My name is Mike Willis and I’m a tech junkie.

Jeff Golblum steps into his human fax machine.

I confess, I’ve done it all. Back in the early days, late 70′s, I started out on basic stuff. FAX. Good technology back then. FAX was like magic. You slid a paper into the holder, pushed a button, and like magic it was teleported and put back together at another machine miles away. Like The Fly except with better results.

Later on FAX wasn’t cutting it, I need more. Something that would give me that technological buzz that FAX couldn’t produce anymore.

Me and Apple- we think alike. Not different.

That’s when I discovered MAC. It was 1985. MAC was introduced to me by a long haired college drop out named Steve Jobs. He and another dude had a funky company called Apple. I dug their logo man, with it’s cool rainbow colors. I thought- “far out man, that’s the name of MY company- “Rainbow Graphics“. Is that like, Karma or what? You mixed MAC with POSTSCRIPT and you had powerful design mojo going on. The sky’s the limit when you’re on MAC. Steve profoundly changed my life from that point forward.

MAC has always been my first choice, but I tried other stuff, sure; FLOPPY, ZIP, JAZZ, SYQUEST, OPTICAL, you name it- I hooked up with it.

I was cruising along. Trying different kinds of MAC. Tried a bit of TETRONIX then EPSON. Dug the colors of LCD and PLASMA.

Then something new hit the street. WWW. Also known as NET and WEB. When you were on WEB it was called “surfin’” because that’s what it felt like. It’s like “instant knowledge” was mine for the taking. At first it was pretty mild. You used a modem to “surf”. You’d hear all these funky buzzes and pops and all of a sudden- BAM you were surfin’. Later DSL and CABLE came along. Of course I upgraded.

Later I got hooked on a new Apple product, street name “iPOD”. Music, man, pure music to my ears.

In 2007 I realized I had a problem. I couldn’t stop. Everything that flashed looked good. By now my old buddy Jobs was every tech junkie’s “god”. He was putting out gizmos that would blow your mind. And then he did just that. Blew everyone’s mind. iPHONE, a technological marvel. I mean, what didn’t it have? It was dead sexy, you could talk on it, listen to music, watch movies, play games, take pictures. And the aps. Every conceivable thing you could want to do, there was an ap for it. I wanted it, had to have it. I was out of control. I needed help. But there are no 12 step programs for tech junkies.

So I went cold turkey. Turned my back on the iPHONE. Oh sure, it was hard. All my friends got into iPHONE immediately. They’d give me their little smug looks while  tapping and talking away.

So, I’ve been pretty good over the last 4 years. Oh sure, a little MAC here and there. But nothing really good, you know, really “tekkie”. Well… I did have one relapse… it’s for blog use only of course… not recreational…

Once a tech junkie, always a tech junkie.

Thanks Steve… for everything.

What I imagine working at Spacetron would be like.

Maybe it’s because they use (air quotes) “lasers” for their manufacturing – that they thought the name “Spacetron” would convey a cutting-edge company. I don’t know. (Mind you, I feel I can make fun of their name only because at one time my company was called Rainbow Graphics.)

Not a very good example of Monty Python's 3D logo.

The logo was the first thing we thought needed to be addressed. Clumsily created in a 3D program of some sort; 3D logos haven’t been in vogue since… well… never actually. Well, maybe the Monty Python logo was pretty cool. The point is, the original Spacetron logo had to go. The look and feel of a web site is somewhat driven by the logo. As Alan Urquhart and I discussed it, our thought was that this logo was probably near and dear to their heart – so we didn’t want to deviate too far and I think Alan nailed it. He took the planet, which I guess had been “laser” cut into pieces, and instead of a concentric ring he cleverly styled an “S” for “Spacetron” into it.  By eliminating the goofy 3D lettering Alan actually created a logo that would fit in our “modern” world. I’m sure I’m way off base and in the future ALL logos will be in 3D, but the point is to look like you come from this day and age.

Spacetron logos, before and after.

Once that was done, the makeover progressed fairly smoothly. Their current web site looks like it might have been created from one of those templates you get from a hosting company like Go Daddy.

The homepage consisted of no text, an odd amount of white space and an ad for a Personalized Stainless Steel Dog Bone ID Tag. I can’t imagine they could be paying off the nut on a gazillion-dollar laser cutting machine by selling doggie tags. We still kept the “space” theme, but added a touch of class with clean typography and easy navigation.Turns out they don’t. One of their goals was to try and attract more “commercial” clients.

Oh, almost forgot, their ultimate sin, the use of Comic Sans as their text font.

