Merry Christmas

Today is my last day before the Christmas break. I'm off to the osteopath in a bit, so hopefully that and a few days rest will put me in fighting form for next Monday (Monday and Tuesday next week are bank holidays but that doesn't mean anything to the self employed).

I've been working on the website for the last couple of days. It's all been sent off to the web developer to be built and should be ready to launch with product in the shop at the end of January.

I specialised in design for print at university and get asked every now and again if I can build a website. My brain can't handle the coding side of web design and if you want a really fast and functional website it's best to have a professional build it and a designer put the look together.

Even my business advisor couldn't understand why as a designer I was getting someone else to build it for me when I could just use a template. I don't think he has particularly high standards or understands how fussy I am!

I'm picking t-shirt colours and styles tonight so I can send off for samples. Once I receive the samples I'll be using my new pantone book to pick the print colours for the t-shirts (hopefully the pantone book won't get lost in the Christmas post madness; my brother's a postman and you really don't want to know how messed up the Royal Mail is).

On that note: Merry Christmas

Nearly there

My back is on the mend and the cold I got just as it was getting better has cleared up. After all the set backs I'm now about 1 month behind the schedule I'd set. Which isn't the end of the world but paying the rent has to come first so some form of part-time work is a must.

In more exciting news: all three artist designs are in and can be seen below. The decision whether to have a logo t-shirt now has to made along with colour choices. I'll be sending off for samples of the blank t-shirts next week so I can work out final artwork sizes and colours. I managed to get hold of a pantone book on ebay so the colours can be picked and specified more accurately.

The final design is by Keaton Henson check out his website

Logo

It's finished, stickers have been ordered and I've picked three colours but these aren't final yet. I really need some pantone books so every time I send something to print I know it will come back the right colour.

Pantone is a colour matching system that uses a set of individual inks so you can pick an exact colour. Normal full-colour printing uses Cyan Magenta Yellow Key (Black) which can't produce certain colours and doesn't print lovely and flat.

I'm happy with the way the logo has turned out; all of the influences I drew upon seem to have subconsciously slipped in and I can imagine it sitting happily on the front of a Foden FG eight wheeler from the 1950's or a Soundcity guitar amp from the 60's.

I'm dosed up on painkillers and have the cat sitting on my shoulders to make sure I keep working (don't worry, I'm not hallucinating, she is actually sitting on my shoulders).