. It sure couldn't hurt anything. So I called up a few friends and we headed off.
I was quite surprised by the size of the club. Most of the other clubs that held these types of events, hadn't been that big so I was a little taken back but then again, Tipitina's held some pretty big concerts from time to time so this should have occurred to me and could have possibly aided the concept process in some way. This event, like Tilt, was an all night event so needless to say, it was a long but well deserved outing. Upon leaving the club, as we opened the doors, the first thing I noticed was being blinded by the sun rising up behind the river across the street. My first thought was, "Wow, were we really in there that long?" And that thought was immediately followed by, "Well, we must have been having fun if we stayed in there all night." And then it hit me like a blinding ray of light! (Pun intended) I needed to find a way to incorporate this into the logo somehow. So when I got home I started looking at everything again and I found that the dot of the "I" was rounded like the sun so I just dropped it down behind the “L” and the bottom segment of the “I” and Presto! Not only had I incorporated the sun rising into the logo but I had also added the "space/planetary" element that had been so popular amongst the rave scene at that time. Ideas breed ideas so once I got the ball rolling again, I was bouncing innovations all over the place. After coming up with and testing numerous concepts I settled with three very strong candidates that I felt would work the best with the target audience and applications and I presented them to Marshall. We discussed these concepts and came to the conclusion that the mark pictured above, with the rising sun, was the best solution. It was a simple word-mark that we felt was both visually pleasing and relevant for the given applications. I used the Titanic typeface, because this was the closest font I could find to the sketches I had made, and modified the "T"'s so they would be symmetrical to the "L" and give the mark a uniform look. Tilt was to have a dress code, so I was trying to have this reflected in the logo. I also felt this typeface suited the target audience which was going to be a younger group predominantly between the ages of eighteen and their late twenties.
The mark remained legible scaled down to very small sizes which was a necessity because of the small fliers sizes the mark would appear on. All in all the project turned out to be a success. The client was happy, I finally had a chance to put all of my schooling to into practice, and I had a real piece to put into my portfolio. The piece remains there to this day and this story is the reason for that. Of course there were flaws but hey, it was my first design and it’s all about progress not perfection. I learn new things on a daily basis and there will ALWAYS be room to improve. That’s what drives my passion. But the bottom line is, I followed the time tested design process and it worked. And no, not all of my tasks come together this “perfectly,” in fact none of them happen like this one did. This was one of those lightning bolt moments that almost never happen, but the point is, if you follow the process, the solution will find you. The process was put into place to minimize error and to prevent us from making avoidable mistakes. I can only imagine the embarrassment to have worked countless hours on a design, present it to a client and having them love your design only to find out that it won’t work with any of the applications it was needed for or that it wasn’t legible when scaled down to a smaller size or when placed on your clients website, half of the logo isn’t visible because you used the same color as the background of their site. These are all preventable mistakes that a thorough brief should cover and I will be covering this and more “In depth” discussions about the design process in future posts. So stay tuned and check back often. Until Next Time...