Spacetron "BEFORE" image

So Alan proposed a nice little java slide show of manufactured products they sold. Still keeping the “space” theme, but with a touch of class. Clean typography and easy navigation. We didn’t realize they had Live Chat until we clicked on the little graphic sitting all alone on the wasteland called their home page that says “Leave a message”, which really didn’t make much sense. Why “Leave a message” when you could have a “Live Chat”?

Proposed Spacetron website makeover.

Needless to say, we figured this would be a slam dunk. And this is where my credo “The customer is NOT always right” comes into play. They fired back an email to Eric with some small changes, easily done. But the last line floored me.

“And last but not least, he wants to keep the original animated logo throughout the web site.”

First of all, the logo they use on the current web site doesn’t animate in any browsers we tested. It probably only works in their browsers from the future. More emailing back and forth and lo and behold they were able to find an animated version and promptly sent it to us. It is a marvel to behold!

As if the original 3D logo wasn't bad enough.

Further emails indicated they were serious. Vincent Flanders and I lampooned this kind of thing back in the dark ages of web design (1997) in our book Web Pages That Suck!

Eric politely asked them to get some second opinions from people of modern Earth. I’m not good at that kind of thing. The jury is still out. Hopefully they will take our advice and bring their web site Back to the Present.

I’ve been on various charitable committees thought the years. And while it felt good to do something good for the community, for me, they always seemed to be missing something. That “something” it turns out was beer.
About 22 years ago I was commissioned to design a logo for an event called “Brews on the Roof”. It was a fundraiser for the American Cancer Society and was part of a collective downtown event called “Up on the Roof, Down in the Street”. It was a really successful event that was held in a parking garage downtown. A mixture of beer, food and music. I’d do a few things for the event in exchange for a few tickets. The logo was designed by my then lead designer, Jim Bennett.
In 1996 or thereabouts, the big event kind of fell apart. Brews on the Roof committee chairman, Rick Peace, wanted to keep it alive though. Through a series of events, it continued on at the Kern County Museum (Pioneer Village for you oldsters) and was rechristened Brews in the Village. About that time I was invited to join the committee. I always felt that asking me to “join” a committee was really just asking me to “design their stuff for free”. Rick sensed I was avoiding the commitment, so he asked if I might just sit in on a meeting. The meeting was held at Frugatti’s  Italian Restaurant… home of the Voluptuous Blond Ale. Ralph Fruguglietti was one of the original chairmen of the event… and the host. He asked me if I’d like a beer for the meeting. “Yes, yes I would, thank you,” was my reply. Now THIS was a committee I could grow to like! It turned out this all-volunteer committee was very dedicated and very professional and never drunk… at least at the meetings anyway.

Upon leaving downtown, it was decided they wanted to keep the money raised, local. (The money donated to American Cancer Society went to the national fund.) So we started a nonprofit foundation called Children’s Advocates Resource Endowment (CARE) where all of the profit from Brews in the Village and a couple of other fundraisers, would benefit the kids of Kern County. Each year money is granted out to various children charities.

Crucial memebrs of Willieboy's Brew Posse.

About three years ago, “Brews” underwent another name change to “Village Fest“. The reason being is some corporations balk at donating to blatantly alcohol-related events. And Village Fest really is more than just a “beer” festival. Each year we get 30+ top restaurants to participate, like; Buck Owen’s Crystal Palace, CafeMed, Brookside, Frugatti’s, Primecut and Goose Loonies, to name a few. On top of that we have five stages of live music  throughout the museum grounds. As you wander around sampling beer and wine and food, you’ll go from blues, to rock n’ roll, to jazz and then, perhaps reggae. Did I mention this is going on simultaneously? A total of 15 different bands! It’s sensory overload. But in a good way. We dubbed it “The Party of the Year” and it truly is that. It’s been very rewarding to be part of this event. This year you might just spot my “Beer Posse”… we’ll be the ones wearing Sombreros. Hopefully we’ll see you there!

Saturday, September 10th, 2011
6 pm – 10 pm
Kern County Museum • Bakersfield, California

Tickets $63 ($68 Day of)

1. On line at Valitix or call 661-322-5200 or Toll Free 888-825-5484
2. ValliTix Oulets: Fox Theatre and The Emporium Western Store
3. Lengthwise Brewing Company
   6720 Schirra Ct. (661) 836-2537
4. Frugatti’s Italian Eatery, 600 Coffee Rd. (661) 836-2000.


Unlimited food samples? Check!

Village Fest by the numbers

• Estimated $282,000.00 Gross/$158,000.00 Net
• 4,500 in Paid Attendance!
• 400+ Volunteers
• 60+ Breweries
• Over 100 Brews
• Several Central Coast Wineries
• 30 of Bakersfield’s Most Popular Restaurants
• 45,000 food samples
• 78,000 drink samples
• 15 Local Bands
• 10-1/2 months in the making!

