Here's hoping our family, friends and clients have a great Halloween! Yes, when you've got dogs they get in on the act, too! Keys and Molson show off their stuff this morning in our Manahawkin shop display area.
Logan with his girls
Keys...aka the boss
Molson...aka the pup
Ant the hardest shot of all....to get Molson to stay still next to her sister!
This blog post is designed to demonstrate the logo design process that we go through with our clients. The bottom line is that a professionally designed logo is absolutely the best investment you can make in the "foundation" of your business. It's the one thing that all of your promotion builds upon—your business cards, invoices, web site design, newspaper advertising, direct mail, vehicle advertising, and job site signs to name a few. A professionally designed logo can give any business, new or old, an established feel and look that conveys professionalism and pride. And when the business uses the professional logo consistently across all elements of promotion, it's even more effective.
To demonstrate this process, R. Quelch and sons is a good case study. Rick has started a new business in a completely new field for him. As such, it's important that his new logo conveys an professional appearance and implies an established business. His prospective clients want to deal with an experienced contractor—and although Rick is experienced—he's the only one to build a log home that I know in this area—his business is relatively new.
The illustration below gives you an idea of the design process. From the initial client interview, we develop one to three concept sketches (one is shown here). From there a refinement process happens, sometimes quickly, sometimes over time. With a few tweaks, we were almost there.
Here's a shot of the logo executed on the trailer the client uses at jobsites.
Here's the client's work van.
And we're working on developing business cards, job site signs and a few other promotional pieces with the logo as well.
Here's a little update on the WOXY decals we made up. The awesome news is that woxy.com is up and broadcasting again. Lot's of live lounge acts, too! And the new owners (lala.com) have a really neat service. I've already listed a bunch of CD's for trade and received my first traded disc today.
For the decals, we had over 250 emails for the decals. Since I funded this effort on my own, I had to draw the line just over 100 or so. So, If for some reason you did not receive a woxy decal I'm sorry. I had someone ask to send me money to make some, but regretfully I need to decline. If it's going to be a money making thing than woxy deserves the financial gain to keep such a great product coming to all listeners. Plus I'm not about to reproduce their artwork for a financial gain without their permission. So, please don't send me any money for decals....
thanks for all of the great comments and emails. Let's all spread the word about the wonderful music experience woxy.com provides.
Here's a shot of a small batch of short run custom printed reflective decals for South Shore towing here in Manahawkin. Typically printed and die cut decals require long runs from a screen printer. We're able to use our equipment to produce any quantity, large or small, of custom printed and cut decals, in any number of colors, on a large array of materials. Some of the materials we can print on include adhesive back vinyl, reflective vinyl, metallic, holographic, static cling and specialty metal based films such as gold leaf vinyl. If you need labels and decals for equipment, safety, or even specialty foods, give us a call.
A lot of people ask "Wow-How Do You Do That?" Well, here's a little snippet of how we produce, prepare and install mobile advertising graphics on a typical box truck. We're using 3M Controltac vinyl on this job, that's been printed and cut via our solvent ink vinyl printer and vinyl plotter with optical recognition eye to register the printed graphics.
The completed Academy Security vehicle advertising project. Thanks Joe and December, for this and all of your previous orders.
Oh, And, I left the big box of business cards that we made with the logo and a few freebies on the wilderness lodge table on your front porch on Sunday.
It's befitting that a newspaper that's been published since 1933 would have a sign that's elegant and effective yet created with many pieces of 2006 technology. This sign was a lot of fun to make and an excellent example of how we combine all of the high tech tools in the shop at Typestries. We started this sign with a sheet of 3/4" Gatorfoam. It's a resin and paper coated sheet of foam, and offers excellent properties for interior use. It cuts on the CNC router beautifully, which allowed us to add the dimension of raised letters to the main byline on the sign. It accepts paint well, yielding an excellent finish on the raised letters. And, it's a great surface to receive high resolution digitally printed vinyl graphics. Since this piece would be seen up close, we cranked up the resolution of our new printer. The newspaper staff could not believe how clear the picture was on the sign. For the installation, we took advantage of another high tech product, which yielded in a fastener free installation for a clean look. Since we used the Gatorfoam, the sign was relatively light—so we were able to attach the sign to the wall with 3M VHB tape. With the gripping power of the VHB tape, this sign's never coming down.
You can check out the outlook, here. I'm guessing they'll be reporting on their new sign, too!
Here's what I pretty much look at all day long (not just this particular job, of course). I'm grateful for my large Apple Cinema display. With such a huge screen I can keep all of my pallets organized and hop around between the design applications that we rely on everyday. Here I'm working on re-creating a historic look and feel of a Cuban propaganda poster for Fidel Castro. Why on earth would I be doing this? It's going to become a large digitally printed set piece. This job calls for three 12 foot square mesh banners. Each one has a historic recreation of communist propaganda poster that fits the theme of the music the band has arranged for this season of competition. Last year, local legend Chuck Wilson devised a steel frame structure that could be easily assembled on the performance field. These banners have pole pockets on the edges and actually wrap around the frame and are tensioned tight to make a completely weatherproof, wind resistant set piece. These outdoor sets are rolled onto the field by band parent volunteers for the perfromance. The concept worked so well last year that we're back at it again this year. If you've got a challenging display project that requires a unique solution, drop me a line or give a call—perhaps we can engineer a solution to fit your needs and your budget.
We recently had a request for a run of 100 custom numbered football helmet car decals. Yes, that's 100 different decals for the cars of the team players families. We're able to complete projects like this quickly and affordably due to our vast array of printing and cutting technology. It's amazing how quickly technology has progressed in our industry, to the point that just a few short years ago jobs such as these would have been difficult and cost prohibitive if produced in any more than just one color. Sure, you could get 100 screen printed decals with all the same art, but 100 individual pieces, of excellent image quality, has been traditionally tough to produce at a cost that's attractive to many teams. We're ready and able to produce your custom, short run, full color die cut decals. Give us a call!
Logan and I enjoyed the parade here in Manahawkin on Bay Avenue. Here are a few more shots of the signs we donated for the event and some emergency vehicles that we have lettered or fabricated lettering for.
We completely striped and lettered this vehicle with 3M reflective and Sign Gold stripes and lettering
We completely striped and lettered this vehicle with 3M reflective and Sign Gold stripes and lettering
