d r o p l e t s

Studio Wilke crosses a very important milestone at istockphoto!

May 5th, 2008 we sold our 10,000th image via istockphoto.com. Stock photography and illustration has changed tremendously over the past decade and specifically over the past 5 years. We are proud to be exclusive contributors to iStockphoto.com and even more excited to have crossed the 10,000 file mark.

Well, it has been a while since we put some quality time in on the “old blog.”

It is something we’d like to do more often than every 6 months. It has been crazy around here recently. We recently started working with a great bike shop in the Ann Arbor, Michigan area… Two Wheel Tango. They have been great to work with and very creative. We’ll post up some of the creative we’ve put together for them soon… so stay tuned.

Additionally, we have had to add a couple more freelancers to our resources as things have really been picking up. It’s a great problem to have and frankly, we’d like to add more people permanently.

Counting our blessings,
Studio Wilke

We just completed authoring a mini DVD with a few choice examples. We hope to add this soon to the experience here. It has a quick sample of our photography, animation and print design capabilities… more than that… it looks pretty swanky.

More updates to follow.

All the best,
Brian

Studio Wilke
www.studiowilke.com

Studio Wilke is updating it’s look. That’s right… new examples, more of em… heck maybe even a case story or two. We’d say case study… but that sounds so … blah.

Stay tuned, we’re going to be turning up the volume.

-bw

After exploring different ideas and a couple different colors, the final logo is finished.

The client is very pleased and excited to use their logo all over the place… we hope to see it around as well.

From the meeting with the client, a few directions “rise” to the top.

From here we take these back to the studio and look at different variations. Above see the differences in subtle type changes and color selections that begin to form the finished identity. Click on the thumbnail above to see the progress

Six directions were presented to the client.

Typically, this is about the number we look to achieve. We usually end up with 2 that are very close to what the client was asking for, 2 more that are a good fit that may not be what the client had in mind, yet are consistent with what the marketplace is looking for. And finally, 2 more that are a little “different.”

Above are the fruits of this effort, refined from pencil sketches to this digital state.

The logo process begins with listening.

We already know in a sense what the client is looking for. It is our responsibility and agreement to give them at least what they asked for. Although this seems intuitive, it’s surprising how often this is overlooked.

So we began with what we thought they wanted. The sketches flowed quickly from that departure point. The first ideas sometimes just need to get out so we have room for the ones behind. As the sketches filled many pages, we explored different letter combinations, different “obvious” icons for the industry that the client was in and finally directional ideas that played into the name itself.

When the sketches were “done”, we gathered them up. We looked back through and selected about seven. These were then “digitized” and prepared for black (one-color) presentation to the client. We typically work one-color until we get to where the addition of a hue will be a step and not merely a distraction.

Next step, the presentation.

For those of you interested in the workflow of a project, we invite you to follow the story we are about to start.

A potential client found us through the yellow pages online. The inquired whether we offered logo design services. Obviously, we need to do a better job on our examples area… but more on that another time.

We responded yes and set a time to meet.

We met with this client and listened. That’s the most important step to begin with afterall, listening. From that we were able to fill out our standard creative brief and get to the core of the project. This was a person who was eager to start their own business and needed to forge a new identity. We walked them through what we consider to be crucial questions when going through the identity process and listened (notice a theme) to what they expected the logo to communicate.

After showing past work and negotiating terms, we agreed to begin work. Although this will be relatively speaking a “small” project. It will be a standard project. We will go through all of the steps and checks and balances. And if everything works as it should, we hope to have a successful project, and successful client.

Stay tuned.

Welcome to another action packed post from Studio Wilke

Well our Google ad words campaign has run it’s trial month. With a mere $50 budget, we spent only $5.81… apparently we over budgeted. This is an easy thing to do, “over budget”. It’s important to think about the overall goals of a marketing plan when considering a budget. This will not break us, and fortunately, as we can simply roll the budget into the next month’s use.

23,000 impressions is enough to keep us interested in this as a viable way to add exposure to Studio Wilke. Time will tell if we can blow through $50!

Stay tuned.