RMFW: Welcome to the RMFW blog, Chuck! And thank you so much for donating your time and talent to update the logo for Rocky Mountain Fictions Writers. The new logo has been really well-received by our members.
Tell us a little bit about yourself. How long have you been in graphic design?
Chuck: I have worked as a Mac-based Graphic Designer since January 1998 when I walked into the offices of the Kingsport Times-News in Tennessee with a portfolio of mostly hand-drawn logos and art. I was 34 years old, fresh out of the Army, and lacking a college degree. Even though the newspaper had just hired an intern, the head of the Creative Services department was so impressed with my samples that he convinced management to let me work for free for three months so I could get a handle on Quark and Photoshop. I won an award from the TN Press Association for an ad I did while I wasn’t being paid!
Two years later I was hired as in-house creative for Man Air and Water Purification Corporation, with the task of designing all-new brochures, developing the company’s first product catalog, and redesigning their business journal. Then it was back to newsprint, where I initiated and served as lead for the redesign of a biweekly paper.
After six years of working for other people, I decided to open my own one-man, concept-to-delivery design firm, which really meant working for LOTS of other people! I’ve had about a hundred clients over a ten-year period. I not only offer graphic design services but photography and illustration as well.
RMFW: Congratulations on the accolades, and for taking the plunge to open your own design firm. What’s your favorite part about designing?
Chuck: The problem solving! Finding the solution that works best for the client. A creative brainstorm for a project often leads to a graphic gullywasher because I LIVE outside the box. When I perceive a better, more efficient way of doing something, I present it. The words and images presented on a page will be pleasing to the eye, but more than that, it will be an effective design that clearly communicates to the reader the intended message.
As a side note, I also experience pareidolia [seeing faces in unusual places] on a daily basis. But it’s not just faces that I see, perhaps because I’ve been a lover of nature since I was two years old. I see animals very often in abstract patterns on floors or walls.
RMFW: The pareidolia is really interesting. Do you find it either a help or a hindrance? Or is it just part of who you are and doesn’t necessarily sway your design process one way or the other?
Chuck: The pareidolia is maybe one aspect of my personality that helps me to see things differently in other areas as well. I think that having that genetic predisposition only adds to the creativity aspect of design.
RMFW: Tell us about your approach to updating the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers logo—where did you start?
Chuck: I felt the logical place to start was with the then-current logo of the open book with the illustration of the mountains. I wanted to find a more effective way of representing what I felt the designer of that logo had intended. It was a clever idea to pull graphical images from the name: A mountain illustration from Rocky Mountain and a book to represent Fiction Writers.
RMFW: The books as mountains is brilliant, but also simple—did that idea come to you early in the process?
Chuck: The idea did evolve rather quickly. I wanted to create something simpler, but very strong, and easier to print at different sizes and on promotional items if needed. I initially pictured, and almost immediately rejected an open book with fanning pages that morphed into mountains near the top. Not only did it seem too busy, but I didn’t want the mountains IN the book. AND, I wanted MORE than one book, to denote WRITERS, plural. And very few books of fiction have illustrations, right? This thinking led me to draw three leaning books that would form peaks of mountains, with the covers being the shadows and the pages representing the slopes. I tried putting some lines in for the pages but it was too much. And it just didn’t NEED it. You have three different books, leaning against each other, but they are different sizes, and arranged in a way that gives the illusion of great distances between mountain peaks.
RMFW: Love that. And why did you choose the fonts you used in the design?
Chuck: I wanted a strong base for the graphic in the words ROCKY MOUNTAIN. A blocky font with a bit of a retro feel, even though I was trying to modernize the logo. The letters rise straight up, and the R, K, Y, M, N and A have steep “slopes.” And I thought from the beginning that Fiction Writers should be in a handwritten script, much like an author’s signature. The glyphs in both fonts were customized for the logo. The top left extenders on the R and A were on all the letters but I thought they were too distracting. And in the original font for Fiction Writers, the lowercase “s” looked like the number 8, so I drew a new one for that, and changed some of the other letters a bit as well.
RMFW: Your design skills go beyond logos – what other things do you create?
Chuck: In addition to logo development I’ve designed book covers, business cards, envelopes, letterhead, brochures, post cards, rack cards, product labels, catalogs, magazines, manuals, books, web graphics, and award-winning print advertising.
RMFW: It’s been really interesting to hear about your process regarding the RMFW logo—thank you for sharing your insight. Is there anything else you want to mention?
Chuck: Just that I also really appreciated all the great feedback from everyone who was involved in the process. Communication is key in developing a great logo.
To see more of Chuck’s work, visit his website at chuckjc.design.
LOVE the new logo! Thank you Chuck. Incredibly generous !
Chuck has skillz! 🙂