A Creative Year

Author Anthony Muchina contacted me regarding several creative projects he needed for the launch of his new business, appropriately called ‘Muchina’. The company will be selling various luxury items, and the client was looking for something stylish, that would work no matter what type of product he was selling. Initially, the leaning was toward a script style lettermark, and I kept that in mind as I sketched. However, after brainstorming and sketching, we ended up going a different direction. Here is a scan of a few of the sketches:

I typically come up with as many ideas as I can and try not to limit myself in any way through the sketching process. Then, after I’ve exhausted that and have a few ideas that stand out, I like to quickly mock-up a couple of them. At this point I send everything to the client, with an explanation of various stand-out ideas and the thought process, if it needs explanation. I’m not shy about showing them both the good and the bad – you never know what will spark some inspiration. There’s some debate about this, as some designers fear the client will pick out something that really should not be used, but when that happens I find that you can explain why it would not be a good choice, and also find out what attracts the client to that particular design and try to take that aspect of it and carry it into a something that will make more sense.

For the Muchina logo, right away the client saw one he liked and we went to work perfecting it. There were many experimental changes using slightly different shapes and fonts. We went back and forth a few times, and all told there were 26 variations of the chosen logo sent to the client. The final logo was shown at the beginning of this post, in black and white. You can see some of the spacing relationships here:

The type face used was Gill Sans. The shifting of the ‘Muchina’ name to the left helps to offset the weight in the symbol above – even though it is technically not truly centered, moving it left looks right to the eye. The amount of spacing between each letter (tracking) equals the amount of space from the right edge of the circle to the right edge of the sliver, and the space from the symbol to the type is 75% of that space.

Next we will be designing the packaging for the initial product, with the client indicating the box will be purple with 1 color printing (an undetermined golden hue). After that, I will be working on the website design. We’ll highlight those projects in a future post and also include a testimony from the client.

I meant to post this sooner, but anyone who follows the Browser Wars should take note of the recent numbers posted by Net Applications. Apparently designers aren’t the only ones getting into the Firefox/Mozilla browser. It now has a 20% market share. It will be interesting to see how IE8 (currently in BETA 2) is recieved and whether or not it’s release will slow down Firefox.

Our next post will cover the creation of the Muchina logo, and possibly a preview of the package design for their initial product launch. Stay tuned…

Having a stellar website starts with finding the perfect domain name. If you, like many of my clients, are launching a new business, one of the first things you should do is search for available domains related to your business name.

According to VeriSign’s December 2008 Domain Name Industry Brief, there were 174 million domain registrations in the third quarter of 2008 alone. Hopefully your exact company name is available in the all important .com classification, but with so many domains being purchased every day, finding the right domain name can sometimes be difficult. Here are a few things to keep in mind when choosing yours:

1. Don’t miss an opportunity. Domain names can be inexpensive (some are not, more on that later). Sometimes you will find more than one domain that is relevant to your business name. Buy them all. Do not assume that you will only need your exact name – buy misspelled versions, buy abbreviations, by longer versions or similar domains ( for example I own both www.jasonmilburn.com and www.jasonmilburndesign.com ). You should be paying around $10 to ‘own’ that domain for one year, and less than this if you purchase multiple years up-front. This is a small expense for your business, and it is very important that you have as many of the relevant domains as you can think of, and now, because you never know when someone else will buy it.

2. Keep it Short. Say you own several versions of your company’s name: www.unknowncompany.com, www.unknownco.com, www.unknown.com. Now you need to decide which one to promote.

Always keep your users in mind – what is easiest for them to remember and also to type in. Which would they most likely assume your company domain would be? No one wants to work harder than they have to, so in almost all cases it is best to promote the shortest domain you have, but also make sure the other ones point to your website as well. One additional note on this: be careful using abbreviations. While shorter is typically better, a bunch of unrelated letters that are hard to remember is not a good idea.

3. Buy the other classifications. For many businesses it will also be smart to purchase the .net classification for your .com domain name. Going further than that and purchasing .org, .biz etc. will largely depend on your type of business, your budget and whether you are concerned with competitors (or others) buying and using that domain in the future.

If you were unable to find an appropriate .com name for your business, and the .net is available, then definitely purchase it. Just be aware that the perception of .net is that it plays second fiddle to .com. For smaller businesses this may not be an issue, but for larger companies, owning the .com is a high priority. Imagine if Nike only owned the .net domain name and someone else owned nike.com. What would your perception be of Nike? They own both, and use them for seperate purposes. Which brings us to the next point…

4. Sometimes you have to pay more. Perhaps the perfect domain is out there and you want it with a desperate unrelenting passion. The only problem is that a ‘link farm’ owns it and is offering it to you for the bargain price of $2,000. That’s right, there are businesses whose sole purpose is to buy what it thinks are good domains names in the hopes of holding them ransom for a high price. If you are a small business, I would seriously consider all other options before paying more than the normal price for a domain, especially if you are a one-man show and don’t have a lot of starting capital. That includes possibly changing your business name to something that is available as a .com. However, if you absolutely must own a .com and someone else owns it, but is not using it, get that check book ready.

5. Think Big. Now that you have a handful of great domain names directly related to your business name, it’s time to think larger. Chances are, there are other great domains out there that you may want to use down the road. Possibly you will run a marketing campaign or pormotion that could use it’s own domain and mini-site.

Companies do this all the time to complement a promotion or for specific online content that is designed to attract more search engine traffic. Take the currently running commercials for the Dodge Ram Truck for example. After showing a group of guys gushing about the trucks and driving them through exploding buildings, they list a specific website to visit: www.ramchallenge.com . If you have a similar promotion coming up it’s better to think about an appropriate domain name now, rather than later, and if you don’t end up using it, it’s only $10.

Also, when thinking big, is your company international? If so, you will need to purchase your domain in a variety or worldwide clasifications (such as .cn and .br).

Hopefully this helps point you in the right direction when choosing a domain name for your business. Jason Milburn Design can help guide you and also handle the registration process as part of our website design package.

“You may delay, but time will not.”  -Benjamin Franklin

I ran across a great interview from Paul at Boagworld that I thought I would share. He spoke with Nicholas Felton about his yearly reports project. Apparently he has been designing yearly reports which detail his life. They cover how many air miles he’s traveled, how many alcoholic beverages consumed, books read, movies attended, and more. A bunch of information, beautifully designed and posted online for the world to see.

I’ve never heard of it before, but apparently it’s catching on, and Nicholas, along with a partner, is launching a website designed to make tracking this information easier. I think this is really fascinating – as a designer who is interested in numbers and tracking things (ok, a little obsessive) this is a brilliant idea. Give yourself a yearly report to really see what your life looks like, what you spend your time and money on. Sure, it’s time consuming, but I’m sure it’s also rewarding.

A new year is bearing down on us. It’s the perfect time to follow in Nicholas’s footsteps and maybe gain some insight into your own life.