ForgetfulRainn and Angel Dogs…

I got interviewed by one of my friends from deviantArt, Nicolas (ForgetfulRainn), one of the most faithful and supportive readers of my Moleskine Art which I regularly post in my Flickr and deviantArt accounts. He classifies my art as representative of Remodernism, "a term promulgated in an attempt to introduce a period of new spirituality into art, culture and society." In fact, I'm currently working with him on concept illustrations for a novel. He gave me questions that are quite interesting, such as when I started drawing, my artistic influences, my relationship with God among others… So head over his blogsite to read it (click on the link below):

My Interview at ForgetfulRainn's Chapters

On other note, I'll just show you a very early preview of one of my upcoming personal projects. I doodled this while waiting at Starbucks, contemplating on what goes on in the minds of lost toy dogs…

Hehe, what is this pug thinking about?

Vienna: Please Come Home…

This is Vienna. She's a black/brown mini-dachschund who has been with the family for more than 7 years. We saw her grow up from a puppy to a cheerful dog. We allowed her to freely roam the house, hunting down the mice to her heart's content. She's intelligent in a unique way, and she would do almost the most outrageous things to get our attention. It seemed she envied the attention we gave the cats in the house to the point that she would even climb the chairs and table the way cats do, to our grave surprise when she would suddenly lick our lips during meals. She's the only dog I know who enjoys eating cat food. She's the only dog I know who doesn't bark at strangers but instead invites them to play with her. She likes being tickled on her belly, but be careful not to do it too much, because she tends to pee when she's at the point of ecstasy. She likes her face to be mashed up in your hands and doesn't mind a bit, as long as she can still breath. On one of her pregnancies, she suffered an hernia, where she needed to be operated on. The doctor said not to excite her so much so she wouldn't move too much to hasten her healing. But I guess with Vienna, that's impossible.

I guess we trained her to be too friendly and accommodating. One morning, she got out of our house without our knowledge (the garden and garage were being renovated) and when we discovered she was gone, she was nowhere to be found. Neighbors last saw her playing with a man. Our suspicion was that she has been taken away by this person. It could be anyone. Who could resist not owning such a friendly pet? Now, what I couldn't fathom is how people could simply grab a dog from a street without thinking that there could be a family looking for this dog. They could have asked around first, a little concern. This is basically kidnapping. We have lost a family member, and our family is grieving. We just pray that whoever took Vienna to please kindly return her to us… and if ever in your cold heart, you wouldn't do so, at least take care of her more than we cared for her.

Logo Design: Bed & Biscuit Pet Care

I've made some logo and branding concepts for veterinary clinics before and I must say that it was always an interesting and rewarding experience. The reason for this is that designing for veterinary clinics always involved some form of mascot creation, and having quite a fondness for cartoon characters, I would always accept projects involving any form of character design. Plus, I like animals, particularly dogs and cats. And depicting them in cute, funny and comical situations is always enjoyable. Recently, I discussed in a blog about the creative process for iRescueRover (of which I am currently making a series of designs for their shirt line), but here are designs for previous clients.

Bed & Biscuit Pet Care, based in San Antonio, TX, provides services for pet sitting (in their home), pet boarding (in the client's home) and to a lesser degree dog walking, mail pickup and plant care. They wanted a design that will be used for company branding and advertising. The logo should be fun, but professional. It should represent trust and love of animals. They suggested using symbols that are animal themed (i.e. paw, head, full body, silhouette, dog bone, etc.). The client wanted dogs used specifically, but can also include cats and images of house / home.

I submitted 3 concepts. Here are the 2 designs that are basically mascot based.

But among the 3 concepts I submitted, I definitely like the 3rd design which is more simple. It is text-based rather than graphics heavy. The idea was almost accidental, since I was trying to figure out a way of integrating animals, particularly dogs and cats into the text, in very much the same way I did for the Two by Two clinic. While examining the letters, I thought of modifying the shapes of some of the letters to represent animal forms. At first, I thought of using the initials (both “B”s) but thought it would be more creative to use the “D” of “Bed” and the “B” of Biscuit. The “D” already is shaped liked the body of a dog, while the “B”, that of a cat. And since both these letters are separated by a the “&”, not only does the name of the company say “Bed & Biscuit” but also “Dog & Cats”…

After some feedback from the client, I made the necessary revisions (though minor) to create this final version.

