Atek Design Blog

Hello. Again.

atekdesign — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 16:56:20 +0000

It’s been a while.
As a matter of fact, I haven’t posted since last year! Oh… all those posts were so 2009 too. But it’s time to get Twenty Ten. Which, by the way is the officially grammatically correct way to pronounce the year. Seriously. It’s official. That being said, these are some things I worked on last night that I think would be fun to put on either side of a door. They actually started as backgrounds for my laptop, but I think these could do nicely anywhere people move in and out of a room.

The languages used here are;
English
Spanish
Norwegian Bokmål (You’re welcome and you know who you are)
French
Japanese
Portuguese
German
Mandarin Chinese
Hindi (Because we all love LOST. Right?)
I feel like this is far too simple an idea for someone else to not have done before, and most likely in a more interesting application, but I like it. and it is currently on my desktop.

Click on either thumbnail to download the file.

Why mention LOST you ask?

Seriously. Namaste. Welcome to a crazy ass island. Have fun.

Well for one, the days of counting until the last season are down to less than that of a month. Also because it’s awesome. And that about sums it up.
Oh. And this guy.

Marvin Candle/Pierre Chang

Anyways, that’s it for now.
I should be doing some work. Which reminds me… Soon, I’ll be posting a website I’m building right now. It’s my first site that will actually go live, so that’s pretty exciting.
More on that soon.
Later.

Droid Unboxing

atekdesign — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:35:08 +0000

The Motorola Droid comes out on Verizon tomorrow.
Should be cool.

There’s also another Android powered device coming on the 6th, called the Droid Eros by HTC.
Maybe I’ll get an unbox of that one in later, but it’s not as interesting.

Been A While.

atekdesign — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 05:34:09 +0000

Here’s what you’ve missed.
Same Girlfriend.
Same Cat.
Same Car.
New Apartment. (Same City)
Same Job. (Good Thing)
New Computer.
This thing –> (^._.^)= I made up a series of cat emoticons… Margaret likes cats.
New TV.
That’s about it.
Oh, and I’m officially an adult now, as I have my own parking spot. So, that makes me pretty awesome.
Prepare for more, because I am now back and on it. Plus I should really be doing something with this space.

So I will.
Hopefully.

Minnesota is cold and I don’t sleep. (New Shirt)

atekdesign — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 09:17:26 +0000

So I sell stuff on spreadshirt.
It’s a pretty good way to make some random extra cash.
This is the newest set of designs that will be showing up there.
“Minnesota weather is so cold it keeps the outsiders out.”
Pics after the jump

Let’s face it. Any state excited to be in the 50′s consistently now that it’s April 12th has issues. Those same people also tend to be ok with extensive winter weather and are totally fine with -5 degree Fahrenheit temperatures as long as they don’t come during the state fair. These people are from Minnesota. (Or they’ve been lied to, conned into living here and somehow stayed.)

They should be up on spreadshirt within the week. put them on whatever you want!
Time to rest the eyes.

Alex Trochut lorem ipsum piece. Sick.

atekdesign — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 21:39:25 +0000

My god.
I have catching up to do.

Look at this.
Type Theory has ruined my day.

This guys type work is ridiculous. But it wasn’t until I saw this tribute to standard Latin jabber text that the sheer jealousy set in.

Ugh. I actually feigned an attempt at something like this last night, but not nearly as involved, intricate or excellent. Even in my mind. So both my imaginative skills (if those are real) and typography now have a place to aspire.
Good Stuff.

New Illustration

atekdesign — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 21:12:54 +0000

It was my birthday outing on Saturday in downtown MPLS. The result is a pretty cool illustration.

The Final?

This ended up being the last piece for that birthday invite/poster thing. I like the way it turned out. That CMYK thing is cool. I like it

And by CMYK thing I mean the blend effect.

Anyways, because of the nature of the plans, this never actually saw the world of facebook, so this is really the only place it’s been seen.

Besides that happening, I have come to find out that women+shoes is still something I’m not the only one to appreciate.

Not sure if that would be considered entirely NSFW, but it’s pretty close. Playboy collaborated with a serious shoe spot in Chicago called Leaders 1354 for this, and it features a pair of dunks I need. What recession?

Anyways, the main point of this post was to show this off. A cool little illustration coming from a picture of myself that I saw and immediately knew what needed to happen.

Fresh CMYK action. (Nice Scarf.)

Yeah, I think I’m going to make a project of things like this. Adding type to this would be an ideal way to make this thing go super hard, but couldn’t think of anything. Maybe because it was way too late. Anyways, more to come soon.
And by the way, if anyone sees this that has a PS3, go get Buzz Quiz TV. Right now. And then look for my Fonts & Typography quiz. Fun for all.
Later.

Birthday Aquisitions, Round 2 & Sani-blast

atekdesign — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 06:32:16 +0000

I was right. My girlfriend’s parents did too much. Apparently a $50 gift card to the Apple Store wasn’t enough, so they got me immense amounts of candy, which Margaret will most likely be eating. (4.9 lbs combined of Haribo gummi bears and red Swedish fish to be exact.)

