As you may see, it’s still in monochrome. It’s a common practice of mine to design logos in black and white first since effective logos need to be effective even when there are no colors present. I wanted the badge style for a logo since it was one of the more timeless logo styles that I’ve come across. It’s retro look doesn’t fail to please. Plus the badge gives the logo credibility and authenticity.

Moving on, after I finished the design in Illustrator, I had to add the next step– color. As you may all know, I go crazy with color! I like all my stuff in different colors, going crazy with every hue. This time, for the logo I wanted to tone down with that a bit. But still playing around with different hues and schemes. So I decided on sticking with a close color scheme that has different hues

I chose this color scheme (green, orange and brown) since I wanted it to be as colorful as possible without being hurtful to the eyes. I inspired nature from this scheme, and it’s very reminiscent of golf courses. The greens of the grass, and the browns of the earth, and the oranges of the sun. I wanted to tone down the whole scheme and make everything coherent so there is the outcome!

Finally, after putting in the color, I just had to tweak some things a bit. So I exported the file as PSD and opened it in Photoshop, and tweaked it a bit.

I put a bit of subtle patterns into the whole look to make it pop more. I also added subtle drop shadows to the whole look of the logo to add dimension to it.

So there! What do you think of my new logo? Is it a complete rebrand of my old identity? Does the logo still represent me? What do you like/dislike about the logo? Comment now and let me know!

So I’ve finally made another freebie for my blog as a reward for patiently reading through my blog and waiting for posts while I have been long gone.

The next freebie that I’ll be giving out is a letterpress effect PSD file! The infamous letterpress effect is used mainly in web design is highly famous and common among it. I also made various colors for it in red, green, blue and gray.

Hope you enjoy this freebie of mine! And thank you for continuing to support and reading through my blog!

Download PSD file here

Finally, the time hascome. Now that school’s over, I’m going to archive my school files to DVDs to free up some space in my computer HD. I’ve been watching works that I did since first year college and it was such a bittersweet moment, so much memories in each activity and project- no matter how big or small it was.

I still remembered classes in the DLS-CSB main campus when the SDA building wasn’t finished yet. We already delved into video production and editing since first year since our teachers thought since we we’re MMA students, we should be knowledgeable (And to think that we we’rent even taught about those yet in first year).

So yes, burning these files into the DVD finally makes me realize that school is over– for real. I’ll sure miss the memories of college and all the stress, hardships and trials that I’ve endured to become the person that I am today. :’)

Random: The final size of my school files are 26.05 GB. Goodluck to me burning them all in DVDs )

It’s such a nice TV show for me since first of all, I love supernatural-related TV shows! So I was totally in love with this new show. If you haven’t seen it yet, here’s a sneak preview of the TV show from Youtube!

And on a sidenote, one of my ultimate crushes, Tim Phillips (who plays Prince Thomas in Once Upon A Time, is going to star in The Secret Circle! Here’s a picture

Isn’t he adorbz? Wait till you see hear his accent, for sure you’ll fall in love more!

So I started with the craving that I’ve been having for the longest time– Japanese ramen. There’s this Japanese ramen place near my place called Atsu Atsu and that have this ramen–all-you-can promo foronly 200PHP and I decided to get a bite of authentic Japanese ramen!

Tonkotsu Ramen from Atsu Atsu!

After getting really full with the ramen that my stomach can muster, I rested for a bit and suddenly craved again for milk tea. I brought some of my books since I decided to stay somewhere and just chill out for tonight. I texted some friends to go with me with my food craving adventures and only Theo replied. So we agreed to meet at Gong Cha to get our daily dose of wintermelon milk tea.

Gong Cha Wintermelon Milk Tea!

After getting our milk tea, we wanted to stay somewhere to just relax and stay somewhe quiet since Gong Cha is really noisy and we didn’t want to stay there. We decided to head to Green Coffee to read books and just surf the Internet. While we were at it, I had their lovely and yummy Blueberry Ensaymada which I love so much.

So currently, I’m writing this blog post here at Green Coffee, and that wraps up my food journey for today… or not! We are decidng to go to Jollibee to eat again. Yeah I know I eat a lot. I can’t help it! Eating is fun and therapeutic!

For logo design studies, I made two:

I’m still indecisive as to what to use, but for sure I’m using the retro badge approach to it.

Which do you think is better? Comment now and help me decide!

Here’s my old identity, to be honest, I’ve kinda outgrown this identity.

I honestly am not totally satisfied with the logo that I made since it’s really rushed. Just plain text over a rounded square makes it so amateurish looking. I’ve been creating sketches and studies for my new identity and I think it’s going great!

