A Permanent Job

In case you didn't know, I've been working as a freelance designer since 2003. As of today, this is officially over -- I've got a permanent job at Stamperija, a Vilnius-based company specialized in designing and producing postage stamps. My tools of trade will be Photoshop and a graphics tablet (Wacom Intuos4 L, to be precise). Wish me luck! Something tells me I'm gonna need it...

The Face of Winter

A drawing! Finally. After months of artless life it feels so good to be back on track. But I kinda got rusted, so I needed something plain and simple to re-crank my engine. What can be simpler than a winter landscape in graphite? So here it goes -- The Face of Winter.



Actually, there are two faces in there, but I'm sure you've already noticed them both. If you haven't, here's a hint: sometimes clouds are just clouds, but not in this case.

I know, it looks a little depressive. But this kind of winter, dull and sunless, can be really depressing sometimes. But it also can be almost erotic -- all that untouched, curvy snow...

And here's the real life inspiration for this drawing: our snowy backyard with that weird apple tree.

Goldfish Rebranding

Long time, no see. I seems I'm back to blogging, finally. I know most people expect art-related posts from this blog, but I'm still not quite back on track in that department after the exceptionally busy end of the last year. Hopefully, my "art block" will be over soon. Meanwhile, here's my report on a big design (or, rather, redesign) project, started last year and still going on.

Okros Tevzi is one of my oldest "foodstuff clients." Contrary to the name, which is Georgian for "goldfish," the fish-related products make up only a tiny part of their assortment -- they are more into semi-prepared foods and meat products. So last year they approached me with this idea of total rebranding, starting with the logo. Their old logo represented a goldfish placed on (or, in some versions, inside) a circle. My task was to retain the symbolism, but make it more simple and modern.

Usually, making a logo is a time-consuming and laborious work for me. Most of the time I end up with dozens of different versions, painfully searching for forms, colors, visual ideas. But, sometimes, the very first draft turns out to be exactly the thing, making me not to look any further. Fortunately for everyone, this was the case here.

For those who may not not know: in many countries touched by Russian culture (Georgia is certainly among them) a goldfish represents something more than just a fish variety -- it's a symbol of fulfilling wishes. This fairytale theme, originated by the Brothers Grimm and hugely popularized in Russia by Alexander Pushkin with his Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish, is very well known to Georgians. Fully utilizing this awareness, Okros Tevzi always used slogans related to fulfilling wishes. But I went a bit beyond that, expanding a simple "Make a wish" slogan into a whole logo concept.

The "general" version of the logo, intended for publicity, business cards, documents, websites and other general usage, resembles an empty box, and comes with the aforementioned slogan, implying the readiness to be filled with the wishes come true. The "specific" versions of the logo, intended to be used on actual products, represent the same box, but filled with different colors: green for semi-prepared foods, red for meat products and blue for fish products.

Georgian khinkali and Russian pelmeni represent the "flagship" products for many Georgian companies specialized in semi-prepared foods, and Okros Tevzi makes no exception. So, naturally, when it came to trying out the new logo on actual product packaging, they were the first in line.

After probing various directions, we stopped on a concept derived from the logo idea: a table (sort of) placed in a natural environment, with a white box, showing the product, on top of it. In this case, since the packaging is transparent, the actual product could be visible through the non-printed area inside the box (in the design samples this area is filled with product images for better visualization).

 

We made two variations of khinkali -- Traditional and Chopped (hence the big knife), and two of pelmeni -- Siberian (hence the frost) and Italian (hence the Venetian scenery). You probably noticed a cute goldfish chef holding a white fork -- I came up with this mascot somewhere in the process of making the package design demos. It was just a designer's whim, but the client liked it so much that the little guy got himself a permanent job.

This is only the beginning, as there are loads of Okros Tevzi products waiting in line to be rebranded and redesigned. So, until next!

Stars and Music

Yesterday Diana and I went to the "release party" of Colors of the Desert -- the latest album by Lithuanian progressive rock band The Skys, whose frontman, Jonas Čiurlionis, happens to be Diana's colleague in his "daytime" life -- he's an associate professor of philosophy at Vilnius University.

The event was held at the Vilnius Planetarium, and that wasn't by accident. The first part -- the presentation of the album -- took place right inside the Planetarium dome. We were sitting there, lights out, stars shining above our heads, some intense prog rock ringing in our ears... Epic! I just wish my neck didn't hurt so much, but hey -- it's really a small price for such a wonderful treat.

The second part was the buffet party just outside the dome entrance (still inside the building, in case you shrugged at the thought of an open-air buffet in the midst of cold Lithuanian November). I, personally, had a very good time. Eating, drinking, but, most importantly, meeting a bunch of interesting people (who subsequently turned into a bunch of new Facebook friends). It was a crazy mix of English, Lithuanian, Russian and even some Georgian. So much fun for a linguistic junkie like me!

Well, all this fun and stars and everything seriously backfired the next morning, but hey -- who's complaining. Me wants more!

Ayran

Ayran is a cold drink, made of yoghurt mixed with water, usually salted, sometimes carbonized. Primarily a Turkish beverage, it's a popular drink in many countries around the Black and the Caspian Seas. Despite being so widely spread among our neighbors (Turkey and Armenia in the south, Azerbaijan in the east, Caucasian peoples in the north), the drink somehow managed to avoid Georgia, where it was practically unknown until recently. With the expansion of Turkish businesses into post-Soviet Georgia and opening of many Turkish restaurants in Tbilisi and other major Georgian cities, it was inevitable that the Turkey's most popular drink would eventually find its way to the Georgian market.

