Tag: design

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Holy Cross Bicycle Club

As you may know I ride my bike in the cemetery near my house. So when a friend posted something online about looking for people to ride with I replied “Meet me at the cemetery at 7am!” because I tend to ride there weekday mornings…

It was (mostly) a joke, but then I had the idea for the “Holy Cross Bicycle Club” which does not exist, unless you count me going there alone to ride my bike. I’ve never seen anyone else riding there…

But I decided the idea needed a logo, so I made one. (This is not a great logo! I spent about 10 minutes on it and then decided I wasted enough time on a joke and and should do something else.) Enjoy!

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Visit Milwaukee Logo

Visit Milwaukee has rebranded, and introduced a new logo. You can check their site for more info, or see the comments from the people on Facebook.

Disclaimer: I have a degree in Graphic Design, and though I’ve never held a job with the title Graphic Designer, I’ve done a lot of design, and seen a lot of good (and bad) design over the years. I’ve also worked with some very talented designers over the years. (And I’ve written about logos before.)

With that out of the way, I will say… good logo design is hard. Like, really hard. Extremely difficult. Rebrands are also challenging because there will always be people who don’t like change, or just prefer the old thing they are familiar with.

So what are my thoughts on this new logo? It’s fine. I don’t love it, but that’s okay. I think it’s recognizable and memorable, and when I see it in the future I’m recall what it is, what it’s for, and than it’s part of Visit Milwaukee.

Would I purchase merchandise with this logo on it? Probably not, but it depends very much on the application of it, and the context. I’m definitely not a huge fan of this logo. I do really like The People’s Flag of Milwaukee and I still like Milwaukee Home (though I feel they cheapened the brand when it expanded to other cities).

Overall I think the new design direction of Visit Milwaukee is good, and I look forward to seeing how it progresses over time. There’s even a chance this logo will grow on me and I’ll come to like it more than I do right now. We’ll see!

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Valentine’s Day Cards

I cranked out a bunch of paper circuit Valentine’s Day Cards for Brown Dog Gadgets. These can all be made with the Paper Circuits Kit which features conductive Maker Tape, tons of LEDs, batteries, and other supplies. Add all the free templates and resources and you’ve got yourself a good time.

Heart Friend Valentine’s Card

I LOVE U Valentine’s Card

Picture You and Me Together Valentine’s Card

The Cake is a Lie Valentine’s Card

You’ve Got Mail Valentine’s Card

Human Heart Valentine’s Card

You’re Aces Valentine’s Card

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Ball Feeder Mechanism

Here’s this week’s progress on the wax ball feeder mechanism. These are actually 2D files that were laser cut, but I sort of like the look of making them 2.5D so you can see the dimensionality.

Oh, to make the 3D render I exported a DXF file from Inkscape, load it into OpenSCAD and then use the linear_extrude function.

And yeah, these files are already outdated as there was one mistake (which I fixed with the bandsaw) and I’ve assembled it and found room for improvement.

You can see some earlier iterations here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. Which is to say, if you want to see minor updates with very little context, follow @raster on The Instagram.

You’ll notice an issue with the balls getting stuck in the chute, so there’s a bit of work to do there. I’ve got a few ideas, just need time to test them.

And don’t worry, at some point this might all make sense, once you see the rest of the thing. Or maybe it won’t… who knows!?

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Enclosure Prototyping

I’ve made a lot of laser cut enclosures over the years. I typically make them out of 3mm or 6mm Baltic Birch plywood, and sometimes I even mix the two sizes, which is fun because you need to remember which tabs need 3mm and which need 6mm.

As much as I’ve made a lot of enclosures, I still occasionally screw up, or get things not quite right the first time. Typically I design the entire enclosure in software and then cut things out. If I’m smart I’ll first cut it using cardboard to prototype how it all goes together. Cardboard isn’t always the correct thickness, but it can often get you close enough and reveal flaws in your design that you can correct before you start cutting wood.

One of my recent discoveries is that if your cardboard is too thick you can squish it in the hydraulic press and it’ll stay pretty squished. There’s a little bounce back, but it’ll be thinner than it was originally.