Jazzed & Confused

Long time, no see. In fact, the last post was more than a year ago. So I guess it's official: I've made the list of super-lazy bloggers. Achievement unlocked.

Anyway, there is nothing important in this update, just wanted to let you know that I'm still alive. A few days ago I even had a brief surge in my virtually non-existent social life: Diana received an invitation to a Jazz concert along with her husband, who happens to be me, so we went there together, all dressed up to the code.

The concert was performed by the German State Jazz Orchestra (BuJazzO) and it took place at Vilnius Philharmonic Hall. It was an official event, organized by the German government and attended by the presidents of Germany and Lithuania. So, naturally, the band started with the anthems of Lithuania, Germany and the European Union. I really liked the Jazz arrangement of the Lithuanian anthem. The original is an uplifted, but rather calm march, and what the band played was some crazy-heroic-viking-jazz version of it, with heavy drums and stuff. Really goosebumping.

In fact, the whole concert was mind-blowing. It was diverse, bold and thoroughly enjoyable even for someone like me, who is far from being a Jazz fan. There was a little surprise in the middle of the concert, too: the Mayor of Klaipeda performed "What a Wonderful World" and he not only played remarkably, but also sang in trademark Armstrong growling style, spot on.

I don't have any concert photos, but I have a couple of shots from the after-party with me and Diana. Look at us, all shiny and happy.

And here's me, contemplating over a glass of beer.

That's it for now. I'm planning to be back with some design-related updates as soon as I can. There's still no budge in the art department, unfortunately. But the summer isn't over yet, so we'll see...

April in Lithuania

This photo was taken a couple of days ago near Vilnius. No further comments.

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. 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.