Logo Design: iRescueRover

Hot Diggity Dog Premium Pet Pampering, LLC is a high end customized pet care and dog walking service which will soon release a line of clothing merchandise for iRescueRover.org. They needed a logo that will be featured in their first shirt that will launch the line and brand the company. Subsequent t-shirt designs will have the logo embroidered on each shirt in a more discreet way (for example, on the sleeve). Here are the specifications of the client:

1. One t-shirt design to highlight the logo itself. The client envisions a bronzed leafed sheriff type star as part of the logo, with the star placed central and large for the t-shirt. DO NOT Let this limit your vision however. The launching t-shirt might feature a huge star on the t-shirt front.
   
2. An image of a dog integrated or central to your design. Suggestions: a mutt, the painted dog of Africa or a Greyhound image –may be abstract, artsy, beautiful, hip, cool or high end. Any domestic or endangered dog may be used.
   
3. An image of a cat, domestic or endangered with the wording "iRescuekitty.org" (a sub category of iRescueRover.org).
   
4. An image of a great white shark presented in a unique way, including the wording "iRescueShark.org" (a sub category of iRescueRover.org).
   
5. An image of a bird, any endangered bird (i.e. a long crane vertically placed), and the wording "iRescueRobin.org" (a sub category of iRescueRover.org).
   

These were challenging requirements. Not only were they quite numerous, increasing the possibility of making the logo look cluttered. It seemed unavoidable, but I decided to include all these visual elements into one design. It felt like I was developing 5 separate ideas guised in one project. I turned to my sketchbook and went into my cartoon character mode, which I think is the appropriate approach to this. Besides, they wanted the design to appeal to all age ranges.

I really love the characters I created… I was actually drawing inspiration from stuffed toys here at home. I then traced by hand, inked with a brush pen, scanned and then digitized for vector editing.

I then added elements such as the sheriff star at the back and the name banner in front. At this point, it seemed a pretty solid T-shirt design.

I was worrying however about the design not being able to be translated well into small embroidered versions or even as a tag for their future shirts. I then developed simpler icons for the main organization and its subcategories.

And an option incorporating all these tags and just the characters.

I was glad the client selected this concept among numerous propositions by competing ideas. The design is still being finalized (deliberations regarding color and some design elements) for the shirt version but just in case you're wondering, here's Brad Pitt wearing the design, looking pretty serious in rescuing some helpless critters:

Logo Design: Petpasta.com

As an animal lover myself, I consider it entertaining drawing various animals as subjects in artworks and cartoon characterization. Integrating animals within logos can itself be a creative undertaking, and a challenge since they can be represented in countless ways (from basic suggestive shapes and strokes to realistic illustrations to comic characters). I remember a favorite logo I made a few years back, and I realized how satisfying making logos with animals in them can be.

A recent project offered another opportunity to integrate one of my favorite animals: man's best friend, the dog. The client, Petpasta.com is a new line of high end dog snacks. The product they offer is all natural, with no salt or preservatives, so they wanted the logo to represent this. The market is for the higher end boutique type pet shops as well as breeders, trainers and especially the show dog circuit.

For this project, I summoned some of my cartoon characters which started out as doodles. I introduce two of my dog characters: Chewy and Claire!

Since the company manufactures dog food, I thought the logo should somehow be packaged in a familiar shape, using friendly and eye-catching designs that could stand apart from other pet products. I started with the main text, encasing it in a bone shape with familiar dog paws and cappelleti shapes. Font used was modified Cooper Black.

To make the logo more noticeable, I added a blast at the back, colored green to complement the brown of the logo, to facilitate the "all-natural" feel of the image.

Finally, a dog character had to be placed. The logo, even without the dog character may already work on its own, but the character adds a friendliness to the logo. Chewy was chosen, since Claire may be too high-class looking to cater to all dog owners. Now, Chewy looks like he's endorsing the food product, and he's happy about it... Thumbs up!

Now I would like to present the good souls that served as inspiration to this project, without their licks, purrs and tail wags, this logo wouldn't be that successful.