Did you know that over a hundred tiny Praying Mantises spill out of one egg case when they hatch? It’s quite spectacular, and then you need to quickly release all but one or two into the wild. These little guys are carnivorous and very hungry. If you don’t give all of them all plenty to eat, they’ll feast on each other. Hey, a little sibling rivalry never hurt anyone, right?
The Praying Mantis Pagoda, obvious by its name, was to have an oriental flair. So I used a Buddhist temple, or tower, as inspiration for the logo, and created a custom font.
The Japanese writing on the base of the logo says “Praying Mantis Pagoda” repeatedly… how original.
At the same time I was working on the packaging, I was to create the look of the product itself. This needed to be done quickly so that it could be manufactured while I worked on everything else. I designed the base of the habitat, the pattern for the frame, and a little oriental lantern that would hang in the center of the habitat to hold the egg case while waiting for it to hatch.
I then had to create the illustrations for the Pagoda instructions.
Put it all together with a cute kid photo shot, some illustrated mantises, the essential legal mumbo-jumbo, and you’ve got yourself a bona fide product with packaging that fits well with the Insect Lore look.
Insect Lore’s UK division is able to sell living walking sticks while it’s illegal to sell them in the US. The reason being that walking sticks are a common pest. Strange, since the US division can sell mealworms/darkling beetles with no restrictions. Ok, this is totally beside the point… the point being I was given the challenge of updating their antiquated logo and packaging.
Aging Living Twig packaging
Ack! Those walking stick characters look like poo with legs. The challenge here was to align it with our unified Insect Lore look, and make it friendly for 10 languages. This looks like a job for illustration!
First off, I created illustrations to show how the kit worked, independent of any copy:
Next came the logo.
Sometimes I get on a kick and create the whole logo with textures and all, and realize that I’ve been going the wrong way the whole time. Although this logo has some punch, other than reading “Living Twig”, it says nothing. Back to the drawing board.
Ok, this idea had some merit. It was approved by the powers-that-be, so I finished it up:
As you can see, I stayed pretty true to the hand drawn look of the lettering, but modified the leaf “shield” behind to help it sit on any colored background and look good.
The children on the front are from two separate photos, and we didn’t have a shot of a habitat with walking sticks crawling around in it, so that took a bit of photoshopping to get what we needed. I added the obligatory choking hazard label, odds and ends, a little fizz, and there you have it, a fresh updated look to a very cool live insect kit!
Not available in the US, but you can get it in the UK here.
My 8 year old daughter has just created an organization for the benefit of the brain. No, not the lab rat… OUR brains. Won’t you join her and back up a cause that we all could benefit from? Heaven knows we all need more brain.
Musical Birds came from a sketch I did a while ago that I felt had some merit to complete. It doubles as a Mother’s Day gift for my mom, being a bird collector. I know I’m a little late, but I think she’ll enjoy it nonetheless.
This is a newer technique for me, more of a loose and playful look, and I’m rather enjoying it. I make myself use a larger brush than will fit in smaller areas so that I don’t get so tied up with the details. It’s much quicker for me too!
Bugs are cute. It’s true! Look at ‘em through a cute magnifying glass and they’re ultra cute! Ok, maybe not, but cute magnifying glasses are cute. That’s true. So started my journey to design a magnifying glass, logo, and packaging that would appeal to young children. Being an Insect Lore product, of course it had to feature an endearing bug character. The name “Bugifiers” was chosen, and I went to work.
I went back and forth designing the logo and the actual magnifying glass, which turned out to be the best way for me to brainstorm this product. I’ll explain why.
First, I sketched up some fun logo ideas, incorporating the glass of the magnifier. Here’s one of the ideas I came up with:
Fine and dandy, but it didn’t resonate with me. Nothing here drew me in. No reason to buy this magnifier over any other one on the market. It was a bit illegible as well for a product logo and was spelled wrong. I then moved over to sketching up product ideas.
When you look at someone that is looking through a magnifier, their eye get huge. That’s funny! How could I incorporate a bug and a big eye in the product design? Maybe have the bug looking back at the kid, and have one eye really big? Here’s what I came up with:
They loved the idea. So I moved back to the logo brainstorming. Now, I had an intriguing element to add to the logo to give it some charm.
I moved to Adobe Illustrator at this point to create the custom font and logo. I played around with the look further there.
And the final logo here with the customary Insect Lore background:
Prototypes of the actual Bugifiers came back, and I made some revisions to them with additional sketches. Chinese manufacturers are very literal, so the more detail given about your expectations, the better.
Changes were made, and then I moved on to the packaging designs. We added a hole into the package card so that they could be picked up, and tried out before the purchase. Here you’ll see the actual Bugifiers, and then in their cards.
This whole creation process is a thrill for me. I love seeing a project from an idea all the way to production. Changes of direction have to made all the time through this process. Anything from production limitations and costs, to making it fit on the retailers’ shelves come into play. But it’s all worth it in the end.
During the LDS General Conference yesterday, I kept myself alert by trying my hand at caricatures of the speakers. I’m not proclaiming myself a caricaturist by any stretch of the imagination, but I’ve always wanted to be good at it, for no other reason than to be a fun party guest.
Anyhow, here’s what I came up with. Try and guess who these people are (hint: all from the Sunday sessions), and the first person to guess correctly wins 100 points (redeemable by email)! If no one guesses correctly, then I need to keep practicing.
For this holiday season I dug up an old flash animation I created (in 2002) to wish you a very merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Thank you all for your support and friendship!
My 7 year old daughter is following after me with the love of art. Not only does she draw quite well for her age, she has a sense of humor to beat all. What’s really fun is to see when she gets in this humorous mode, and she just pumps out the work like there’s no tomorrow. She doesn’t care that the final piece is her finest, she just has to get her ideas out. Many times the spontaneous scribble is much more enjoyable to see than a well-drafted masterpiece because it’s a glimpse into her twisted personality. See below:
Santa Hit By a Snowball
I love the surprised look of Santa’s eyes just after being pelted by a snowball to the face.
Santa Crash
Here you can see that Santa really biffed it in a powdery mess. Only his hat and legs flailing recklessly in the air are visible after falling out of his sleigh, apparently from several hundred feet in the sky.
Santa's Fed Up
Most likely after too many falls from his sled, Santa decides to take a safer route and buy a car. Poor Vixon.
And lastly, I let the kids have full reign of an old digital camera of mine. Not only does this appease their desire to use my brand new digital camera, but we unintentionally get some wonderful shots from their point of view. I particularly loved this one, taken by the same daughter spoken of above.
It’s that time of year when I make changes to my site again. I just can’t leave well enough alone, but this is my playground, so it’ll never be the same two years in a row. I just can’t have that.
Things are still in the construction mode, so please excuse a little mess here and there.
On my wife’s birthday, my daughter (on the far right) started singing “Happy Birthday” with her belly button… the other kids wanted to get in on the fun, and this is what came up.
Any dentist that uses needles, drills, picks, cold water, abrasives, scissors, floss, anything with high pitch sounds or tastes bad is still in the dark ages as far as I’m concerned. Brushed ink lines and watercolor wash.
I don’t know anyone who doesn’t love drawing monsters. They can be ugly, cute, scary, cuddley… I’m guilty of the same. Here’s a fun ink wash study of a cuddley cute one, but that’s subjective.
Perhaps instinct drew them together to bathe in this one particular puddle. Either that or I did.
Brushed ink lines and watercolor wash.
