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Scrubs Indigo is a new comer to the market of making scrubs. They are offering more, so much more, for your dollar. I love start up companies cause I can really get my branding brain going. Unlike its competitors we wanted to convey a lot in a few simple lines and curves. A logo is basically lines and curves put together to tell someone who you are.
Design:
The color choice was obvious since indigo is a nice shade of blue but how do we get some congruency to help communicate the companies’ personality. A company is like a person and is perceived by the public as such so we need to start them off on the right foot. I wanted something soothing and friendly. So nice smooth font was needed as a starting base and as I worked my sketchbook I wondered how indigo was made. Since this new material they are using is environmentally friendly I hoped it was not made for the whiskers of your common house cat.
What is Indigo:
Well as it turns out the color indigo is made from a several plants in the genus Indigofera. Some people may have thought that I just through some leaves on a word and called it a day but that’s just not me. I went and researched what this plant looked like and even though it has green leaves just like many other plants, photosynthesis and all, I used the color and combined it with the leaves of the plant to come up with this wonderful logo.

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Clean Clean Clean:
So we needed the logo to be clean. I mean who uses scrubs? Hospitals and other such facilities and they want their scrubs to be clean. So I used a lot of white in the logo to offer familiarity to the clients these people will be marketing to.
Competition:
After researching some of the competitor’s logos I was amazed at how far off they were from a real branding idea. The logos were powerful, forceful and almost scary. Not something that went well with the product. They where also complex and difficult to screen on the products leaving me to surmise that this company is going to fair well with this little piece of work I did for them. Placing this logo against its competitors made you want to run screaming from the mean ole competitor logo to this loving warm piece of work.
Its just a logo:
Yes its just the piece of art that will forever be associated with your company. It is just something you are going to hopefully not feel “stuck with” years down the line. It is just your first impression and your company name. It is really the door opener and the deal sealer. And yes it is just a logo.
Micrologo:
These are becoming more and more popular due to the web 2.0 market. You see the web 2.0 market had a limited amount of space to brand with and could not show the entire logo in the area allowed. Because of this we have scene the emergence of the micrologo. While it may not seem pertinent to need one for companies that are not primarily on the web people respond to their environment and their perceptions change when their daily habits change. If you want to stay in the game you have to appear to be up with the times and a micrologo can do this for your company.

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Addictive Answers is another logo I created for a possible future start up. Note that is also targeted at the recovery community so the use of AA in the logo just made it all the more marketable. The idea was a place for people to offer advice and answer questions in regards to recovery oriented questions.
Design:
This is a base one color design easily styled in Photoshop for the web. The use of the word bubble instead of a traditional boxed frame adds an element of playfulness to the artwork while the blue gradient is soothing to the eye. The font selection was to add an element of structure to the design offering the idea that the information found here can be trusted.

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Unity
The above is a little example of my drawing skill… or lack there of. Heh. If you were in recovery you get it if not then don’t worry about it it doesn’t affect you. Remember my shirts are not supposed to be cynical but instead a little tongue in cheek or perhaps even dark humor. The point was to present something they had not scene done before.

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Stop Looking
I love this shirt because it implied that sex is not spiritual, something I firmly do not agree with, but it also speaks to objectification in every day media of which I am still on the fence. But all in all it is just funny and I liked it… this one did fairly well in the shop.

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STO
The company was Sicker Thann Others and I have always wanted one of those loud ass muscle cars that you can just feel hum in your chest. Well after giving it some thought and even though the GTO is my second favorite, only bowing to fords Mach1 (sorry my dad was ford guy), it did have something I needed. I needed a reason to put it on a shirt. Well look close at the emblem on the front of the car… hehe.

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Somewhere
This was done after I did a very successful movie called Somewhere. I did it in flash and for sometime it was all over the web. I did find it funny that many people on Myspace who disagreed with my podcast and thought I was the most evil thing that ever came down the pike had this little movie on their page… rofl

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Recycle
In the rooms I have often heard people use the following saying and pardon my French but “He is such a piece of sh*t.” Or “I am such a piece of sh*t”. This got me to thinking about excrement and how we viewed this stuff. Then I was lead to how the universe sees it… nature… it is rich in good stuff that plants and bugs need… these bugs and plants feed the things we eat… unless ofcourse we are eating the plants and bugs themselves. With out this part of the process we would have nothing to eat. Nature wastes nothing. Everything has value to something. Its awesome! Humans are the only creatures that create things that have no value… and we do it to people to… we create people with such low self esteem that they feel they are of no value… and of course they are, nature is pretty clear on that point…
So in recovery we take something that seems to have no value and make it valuable… people.