Being that Tilt was, at that time, still in it's developmental stages, my research wasn't able to include attending the event in person, so instead, I attended many similar events, gaining much needed insight and perspective on the demographics of my client. I learned from the brief that Tilt would entail quite a bit of advertising which would include fliers on a regular basis that would promote the ever-changing DJ list and headlining DJ's, web advertising, and also promotional mix CDs featuring all of Tilt's resident DJ’s. With all of this being a factor, both the client and I agreed that a simple, bold word-mark would be needed to occupy the various forms of media the mark would be used on. At that time, most of the typical rave logos consisted of typography that exhibited a "space age" feel and Marshall wanted to keep this approach but he also wanted the logo to portray a sense of style to go along side of it as this was the whole concept of Tilt, "A rave with class and style." I quickly learned in the concept development of this project that trying to visually convey all of the ideas and visions of an organization is nearly impossible without loosing the simplicity criteria of a logo. So my first "real" assignment was quickly becoming aggravating to say the least when trying to come up with "the right concept" for this job. I explored everything from the obvious, tilting one of the letters, to the not so obvious, making the dot of the "I" into a vinyl record. The problem was, nothing I had came up with, hadn't already been done in some form or another in this genre. This was the first time, ever, in my 15 years of having a passion for art, that I had to actually test and compare my work and it was a very humbling experience. It was also a very frustrating experience and had me second guessing my creativity and my career choice. What I thought was going to be a fairly easy project had turned into a nightmare. So I decided to give it a rest for a while. Tomorrow was another day. I had remembered hearing somewhere that when you hit a road block the worst thing you can do is fight it. Just take a step back and breath and when you least expect it, it will come to you. So that's exactly what I did. I had heard there was an event, like Tilt, that was being held at Tipitina's on Friday nights. It wasn't quite on the same scale as Tilt was going to be but I figured I'd go check it out and get a feel for the venue, relax and take my mind off of the logo and who knows, maybe something would come to me. It sure couldn't hurt anything. So I called up a few friends and we headed off.
I was quite surprised by the size of the club. Most of the other clubs that held these types of events, hadn't been that big so I was a little taken back but then again, Tipitina's held some pretty big concerts from time to time so this should have occurred to me and could have possibly aided the concept process in some way. This event, like Tilt, was an all night event so needless to say, it was a long but well deserved outing. Upon leaving the club, as we opened the doors, the first thing I noticed was being blinded by the sun rising up behind the river across the street. My first thought was, "Wow, were we really in there that long?" And that thought was immediately followed by, "Well, we must have been having fun if we stayed in there all night." And then it hit me like a blinding ray of light! (Pun intended) I needed to find a way to incorporate this into the logo somehow. So when I got home I started looking at everything again and I found that the dot of the "I" was rounded like the sun so I just dropped it down behind the “L” and the bottom segment of the “I” and Presto! Not only had I incorporated the sun rising into the logo but I had also added the "space/planetary" element that had been so popular amongst the rave scene at that time. Ideas breed ideas so once I got the ball rolling again, I was bouncing innovations all over the place. After coming up with and testing numerous concepts I settled with three very strong candidates that I felt would work the best with the target audience and applications and I presented them to Marshall. We discussed these concepts and came to the conclusion that the mark pictured above, with the rising sun, was the best solution. It was a simple word-mark that we felt was both visually pleasing and relevant for the given applications. I used the Titanic typeface, because this was the closest font I could find to the sketches I had made, and modified the "T"'s so they would be symmetrical to the "L" and give the mark a uniform look. Tilt was to have a dress code, so I was trying to have this reflected in the logo. I also felt this typeface suited the target audience which was going to be a younger group predominantly between the ages of eighteen and their late twenties.
The mark remained legible scaled down to very small sizes which was a necessity because of the small fliers sizes the mark would appear on. All in all the project turned out to be a success. The client was happy, I finally had a chance to put all of my schooling to into practice, and I had a real piece to put into my portfolio. The piece remains there to this day and this story is the reason for that. Of course there were flaws but hey, it was my first design and it’s all about progress not perfection. I learn new things on a daily basis and there will ALWAYS be room to improve. That’s what drives my passion. But the bottom line is, I followed the time tested design process and it worked. And no, not all of my tasks come together this “perfectly,” in fact none of them happen like this one did. This was one of those lightning bolt moments that almost never happen, but the point is, if you follow the process, the solution will find you. The process was put into place to minimize error and to prevent us from making avoidable mistakes. I can only imagine the embarrassment to have worked countless hours on a design, present it to a client and having them love your design only to find out that it won’t work with any of the applications it was needed for or that it wasn’t legible when scaled down to a smaller size or when placed on your clients website, half of the logo isn’t visible because you used the same color as the background of their site. These are all preventable mistakes that a thorough brief should cover and I will be covering this and more “In depth” discussions about the design process in future posts. So stay tuned and check back often. Until Next Time...
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