Doing what I always do when I need something designed, I called Scott. Scott and I first worked together when I was freelancing at a magazine long ago. Then, one of the publishers branched out and stole us away. And then I opened an accidental business, wrote a book that needed a cover and got a real estate license. So, I have pretty much kept Scott busy ever since.
On Tuesday, I sent the logo to Scott--he designed it, actually--asking him to do something with it. "Fix it or something," was the concrete direction I gave him. After a few several e-mails of me saying "something," he and I had a phone call where he begged for direction. Apparently in the past 18 years, Scott hasn't learned to read my mind.
The true issue is I have no artistic inclination whatsoever. I know what I like and what people tell me I like. I understand Comic Sans font is out (was it truly ever in?). I understand certain colors on the spectrum go together. But that's where my artistic understanding ends. And now, Scott, my go-to guy in these types of situations was asking me to tell him what to do! This role reversal unnerved me. I gave him what I thought was reasonable guidance. I said things like, "Why not make one of the letters a key?" Because, you know, real estate = keys. Right? Here is part of what Scott gave me.
In his defense, I also mentioned I would like the colors green and purple in part of the logo. I did not mean not these greens and purples. Apparently Scott proudly belongs to a class of people who think "eggshell," "ecru" and "tan" are the same colors.
I then gave Scott some Pantone colors--including blue and gold. This is what I got. You can kind of see the green Pantone I gave him in the graphic below. I accidentally cut it off.
Then I sent him a palette with a few color selections that caught my eye. Coincidentally, Google said these colors were "trendy." Because I was still hell-bent on something quasi-purple, I suggested the Tawney Port might be a nice idea. He gave me Autumn Maple.
The major accomplishment on Wednesday was to decide (via committee of Scott, Marty, Buckaroo and myself) the key wasn't working in the logo. So, we went with a house icon. After all, I am selling houses, so there might be a correlation. Here is the house he gave me.
Now to be fair, Scott is all kinds of awesome. Marty has been lamenting that the poor guy was seeing an ugly side of me today, as I micromanaged this process with nano-changes (how about a door mat or flowers?). Incidentally, Scott mentioned the orange "popped." He is right, it does. I still hate it.
There were a few micro-issues with the font too, but once we got those worked out (solid color, no shadowing please,) we went back to the icon. Truly, the house felt incomplete. Buckaroo said it needed walls. It made me think of the burned out buildings I have seen. No, this would not do. So, I set Scott to work on a few house designs, including ones I drew on my phone with my jeans as the backdrop (I was parked at a red light).
Scott responded with the following pictures and an optimistic "How are these? Is this your vision?"
It was not my vision. Buckaroo shook his head. Marty offered his pity to Scott. I mentally tallied how many hours he had worked on this and how much I was going to owe him.
We had all liked the concept of a house. It was the first house I just didn't like. When I looked at it again, I realized what I didn't like was that it just looked incomplete. So after we dithered about the house design all day Thursday, I told him to please put eaves and a doorknob and please send it back.
In three minutes flat, Scott sent me this.
And it was perfect.
No comments:
Post a Comment