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Guns
Ok they where just cool not to mention the relationship between guns and defects… they are both used as a means of self-defense. And in a perfect world neither would be needed. This also did fairly well in the shop.

Conclusion:
It should be noted that these are all vector based objects that are easy to screen and print. I learned a lot about the silk screening process in doing this project.
It was loads of fun!

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Attack Ant was a development company I started and did a few projects under. The idea was to offer solutions from simple websites to large social networks and everything in between. The company was founded by myself and a developer that I had worked on several successful projects with. We accepted projects for most of 2008 until he went to work for a software development company and I returned to Busted Designs as my primary source for freelance work.
The company was to be edgy and geekish hence the name and the logo. The logo was a simple vector based objected styled in photoshop to give it the techish feel. I felt that it was important to make sure the logo was visible with limited colors and this one worked well as it was highly recognizable with even one color usage.
I like clean creative design and this is one of my favorites.

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Junfo was a startup search engine mashup technology. It was designed to scrape other resources and return the results in a way that made sense. First off we needed a logo and we wanted something that said global returns but at the same time avoided looking to techy.  Technology is very scary for the end-user and the interface was to be so intuitive that the technology would be transparent; also the key markers of the brand were friendly, useful and comprehensive.
Design:
As said previously we wanted something nice and warm to be the first image the user was met with. This concept is similar the a smiling face of a greater at stores such as Walmart. The purpose of this person is to initially make people feel comfortable and at home in a foreign environment. Just like stores like Walmart they can seem daunting at first and to have a friendly face is on a subconscious level very helpful.
Junfo faced the same issue because it was new and did things a little different. It also involved searching the internet and returning a large number of results in many sections that would be extremely scary to a new user.
I used the concept of home (earth) and southing blues and pleasant greens and browns to convey this message a nice friendly brand.  Also a playful font that talked about web searching as an artform made people want to get creative and learn the interface to personalize their experience.
Conclusion:
The site brand was well received by the other founders but unfortunately due to the nature of the economy at the time it was very difficult to acquire start up funding and the site never went into full production.

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Treatment Pathways was a message board for members who where undergoing the Prometa treatment program. Although I did not fully agree with the marketing strategy, and subsequently was proven right by a complete lack of traffic, I was contracted to design its logo. Most importantly I wanted something that was warm and hopeful.
The Design:
The color orange has been proven to be most effective when you want to convey warmth and friendliness. There are many articles written on the color orange and it is one of the main reason why you see its heavy use in the web 2.0 arena. Now remember that I designed this logo long before there was research to back it up. A good designer may not be able to fully explain why something works or prove that it works but they simply know that it does.
This is often referred to as talent. Talent is something that people who have it just naturally know why it works. This skill cannot be learned it is either there or it is not and this very fact is a good reason why a decent portfolio says much more about a designer then his or her degree.
Also the gradient and rays from the upper right hand corner remind us of sunshine and light descending from above. This is naturally pleasing to us as we are taught from childhood that a sunny day is good and a rainy day is depressing or sedating. Obviously this is not true it is just learned perception but it is what it is and a good designer knows the psychology of its audience. Also since this is a web logo and would never be used for print design I allowed myself to utilize more colors then I generally would , however I made a point to defined a primitive in the center of the logo that is easily associated with the logo should things change.

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Bridge City Investments wanted a logo that conveyed power and structure about their investment company. I was on contracted to design a logo for them that would achieve this goal. I submitted this logo due to its concept of a bridge with girders that represented structure as well as power. The girders not only hold the logo together but they also distribute a tremendous amount of force in supporting the weight of the bridge.
I also enjoyed the perspective of the bridge in that it seemed to be moving into the future giving the feeling of a progressive company while the city backdrop gave it more of an industry flare.
The logo is much more complex then many I have done but I did stay in the two-color motif. In my mind two colors is the maximum that any logo should consist of in its base form. The client was very pleased with the final outcome and impressed with my thought process behind designing for their company as if it was my own. Another reason why entrepreneurs make the best brand consultants.

