The folks at LogoLounge have selected our work for inclusion in their prestigious Master Library Collection, and we're both honored and stoked to say the least. The award and recognition is for our logo & brand identity for Half Badger Records. The email said:

"Your work has been selected for inclusion in a remarkable new LogoLounge project, 'Animals and Mythology', in the new Master Library series…"

the messsage continued... "What is the Master Library series? Like our existing (and continuing) LogoLounge book series, the new Master Library books will bring you exemplary logo design work from creatives around the world. Our first book in the series, Initials and Crests, is at the publisher as we write and promises to be a new best selling series from Rockport in the model of LogoLounge.

Unlike our original series, though, each book in the Master Library series will focus on a very specific logo design category, to wit:

Initials and Crests
Animals and Mythology
Typography
People
Shapes and Symbols
Nature and Food
Arts and Culture

We hope to include your work in the the Master Library series, Animals and Mythology."

The Master Collection will be published by Rockport and should be released in July 2010. Amazon already has it available for pre-order.

I'd like to welcome Clara and Katarina, the Design in Transit duo, to Los Angeles, California and the US of A.

These two adventurous ladies are here from Germany, taking a tour of the west coast and hoping to gain graphic design experience in the process. About a month ago, they emailed from Germany to set up a time to come by and get a tour of Studiofluid on their arrival in L.A.

So far we've collaborated on an advertising campaign, shared a few meals together, and I've pointed some cool design highlights to check out in Los Angeles. Next week I think we're going together to check out the Echo Park Time Travel Mart for some packaging and general design awesomeness inspiration.

I've also introduced the DIT ladies to a few other design firms in the area that might be interesting for them to visit. If you're in Los Angeles, San Francisco or maybe even Portland and you want to collaborate with Design in Transit, they'd love to hear from you. To invite them out for some good American beer or just say hello, you can get in touch at: designintransit @ hotmail dot de — and tell them Studiofluid sent ya.

The design work we've been doing for the Pasadena Symphony is starting to pop up throughout Los Angeles. Right now, the Metro Rail Gold Line that connects Union Station to Sierra Madre is running the "Take Your Ears Out for the Evening" ad campaign, announcing the 2009-2010 Symphony Classics.

Photo courtesy of Tim Harwick.

The Pasadena Wine Festival is less than 2 weeks away, and since Studiofluid handled the event branding and web design, we've got a special treat for you…
We're giving away:

Good for Saturday and/or Sunday October 3 & 4, 2009. The event will be at the beautiful L.A. County Arboretum, from 4:30-10p both days. These passes are going for $170, so here's your chance for the hookup!

Post to twitter starting with "I want #pasadenawinefest tix"… followed with your best reason. The winner will be selected (based on creativity) and announced on the morning of Monday 9/28. We'll be in touch to for mailing address, comp passes will go out via priority mail the same day.

Good luck!

We're happy to announce that Studiofluid is working closely with the Pasadena Symphony and POPS on a massive re-branding effort. We're helping them with a new identity system for their various orchestras, stationery and print collateral, the 2010 season brochure, and a completely redesigned web site.

Here's a sneak peak of the progress we've been making on the branding and web site. Stay tuned for the results, which will make a splash in September!

UPDATE: Check out more of the project in the work section, and visit the new pasadenasymphony-pops.org.

I was recently contacted by Sabrina Vega to be a part of her online / book project. The image above is my postcard submission to her project, which is this:

“A couple of years ago in 2006 , right after I graduated from Texas State University, I had the idea to collect my name, Sabrina in every shape and form I could think of…”

Working on my submission was a rewarding experience—in particular getting my hands dirty with a soft pencil to fill in the background.

I was honored to be included among some high profile contributors such as Milton Glaser, Stafan Sagmeister, and Gary Baseman. I think my favorite is done by Kim Robertson, who created an anagram our of Sabrina's first and last names, turning it into "A Bar in Vegas."

Thanks Sabrina, and good luck with your book!

Over at the Toilet Paper Entrepreneur, a group of entrepreneurs contributed their best strategies for staying focused and getting things done.

Ben's idea is featured at #10.

Here's a link the the Freedom App, which is highly recommended for those of you on the Mac.

But is that enough?

Not exactly. Your site also needs to be visible to search engines if your customer is going to find you in the first place. (Making your site visible to search engines is called "Search Engine Optimization" or "SEO.")

At some point, when you've got all the fundamentals in place, partnering with a dedicated SEO company may be the right decision. But if you're a small to mid-sized business, building your site properly and adding quality content will likely be money much better spent.

So how is your site currently scoring? If you have a existing site, now you can get an objective analysis by Website Grader for free!

Website Grader is a free seo tool that measures the marketing effectiveness of a website. It provides a score that incorporates things like website traffic, SEO, social popularity and other technical factors. It also provides some basic advice on how the website can be improved from a marketing perspective.

On May 5, 2009, Studiofluid recieved a WebsiteGrader score 91 with an Alexa rank of 755,131 which is in the top 2.7 % of all websites.

If you're looking to revamp your low-scoring web site, or build a new site right from the ground up, Studiofluid can help. We build efficient and intuitive web sites that are easy for your visitors to use, and that allow you the best possible visibility to search engines like Yahoo! and Google.

And yeah, your site will look great too.

It's been a flurry of activity around here. I just finished renovating my live/work space and my new office looks great and functions even better. I'm looking at a photo shoot soon so I can post some here.

Identity and Retail Packaging for a healthy snack food company. Can't say a whole lot about that one now, but we're stoked about everything is coming together.

Branding and Website for the Pasadena Wine Festival which will be held at the Los Angeles County Arboretum & Botanical Garden this fall. Our site will handle ticket sales and event sponsorship. All ticket sales from the event benefit the Pasadena Symphony.

Branding and Website for a remodeling company. We're helping the owner connect with his clearly defined target audience in Southern California. His website includes a content management system (CMS) and will clearly communicate their commitment to quality, community focus, and will encourage visitors to get in touch for a free estimate.

And a few more are in the pipeline, but it's a bit too early to say...

Trendwatching has an interesting article about how more people are taking entrepreneurial steps to supplement their income. Keep scrolling, there are a lot of solid ideas and unique business models made possible through our increasingly connected world.