What the hell is my identity?

So I was on Web Designer Wall recently and there's an article on there about David Pache, who is a logo designer. After taking all that in, I was enticed. I started searching around the web and I came across this site devoted to all things logo. Now I'm like a teenage girl who just discovered what a credit card is. That being said I've always been one who believed I didn't need my own logo to distinguish myself. But reading all this stuff about the subject was like the worst kind of foreplay. So I sat down and started sketching up some ideas. I went through my normal process, which starts off with writing down all the words that come to mind when thinking about the subject I'm designing for, which was myself. It starts off simple enough (art, paint, brain, orangutan), and then you branch off of those words (Ex: art - pencil, eraser, beauty, naked people) and so on and so forth. *side note, I can't really take credit for this process, it was taught to me by one of my teachers in college, Ed Zawora.* But, once I had my plethora of words, I went to work on some thumbnails. I filled a page with idea after idea and two of them really stuck out to me. After deciding on those two I worked them up on the computer, and after much deliberation.....with myself....I decided on this tasty number.




I'm not really sure where the idea came from but I started trying to think of ways I could use things that resembled my initials without using actual letters. This one was my favorite. So, I now feel enlightened, but that just wasn't enough for me. In my conquest for graphic nirvana, the need to somehow display this creation to the world suddenly filled me like 2 spicy chicken burritos and a large wild cherry pepsi from taco bell, which I'm only saying that because I'm hungry for one. I then realized my current business cards, sexy as they are, were extremely out dated. I made them before I even had a website, so they were lacking important information, like the fact that I have a website. So, I started brainstorming and web crawling for ideas and again became filled with the urge to create. I came across site after site of different and interesting designs until finally I came across one that got me thinking. It was the design for Mike Slack's business card, where the text on the card resembled code. I thought, wouldn't it be cool to write out code as if my business card were a website. That's all I needed, so I got to work. I first designed the front of the card, laying it out like I normally would, using my new cougar of a logo. Once that was done, that's when the fun started. I started plotting in my tiny brain, "what would the code look like if this were something that was to be displayed online?" And voila, there you have it.


There is a downside to such creativity though I've discovered. People that aren't familiar with web design don't really understand the significance of the code on the back. But, I'm keeping it, because most people I would like to hire me are familiar with web design. Anyway, all this hullaballoo essentially brought me to one conclusion, freelance. I need to do more freelance. I love my job, but as far as stretching my creative wings, I'd probably have better luck learning how to build my own airplane and flying to Brazil, where I would live out my remaining days working at a small bar and grill and teaching the local children how to play the french horn. Pretty unlikely. But like I said, I love my job, but there's not very much creative freedom. I need to start campaigning for things like that, corporate identity and business card design. When I was in college, I was the one all the photographers went to for business cards, and I did it all for free (which is most likely why they all came to me) because I just loved it so much. Nowadays obviously, doing work for free is fine if you don't mind living in the alley behind Starbucks. But that's all this boiled down to, I just miss creating.