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Sicker Thann Others LLC was one of the companies I founded in 2007. Its main focus was to create websites and merchandise for the recovery community.  At the time and still today this market is not targeted well and is riddled with poorly designed content and none functioning sites.
This was not only a brilliant marketing strategy but more a labor of love as I have personally been an active member since 1995. In my opinion no other community is in need of a centralized web presence as the recovery community.
Substance abuse is a billion dollar industry with very little value being offered.  There still is no effective way to communicate on the web with others in recovery. There is no way to find accurate reviews of treatment possibilities and many companies in the industry are so riddled with competition and ego that there is very little unity for a problem that takes 100,000’s of lives a year.
I decided on the Sicker Thann Others name because of the saying “some are sicker thann others” often used to reference others with which we have issues with. I felt that this was a great way to bring the focus back to where it belongs… On us.

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Design:
The design was to be in contrast to what we generally associate with recovery. Visions of rainbows and unicorns although pleasant have caused new members to find this whole thing rather silly.  I was determined to challenge the rules and push the boundaries in an effort to reach the new comer. Although some people with time and industry leaders were not to pleased with my political incorrectness and edge designs I knew that the new people coming in to our community could more readily relate to this type of mentality.
The business card design needed to convey the attitude of the company as well as provide branding for what it is we do.
RDP:
Recovery Directory Project was a site dedicated to allowing people to list and review websites and treatment centers. The site had some initial success and my attitude of “censor no one” was eventually appreciated. I believed that only through a fair and complete representation of the online community would allow people to feel respected enough to listen. The site even offered links to articles and resources that spoke negatively about 12 step fellowships and the generally accepted recovery model.
The only reason this site was shut down was due to the evils of spammers. The site just did not have enough protection against people who would like nothing better then to cover the site with links to Viagra and Google adwords spam campaigns.
Another wonderful resource that fell to the greed of a few individuals, this and many other issues with spammers interfering with people trying to create something good and helpful on the internet has lead me to have a severe distaste for this form of marketing.
12 Step Space:
A social networking site for members of the recovery community that offered blogs, profiles, chat, IM and much more. This site had 16,000 members in its prime and was a key part of the entire network of sites we developed.
For more information please visit the article on 12ss.
Anonymous Space:
This site was an image sharing community that the bulk of our traffic was funneled through. It was hands down the most successful site we launched with a total of over 20 million page views during its life span. In the end it was receiving between 100,000 and 250,000 views a day.
For information about Anonymous Space click here.
For information about Anonymous Space Marketing and traffic click here.
Sicker Store:
This was our t-shirt shop that sold many different designs to countries all over the world. The design concepts and graphics where all done by me.
For more information about my shirts click here.

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Well what happened:
Three of the sites where purchased by a company called Hythiam based in LA. They used the sites to market their treatment protocol but after their CEO tanked on 60 minutes the companies stock plummeted and the effectiveness of their marketing director was limited. He pushed forward for another year and the sites potential was never truly capitalized on. Finally in 2009 the marketing director was replaced and the sites shut down due to financial concerns that the company was going bankrupt. Today Hythiam still limps along with its stock price being well under 50 cents a share. It is highly unlikely that it will ever recover.
The t-shirt shop was sold to two of my business partners when they refused to market the shirts until me and the developer sold our ownership over the designs and websites. Left with no real options and with little money being better then none I sold my shares to them as did the developer that helped create the sites. Fortunately their business sense is as bad as their scruples and the site finally crumbled into nothing and the shirts went unsold.
Conclussion:
All in all I loved working on this project. I learned a lot about web design and marketing. I sold shirts with my designs on them all over the world and met lots of interesting people. The greatest benefit of the sites was for me discover that money is not the only payoff that has value. Even today I receive correspondents letting me know that my efforts helped to save someone’s life.