JR DAVILA

The first design task that I undertook (the logical choice, I think) was that of my "brand" (click on the image for a larger sample).

Being the detail obsessive individual that I am, I first spent about 3 months obsessing on the design orientation itself and on the name. For the name I had a few ideas floating around in my head and couldn't really make up my mind. Was the brand itself going to be "TaranTulas", or would tarantulas be one of the themes? Then I thought, "Y'know, my name is probably what I should be concerned with 'getting out there' right now." Once I had my mind made up on that, the arachnid design and the font orientation was something that I also fought with for a while. I came up with all sort of "wild" ideas, but in the end I just scrapped them all and went with the most simplistic one. Font from left to right and the arachnid on top. Simplicity is...well, it just "is". It works.

Next was the font face itself. I took typography and learned a few things, but I still felt like I didn't know enough about "font choice". After becoming a little frustrated with my perceived lack of knowledge on "appropriate" font choice, I brought it up to a buddy of mines, Jeremy Moses (you probably think I love name-dropping by now, huh?). He's a graphic designer, and has a lot more experience and education on the subject than I, an animation student, would. His advice actually caught me by surprise. It was something along the lines of "look around and pick whatever you like". I felt a little silly after that. I mean, all of that time I spent fighting with it, and it was just up to me? I thought there were some rules, guidelines, hierarchies, or something that one would follow when choosing a font for a design. I'll blame APA Style for putting the idea in my head that the font you use, beyond it being serif or sans serif, actually matters.

Once I got past that, I went online searching for some big spider reference images. Did I mention I hate spiders? That probably makes no sense, but it's true. The desktop background image on my laptop at the moment is a super close-up of some disgustingly menacing looking spider. Think of it as some sort of...self administered "exposure therapy". Funny that most of my nightmares since have included huge, disgusting spiders. Anyhow, after a cringe inducing google session, I found the image I would use as reference for this initial design. I believe it's a "wolf spider". A kind I've had to smash plenty of in my day. Creep me the Hell out...

So I dropped the image into Illustrator, double clicked the pencil tool and set it to fill outlines (I prefer the pencil tool over the pen tool for more organic subjects) and went to work. I've had to stick to uploading the current design to Spreadshirt as a PNG, since it doesn't fall within their vector parameters. I'm working on finding a different spider to replace it, but in the meantime, that's it. The font is just "Eccentric" with the counters removed and the dimensions warped to my liking. I played around with the idea of having the parts where the font and the spider legs meet turn negative, but it made the design a little busier than I would like, so I kept it as is.

For now, there is only one t-shirt using the logo, and the design is restricted to "digital direct" printing anyhow so it isn't an issue yet. It shouldn't be long until I have a "flex" friendly version ready.

The design was more of a requirement than anything, so I don't feel quite as inspired about it. Maybe one day I will and I'll revamp it however it is I feel, but until then I don't see it changing much. That's all I had for that one, peeps. Carry on!

JR, out!