Let's Have Some Fun (designing an identity for my son's climbing club)

Ever since my wife introduced me to the North Shore in Minnesota shortly after we graduated from college, I found my love of the outdoors. I fell in love with hiking and camping. And that led to our discovery of paddleboarding and kayaking. Well, we must have rubbed off on our son because he discovered climbing. After working at Bouldering Project in Minneapolis  (shameless plug!) for the past few years, he and one of his best friends decided to form their own climbing club. And of course he asked his Dad to do their identity :D.

No, this isn't a post about climbing. It's to show you how I work. When I mentor young Designers, this is the old school lesson I always talk to them about first. Just as computers were new and had a maturation period when I was a beginning Designer, AI continues to mature and young Designers should know that AI is a tool, not the Designer.

It's really not that complicated and it's not a secret. If you want to be a Designer, it's about the idea and telling the story. Just as I was told that you don't jump on a computer when you start designing, you don't run to AI in this era. The first thing I do is talk to my client. In this case I sat down with my son and his best friend and business partner and we talked about Boundry Waters Climbing Club. My first page of sketching isn't even sketches! It's notes. It's what I heard. It's the foundation for the identity.

And the sketches that followed weren't done right away. I took time to think and process. Then I came back to my sketchbook and got to work getting ideas on paper. The sketches are a brain dump of notes to myself, good ideas, bad ideas, type ideas and imagery ideas. Most of this won't make the cut and I'm in constant talks with my son. Once I've landed on the best idea; the one that tells the story of BWCC, I'll tighten up the sketches and then I'll get on the computer.

Check back for progress on this project! Next time I'll ramble on about the computer part of the design process