Jackie Hurd 11/1/14 Jackie Hurd 11/1/14

Feeling Imaginative

When I was a kid I was always day dreaming. My imagination was so alive it was almost uncontrollable, especially in 4th grade math class where I missed out on foundational math because I was too busy drawing happy troll looking characters on my desk and giving them haircuts with an eraser or escaping to the away dreamlands that would spill onto my paper.

I added color using watercolor pencils and a wet brush.

This morning I woke up early like I always do to get right to work, I feel like I'm most creative as soon as I get out of bed, before the sun comes up, but to my disappointment, there was an internet outage and the project I was hoping to work on was a website. It was cold and rainy outside. I missed out on the perfect morning to sleep in. For a minute I almost allowed myself to get upset about outside forces interfering with my productivity but then I realized this was the perfect opportunity to do something I've been trying to find the time to do all week; draw something for myself, for fun. So I drew a tree house and as I drew it, I was suddenly back in fourth grade, escaping to a fun far away place where it wasn't rainy or cold.

Jackie Hurd 10/25/14 Jackie Hurd 10/25/14

Loochfest Logo

My little brother, Cory, called me a few months ago and said "Jack, I need you to design a kick-ass logo for Loochfest, I want it to incorporate a pig and a guitar." And that was it, that was his vision.

The beginning, Loochfest logo in my sketchbook

Re-creating my sketch in Adobe Illustrator with the pen tool. That old school color theme up in the corner is the one I went with for a color pallet.

My little brother, Cory called me a few months ago and said "Jack, I need you to design a kick-ass logo for Loochfest, I want it to incorporate a pig and a guitar." And that was it, that was his vision. Last year Loochfest was a small gathering of family and friends out at my bonus dad's* house so I didn't take it very seriously plus I had real work to do. I put it off and put it off and finally (because when I procrastinate it eats at my soul) I called Cory and asked why it was such a big deal this year. We had a good conversation about his intentions for the event. Apparently, he wanted it to grow from a 20-30 person family gathering to a 300+ person charitable music festival. He wanted to charge for tickets so he could donate the money to a local organization that would benefit veterans. He felt like having a solid logo would make the event seem more legit. After our conversation his need for a logo made more sense. I asked my kids if they had any ideas and they immediately came up with a "piguitar". With that I was instantly inspired. Moments later the piguitar was born in my sketchbook. It was pretty rough at first. Once I took it into adobe illustrator and cleaned it up it started to shine. I ran into a little bit of a creative block when it came to the font. Nothing was working. The piguitar needed a handrawn playful font but nothing too decorative or whimsical. I finally found a great font on Behance called Chomp. The font was created by William Suckling of Camberwell, United Kingdom. It was exactly what I needed and with a few adjustments it completed the design. For the colors I went to my favorite source of inspiration, Adobe Kuler and tried out a few different color themes, finally settling on a combination of vintage colors that worked out perfectly. I finished up the logo and Cory was impressed, I think I exceeded his expectations. I'm sure he'll be a return client, especially because he gets design services at the family rate.

The day of the event rolled around last week. When I arrived with my family there was quite a crowd! There was a stage set up with sponsor banners, a multiple band line up featuring reputable bands from all over North Carolina, to include Cory's own bands. Awesomely delicious pork bbq was being served up around the clock with a spread of beans, coleslaw and a few other backwoods selections.

I'm looking forward to next year's event! Apparently my little brother knows how to throw a party.
And now that we've got the logo down, it's time to come up with some Loochfest swag!

I can't forget to mention, all proceeds from this event went to the Randolph County Chapters AMVETS Post 905 & The VFW.

Here are a few not so great photos I snapped with my iPhone. I didn't have my camera with me. My husband wanted me to "relax" and enjoy the event. Attending Loochfest without my camera made me realize that it's really hard to enjoy an event when I'm not behind a camera!

*I should probably define bonus dad because it's going to come up quite a bit in my blog posts. Here's a quick back story.. Jim is my mom's ex husband. However, they were married for my entire childhood, he raised me. At the same time my dad has also always been in the picture and we've always had a strong bond, I love him. I love them both... I have two dads. My dad Dan, and my bonus dad Jim.

Jackie Hurd 10/25/14 Jackie Hurd 10/25/14

Dia De Los Muertos style logo

I designed this logo a few months ago for the Dia De Los Muertos 24 Hour Endurance Challenge. The inspiration of course came from the classic sugar skulls that usually surface everywhere around Halloween. They have become quite trendy here in the U.S. but digging into their origins, the sugar skull actually has a very unique history. They first surfaced in 17th century Mexico when Italian missionaries brought the art of sugar molds to the country. Sugar skulls are exactly what the name is, skulls made from sugar created out of clay molds. These hand-crafted skulls come from a cultural holiday celebrated in Mexico with Aztec origins, Dia De Los Muertos, or Day of the Dead. The holiday is one that commemorates and celebrates the deceased. The skulls are created to represent departed souls, with their names on the foreheads. They are elaborately decorated with happy designs and bright colors.

As with everything, I started my process for this design on paper. I printed out a basic skull and traced the form. I filled it in with different flowers, swirls, and whatever random elements flowed through my pencil and onto my paper. I then traced over everything with a Pigma Micron pen. I do this so for two reasons, one is that I can get a better idea of how the final product will look and the second is when I bring the design into Adobe Illustrator and vectorize it, all the lines can be found by the software. For simple logo concepts this process usually works well and provides a good foundation for the next step but with this one I wasn’t satisfied with the conversion so I ended up tracing over almost all of the elements once they were vectorized and recreating them with the pen tool. To save on time and maintain consistency throughout the design, I also created a few custom brushes for this project. Once I had everything created on the right side, I copied and flipped the elements over to the left side so that everything would be symmetrical.

The beginning. Tracing over my pencil drawing with a pen.

The final result was exactly what I had envisioned, I'm really happy with how it turned out. Another local artist that I frequently collaborate with for detailed woodwork and other engraving products, Lawrence (Itslaser engraving), used the logo to create these awesome candle holders that will be used as finisher’s prizes for the race. He engraved the artwork onto the glass. Turned out awesome!