So I finally found a few spare hours between other projects to update the base6 design logo from the initial concepts that I touted a few weeks ago. The latest offering is:

This version has moved away from purely font-based and has been constructed from scratch using vectors. I frustratingly spent around 6 hours in PhotoShop trying to get the ‘S’ to look right before moving over to FireWorks which had it sussed in a couple of hours.

This is actually proving to be a really challenging and is probably one of the most thought out and all-consuming projects I have done for a long time. This is a massive difference from the the existing base6 branding which took just a couple of days.

The Process (its killing me!)

This design process has reminded me that doing design work with yourself as the client is awful. With only your own mind as a critic and source for feedback you can quickly go insane. [Read more…]

I’ve always said, I can design, but I’m no artist. So when it comes to illustration work of a certain caliber I call in Scott Jackson. Scott is a is a great artist – I first heard of him because of this excellent tutorial over at VectorTuts and promptly hired him to design the WPFixer Project mascot which I also ended up using as my own personal mascot on this site.

My WPFixer/mkjones mascot

WonderThemes Mascot Concepts

The process started a few months ago when Scott came up with some paper-based concepts based on my initial spec:

Initial mascot drawings from June 1st 2010

Right away I loved the concepts and rushed Scott to moved onto the colour/shading phase. I really didn’t throw in any extra guidance at this point as I trusted Scott’s judgment. In fact, the only colour theme I could come up with was “opposite of Superman please”.

After a week or so the full colour versions were ready:

Updated digital mascot from June 9st 2010

These versions we great. I loved the hard edge of the outline and the colours worked well. Rather than rushing into sending feedback I sat on these for a couple of weeks before requesting any changes.

Creative feedback

So, after 2 weeks of showing the mascot around, printing it out, inserting it into web mock-ups and general just sitting and looking at the image I decided on some final updates.

The first note was the facial expressions – the character just looked too happy for my liking. In my mind he was supposed to be saving the world from bad theme design, a thankless task by anyone’s measure, so I requested we loose the happy-go-lucky smiles and wide eyes and go for a look that was just a little more intense, like he meant business. I also wanted the eyes to have outlines to give them more definition.

By now I’d also discovered the colours were too a little too dark so I requested that the solid black outlines be replaced by a lighter grey and the whole thing ‘washed out’ a little bit to give it a cooler feel.

Basically, that was it – I was lucky because the initial concept was SO good I didn’t really need to give any detailed feedback.

And here it is, the final version…

Final 'WonderThemes' mascot - July 12th 2010

So, there you have it. From paper sketches to beautiful illustrations in 6 weeks and after only 3 drafts – the WonderThemes mascot was born.

His name? I’ve yet to come up with anything yet. Let me know if you can come up with anything 🙂