Whitworth and I : wandi 2.0 : Graphic Design news from Sonoma, Calif.

Ad Hoc Wine Labels

Grape harvest started for one of our clients today, and that somehow got me thinking about wine labels. 

We've been making our own wine for several years. The first vintage came from cab franc grapes gleaned from a vineyard on Castle Road, not too far from where we lived at the time. We dodged the hounds of the Baskervilles (long story) and came back with enough grapes to make a few cases. It actually turned out surprisingly well - especially considering it was a first attempt.

This was the label that went on that first vintage. Well, the main one anyway. Tom comes up with labels to match the occasion and must have turned out a million plus by now for our various wines and various parties and dinners and people.

He's also done a number of labels for legit wineries, but it's the ad hoc ones for the homemade wine that are on my mind today.

The second year we made cab from grapes we picked high in the Mayacamas Mountains. We were lucky to get those grapes, even if Carmenet wasn't going to use them because the vines were affected by phylloxera. There were plenty of them, and for us they worked just fine.

That vintage sported an unknown number of labels while it lasted. And it lasted quite a while. Very late season harvest generally means pretty high alcohol so it 'kept', as they say. And changed for the better over time.

Anyway, here are a couple of the labels from 2000. As you can see, the themes for our ad hoc labels are pretty much all over the place. That's the fun of being able to do your own - and having an over abundance of ideas.

Aviation has been a recurring theme, however. Tom is kind of into aeroplanes. (You can find out more about that on the Marin Aero Club blog: marinaero.blogspot.com. It's serious stuff.)

And then there were the labels that were more about the occasion or the person of the hour than the wine. This one went on some bottles of syrah and was created for our friend, Flying Ace George Benson (that's him in the picture, although Photo- shop put him in the plane).

The trouble with special commemorative labels is that people feel compelled to save the bottle - and not drink the wine - and that's just a shame.

Because there will always be another harvest and another vintage and another occasion for an ad hoc label.

Carpe hora.

Muir Beach Field Trip

A month or so ago Tom was asked to do some illustrations for a small booklet about Muir Beach that will be used by the park service to introduce children to the area. We'd visited Muir Beach before and Tom had been sent detailed references to work from, but it still seemed worth the drive out for a little field trip.

 

Just so you know, we arrived in the morning, before the fog had burned off. In case you didn't know, these pictures depict what passes for a pretty good day at the beach in Northern California. It was warm, which you can't tell from the pictures, those aren't rain clouds - 'just fog', and there were people swimming, fishing and otherwise enjoying themselves. (So there.)

Muir Beach is both the name of a cluster of houses out at the end of a very windy road in western Marin County and a section of Golden Gate National Recreation Area. The latter preserves a sandy strip of coastline where Redwood Creek reaches the ocean. It's a small but important point of public access to the ocean and includes a surprising range of coastal habitats in its rather limited geographical area.

In the park, Redwood Creek cuts through a shallow line of dunes and across the beach, flowing from a lagoon and wetlands area just to the east. Although the Redwood Creek watershed drains just seven square miles, it provides critical habitat for salmon and other fish.

The park service is working hard to reverse changes made to the creek drainage upstream from the parking lot where early on areas were drained and channeled for agriculture and other uses and many exotic plant species gained a foothold.

The area around the parking lot and lagoon is also undergoing a transformation. Once overrun by non-native species - most notably vast mats of Kikuyu grass - the whole of the area has recently been cleared and is being revegetated with native wetland plants.

Fortunately for us a park botanist was onsite when we happened by on our field trip. Tom had been asked to include representative species in some of the illustrations and it sure helps to have someone who knows what they're looking at point out to you what those are. I mean, look at that picture of newly planted sedges and rushes. Do they all kind of look the same to you? Exactly.

The trip was worthwhile for that alone - meeting up with the botanist, that is - and the illustrations came together nicely.

For the Honeybees

We recently got interested in keeping bees. We've flirted with the idea of setting up a hive in a noncommittal (read: airy fairy) kind of way off and on for years, but then someone issued a casual challenge by asking, why not? We couldn't think of a reason why not - lots of excuses, but no good reason - so one of us said, "OK, we'll do it."

Yeah, it was one of those unilateral group decisions. Don't you hate those?

Within days we were over at the Petaluma Seed Bank for a lecture on natural beekeeping, and then just this past weekend Vanishing of the Bees opened in Sonoma at the Sebastiani Theatre. We have the definite impression there's no turning back on the bee thing.

