A NEW ID

As some of you have been noticing, I've finally gotten a refresh of my logo and identity system.

After some 12 odd years of being a stridently insistent DIY'er (á la OCD'er) I had grown increasingly frustrated with my rather limited command of typography despite being a lifelong student / slog / hack designer wannabe, and wished I could just improve my identity treatment. Not disimilar, but just better, as evidenced by a professional hand. As most of us maker folks are rather compulsive control freaks, this was an exigent crisis, got over my apathetic self and reached out for professional help and. . . I am elated by the resultant effort. 

I'd entrusted David Nakamoto to the task, since he and I had been trading salvos of inspired ideas over the years and I was always mightily impressed with his ability to function as a facile, cerebral, and emotional fulcrum for a disparate, tangental, and symbiotic design lexicon of human taxonomy. That's a big foofy easter basket of fluffy words, but being able to bring an ordered universe with nary a wasted stroke or impartial flourish, amongst and endless fountain of synaptic and informational resources, is what David does so well.  (I'm not sure that was a simplified description. Someone edit me, please.)

The identity system alludes and gives a nod towards my (and our shared histories) with the following-

-guitar / metal weenie as a child; with the inward slanted A's reminiscent of Metallica's logo

-The flat milk paint off-primary iteration recalls the best of early formalist PBS, BBC, and educational design, old wooden toys, etc. It is also an homage to euro-centric civic and transportation design color palette- seen often in motorsport branding, a shared love, as well as a wink towards the emotional recollection of site-specific art installations and their supporting collateral at places like  Centre Pompidou, Mumok, Tate, Secession, etc.  The privilege of experiencing art in those types of grand citadels is truly life affirming.

-The textured background, as well as the letter forms themselves, were hand scanned by David, as an homage to our appreciation of things that are formal in nature and ideation but bear evidence of history and thusly in our opinion are achingly beautiful in their imperfection and scars- more complex, nuanced than a false veneer of perfect polish that seeks to erase. . life. The letterforms were scanned from a working reference book inherited from his father, a former typesetter.

Check out David's tactile work at Multifresh, his record label Audraglint, and new studio, Wilderness (forthcoming link as of this post, will append accordingly)