Bradford Ink. Design Services

Here Be Dragons

admin — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 20:56:38 +0000

Every once in a while I get a chance to get back into creating some of the art that captivated me as a kid – which is to say drawing big, loud, complicated things that really beg for a fine tipped pen and a many hours under the yellow glow of the desk lamp. I was commissioned to create a dragon design for the cover of the upcoming novel, “The Elementals.”

Because I’m a giving person, and believe everyone should have ample dragons in their life, I have this wallpaper below for downloading. Its 1566 x 1200….if you need a larger size just yack at me on facebook or send an email.

I’ll follow up with some more fun news on the book when the author is ready to reveal, which should be in a few months!

Bradford Ink. Design Services - Pen and Pixel are One

Low-Tech Logo Development

admin — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 02:11:00 +0000

I’ve always been the kind of person who likes to have a piece of paper and a pen handy for sketching out ideas over drawing something on screen, especially for logo design. The simplicity and immediate gratification of putting a pen or pencil to paper is just a beautiful process in and of itself, but when I’m rapidly developing and honing ideas as they come to me I’ve found that its the perfect outlet. There are times I’ll quickly load up a couple letter sized pages with random doodles, studies, and sketches that look like some pile of hieroglyphic nonsense. It always helps to bring me to my final designs, though.

Great example: 2 pages of logo design “thoughts” for Spectrum Sports Academy and Hackett’s Meat Market. These doodles encompass ideas, emotions, scenes, tools, and products. Hard to believe anything presentable would come from that mess, huh?

So, if you’ve ever thought that all graphic designers insist on working with a bunch of glamorous high-tech machinery to crank out all their design work, guess what? Some of us are still just overgrown kids scribbling on a tablet.

Bradford Ink. Design Services - Pen and Pixel are One

Mess With The Bull You’re Gonna Get….Hackett’s.

admin — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 02:34:34 +0000

Hey there. Been a while eh? Things have really been taking off this year and I have a couple write-ups that I’m anxious to share – look for them soon. I’ve been slammed with projects lately (not complaining) so the blog has taken a back seat for a little while.

Recently finished up work with an exciting new client who’s doing a bit of remodeling with his business image as well as his storefront. He’s decided to take the logo design I did for him and translate that into a full-scale outdoor sign. An excellent web designer I collaborate with – Matt Williams – sent me this shot of his new sign. As I’ve mentioned in past articles, I don’t usually get to see the end result of the designs I put together on a computer screen, so I’m pretty happy to see how this came out. This is especially the case since you can see more of the hand-drawn element that gets lost on the small applications sometimes.

Bradford Ink. Design Services - Pen and Pixel are One

Silver and Gold

admin — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 15:29:49 +0000

I was lucky enough to get a few business cards back from my friends at Prospectors Pouch in Kennesaw, GA. It’s not often that I get a chance to see my work once its printed, and these cards had a few things I rarely get to play with so I was super excited to see them, and wanted to share them with you.

There are literally hundreds of ways to build and customize a business card, but one of the more interesting effects is the use of metallic foil. There are metallic inks as well, but nothing comes close to the shine and brilliance of actual metal. For Prospectors Pouch, I built the card around the look of a gem they discovered, and mine, called Georgia Midnight. It has a dark, onyx-like appearance and is speckled with silver and gold. We used not one, but two colors of foil which is unusual, but was necessary to produce the gem’s likeness. In addition to the use of metallic foil, we also used spot-gloss, which is the application of a gloss coat to certain areas of the artwork. This gave me the ability to enhance certain features of the card without sacrificing a defined color palette.

We ended up with a visually interesting, classy, and unforgettable business card that will be part of an even larger graphics suite to help Prospectors Pouch refresh their look and bring in new sales.

Bradford Ink. Design Services - Pen and Pixel are One

Hail to the King

admin — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 20:59:25 +0000

I had done logo work for the Athens, GA branch of Falafel King about a year ago. They have been in the opening stages of running the restaurant in that time, so on a whim I decided to check in on their site to see what’s new. I noticed they have the logo displayed now, as well as a nice shot of the outdoor eating area and large sign I designed. Everything about the restaurant (especially the food shots) looks really nice, and I hope business keeps getting better for their eateries.