I’ve been creating new ones so stay tuned here in my blog since I’ll be posting updates on my rebranding escapades! Do you think I should use “Technodium” or “Paul Sherwin” as my identity? Comment now and share your insights!

Now that I’m finally done with college, I’ve been meaning to do things which I haven’t done while I had classes. Learning how to drive, remodeling my room, redesigning my portfolio site, going back again to the gym, etc. It’s been quite hectic since I also have graduation stuff to take care of after school. Now, I also have a lot more time to blog about things and design, and most probably, games.

My brother lent me his XBox 360 and I’ve been playing all day long as a result of my college being over. I’ve been playing the new Street Fighter X Tekken and maybe I could blog about it one time. I just don’t know what about it that I could blog about, though. To tell you the truth one thing that’s been keeping me from blogging is that I can’t think of topics that I could blog about. Maybe now that I have a lot more time, I can think of some things that I could blog for readers like you could be interested in!

It was my second time to go out of the county with friends (First was the Singapore trip I had with my college friends for CG Overdrive last 2009) and it’s been equally awesome and fun even for the second time. The trip was fun, spontaneous, (in terms of the things we were going to do  for each day) and tiring (in a good way). We visited Disneyland, shopped a lot, and also ate a lot. Hong Kong food is one of my favorites so far. I end up getting fat when I get home from a trip from Hong Kong because of the yummy food they have there.

One thing I dislike about Hong Kong though is their service towards other people. People there are easily irritated and doesn’t really give good customer service compared to people here in Manila. Although their food is outstanding, the weather is nice, and the people there are clean! Another thing I also dislike about it there is that everything is much more expensive.

As a habit I do when I go abroad, I hoard design books and magazines. For this trip, I bought some books which were really useful! Me and Jean went to Basheer Graphic Books at Causeway Bay to shop for art and design books and these were what I got! It was too bad that we were rushing and we had to go soon since our flight was on that same day and we were on panic buying state already. Someday when I get back I’ll make sure to take my time there… again.

The usual Computer Arts magazine

IdN Magazines (one back issue which I got for only 40HKD, ~240PHP)

The most useful I got!

I got this thick magazine for only 55HKD (~330PHP)! and it's a current issue!

There! The best I got, the Creative Workshop features 80 challenges in the book that you could do to sharpen your designing skills and help you become a well-rounded designer.

If you’re a designer and going to Hong Kong, I recommend you passing by at Basheer! They have shops in Singapore, and Hong Kong! They sell primarily art, architecture and design books for designers! And don’t forget to bring your student ID! They offer 10% off to students when you present your student ID card!

Here’s their address and contact info:

Hong Kong:
BASHEER DESIGN BOOKS (HK) LTD,
1/F, Flat A, Island Building,
439-441, Hennesy Road,
Causway Bay
Hong Kong
Tel: (852) 21267533
Fax 852) 21267535
Email: basheer@netvigator.com
Website: http://www.basheergraphic.com

When you reach Causeway Bay station, go out of exit B, and turn right. Cross the road and before you reach the fire station you’ll see it.

I’ve redesigned the whole website I currently have since I didn’t like the old one I did. The old design looks like this

First of all, I don’t like the whole look and color scheme of the design. I think I’ve already outgrown this style of design which consists of a lot of colors. So I had to create a new design for the site which tones down the whole candy feel and the messy colors.

I started off creating a mind map of the concept about dogs in my Android tablet to be able to sort out my ideas about dogs and how dog owners see their dogs, to be able to create a relevant design for the site users, and it looked like this

So I’ve finally sorted out the thoughts I need for the design to reflect on to create a design that would relate to the target users, I now search my color scheme and some pegs I like to use.

This scheme is from Colorlovers! Visit it to like the author of the scheme!

I chose this particular color scheme because it fits the description of using earth tones, bright and it also gives the cheerful vibe while giving the earthly tone and vibe for the template.

Now that I have all the elements for my design, I’ve finally did the logo design. I decided to aim for a retro-ish style for the site to make it less intimidating for the users.

I used the badge element for the logo to make it reliable but at the same time not intimidating. The bone element and dog silhouette makes it more dog-related.

After creating the design for the logo, I’ve started to create the whole look of the website.

click image to enlarge

Used light textures for the site’s whole look to create an engaging site design for the users. Stuck to the color scheme I have and created the design. The header navigation background sports a light wood texture look to emulate real wood and contribute to the whole earthy feel of the website. The website will be programmed in Drupal. Watch out for my other blog soon this time for the marketing collaterals that I’m going to make for The Poochie Place.

A lot of people have been saying that the later design is a much better one compared to the old one since the newer one has a more serious tone than the old one. What do you think?