And how could anyone turn back - on the bee thing - after seeing Vanishing of the Bees? Oh my goodness, if you have the opportunity to see the film, do not miss it. And then take up the challenge yourself and do something (anything) for the honeybees.

Legacy Park Animals Hit the Road

It's exciting. Some of the animals Tom designed for Malibu Legacy Park are now complete and have begun the journey south for installation.

Mosaic artist Robin Indar has been working hard to complete all of the sculptures for the park opening that will be scheduled for sometime this fall. (You can find more pictures of her work for this project on her blog Confessions of a Tile Smasher - and you'll find more information about her on her website www.robinindar.com.)

We're looking forward to seeing the animals in place - especially once the plants and landscaped areas of the 17-acre park have matured. They should be pretty spectacular.

Legacy Park is the linchpin in the City of Malibu's $50 million dollar plan to improve water quality. The park is designed to work as an environmental cleaning machine, reducing pollution impacts in Malibu Creek, Malibu Lagoon, and at Surfrider Beach. At the same time it will provide a living learning center for five coastal habitats - including Southern California's only coastal prairie. The animals that have been sculpted were chosen as representative of those coastal habitats.

Tom worked on this project through Leslie Stone & Associates.

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read more:
Legacy Park Malibu on this blog
Legacy Park animals on Tom Whitworth's blog
Gallery of Malibu Legacy Park images on the park's website

Tips for working with a graphic designer

Everyone has his or her own style, and each graphic designer has a particular way they like to work. Finding a designer who can capture your style and realize your objectives for a project can sometimes seem like a tricky business. It’s not really. Consider just a few simple things before starting any project and you’ll get the best design value for your money - plus everyone might just have fun in the process.

1. Identify your audience and your objective
   This is what it's all about. The message is...the message. And you want to communicate it in a way that's appropriate to the people you're trying to reach.
2. Be as specific as you can about what you do and don't like
   Spend some time before you go to the designer really giving some thought to the impression you want to convey. Coming up with one word descriptions like "cool" or "professional" or "conservative" or even "unexpected" can really help to get things headed in a good direction. If you can go with examples of designs you like, so much the better. And make sure to say what you don't like as well. If you can't stand the color orange or you know you don't want your design to look anything like an important competitor's, it's good to make it clear up front.
   
3. Finalize stuff before handing it over to your designer
   This streamlines the process and reduces unnecessary changes and unproductive tangents. This also reduces the danger of old versions of things being published. Whoops.
4. Make changes while moving in a forward direction
   First, be prepared to see at least one option that surprises you in the first round of mock-ups. Let the designer's imagination work for you and take the time to consider the possibilities. Then, once you do decide on a direction, be sure any changes you make reference that choice. And finally, be careful of endless tweaks. The problem with taking a design and making repetitive changes is that you can drift away from the original point of view.
5. Avoid design by committee
   This is a big one. If you show a design to ten people you will get ten different comments. And, if you actually attempt to accommodate them all, you end up with a solution that satisfies everyone but grabs no one. Everyone and his brother might want to get in on the action because design is "the fun part," but resist the temptation to pull everyone in on the project. And remember - your intended audience and original objective are who and what you have to answer to. Always, always refer back to your start point.
6. If you're uncertain, trust your designer
   Really. Relax.

This is all assuming you started with a designer who is an overall good fit for your project. Don't hire Norman Rockwell and then get disappointed when he can't do Jackson Pollock. You wouldn't hire Danny Elfman to score your video if you really wanted Henry Mancini schmaltz, so there's no harm no foul in using different designers on different projects. 

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Whether you're a designer or someone looking for a designer, the presentation below by Marian Bantjes is a fascinating testament to settling on a singular vision for your message and then giving it - and your designer - free reign.

Marian Bantjes: Intricate beauty by design on TED

Work at What You Love

illustration by Tom Whitworth

It's Valentine week and love is in the air. You may enjoy bon bons, a lovely dinner out, perhaps some fresh flowers or special time with a certain special someone. Nice.

Why not spin it out - let some of the good stuff spill over into your work?

Besides making it easier to find the energy to meet a deadline, when your work has that spark of passion, it inspires clients and customers in turn.

And it's not just about what you do for a job, it's also what you bring to the job you do. It's about being who you are and saying what you think. It's about putting out there what you have to offer - instead of chasing what's expected.

If you'd like a little inspiration - and haven't seen it yet - here's a link to view the Lemonade movie. You can read more about it here: Lemonade the Movie.

