The first half of today was just some more busy work, but after lunch was really cool because we got to talk more with Rich, one the artistic directors at French West Vaughn. He started off by showing us a project he was working on for Pendleton Whiskey. He had been tasked with coming up with ideas for bottle designs for a new campaign Pendelton was doing, so he showed us some of the ornate, rustic looking bottle decals and images he had drawn up on his computer. What was really impressive was that he said that that morning he was worried because he had no ideas down and now, midway through the day, he had created two different design options that both looked incredible. Rich was definitely really good at what he did and was also just a really cool guy to talk to. After showing us the bottle designs he took us out of his office and showed us many other examples of logos and other designs he had made. He showed us how he made the Runmoji app logo for Fleet Fleet, a charity bike race logo, and even some of his own little emojis that he had designed for himself. All of the finished designs he had were super impressive, but what was even more interesting was that he also showed us all of the alternate variations and scrapped ideas that led up to the finished product. Like for Runmoji, Rich told us that Fleet Feet’s own creative department had already created a logo, but when he saw it, he told them that it wouldn’t do and that he could make a much better one, so he created his own, and they adopted it. Seeing how a logo or other graphic design could change and evolve according to the client’s and designer’s preferences was really cool, and getting an insider’s input on how they felt about a client’s choices was very interesting as well.
