What's on your shelf?

Recently My wife and I did some rearranging in our game room. We wanted to move some bookshelves around to make some more room and change where the tv was located. This meant removing all the books off the book shelves and going through them.

We removed a few to donate to local libraries and other places which made more room for the books we kept. It made it possible for me to have a graphic design book shelf where I can actually see what books I have.

I have two binders from HOW Conferences which are full of great info I like to refer back to. The next book is Political Graphics which deals with WWI to cold war era propaganda.

I have two versions of the GAG pricing and ethics guides. These are always useful when trying to price work or needing a contract or other form a designer or artist would use.

Next is a Logo Lounge book, I wish I had more of these. These are great reference materials to see what logos are out there and also to see some of the best logos being produced.

Then there are the two books by Von Glitschka. One is a texture book the other a pattern book. Both are great and they come with a DVD of art you can use in your work, not to mention Von is a pretty cool guy.

There are two books by Jeff Fisher one on identity design and the other on how to run your freelance business. Both of which he has been doing for years.

The other two books I will mention are the Caffeine for the Creative Mind and Group. These are great to get you out of a rut. If your stuck and need a fun project that will help you to think differently about things these two will do it. If you work with a team you can use them for team building excersizes.

The rest of the books are ones that I have found interesting or useful in growing myself as as designer. There is also a section of notebooks and sketch books containing ideas from over the years.

So what's on your shelf? What books have helped you in your design career or have inspired you? Leave a comment about them.

Fly By

One of the many hats I wear at my full time job is a video editor. When we first purchased Final Cut Studio Pro, I played around in it to get a feel for editing and creating special effects. The following movie is the first one I made. It is not perfect but I think it is a fun little fly through.

My idea was, a miniature spaceship was in my office and did a reconnaissance mission from my cube to an adjoining one and back. I used the sound effects in Soundtrack and the effects from Motion to create this 55 second short.

Enjoy!

FlyBy from Steve Gibbs on Vimeo.

Operation Thanksgiving Turkey - Identity

Project Type: Identity

Client: Catchafire for Q

Challenge: Create a logo and character to help promote Operation Thanksgiving Turkey (OTT).

Solution: One of my hobbies is competition BBQ. The team I'm on does Operation Thanksgiving Turkey each Thanksgiving to help feed needy families in our area. The first year we fed 40 families, last year we fed 286. After two years of promoting OTT with nothing other than some text posters it was decided a logo was needed. The word "operation" brought to mind a military operation and with all the volunteers involved it is almost like one. After playing around with some ideas for a mascot I settled on a turkey - the American symbol of Thanksgiving. I ended up creating Sgt. Gobble.

The logo will work well on stickers that can be put on the bags the meals are delivered in, t-shirts and other items. The mascot will show up on posters and brochures.

It was a fun project for a good cause.