smallstreams.com

where ideas grow
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adam
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smallstreams.com

Post by adam »

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greendrake
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Location: Clear Spring,Md.

Post by greendrake »

Adam,
May I ask who designed the logo for smallstreams and grassart.
They are both VERY appealing,colorful and certainly catch the eye.
Kudos to the designer.
Will
aguafria

Post by aguafria »

hahahaha that's just beautiful.

jim lees (palewatery here) did the grassart one as well as my own. I don't know who did the ss one but I do love it.
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adam
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Post by adam »

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The Grassart Logo Design Process

I think it is important to have a good logo that represents your work. I can draw, but when I want something done and done well, I go to the artist who works in the medium I want to work in. I placed a query for a artist who was willing to work with me on some ideas that I had for a logo and Jim Lees (palewatery) told me this was no problem and sent back a quick file to check out.

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I began to think of the elements that I wanted in the logo and then scratch drew a couple of ideas to see how it actually looked on paper. I wrote a short couple of paragraphs describing what I wanted and how I wanted it to feel and sent it on.

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My rough sketches

A couple of days went by and I received a PM (private message) with the following sketch and some ideas to move forward.

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Jim's take

Only a few days went by and we received two versions of the text to look at. My wife and I were floored, the results were excellent and hard to make a decision on.

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Tough decisions...

We enjoyed the custom font but ultimately made the decision to go on with the more formal font.

There were a lot of elements in my ideas that were going to make the logo very "busy" yet Jim was able to punch them out at an astounding pace. I received a batch of each portion and below are the files.

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It was incredible!

The logo was coming together just as I had imagined it and Jim was making it a reality!

When you have an idea of what you want, but are unable to make the clean design due to not being an artist in the medium that you want to present, you find someone who can do it. Jim was able to take my ideas and run with them and do it very very quickly with perfection.

The next batch of images were plainly awesome.

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Color!

Wow, it just keeps getting better and better.

I received a batch of color samples to choose from and below are what I received.

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I decided on the second image in the first batch for the basic idea of the color.

What the logo stands for...

When I am spending quality time in the outdoors, I want it to mean something to me. The reasons why I do what I do ultimately are made up of several elements that balance the "why am I doing this" and I wanted to capture those meanings in the logo. The sun is central in our lives, it gives us life, plain and simple. Without the sun, we would not exsist. Bamboo is the medium chosen for the fishing rod so the stages of the take down to the rod framed the hexagon cross section of a bamboo fly rod. First the bamboo plant, then the split sections, the rough strips, the planed strips and on to a blank and then the split bamboo fly rod.

The inner elements represent the primary tools used to work the bamboo into a fly rod, the Stanley 9 1/2 plane, the silk fly line and a fly. The clouds that rain and produce the fresh water that our trout live in and the moon that ultimately represent many phases...

The name Grassart is better detailed at that link but I can tell you that the double SS in the logo stands for smallstreams.com, a web site that I started many years ago and continue to visit to this day.

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adam
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Post by adam »

The smallstreams.com design was done in nearly the same method as described above.

Gerard was involved a bit, we argued about what scene for the sea portion. Gerard wanted a Seychelles type sea scape. I could see it but I did not know how to picture it in my mind to work with the artist. (*I forgot his name) I won but Gerard definately had a lot to do with it. We talked about what would make a good logo and how we could define the "from the mountains to the sea" and represent "we are all small streams of information"

I am very happy to announce that smallstreams.com is alive and well.

Yeah.

* He is a local graphic artist and fly fisher.
greendrake
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Post by greendrake »

WOW :shock:
Thanks for taking the time to provide the whole scoop.Very interesting!
And yes, he did nail your concept.It is,like you said, astounding when two peoples thoughts and ideas come together in harmony like that.Simply amazing.
Again Thanks,
Will
aguafria

Post by aguafria »

adam wrote: I am very happy to announce that smallstreams.com is alive and well.
did you get it back?
pcg

Post by pcg »

Just popped over to smallstreams.com. It looks like it's still a shell awaiting someone's magic wand...

Adam--?!!!
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adam
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Post by adam »

All is well Pat.

Just this aftertoon, the domain www.smallstreams.com resolves to the www.smallstreams.info site that we have been testing and now it will be what it is. It usually takes 24 hours for all the points to resolve to the correct address.

I am happy to be working with Gus as he has a great heart and wants to see it live in good style.
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adam
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Post by adam »

aguafria wrote:
adam wrote: I am very happy to announce that smallstreams.com is alive and well.
did you get it back?
Gus owns the domain, he and I are working together.

As far as Gus has made me feel about it, we are partners in this. Gerard is right in there too, Brooks if he wanted, Ivan, chef.

*smile*
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