The promo code is “axls-beta-20″ and will be active until this Wednesday, January 13, 2010.

We needed to do a bit of a re-brand for our client, Child Care Insurance Professionals. They weren’t sure whether they wanted a totally new direction, or simply wanted to re-purpose their existing logo. My task was to come up with a few different options that would give them a solid foundation for making a decision. Here’s a quick and dirty look how I went about it.

So first things first. As with any assignment, I begin my process by researching the client and their industry, which in this case is the Insurance Industry, and more specifically, Charter School Insurance. After searching the web for any Charter School / Insurance inspiration I could find, I compiled the information, both visual and my notes, and began to brainstorm. Which gave me this.

Concept maps are my favorite way of instantly dumping my ideas into words. While this is certainly nothing I would ever show the client, it allows me to quickly cycle through many different directions. At this point, I knew I wanted to include some sort of light iconography, specifically a torch. I felt the torch functions well with a number of my keywords such as: wisdom, peace of mind, preparedness, the future, and being a leader. I also kicked around the idea of using a dove, or bird of sorts.

Next I go into sketch mode. Again we are still in the very initial stages of the assignment and my ideas are intended to be rough and quick. At this point I have a pretty good idea of what I want in my head, and I am just trying to put something on paper that somewhat resembles the image I have in my head. As a designer, one of my favorite feelings is being able to put on paper what I have in my mind, which is very very tough, and only get’s easier with lots of practice.

I am pretty satisfied with the last sketch as it’s starting to represent my vision. Some people insist on sketching until they have exhausted all their ideas or have the art pretty well finalized. Personally I find this a bit restrictive, and like to start working digitally as soon as possible, especially when there’s a fairly tight deadline in the equation.

Now I pop open Illustrator and quickly start refining my initial sketch. Working digitally allows me a lot of speed and flexibility and I am able to pump out some more refined variations. Notice I am still working in black and white.

The first two are new directions and the last three are variations of their existing logo. While we’re still working with comps, I now have something to present to the client. From here they’ll be able to get a good feel for the direction we’re headed in, and they’ll be able to give proper feedback.

Once again we would like to congratulate Dana on his third term and look forward to working with him as Park City’s Mayor throughout these next four years.

Check out the project online at www.ccipros.com.

When it comes down to it designers basically have two choices: Helvetica and Georgia. While both are excellent type specimens, using the same two fonts over and over can be quite the buzzkill. Up until recently, if you wanted to use a non-web font your only option was to export the text as an image. This is generally not regarded as good practice for a couple of reasons: 1) Text in as images are not accessible. The text isn’t read by search engines and in turn kills your SEO. 2) The more images you have on a site, the longer the site takes to load.

The good news is that there has been quite a bit of innovation in the web font world as of late. While all of these solutions are improvements, they all come with their fair share of drawbacks. I’ll briefly detail some of the pros and cons of the most popular methods.

1. @font-face: A simple line of CSS allows you to embed fonts into a page. Seems simple enough, right? Wrong. Besides the fact that Internet Explorer doesn’t support it (big surprise) the @font-face opens up a whole can of worms when it comes to licensing issues. By embedding fonts on a webpage, anyone that accesses that page has full access to the font files. While this is good news for people looking to build their font library, it is certainly bad news for the already unsung font designer.

2. .EOT (embedded open type): Microsoft’s version of @font-face has been around since IE4. While Microsoft has opened up licensing for other browsers, no way in Hell is Mozilla or Apple going to adopt Microsoft’s way of doing things at this point in the game.

3. sIFr (scalable Inman Flash replacement): sIFr works through a combination of JavaScript, CSS, and Flash. Basically it searches out short passages of HTML that it then replaces with a Flash Movie on the fly set in a real font. Additionally, because the initial text is set in HTML, everything is still readable by search engines. While a good initial solution, sIFr has it’s limitations. 1) For size and speed reasons, it is only suitable for short passages of text. 2) Flash is a complex program making it very difficult to implement. 3) Enabled Flash blockers will block the text.

4. Cufón: Devised as an alternative to sIFr, Cufón works similarly in that it converts the fonts into a proprietary format and then renders it with a JavaScript engine. However it’s also similar in that it’s extremely slow and difficult to implement.

5. .webfont proposal: Widely regarded among type foundries as one of the best proposed solutions, .webfont would be comprised of a compressed file along with a data file. Within the file are permissions that would be read by the browser and displayed. While this seems like a winner, the proposal is still waiting to be approved by the w3c. Currently no browsers support .webfont.

6. Typekit: Perhaps the best and simplest solution at this point in time, Typekit is a 3rd party subscription service that hosts a number of approved fonts. By embedding a short piece of code into your page, JavaScript is called to deliver the font to the page. The obvious drawback is that only font’s stored by Typekit are available for use as well as the fact that there is no way to access the fonts in Photoshop, where web design and font selection ultimately begins.

For more in depth reading in the world of web fonts, visit the great I Love Typography. Web standards expertJeffery Zeldman also has a great write up on web fonts, and for more information on using Cufón, designer Cameran Moll provides a good tutorial.

While James has been hanging around the office for some time now, today he becomes a “made member” complete with mug shot and bio. An expert in engineering for the web, James will be overseeing the web usability and functionality side of things.

Mackenzie’s been brought on board to handle all things administrative. Her duties lie in making sure this office is operating as smooth as a babies bottom. But don’t let that angel face of her’s fool ya, you don’t want to get on this little lady’s bad side. Under her watch, clients with overdue invoices have been known to turn up missing. We’re guessing they’re pushing daisy’s somewhere in the west desert.

For more on the newly minted crew, direct yourself to the about page complete with new pictures!

www.paulsahre.com

www.jamesvictore.com

www.karlssonwilker.com

In the meantime head over to the mayor’s Facebook page for all the latest.