Side Stitch - Designers at Heart

As you can probably tell, I put a lot of heart into this episode of Side Stitch. If you aren't familiar with the comic, it's something I make for when it's my turn to blog at the office (I work at BBR Creative, a design/ad agency in Lafayette, LA). I always try to instill some humor and cleverness in along with the design references, but this time I thought I'd try to make it pretty heartfelt.

As I mentioned on the BBR Blog, here we follow a young design pair from initial campus crush to the Request for Proposal (RFP), seeing all the adorableness and designer in-jokes in between.

I started concepting the story after I thought of the RFP/marriage kicker. I tried to think of a bunch of design-related situations in which to put the couple. The challenge wasn’t to try and squeeze in as much design references as possible (that was the easy part), but to illustrate two people falling in love in a very finite number of panels. So we see them working together to ace their design final, the initial inquiry to a first date, bonding over the industry’s beloved design annuals, starting their own design studio, painting a house, adopting their own pet and, finally, proposing marriage.

Hope you enjoyed it, and please pass this along to your design friends. They might get a kick out of it! :D

Brand ReVamping

Here's my new Side Stitch design comic. For those of you who aren't familiar, BBR Creative encourages its employees to take turns doing a blog on the BBR website. When my turn comes around, I draw a design-related comic and post it. And now, about the comic:

Had the Vampire Empire survived their initial brand meeting, they would have realized that it’s best for an agency to get to know a client before diving head first into the image-revamping process. This would have ensured that the designers knew that vampires and sunlight don’t really mix well. And if the logo didn’t immediately vaporize the Vampire Empire’s council, it would have eventually driven a stake into the club’s image.

Maybe the “online agency” was afraid of vampires. Or clowns. Or vampire clowns. Maybe they were werewolves! Or, maybe they were just trying to make a quick dollar. Don’t only do a job quickly — do it right. Though, I’d imagine trying to make the denizens of the night “more appealing” would be a daunting task. Perhaps some things are best left alone?

Notes about this comic:
I omitted a pun out of spacial necessity, but I thought I’d include it in this section: “No members means no revenue! We’ll have to get day jobs!”

I always have fun with the silly logos I do for these comics. The “existing” Vampire Empire logo was a “V” & “E” shaped to resemble vampire teeth. And the “revamped” logo features a rejoicing figure whose cape is forming a sun. Well, maybe he’s writhing.

I had a few Vampire Empire tagline options on the table. Here are some that were frontrunners:
“Eternity, for life.”
“Eternity now.”
“A brighter nightlife.”
“Live long and party.”

OH, and if anyone knows a decent comic lettering font, please let me know. I hand-drew all the lettering in Photoshop and it was quite a task.

-burt

The Mighty King Kyrn!

Here's my second entry under my Side Stitch comic series, which explores the fun and adventurous world of design. Every BBR employee has a turn at writing a blog from the office, but I figured it'd be fun to do a comic for mine. Thusly, Side Stitch was born.

This episode displays the dangerous of poor typography. "Kerning" is a typographic term that means "adjusting the space between letters in a word." So, to "kern" something means to correctly space the letters in a word. Once someone points out how a word is SUPPOSED to look, you'll start to notice imperfections in signs and advertisements all around your town. Not EVERYONE cares about typography, believe it or not.

And those people feel the wrath of 7-ton gorilla fists.

Side Stitch - A Design Comedy

Working at BBR Creative means that I get a chance to write a blog once every so often and post it on the blog portion of our site. When initially concepting what I wanted to do for my blog, I figured that I would draw something and then write about it. Just to promote being creative in your free time, as well as at work.

Since I recently drew a silly comic and liked how it turned out, I decided that I'd draw a comic for my blog. Of course, I had to make it relate to my job in some sense. It couldn't just be a comic about cats having a party or something.

And so Side Stitch was born. "Side stitching" being a rather low-cost binding technique where you just put a booklet or group of pages together and staple near an edge to hold it together. It also, of course, is a play on "stitch in your side."

The premier comic features a supervillain holding the world's logos ransom. He imposes his demands upon the League of Extraordinary Advertisers & Desigers (LEAD), who quickly shoot down his dastardly plot.

I'll hopefully be doing a Side Stitch comic each time my turn to blog comes around. Be on the lookout for more!

Click the thumbnail above to open the comic at actual size.