Live music throughout the evening.

Kern River Brewery is just one of many brews being served up.

Rock n roll with a celtic trist.

There are times we, as designers, must gently push a client in the right direction in regards to their design. There are other times when we might shove. And then there are other times when we simply raise the white flag. The profile in today’s blog took some gentle pushing, but resulted in a really nice design-outcome.
But before we get to that, let’s discuss the more difficult situations.

Goofy situation #1: Client knows more than designer

Inevitably these client meetings start with: ” I used to be a designer for a publication.” This establishes an erroneous feeling of equality in the part of the client. It doesn’t matter that the “publication” was their high school yearbook, they ARE a designer, damnit! And on no uncertain terms should I forget it. The typical course of action on our part, in the event a design issue arises, and it will, many times, is to make a suggestion, then do it the way they want anyway. After all, they are writing the check. Oddly enough, these types of clients are happy with the results.

"A girraffe instead of a backhoe. Or can we combine the two?"

Goofy situation #2: The “This-But-Not-That” client

Adam Carolla does a great rant on this type of person. In his case it deals with comedy writers that aren’t comedy writers. In our case it goes something like this:
ME: “So, what do you think of the brochure cover for your construction company?”
CLIENT: “I LOVE IT! However how about doing something “outside of the box”?
ME: “Outside of the box”?
CLIENT: “Yeah, like, instead of the backhoe, a giraffe. But not a giraffe, but something like it.
ME: “A giraffe?”
CLIENT: No, not a giraffe, but, something like it, maybe an Anteater! Not an Anteater, but something like it. You’re the pro, you know what I mean.”

At this point I have no fricken clue as to what they mean. A giraffe/anteater instead of a backhoe? None of this “thinking- outside-the-box” talk came up in the initial meetings. I’m being blindsided by a lunatic. Worst of all, not giving me a definitive direction; it’s the ‘ol “This but not that” circle talk. My mind goes numb and my facial expression is that of a robot. My smile is cadaverous.

CLIENT: “Oh, and why did you change the font from Comic Sans?”
ME: (while simultaneously shoving a paper clip under my fingernail) “I didn’t realize I had. What a lovely font, Comic Sans, created by Beelzebub himself. My mistake, I will forfeit my soul immediately and restore the text to it’s original form.”
CLIENT:“Uh, good. So back to the idea of using a unicorn instead of a backhoe, what do you think”?

Don’t believe this really happens? Here’s an excerpt from an email I received a couple days ago from a client in regard to a website mockup we did for him. He is talking about another website he saw and apparently liked. Here is the last part of his diatribe:
“…rich images, 3-dimensional feel, great use of color, clean/simple/uncluttered pages… it’s very elegant and very creative.  It leaves the visitor anxious to contact the company – and it takes a dirty, dusty industrial business and practically makes it look like they operate in a computer clean room environment.”

Then the very next sentence is:
“That’s not to say we want that.”

Client with a clue:

Not all customer input is bad. In fact, most of it is good. I love it when clients bring their ideas to the initial meeting. Sketches, crude mockups, all help in setting our direction. It’s when the client insists we follow their instructions verbatim, that things go bad.

Crayons, clip art and cut out photos were all employed in this mock up from MoChi Fitness.

That wasn’t the case with a recent project for MoChi Fitness. Dawna and Denny Uhles are taking an old exercise apparatus and breathing new life into it. I’ve had a lot of nutty ideas come across my desk and, being a somewhat pessimist, or as I like to call myself, “a realist”, I try and talk said client out of dumping lots of money into a bad idea. I don’t believe that to be the case with the MoChi Twister. After hearing their pitch, I felt this product had “legs”. They had a well thought out marketing plan along with initial concepts.

It’s fun to look at Dawna’s mockups (above). I loved the combination of clip art and crayon. She knew what she wanted, she just didn’t have any idea how to get there.

My first recommendation was to get a professional photographer, since her product required extensive modeling and photography. And all of their marketing and collateral material would be photo-driven. I hooked her up with Mike Lopez, he has a great sense of athletic photography, coupled with an amazing ability to control light.

Imgages used for the Twist-a-Mania campaign.

The “Twist-a-Mania” logo and the MoChi Fitness were developed by a previous designer. I kind of like the “Austin Powers” retro look. I think it suited the product perfectly. Rather than the predictable Chubby Checker “Twist” theme, the 60′s retro look, I thought, would resonate more with their target demographic… women 20-50. I even came up with their slogan; “A new twist in fitness and fun”. For the web site development and search engine optimization (SEO), I recommended a specialist I know by the name of Coryon Redd. They have been instrumental in doing the writing and content for the web site. Coryon is a self taught SEO guru. Don’t believe me? Google “cell phone batteries”. Out of more than 58 million hits, his site, Batteries4Less shows up number one… in unpaid results. Sometimes called “organic” search results. Trust me, that’s no easy feat.

