Gator Power Illustrative Logo

I've mentioned my friend Chandler before, and he recently hooked me up with some work for one of the suppliers he deals with at his day gig. IrriGators Supply out of McKinney, TX has seen a need in the commercial landscaping power equipment market, so they have created Gator Power Equipment as a division of their company.

They had already had some branding using an Alligator mascot for the older company. The previous artist has since passed away, so they needed to find someone who could keep the spirit of the former branding.

Previously, the Alligator was posed in a way that he made the "G" in "IrriGators", and this is part of the branding system they wanted to keep with the Gator Power visuals.

I did a few quickie pencil sketches and scanned them and emailed them to the client. They approved the basic concept pretty much immediately, but needed a few changes.

The main thing was that they needed the alligator to be riding on a commercial zero-turn mower rather than a traditional homeowner-style riding mower.

The previous branding used a lot of the Fajita Mild font... and if you know me well, you know I have some misgivings about using this font in places where it will ever appear less than about an inch tall. My main beef is the legibility is very poor when seen small or from far away. This mascot/logo image would be placed on everything from business cards to t-shirts to the 16-feet-long by 8-feet-high side panels of an enclosed trailer. Scalability and legibility are as important as ever here!

So naturally, I had to make some other suggestions, but my contact Scott suggested a second font that showed up in a lot of the old branding. Mistral is another font that I've always avoided for legibility issues. (It was also very cliché in the late 1980s -- I have referred to it as, "The Comic Sans of the late 1980s".) However, I found it stayed pretty legible in all-caps -- something highly unusual for a script font.

(As a side note, I would have preferred to do a hand-lettered version here, but timeframe and budget did not allow for that.)

So once we had the basics worked out, it was time to clean it up with vector work and color. Also, I needed to set up a more horizontal layout for certain instances. Most of the alligator and mower were built using Illustrator CS4's new Blob Brush and Eraser tools controlled by my almost-9-years-old Wacom Intuos 9x12 tablet.

It has been a real pleasure to work with Scott and IrriGators Supply/Gator Power, and it's looking like we'll be having some more visuals coming in the near future. Stay tuned!

Illustration Friday: Skinny

My first-ever Illustration Friday submission! The theme this week was, "skinny". This dude is so skinny he doesn't even need to open his umbrella!

Ancillary Creativity

It's been a few weeks since I've posted, and as I was listening to the latest podcast from Escape From Illustration Island earlier today, Thomas James put out the challenge to blog about other creative endeavors. (BTW, EFII is quickly becoming my favorite podcast.)

I know many working designers and illustrators are also musicians on some level. That's one talent God chose not to bless me with. I've tried playing guitar and bass in my college years, but it was very mechanical... sort of a musical equivalent of color-by-number. And I couldn't hit a correct vocal note no matter how hard I try. I love listening to music, but I just can't make it!

Some visual artists write poetry or prose to keep their creative juices flowing.

Others get into photography and perhaps even shoot weddings or something for a few extra weekend dollars.

You get the idea.

If you've been around me for more than a couple minutes, you know I'm into old cars in a pretty strong way. One thing I've been fascinated with is how much creativity goes into building a classic American hot rod or custom car.

I really started to notice it when I took a brief hiatus from working full-time as a commercial artist to work with my Dad at his hot rod shop. It was really amazing how I found myself using many of the same genre of problem-solving skills while working on all that old American iron.

On building the car, maybe I need a way to gusset that chassis crossmember and still leave room for a fuel line and exhaust. Maybe that fuse panel needs to be as out-of-sight as possible, yet not out-of-reach.

Then when we start into re-shaping the exterior sheet metal, things almost become sculpture. Much like graphic design needs to balance form with function, so does re-designing a car.

So yeah, building my 1952 Chevrolet Fleetline is a creative endeavor.It doesn't look like much now... but it's getting there.