So I checked out the hipster messenger favorites, Chrome and Timbuk2. Chrome didn’t have many options and the ones I’ve seen looked bulky, so I tried out Timbuk2. They let users post product reviews (positive & negative) on the site, which was an awesome way to learn about the bag from people riding with it, not just a flowery description. Loved the custom bag maker. I chose a monochromatic look. 2 panels of lightweight black and 1 panel of reflective restaurant-booth-style vinyl. Like an Orca.

But the most impressive part of the purchase was the personal touch they put on everything I got from them. This snippet from the confirmation e-mail was so much more entertaining than the usual confirmation receipt:

We suggest that you actually read it and like it because this is what you are getting and the address below is where we are going to send it. If you must be That Person, we can TRY our best to make changes or cancel your order.  This is only if we have had enough coffee and our warehouse hasn’t… Remember, this is only if your order is NOT IN PRODUCTION. Once your order makes it to our production line, we can’t change it for you and if it’s custom, we can’t take it back. Not because we don’t love you; but because we already have really, really nice custom made Messenger bags from Timbuk2.  It’s part of the uniform.

It was refreshing to get something with some personality. Made me feel better about spending $200 on a backpack. When I actually got the bag in the mail there was another surprise. It didn’t come in a bloated box like everything from Amazon. It came in a plastic shipping bag with a map on it. Not just any map. It’s a bike route map of San Francisco with all the locations you can buy Timbuk2 bags tagged. They encourage you to cut it out and reuse it for something. But the writing is brilliant. Not your average Starbucks corporate eco-friendly statement.

Now every time I need a travel bag, I know exactly where I’ll look first. Next time I go to San Francisco, I want to go check out their office. I couldn’t care less about visiting the Jansport factory or the Nike factory. But because of the extra personality Timbuk2 gave me, I am now fascinated with their brand and want to support anything they do.

This is powerful branding. All about knowing your audience and taking every opportunity to be genuine and personal with them. Timbuk2 has a mission and it’s not to be the biggest messenger bag company on earth. But it is to be the best. And to not destroy the earth in the process.

I’m a fan. And the bag is awesome, too.

I also did a little motion intro for it.  When I say little, I mean very little. Vimeo wouldn’t even let me upload it because it was too small. But it’s just a start for a video we’ll be making to introduce the students to U-too on the Union web site and social networks.

They’re all original vector drawings. No stock stuff. I’m really enjoying working on these and developing my vector illustration skills. I have some more in the works for future plugins that I’m really excited about that I’ll post as soon as they launch.

I’ve come a long way in the last two years of building web sites. I made my first site spring semester of my sophomore year and I just finished my most recent one last week. It will be switched over soon, I promise. I’m switching hosting and it’s a mess right now.

Because I’m switching hosts (finally ditching GoDaddy for Hostgator) I’ve been going through all my old files to back everything up. It’s terrifying to see what I used to think was worth showing people. I think you should always be able to look back and realize how far you’ve come. If you’re not better now, you’re not pushing yourself. So, get ready to laugh. Here comes two years of rough AdBrad site screenshots. From hard-coded HTML to finally now all WordPress, it’s been quite a journey.

I was recently nominated in the Best Blog Design category of the 2009 Okie Blog Awards, so I guess I’m getting better at this (you should go vote for me if you’re an Oklahoma blogger!). And now that I’m working for WebDesign.com and iThemes Media, I’ll be doing a lot more web design in the future so maybe I’ll look back and hate this site too. We’ll see.

Some of these link to the originals, but most will break by next week when I clean off my storage, so get to them quickly or just enjoy the screenshots. There are a lot, so click the <more> tag to see them all. Be glad I only included the most developed ones. There were plenty more single pages that never got developed.

Those are the first two. Click for more if you can bear to look at the rest.

And here’s the current. Never the final, but the current. Here’s to constantly improving yourself.

It’s a cool look, but with the Helvetica and the syringe look of the Union spire, it was definitely too medical. So, for this round I tried to make it a happier, more participatory feel by using icons to denote certain (made-up for now) programs and options.

These icons will be used to visually describe the options and can also be turned into badges as rewards and reminders of employee commitments. Kind of like flair. I used Chevin as the typeface, because it’s clean and modern, but much softer than Helvetica. After using Foursquare and Gowalla for the past couple weeks, I’ve been inspired by their icon design. Hopefully they like the idea so I can do more of that in the future.

I came across this photo set a few weeks ago.

