Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Hired!

Okay, I need help, and in more than the usual ways.

Some jump-and-and-down-yay-type things will (hopefully) Be Happening with my career in the fall. To prepare for this, I would like to have an icon for the site. Because only big-girl writers have icons. Yea, long have I dreamed of an icon. Then you know you've made it.

However, I suck at this type of thing, and mightily. PhotoShop for me involves, "Okay, let's cut the drunk guy over here out of the picture, and this freak here-- oh wait, that's me." I need a thingie (I believe that is the technical term) to put at the top of the page, as well as on some tshirts and the like. I'm also searching for a catchphrase to go with. (Right now, all I have is "I Mock Because I Love", which... please don't make me use "I Mock Because I Love".)

It's a great resume builder for a young designer out there looking for experience, so please pass the word to classmates, relatives, colleagues, and an average first-grader, any of whom issued from the womb clicking a mouse and has got to be better at design than I am.

I can't pay anything, but I can promise some free merchandise (oh, you fortunate fool), a bubbling reference, and extra-special consideration when it comes to designing a book cover for a collection of "best-of" posts, for which I hope to pay at least a little (and no, that's not even the SuperSecretDouble Probation Project. That's even non-lamer.)

My main requirements are the name of the site and a fairly non-crappy reflection of it. Please do not let the fact that the site itself is crappy stop you.

As for style, I am looking for... not cheesy. Please, just don't send me something that blows chunks. I once saw a portfolio presentation from a graphics arts professor and it sucked all the life right out of the universe. He had, like, all these matted images with glowing, cursive fonts and it looked like it came from somebody's Justin Timberlake fanpage.

I prefer to keep it simple, which is tough to communicate with a humor site. People hear "humor site" and they tend to be all, "To the Comic Sans font!" Uh, no. Something professional, but distinctive, easily transferable to merchandise. For instance, one of my friends suggested the typeset of "Blonde Champagne" with a 60's-style blonde hair thingie framing the "O". You know, like the "O" is a face? Only, no face in the "O". I don't know, she's on drugs.

I think this site has a pretty cool logo. That's the kind of thing I'm looking for. Bottom line, I just want to avoid digital poopage like this.

Colors: No palette explosions, please. I would prefer to stay mainly with the black and white "typeset" of the site, which I chose because it seemed very... typewriterly and writer-ish. Maybe with the only color a blonde hair type of thing to make it pop.

(twirls two English degrees over her head)

Email submissions to me ASAP. Maybe if everyone behaves, we'll have a vote.

Edited after Lisa The Reader was like, "Um, what do you want? Besides something that doesn't suck?" which helped me focus. Thanks, Lisa!

eighteen days to the unveiling of the SuperSecretDouble Probation Project at: mb@blondechampagne.com

22 comments:

Lisa Chumney said...

Greetings. I am a graphic designer. I work every angle of design. I can brainstorm for you if you let me know some particulars about the design that you want. For instance, demographics (who will be your target audience or customers), what style are you looking for, perhaps modern, classic, young, etc. Colors and so on. Check out my site and if you like my work (portfolio), I can be reached at 931-624-8343 or drop me an email at lisa@chumneyvisualdesigns.com
Take care and good luck!

Anonymous said...

Um, I can't design anything, but I envision an old school type champagne glass from the old movies (not the flutes - the kind Grace Kelly drank out of in High Society), with a shapley vixen with curly long blond hair lounging in the glass, legs over the side, with a book in one hand and a ? in the other. Something cool. OK, my 2 cents.

Anonymous said...

Ooooh, that sounds cool. Points for the High Society shout out.

Lisa, check your email, babe.

Anonymous said...

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh SNAP! Thank you for the link to the Love My Heath site. Thank you. Thank you. This has been a most stressful day until now.

Anonymous said...

I'm definitely not a designer but I say use Blonde Champagne as it is now but maybe add a rip off Tinkerbell at one end with lots of sparkley fairy dust floating all around. "Blonde Champagne.....Tink's Tirade"?

So Let it Be Written

Anonymous said...

OMG, we should make "So Let It Be Written" the tagline!

Anonymous said...

Well I'm an industrial designer but I don't like the "labels" (Have made work as a graphic, working right now in interior design at an architecture firm, go figure).

I have always liked BLONDE CHAMPAGNE because it conveys such an specific image, but on the other hand that image turns out to be contradictory to the CONTENT of the blog, which is nice because contrast is always a plus on design. So the contrast should/could come from the font type applied... So I see you are going for something really 2d (flat) somewhat cartoony but not nickeloedon of course, and with a scarce color palette (I don't know why, but suddenly pewter -light silver-, the color of the dress you used to attend the Eclipse awards popped to my mind... maybe)

But seriously, how long do we really have? I know I've got a few creative brain cells here and there, but I am very, very, VERY lazy, with a huge tendency to procastrinate.

Anonymous said...

No set deadline, RPG. I want to make up my mind by early summer, though.

And I'm a silver blonde-- don't wear much gold-- so maybe that's where you got the image :)

Josh The Pilot said...

I want to make it absolutely clear I'm the only one who gets to wear the BlondeChampagne.com #1 Fan t-shirt! lol The rest of y'all can get I (heart) BlondeChampagne.com shirts, or something along those lines, but I AM NUMBER ONE!! :-)

Anonymous said...

Feeling a little confident JTP?
Remember about pride and falling.

Josh The Pilot said...

This ain't pride, hun, this is fact! I am her number one fan! At least, I'm the only fan she kisses...

Anonymous said...

That...

ROCKS.

Dantelope said...

omfg, wandering, that is totally it!!!

In related news, I -- a grown man with a family -- just realized that the sentence "The pen is mightier than the sword"... uh... has the word... uh... penis.. in it... uh...

coincidence? i think not.

Josh The Pilot said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Josh The Pilot said...

I still like the "So let it be written" tagline.

Dantelope- To repeat MB's admonishment to another reader from a few weeks back, "Dude, my grandmother reads this!"

Anonymous said...

How about just a champagne bottle with one of those 1960's era blonde wigs sitting on the cork. A little tacky perhaps....

Dantelope said...

JTP:

Are you saying grandma would freak out if she saw the words "pen" and "is" next to each other?

Or was it the penis comment? :)

I think you're probably not giving granny enough credit. She's likely a lot more hip than you think.

Anonymous said...

Oh, anon, do you not know me? For there is nothing too tacky for your humble hostess.

Anonymous said...

Here's my idea.... BLONDE CHAMPAGNE in a bold font. First word raised half a line above second. Below 'blonde' is a champagne flute lying on it's side so that the liquid has flowed out. The liquid is shaped sort of like an elliptical puddle below 'champagne'. Overlaying the liquid is the tag line - maybe in lower case, italics, stacked

'So let it be
written.'

It's hard to describe... so much easier to sketch!

Anonymous said...

"The tag line is simply this:

"Mightier Than The Sword." "

Nice. But it would be better if it said:


"Mightier than a LIGHT SABER" :-)

How about that? a Dom Perignon bottle clad in some Jedi robes, wielding a two-edge light saber a-la Darth Maul???

Anonymous said...

Re:Oh, anon, do you not know me? For there is nothing too tacky for your humble hostess.

As a Hooters T-shirt so aptly put it: Tacky but refined.....

Anonymous said...

Congrats on upcoming jump-up-and-down-and-say-"yay!" stuff, MB ... I'm very happy for you that your fine, wit-filled and keenly-observed writing will reap such for you. 'Tis much deserved :).

Oooh, and wanderingupnorth's idea is coooool :)

Previous Tastings