Weather is still ridiculous. Snow. At least we don’t have a flood coming. (Yet…)
Besides the gift card and the gift of diabetes in two bags, I got the new Animal Collective CD from Margaret’s sister. That will be good.
And cake. Lots of cake. And chili for lunch tomorrow. (Those last two were from my house.) Still waiting for the tequila gift pack and “vacation-you-weren’t-on” reminder from my cousin and her boyfriend. Excited. Apparently she has some sort of mysterious gift/favor she’s planning for me, but other than it making me nervous, I have no idea what that could mean.
————————
This blog is supposed to be about design. So let’s get at it.
I am working on a new identity package for a company called Sani-blast and it is a bit more taxing than I had originally thought. It hasn’t been hard to improve on what they have going now, but the issue is the fact that making things industrial isn’t necessarily my forte. That being said, these are the logo type concepts so far.
(Note the intensely cramped workspace. Intense…)

These may change soon.

So these are all type concepts that I have come up with only meeting with the owner once, not receiving much information about what in specific he wanted, aside from “something better.” His original intention was to have a new logo and business card, but the project is going to be a full identity for the sake of consistency and adding some professionalism to the look the company has. Everyone wants letterhead right?
I hope so ’cause he’s gettin’ it.
While typing this, I actually came up with some new concepts that I’m going to try out before I go to sleep. They’ll probably show up here tomorrow.
I have to slang cellphones tomorrow morning, so I’m off to bed.
Maybe I’ll post those things up tonight depending on how fast they come together.
No promises. (As if anyone will be waiting. Ha.)
Out. (Nice work Sayid, but next time, a bullet to the head makes sure they’re dead. ‘Specially on the island…)

Birthday Aquisitions, Stage One

atekdesign — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 21:24:46 +0000

Before I start, I will say this.
My cat is ridiculous.
She seems to think she’s better than both Margaret and myself, I frequently remind her she needs to stop chewing up my shit and start paying rent. Other cats have jobs.

She does this.

Ishi, working for every dime.

Back to the fun. My birthday, which I apparently should be more excited about than I am.
Maybe we should go over the big ones to put this in perspective.
13 – PG-13 Movies are fair game
17 – R Movies are fair game
18 – You get to buy ~~cigarettes~~ porn
21 – Don’t remember
23 – You’re older than 22. (Awesome)

So the only real thing to be excited for is getting off of work, which wont happen because I don’t work during the week, and hanging out with family, and Margaret of course. That will be good, trade-off, I miss L O S T tonight. Still not sure how to feel about that. We are eating at Fogo De Chão, which is a ridiculous (both in price and food) Brazillian Steakhouse in Downtown Minneapolis. Serious eating to take place soon. Followed up by a hotel stay at a hotel downtown. William Shatner hooked us up with a room for $50 or something, it was supposed to be around $240. He’s good.

Anyway, the gift from my grandparents was a gift card to the Apple Store to help finance the laptop I plan on buying, and a bottle of Gucci Pour Homme II. The big (and much cooler looking) bottle.

Sweet overpriced Italian nectar

I suspect that Margaret, and her family probably bought me something far nicer than necessary, and that when my cousin gets home from Mexico, they will have some sort of Tequila gift pack with a Corona shirt or something to remind me of what a good time they had on the beach while it snowed on my birthday. I sound bitter. I’m not, I swear, it’s actually pretty laughable.

Besides that, I also realized that today was the day that I would make a point to illustrate what type of people I go to school with. Dunwoody is a trade school so along side the graphic design department, there are auto students, HVAC students, whatever. That’s fine.

Except for the fact that some of these kids I swear have never seen light outside of whatever strange existence they have besides when they grace the school with their presence. Besides the fact that I had my Obama magnet ripped off of my car, after the election… These people have the most obscenely large and unintelligibly loud trucks ever. And just weird things on their cars that leave no room nor desire for explanation.

I can’t make this shit up.

Zombie Chuckie and... flesh colored balls for a car. Good.

I don’t need to say anything else about this. Pretty sure it sums itself up pretty nicely.

I’m done. I’ll go get dressed and ready to eat too much. (And get more stuff from people)

The Dungeon

atekdesign — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 16:55:29 +0000

Inappropriate late march snow on my car

That’s what I woke up to when I finally got to my car this morning.

It is March.
25th.
(Happy Birthday by the way)
Thanks.

Anyway, freezing rain/snow shouldn’t be happening.
In 7 days it will be April. That’s bullshit. I wish I could call out the weather for being an asshole, because 3 days ago I was wearing shorts, flip flops and a t-shirt. Today, I broke a CD clearing small pellets of ice from my giant windshield.

And now I’m trapped in the dungeon waiting for an internship. And, clearly, I’m at the forefront of productivity. Pictures may not even do this place justice, and if they would, maybe I would take one. Maybe I will later. Stay tuned.
In other news, and by news I mean I have no ability to write a transition;
There is a working design for the invite for my birthday fiasco that I also shouldn’t be working on but am…

There they are. In all their unfinished CMYK glory.
I think I’m done here. Lunch won’t steal itself.

Alpha post. (Enter the Atek)

atekdesign — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 04:07:21 +0000

So this is it.
Twitter doesn’t seem right. I’m not even sure what I’m doing half the time, so instant updates could do really nothing but confuse.

Facebook is ok, but if I’m bitten by another zombie or told how much I can buy someone’s profile for… It could be problematic. Aim for the head… That and nothing says professional like hundreds of pictures of late-night debauchery that are best left forgotten.
(It’s get a job time.)

Strangely enough, aside from the fact that today (tonight) is just so damn interesting, my birthday starts in about 40 minutes. And I’m watching Enter the Dragon on TV.
That means three things;
1) Bruce Lee
2) Jim Kelly
3) Dubbed Goodness

Things are out of hand here. I’ve babbled far too much and I should go to bed.
Later. (And Hello.)