technicolor eye

Below are 2 website designs I worked on recently for a luxury condominium development in Lake Tahoe. This was a rush job, but the client already had a color palette picked out and a good idea of what they were looking for, so it wasn’t too hard to meet the deadline.

Here’s a few logos I designed during 2006. I think there were a few more, but these were the better ones. As I’ve said in previous posts, some of these designs were selected and some were not, but I wanted a place to remember all of them. Sometimes there’s no accounting for taste.

Recently there has been discussion at my company about creating a specialty brand of products. We decided to go Hot. The plan is to come out with 4 “hot” products with a homestyle, family made look and feel.

Below are 3 ideas I came up with for the label. The first two labels are geared at capitalizing on the company’s history, featuring an illustration of the original location. The 3rd one features an image of the founder’s son, in an effort to put a face on the product. The consensus so far has been leaning towards label #3.

Over the past year, the company I work for finally released the new version of our labels. It took me 3 years to get them to agree on a new design, but they finally broke down. Their only stipulation: Don’t change anything about the label, but give us something completely new. You may have seen the before, but here is the before and after, plus a few unchosen ideas.

Yes, I am still alive. Yes, it really is me blogging. No, I don’t have an excuse for not blogging for almost 14 months. Well, unless you count getting married to the best wife ever, searching out and buying a great new house, pushing pickles during the week and working a ton of freelance hours. There have been a few things keeping me busy, but life has been good.

On to the blog….

In keeping with the name, I’ve decided to start using this place as a repository for all the various projects I’ve been working on. Since I’m usually working on a few creative and/or technical projects every week, I thought this would be a good place to keep track of everything.

Also, I understand that most of the clients I work for…and my employer would like to remain anonymous…especially, since I do a lot of work for them that they have turned down for one reason or another. However, I happen to like a lot of the work I’ve done for them and I need a place to keep it all. In an effort to keep this work from being tied to any search engines, I plan to keep their names out of the blog entry and file names won’t contain any reference. However, it will be quite clear to anyone who views these images who the client or employer was.

I heart the new George Bush Turnpike extension. It’s saving me 14 minutes, one way. That’s almost an extra half an hour each day. I don’t know how to act.

It’s hard to believe that a 5.4 mile extension could save me that much time, but you need to experience the commute for yourself. I used to drive through Carrollton side streets to avoid the nightmare on I-35E. That part took 20-25 minutes to get through, but not anymore. I’m so much happier. With a 39 minute commute covering 40 miles, one way, I only have 4 traffic lights, 2 in Carollton and 2 in Fort Worth. It’s still a long haul, but I’m glad my mileage is included with my paycheck.

Dang. You take a little vacation time, do some freelance work, start a new website and spend time with the girlfriend…what happens? You forget about the blog.

So, the update….

Vacation in Puerto Vallarta was awesome! We spent a bunch of time hanging out on the beach, swimming in the pool, sipping all we could drink and eating some great food. I got to go parasailing too. My favorite day was when we spent the afternoon zooming across the jungle on 13 ziplines. The highest one was about 300 feet above the river and was at least 300 feet long.

Freelance work has been taking up a lot of my time lately. I’ve been working on some website layouts forBella’scompany and working on a bid for a website gig, based on a lead from a pickle company co-worker.

My pickle boss and I have launched forexing.com. The site provides users a signal on major currency pairs, telling them which way the currency pair will move during the next day’s trading. In the process of building the site, I learned a bunch of PHP and MySQL. So far we’ve averaged about 85% success on each signal and we’re up to 68 users in 3 weeks, with no advertising. It’s a free service for now, but we start charging in Ocotber. My pickle boss does the math and I do the programming, then we’ll split the profits starting in October.

And finally, spending time with the girlfriend. A. has been treating me like a king. I haven’t a single complaint. Although my birthday is not officially until August 6th, she bought me some new clothes and a brand-spanking new mountain bike on Saturday!

While planning for the trip to Puerto Vallarta A. came across this helpful site: vallartainfo.com. Granted it’s not the best designed site in the world, but it’s full of great information. There’s lists of recommended restaurants, bars, hotels and even a page of tips especially for Puerto Vallarta.

After perusing the site A. noticed that the site is run by a local in Puerto Vallarta. He’s even listed as an expert on Puerto Vallarta at tripadvisor.com. He’s a wealth of information for travelers.

Now the good part. A. was innocently browsing the General Information page, but when she reached the bottom of the page, she noticed a link for Adult Entertainment. Curiously, she clicked on the link, which led to another page on the same website. The Adult Entertainment page had some testimonials to a few topless clubs in Puerto Vallarta. No big deal…topless clubs are everywhere. However, another link appeared at the bottom of this page: The Out-Call Page. After clicking here, it’s very obvious that this PV local is quite the pimp. Seriously, he’s a pimp. Girls for rent. Oral and Regular service.

What do you know? I have a blog. You’d think otherwise judging from the lack of posts. I’ve been busy lately though. Busy? Doing what you ask?

My internet time has been soaked up learning PHP and MySQL. Me and my pickle boss are working on a side project. We’re working on a foreign exchange market website. Basically, our website will provide currency traders predictive signals that indicate which direction a particular currency pair (Euro/Dollar, Dollar/Yen, etc.) will be moving during the next day’s trading. My boss is the math genius providing the calculations and formulas that determine these signals and I turn then into a pretty website and daily e-mail. We’re hoping to launch the website by July 4th. Stay tuned for further details.

In other news A. and I are taking a trip to Puerto Vallarta from 6/27 through 7/1. I visited Puerto Vallarta once when I was 12, but I’m sure things have changed in 23 years. If anyone out there has any Puerto Vallarta advice, let me know. Until then, I’ll continue learning Spanish through my iPod.

During the recent camping trip to Possum Kingdom Lake, a few nature and science questions arose. Two related and some of my own…unanswered. Perhaps you can help.

First,do fish sleep?

Second,do bugs sleep?

Third, my questions. Do cities downstream from another city’s water treatment plant end up drinking water that has been already processed? Then, does that city pass it’s water on to another city further downstream…processed even further?

The reason I ask these questions is that our boat rental guy said that the Possum Kingdom Lake area has only had fresh drinking water for 3 years. Previously they pumped water in from the lake, purified it, used it, then disposed of it. Did the wastewater end up returning to the river somehow, treated or not?

I know that wastewater treatment is a thorough process, but you can’t get every single microorganism. Could this lead to healthier mountain people and sicker coastal dwellers? I’ll leave you to answer these questions. Keep Houston in mind.