The drink is mostly being imported from Turkey and Armenia, but recently some local companies have started producing their own ayran. One of such companies contacted me a little while ago, ordering the label design for their new-born product. Their only demand was to make green the dominant color, partly in an effort to make it more distinguishable from the local dairy product style with dominant blue/red/white color schemes. Also, for some reason they didn't elaborate on, the label had to feature the Armenian name for ayran -- tan. The rest was entirely up to me.

I decided to go with a thick, "milky" hand-drawn font for the main title. Then I dug up a nice milk-splash stock image and placed it on a "condensated" background, emphasizing a cold-served product. A tiny bit of "orientalish" ornaments, some fashionable reflections and I was almost set. Almost, because I had to come up with some sort of a logo for the manufacturer.

The company in question is called Agapi Ltd. Agapi (more correct spelling would be aghapi) is a Georgian version of the Greek word agape, which means "non-corporal love." So I decided to go with a "milk from the heart" theme, visualized quite literally, as you can see.

Below is the finished label. It's circular, meaning it wraps around the whole diameter of the bottle. Hence the "double" design, so that it remains interesting from more possible angles, leaving the technical parts squeezed in-between the lead design elements.

And here's a digital simulation of the label attached to the actual bottle, as it would appear on the final product. The bottle is made of glossy white plastic and has a green cap to match the label.

The Epic Lawn-Making

We have a huge yard, but with Diana's parents being gardening maniacs, there is hardly an inch of free space in it -- vegetables, flowers and berry shrubs are all over the place. You can't really find an open pitch to set up a sun lounge, roll in the grass, play badminton or practice Tai Chi. So this summer, finally, Diana and I decided to put an end to the vegetable supremacy and fight for our sunbathing rights.

First, we marked the territory by placing rods (like in Disciples II) and stretching cords between them. For that we chose the patch behind the house, where strawberries had been growing previously (they would be replanted later to a different patch). My father-in-law had already mowed the strawberries, so I just had to dig them over and root them up.

Just. Actually, that turned out to be an epic struggle lasting for three days. The strawberries weren't exactly cooperative, so the process kinda reminded rooting up the Mandrakes, except they weren't screaming (to my luck). Can you imagine an underground network of long, stringy roots connecting dozens of plants to each other, like a secret web? That's how strawberry communities grow. You know, social plants make me feel creepy ever since I read Clifford D. Simak's All Flesh Is Grass.

By the time I was finished with those hive-minded strawberries, I got some really nasty sunburn on my back. Great. Now I have my own farmer's tan...

See those sleeveless shirt markings? Americans
call this particular type of tan-lines "Texas tan."

Back to the lawn-making. The next step was to enclose the future lawn in a plastic edging to isolate it from the surrounding vegetation, although I suspect even our super-deep (20 cm) edging won't be enough to prevent some especially impudent specimens from trying to invade our lawn. Anyway, planting that edging into the ground wasn't a piece of cake, either. The plastic stripe refused to be buried alive, twisting like a snake in my hands, so it took quite a while.

Now it was time to buy some grass seeds. After some pondering, we set our choice on a frost-resistant brand. Hopefully, it will survive our harsh falls and springs. Or at least die trying.

Diana's father, being a lot more experienced farmer than me, volunteered to conduct the sowing part. However, he confessed that he never had actually sown any grass before, only vegetables and such, and issued a disclaimer over the consequences. While my father-in-law was mellowing the soil with a rake, I was gaping at the contraption he had prepared for stomping the seeds into the ground.

As soon as the seeds were scattered, the stomping part began. Naturally, there were yet more cooperation issues: the seeds didn't seem to be too fond of being trampled into the earth, preferring to be carried away with the wind instead. No matter how hard we tried to stomp them, they just kept laying on the surface, tanning under the sun. Hopefully, sooner or later, they will have no choice but to grow into the soil.

Thus ends the epic lawn-making. Now all we have to do is wait and see what comes out of it (literally). If everything goes right, we may see the grass popping up in a couple of weeks.

A Taste of Homeland

There are some foods which are almost religiously revered by Georgians, who generally like to have a good snack. Shashlik (mtsvadi in Georgian) is among them, surpassed in the Georgian "food charts" perhaps only by khinkali. Since I happen to be Georgian, I share the common genetic weakness for shashlik, naturally.

As with any sort of grilled meat, there is no tastier shaslik than the one made outdoors, preferably in nature's lap, with your own hands. The process itself is a whole ritual, gradually preparing your gastric juices for the grand finale. Luckily, I live in a countryside (sort of), and I have a wife who knows how to marinate the meat overnight.

Ever since I moved to Lithuania, making shashlik in the backyard became one of my most persistent obsessions, as if it was some sort of connection to my homeland. We even bought mangal and skewers earlier this summer, but something had been constantly preventing us from actually using them -- busy schedule, unpredictable Baltic weather, etc.

The other day, at very long last, we were able to test the equipment in action. Diana's father helped preparing the charcoal (we used birch logs for that), and when it was all smouldering, I skewed the pieces of marinated meat and placed them on the mangal, while Diana was taking pictures of this event of the month.

Not everything went as smooth as I expected, though. Apparently, we should have had produced more charcoal, because the heat turned out to be not enough for a fast grill and it all dragged on for an eternity.

But the wait was really worth it, I must say. A little taste of homeland, if you will. Although, I've noticed that shashlik is quite popular among Lithuanians, too -- making šašlykas, as it's called here, is one of the favorite weekend pastimes for many locals. Skanaus!