Large sign artwork outside Falafel King

The family that runs these chains are great folks, and they can cook some excellent Mediterranean food. If you’re in Athens, Decatur, or Atlanta GA you should stop in!

Bradford Ink. Design Services - Pen and Pixel are One

Wallpaper for you Porsche fans

admin — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 18:33:30 +0000

Who doesn’t want to stare at the glory of 6 individual throttle bodies lined up oh so pretty atop one of automobilia’s most beloved and infamous powerplants while surfing the net or wading through email? I don’t know either. So here’s a couple different sizes of an technical illustration I did, because I just can’t enough Porsche goodness in my life and you probably can’t either!

Sorry, nothing smaller than 800×600, but if you want something in particular, let me know and I’ll do it.

Click to open / Right click Save As / Enjoy

aircooled-engine-1024x768

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Bradford Ink. Design Services - Pen and Pixel are One

Weekly Winner!

admin — Mon, 23 May 2011 02:57:56 +0000

OK, co-winner. The editors at Grassroots Motorsports – who are in charge of handling design submissions – select a “pick of the week” from the Factory Five 818 design submissions each week until the contest finishes out on June 1st. I’m very honored to have been among those picked for Week 11. Being a weekly winner doesn’t mean the design will win, it’s just a form of recognition for noteworthy or interesting designs.

I also received an email from Tom Heath, Web Content Manager at Grassroots Motorsports Magazine. He really liked my design and told me that although he’s not a judge, I have his support. Rock on!

Check out the weekly winners, and other contest details on Factory Five’s site.

Bradford Ink. Design Services - Pen and Pixel are One

818 Final Artwork…Finished

admin — Wed, 18 May 2011 00:14:48 +0000

Finished up the last of 4 renderings the other day and everything has been sent in to Factory Five with fingers crossed. I had a blast putting it all together and was really inspired by some of the other artwork I’ve seen. The other designers are bringing so much imagination to the table it’s unreal.

I would have liked to have done a second entry, but I put all I had into these and it just took too much time for a second. I don’t know how much I would have done differently a second time around anyway.

I can’t wait to see the 818 regardless of how it looks when it comes to life. Considering the response Factory Five has gotten, the judges have their work cut out for them now!

Bradford Ink. Design Services - Pen and Pixel are One

Factory Five 818 Concept updates

admin — Thu, 12 May 2011 17:43:54 +0000

Almost done! 1 more draft to go – the top view. Once the design has been submitted I’ll be sharing the full views of all the renders. I’m pretty happy with it so far. I’m sure there would have to be some small changes to make it roadworthy, but from a design perspective I think it’s pretty complete.

One thing I hadn’t explored yet is showing a view with the targa top removed. This is a roadster after all! This rendering is to show the car is typical street trim. No number plates, air spats, tow hooks, or the like.

Bradford Ink. Design Services - Pen and Pixel are One

Factory Five 818 Concept

admin — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 13:17:01 +0000

Factory Five, maker of beautiful and overpowered kit-built sports cars, is holding a design contest for it’s next model: The 818. It’ll be a smallish, subaru powered mid engined car that will serve as their entry model. I’ve been drawing cars since I could hold a crayon, so there was no way I was going to pass this up. I have an entire folder of cars I’ve drawn on the back of worksheets in study hall during high school, and most of my sketch books are filled up with the same thing.

I’ve seen a few entries so far, and I think where I diverge from the typical entry is in the use of a lot of organic curves. I really like the sports car designs from the 60′s and 70′s…very swoopy, curvy, and undeniably sexy. I hope that my design would impart a special, exotic feeling to anyone who’d be driving it. The best part is through the addition of some practical, modern touches, it would be entirely livable (although basic) for day to day driving and work well at high speeds on track.

I’ll be updating the blog over the next few weeks with teasers and limited views until the full design is submitted in June. Believe me, I’ll be up against the deadline to finish…I’m going as far over the top with detail as possible!

This is the original sketch:

And here are the finals so far. I love seeing how designs evolve over time, whether through conscious choices or not.

Bradford Ink. Design Services - Pen and Pixel are One