What We Like Today:
The tortured lives of illustrators.
March 7th, 2010
Sanjay Patel Interview from Grain Edit
Catching up on my RSS feeds this morning I came across this interview with Sanjay Patel about his just released book Ramayana: Divine Loophole.
from Grain Edit…
As one of the core legends of Hindu mythology, Ramayana recounts a tale of Rama, a god-turned-prince, and his quest to rescue his wife Sita after she was kidnapped by a demon king. Sanjay is able to breath new life into this 2500-year-old epic tale with over 150 pages of lush, detailed illustrations.
The quality of Sanjay’s work is amazing and the interview provides surprising insights into the personal motivations of a professional illustrator. We’re definitely going to add this book to our studio collection. There is also a limited edition silk screened poster that is signed and still available.
Read the full interview here>>
Find the book here>>
And the poster here>>
March 4th, 2010
Thoughts on Freelancing Rates
Our new freelancing friends often ask us about how much their hourly rates should be. It’s a common dilemma and one that inevitably ends with the phrase “it depends”. Sure there are average rates in the market, a range that collectively we feel the market will bear. But that’s a very localized thing. So much so that across the Denver metro area you’ll find significant differences north to south, east to west.
What everyone should be focused on is find a balance point between the market average and their skills—one that leans toward value for the client. It’s that value quotient that keeps you at the top of the list when clients have new projects. How do you figure out your pricing for new clients? What about repeat clients? What about work that comes to you through other freelancers?
Today Seth Godin takes and interesting view on issues around these questions in his post Open Buying and Open Selling.
March 3rd, 2010
Wiegand Attorneys Logo
This logo for Wiegand Attorneys & Counselors is the latest part of a larger re-branding effort. We began the project by re-defining the firm’s market positioning and creating a new tag-line—Navigating Your Future Success. The form of the logo connects with the tag-line and our client’s love of sailing and the antique nautical maps which adorn his office. There’s more to come in a website, business stationary and environmental signage.
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January 31st, 2010
Coconut Crunchees. An addict’s story.
Back in the early ’90s my brother and I went to Nepal for several months to climb and trek. We spent most of our time in the northern valleys of Rowaling and Kumbu. For several weeks at a time we were well beyond any villages or tea-houses. Back then you could still get pretty far out there. It wasn’t the disneyland it is today.
As an affirmed sugar junky, our asthetic diet of dahl, greens, rice and chilis was hard to maintain. Hence I became addicted, severely, to the little cookies pictured above—Coconut Crunchees.
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January 20th, 2010
A New Era of Sucking Less Begins Today.
Congratulations to our anonymous friends at The Denver Egotist for taking their site into the promise-land. They now join the other great franchises who were home-grown in Colorado. Including Noodles, The Spicy Pickle, Chipotle and of course Big O Tires, who have that cute mascot I’d like to strangle, Little O. I wonder if TDE will have its own mascot? Or better yet, a signature hot sauce like Chile Fired Client or Red, Hot Intern.
Cheers to you, Egotist. Whoever you are.
January 9th, 2010
XX Merge Poster. Letterpress. Hand-lettering. Craft.
Letterpress. Hand-lettering. Craft.
All the things we like best.
We found this great poster design profiled on the forPrintonly blog. It’s really beautiful work. What I like best is variety of hand craft that went into this piece. From the paper model that was photographed to the hand-lettering to the letterpress — this piece has everything we like best. Visit FPO to read more about it.
forPrintonly blog>>
January 8th, 2010
Tools we like. Jumpchart.
I’m always testing new design tools that can make our studio more efficient. In so many areas of our work, new software, websites and apps have emerged and made our old ways of doing things nearly obsolete. I say nearly because although new tools may offer great benefits they come at a price—change. That change means adopting new methods, techniques and workflows. As well as accepting some period of in-efficiency while you climb the learning curve.
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January 4th, 2010
New Ideas For A New Year
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We like the New Year. It always feels like a fresh start. After a crazy year of change and uncertainty, we’re certainly ready for a new beginning. Yet through the chaos of 2009, and maybe because of it, great ideas still emerged.
This New Year we thought we’d share three of our favorite ideas from 2009. In some way each of these challenged us re-think what we know about being designers, building a business and serving our clients. They’ve been inspiring and useful to Hero, we hope they’ll spark some creative thinking in you, too.
Happy New Year
from everyone at Hero.
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December 27th, 2009
Less Impact. More Garamond.
There are many choices we make each day that appear to be benign. In truth, though, many have negative impacts on our global environment. Take for instance, your choice of typeface. When printing a regular office document do you consider the ink consumption of the your chosen typeface? And have you considered the impact of choosing a blatant ink-hog font like an Ultra-Bold Extended will have on the environment our childrens’ children inherit? I haven’t. And I bet you haven’t either. Why would you? The impact happens at such a small scale that it is invisible to us.
Someone has thought about this though—Matt Robinson. And he created a startlingly simple way of amplifying our everyday font choices so that we can clearly see the impact they make.
Take a look at Matt’s project Measuring Type on his site www.matthewrobinson.co.uk