I feel like I have not done a very good job of creating meaningful content on this blog in a while. I’ve posted a few cool projects and ideas this semester, but nothing too consistent. This semester was one of my most stressful at school. And I started a side project called “snacks”. It’s gotten some pretty good traffic in its first month of existence. I’m still messing around with it, but I feel like it will be something cool that I can keep up with pretty regularly. It’s become a constant stream of things that inspire me. So if you want to see what I’m working on, what I’m looking at, what I’m reading, etc, try checking out snacks.

Aside from snacks, I’ve been doing this whole going to college thing. I’ve mentioned my incredible Internet Communications class before. Our final project was to create and promote a web site called PokeYourVote.com. Check out the video I made and the splash page I created to promote the site and build an e-mail list before it launches in Spring. I also designed an identity for the site.

[vimeo  clip_id=8274766 width=“500” height=“400”]

Each student also had a personal project. We were assigned local clients to help. We had to identify and solve their media problems by the end of the class. I was assigned Cooper’s Bicycle Center, a place I visit quite frequently. They aren’t very tech savvy, but today, they don’t need to be to successfully market themselves. I showed them ways they could easily and efficiently promote themselves on the internet using blogging and Facebook. Check out my presentation on Issuu.

• Star Wars: a long time ago in a galaxy far far away.
• dinosaur: awesome a long time ago on earth.
• killer whale: the first thing I remember drawing…and sailboats.
• astronaut: my lifelong dream career
• Star Trek: my fascination with technology and the future
• TMNT: my first brand obsession
• bicycle: my current mode of transportation

So maybe that didn’t really deserve a list, but I feel it needed to be explained. So, as snacks becomes something I keep up as a visual journal and sharing platform of things that inspire me, AdBrad will continue to be my thoughts and progress as a student. Not just school. Everything that makes me who I am: school, design, faith, science fiction, etc. I hope to update the blog at least weekly with something that inspires or fascinates me. I will make more time to create. As Cory Miller and Matt Danner always say, content is king.

Right now, I’m inspired by a book: The Divine Commodity. It’s been eye opening for me to realize the effects that branding and consumerism have had on the American church. We are so saturated with a consumer-driven culture that it has distorted our view of Christ and how to share His love effectively in a world, and specifically a country, driven by overconsumption. Jethani uses Vincent van Gogh’s paintings to illustrate his ideas. Van Gogh had a much more spiritual life than you’d expect. He was at one point a vagabond missionary who removed himself from the conventional church. Starry Night explains his vision of the emptiness and inauthenticity of the church in his time. I think it speaks to today’s church as well. I’ll have more to say on it by the end of the week. I’m halfway through. Thanks to my friend Cole NeSmith for sparking my interest in it with his blog post about the decentralization of the church.

The Divine Commodity is one of a few books I plan to read by the end of my nearly month-long break. Next up is Love Is An Orientation: Elevating the Conversation With the Gay Community. Then comes one I’ve been looking forward to for a while: Moby Dick. A few weeks ago I decided I was going to try to read Moby Dick over the break. But when I looked at the selection of books on Amazon and at Barnes & Noble, I didn’t find a single version I would be unashamed to hold in my hand. Every one had some generic series cover or a lame drawing of a whale covered in even lamer type. So I decided to design my own cover.

After going to these lengths to find an appropriate cover, I finally found one I approve of. I was in the Antique Mall in Stillwater today and came across a horrid dust jacket on an ancient copy of Moby Dick. When I took off the cover I unearthed a beauty of a book. From the pressed illustration on the cover to the perfect type on the spine, I knew this was the book I had been waiting for. So I brought it home and can’t wait to open it up. Better pictures to come tomorrow when I can borrow my sister’s camera.

The day after I made this design I came across a poster  by Mark Weaver inspired by the classic. Very cool. I feel his take on the book is a lot angrier. I will probably significantly alter my design by the time I finish reading it. I’ll keep you posted.

G’night.

Ready to go home to Edmond for a month and do a lot of work that I actually enjoy. New AdBrad.com is 2nd on the list to screen printing the Oklahoma shirts.

The Healthy Union brand is a tentative name of the OSU Student Union health program. The Union is encouraging employees to stay healthy by giving incentives for things like losing weight or quitting smoking. I wanted to keep the look clean and medical. The Union dining already has a healthy eating program with a rough, organic style, so this needs to have a distinct feel. The Union tower (placed here on the cross) has been used in most of the building’s branding materials by itself for years, so it associates it specifically with the Student Union.

PokeYourVote.com is a web site our internet communications class is working on. I’m designing the preliminary look of the site this week. This is the logo. It’s a combination of the iconic Cowboy fan finger gun and a check mark in a voting box. The site will be a blog dedicated to hearing the unbiased, collective voice of Cowboy fans, students, alumni, staff and faculty and promoting public discussion of campus issues.