Quieting the Lizard Brain and Getting on with Business

Are you the one who says 'Yeah but...' or 'We've never done it that way'? (C'mon, admit it.) That's killer stuff. You know it is, everybody knows it is, and yet it rears its ugly head, hisses, and rules the day repeatedly. Because we let it. Because it's safer that way.

[illustration: Tom Whitworth]

It's a self-protective thing and very basic really - an instinct that keeps our hands off hot stoves and the other lizards from eating our babies - but it's not an impulse that engenders adaptation to change or great creative inspiration.

So it must be relegated to its proper place.

Seth Godin has a new book out. It's called Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?, and I can hardly wait to read it. (Hurry up library and process it already! - and I mean that in the nicest possible way, because I LOVE the library.) Anyway, Seth previewed it recently on zenhabits, and what he had to say really left a mark on me.

In the write up, he talks about the lizard brain - that part of ourselves that resists moving out of our comfort zone and argues against any departure from the status quo. It's that part of our reasoning [sic] process that clings so tightly to our basic survival requirements that it can blind us to the fact the pot is boiling and it's time make the leap - or at the very least push the go button.

And it's that niggling part of our mind that keeps us from getting on with business again and again.

It's a simple thing (it seems) - muffling our usual tendency to carry on as usual while imagining everything could change - and maybe it is simple. As simple as trying something different - even just once. At first. Then again. For fun. (Who cares if it doesn't work out perfectly?) 

Where you end up may not be where you anticipated, but it will likely be better than looking out from the edge of your corner of the swamp wondering if you can make it across the dry patch to the next safe place.

This is good stuff. I know it is.

- Jeri Lynn

Find your way of joining the social media revolution

Come the revolution? It's not a someday thing anymore. It's here. We're in it. Just so you know - social media is not just a fad. Really, it's not.

Find your way of joining the social media revolution.

Cheese and Trees

I recently completed some exploratory designs for a new cheese product that unfortunately will not be going ahead, and some illustrations for interpretive signage at Mariposa Grove that will. Here are a few of them.

The Phymatodes nitidus borer beetle and Douglas squirrel both have symbiotic relationships with Giant Sequoia trees (cross section shown) in that they speed seed dispersal from cones (also shown) that otherwise may remain closed for 20 years. The squirrel eats the cone scales and discards the seeds, and the beetle severs vascular connections to the scales, which dry and release the seeds.

Even then the seeds are unlikely to germinate in the rich organic matter around the trees until fire creates minerals that trigger the process.

-Tom

Who Knew Where a Little Twittering Would Lead?

image by eifion

Last January a friend of ours had big plans to head back East to The Ball (capital T, capital B - we're talking Green Inaugural Ball folks), and she'd been tapped to tweet the details. Well, I wasn't going to let that get by me, so I signed up for twitter. Two birds with one stone (sorry) - I was going to find out what all the fuss was with twitter and pretend I had a balcony seat for the festivities.

I showed up at the party for a little real-time news and vicarious schmooze - and stuck around for the dim sum.

At first I had no idea what was going on. It took me forever to figure out what RT means (ReTweet), and when I wanted to flag someone in a message, I'd forget the @ thingy in front of their twitter name. Oh well. I could have avoided a little embarrassment by spending some time with www.twitip.com, but you know it was all going by me so fast, I kind of got swept up in it all.

Besides, I really didn't think anyone was paying much attention to my feeble tweets. Really I didn't.

But look what happened. Surprise, surprise. Today Tom and I were singled out as a favorite tweep of Sarah Bray, one of our contacts through twitter, and she published a short interview with us on her site www.matweeps.com (now offline).

I'm not even sure just how we started following Sarah on twitter but I think it came through another mutual connection - Danielle LaPorte. (That is how this social networking thing is supposed to work, you know.) I found Danielle's website (www.whitehottruth.com) through another blog I read and had started following her on twitter. In our twitter feed I noticed Sarah had taken some business advice from Danielle and applied it to a complete redo of her website and approach to doing business. I thought she did a stellar job and told her so - and so one thing led to another it seems. (Sarah's a website designer and produces an incredibly useful newsletter. Check out her site at www.sjoystudios.com)

I'm a big fan of twitter. For us it's been a great vehicle for finding and building new contacts. I can easily see that for other people it could be a super way to communicate with a network that already exists. Either way, it's a conversation not a soapbox people. Try to refrain from simply making speeches and only using twitter to broadcast your news without checking in with your tweeps. You never know what that six degrees of separation thing - times a million retweets - might bring your way.

- jeri lynn

Follow Whitworth and I on twitter at twitter.com/whitworthandi