I channeled my inner Austin Powers.

The web site is still under construction and the box and training DVDs are at the printer. I think the overall look came together nicely. Dawna and Denny are happy and I think we stayed true to her original vision… we just brought it into a little better focus.

Science Fair display board, circa 2003

My daughter, Sophia, is preparing to go away to college this year. She’ll be attending Chico State. In preparation for that move, we’re having her dismantle her room. Her bedroom looks like a scene from Hoarders. The order to “clean her room” just meant, “shove everything under you bed or in your closet”. Rarely was anything discarded. So in the process of cleaning her room (we mean it this time!), she came across an old Science Board from 6th grade. And I thought “what a perfect idea for a blog”.

The only reson there's a second place ribbon in this line up is because a robot was involved.

Every parent will go through this excruciating torture. In a child’s 5th and 6th grade year they will typically have to do a Science Fair project or build a Mission. Sophia’s school, (Amy B. Seibert school), is a Science Fair school. Both my son, Bentley, and she attended school there. So I have “helped” with four Science Fair exhibits. And when I say “helped” I mean I did them and they “helped” me. Every parent will do this. They have to. A fifth grader has the attention span of a hummingbird. Their cognitive skills, not to mention motor skills are almost non-existent. So here’s where the parent’s “special skills” come in.

Robot vs anything, robot wins everytime.

You would think a parent that is a doctor, or a biologist would have the clear advantage. Wrong! What I’ve learned about Science Fairs is that it’s all about presentation. And I…er… my kids have three blue ribbons and one red ribbon to prove it. That’s right, one year I… opps… I mean, my son, was bested by an Asian kid that built a robot. I mean, come on, a robot? Nothing trumps a robot.

And do you really think these competitions are judged by MIT graduates? Of course they aren’t. Once I found out the judges consisted of some pimply faced high school kids, I knew all it would take is some razzle-dazzle and shady science to win. I’m sure by the fourth exhibit of “Which Detergent Cleans Clothes The Best“, their eyes begin to glaze over. So you need an experiment the judges have never seen. After a night of Margaritas from Mexicali, I was popping some aspirin to relieve the pounding in my brain, and praying for immediate relief, when it hit me! Which pain reliever dissolves the fastest in your stomach?

First I… er… WE Googled how to simulate stomach acid. I think every 11 year old ought to be able to play with Hydrochloric acid, so after letting her mix up a batch of imitation stomach acid, we poured it into four jars and dropped various pain-reliever tablets (coated and uncoated) into the jars and timed how long they took to dissolve. Then it was back to a Sponge Bob marathon… it was going to take awhile. Sophia typed up the report, with very little coaching from me… other than the choice of fonts. I went with an Ultra Condensed Helvetica for the headlines and a American Typewriter for the body copy. I thought it gave the poster a very academic look. Some stock art of aspirin punched up the headers.(I intentionally misaligned the headers for realism, I mean, what 11 year old knows what “left justified” means?)) I was playing around with the design- you know, just tweaking and at some point she wandered off. We were under a deadline, (your children won’t tell you about this project until the day before it’s due), so I took matters into my own hands. I loaded the files to a thumb drive and dashed to the office. I output to my over-sized Epson ink jet printer. Spray-mounted the art to foam board, cut them out with an xacto knife (I really wished she could have done that part, Hydrochloric acid and xacto knives all in one day! Thrilling!), then used double sided tape to mount them. I thought popping the headers off the board really added the wow factor. Needless to say she won first place that year. No robot competition. She went on to compete at the all-city level, but was shut down by lots of robots and actual scientific experiments. I think she lost interest at that point anyway. Come to think of it, I think she lost interest after we dropped the tablets into our acid solution.

So, you may asking yourself, “what has this to do with design”? Oddly enough, my science boards skills came into play when I was asked to do several display boards for the Beautiful Bakersfield Awards. In 2010 San Joaquin Community Hospital’s Grossman Burn Center won the Health division. And another display we did for Home Instead Senior Care won for their Secret Santa Program (Awesome program by the way).

Did our graphic design skills help tip the scales? I’d like to think so. I know it did for my 11 year old daughter.

We designed this display board for the 2010 Beautiful Bakersfield Awards. They won. Coincidence?

We designed this display board for the 2010 Beautiful Bakersfield Awards. This is an awesome progam!

Another Beautiful Bakersfield award poster for San Joaquin Community Hospital. I don't know if this program won an award, but I liked the way it turned out.