Atraktor Studio

I made this CD cover for my band called Duboka Ilegala. The inspiration for this piece was electro – folk music, connection the two terms in a visually appealing yet a bit funny way. You can download some of the songs or even order a full album by clicking this link: Duboka Ilegala Music.

Duboka Ilegala - Cd Cover Front

Cd Cover Duboka Ilegala - Back

Ski Club Stari Grad - Logo and Apparel

Once more I was involved into creating a logo, apparel applications and other various print work for a ski club based in Belgrade, Serbia. It wasn’t easy to get out of the cliche and not put a skier silhouette or a snowflake in the logo, but I think the effort finally paid off.

Visit the ski club’s website.

Ski Club Stari Grad - Diploma

Ski Club Stari Grad - Diploma 2

Ski Club Stari Grad - Memo

Snoflake Freeride Team - T-shirt

One of the things I love most is skiing. So, since I am one of the founders of the team, creating a visual identity for it was kinda natural.

The designs presented here are for T-shirts and a member card for the team. You can order your shirt using the contact page.

I also made the logo applied here.

More ski and snowboard designs still to come! Stay tuned.

Snowflake T-shirt

Snowflake - Member Card

Snowflake Member Card

Although the process of creating a visual identity for a company is different every time, I will try to explain the basic ideas and key points and get you behind the scene by using this example. The brief for a logo was very clear and simple – a startup multimedia company needed a clean graphic identity that will represent and determine the new brand.

As always, I took my pencil and started sketching. Doodles and sketches are a very important part of the workflow. I sketch everything that comes to my mind and try to brainstorm many images, words and phrases. For me, it is very important that in the beginning I have a wide range of opportunities to choose from. At this point, every detail is important, anything can trigger a good logo idea. I was also a bit lucky with this one, as it has a very inspiring name: Image Spice (the client suggested that it can be both two words or just one).

After some initial sketches, I figured out three approaches. Every proposition emphasized a different characteristic, although they all had a similar ‘spicy taste’.

I have given short “nicknames” to the propositions, so that we can communicate in a more efficient manner)

1) DOTS – in this concept I tried to put the words ‘image’ and ‘spice’ in the same picture, with more-less direct, ‘in your face’ approach. Still, I tried to keep it a little abstract, so it can take you further in terms of imagination – little dots spice up the image, but without them the image itself wouldn’t exist. I think it would look very interesting applied to various print and screen materials (business cards, memos, animation….)

2) EYE – is a more ‘classic’ and less abstract approach, in which the association for ‘image’ is the eye, spiced with warm, even hot colors, making the image resembling the sun (life, light etc.) The circle of the eye is somewhat free structure, a drawing, but the colors inside are stacked in a proper order.

3) SCREEN – this one came out quickly, from something very different I tried to make. I just had to finish it It is more of a small story – a man standing in front of the colored screen, which can also be interpreted as a window, or an image. I especially like the structure of this one – 4 elements make a pretty strong whole, and there is good use of negative space which makes the eye float from the screen, on to the man, and then to the type. When you look at man’s legs, you also see an ‘I’, and consequently the company name.

After sending the first ‘polished’ propositions it is all more-less quite easy. I just wait for a response from a client, consult about the pros and cons of every idea and finally – work on the details and make a style guide.

I usually make a style guide for every logo I make, because it is necessary that the client gets familiar with all the applications possible and gets to know his own know identity in a good manner. I will write about creating a style guide (or a book of graphic standards) in a new post soon.

For now, here are just some of the pages showing the first page, full color logo, color and font definitions and three dimensional model.

Yet more beer! This series of poster sketches wasn’t actually meant to be a series. Through a lenghty process of brainstorming, making, rejecting and refining the ideas, These three posters were the ones I think deserve to be presented.

The first one:

Needless to say it was rejected. No comment was made whatsoever.

Second attempt was more ‘serious’:

Closer. But not there yet. So, I made the third one (all of the attached pics are actually low-res sketches, so the quality of the pictures is not too good sometimes):

Bingo! The third one was the lucky winner! I like it because it has that dinamic ‘in your face’ look and feel (I admit I imagined myself swimming in the beer, too), although the first one is still closest to my heart. I think I will make a copy for my room.

(*Then he goes away crying and complaining how clients are so cruel and insensitive. )

And now the first ‘commercial’ post. This is from the time I’ve been working at Publicis Serbia. The task was to brand a popular disco club, connect the beer brand with the music and dancing, thus differentiating it form the competition. So key concepts were: fresh, young, cool and modern.

I liked the idea of making a series of panels – different stuff connected by the same concept and yet not get boring and repetitive. There was also an issue of localizing the brand flavor – in most cases, global Beck’s campaigns had black background with somewhat gloomy look. The client didn’t like black, but I did. I wanted to prove my point – black doesn’t necessarily mean bad. Quite contrary.

Designed for a special cultural occasion – a student group exhibition sponsored by French and German cultural centers in Belgrade. The theme is obvious (hopefully) and yet again I wanted to give it a broader meaning, taking reconsiliation as a starting point and explaining it with as few elements as possible.

This poster is still one of my favorite ones. It is for a gangsta rap band from Belgrade. I tried to get out of the cliche and represent something else than just three guys in baggy trousers and bling-bling jewelery.