Author: carkneetoe

amazing things that i saw in september

musings, travel blog & musings


Again I promised, again I delivered. Vacation pictures are here. Not strictly design related I know, but this kind of thing is what recharges creative batteries and inspires.

Here are the places in the pictures, and you get to guess which is which. Because why be straightforward when it’s more fun this way? That’s right, my design blog is full of fun guessing games. In order of visit, but not necessarily the order of pictures:
1. Theodore Roosevelt in North Dakota (2pics)
2. The Beartooth pass in Montana/Wyoming
3. Yellowstone mostly in Wyoming (2pics) (we avoided the grizzlies)
4. Grand Teton in Wyoming
5. Zion in Utah (2pics) (and no, I didn’t do Angel’s Landing. Next time. This time was just Hidden Canyon.)
6. Bryce Canyon in Utah (cloud to ground lightning here…be careful)
7. The drive on I70 from Bryce Canyon to Moab in Utah
8. Arches in Utah (2pics)
9. Canyonlands in Utah
10. New Belgium Brewery in Fort Collins, Colorado (employees here get a paid trip to Belgium for their 5th work year anniversary)
11. Rocky Mountain in Colorado (2pics)
12. The Badlands in South Dakota

Have fun matching up park and picture!

my latest (stunning) work of design:

travel blog & musings

A poster on my kitchen cabinet.

In the midst of trying to be all relaxed about leaving town for a while, I inevitably start to get anxious about loose ends and realization dawns that I just can’t be THAT relaxed. Then I go overboard and do things like leaving this poster for my wonderful catwatcher friends detailing things that probably do not need it. Like where the extra silverware is. There are three drawers in my kitchen. I imagine Alison & Laura could somehow, just somehow, find the extra silverware if they needed to.

New to the poster this time: the handy overkill reference chart about pill amounts. One and a half or three halves. (I admit, I really just wanted to make a tiny chart. And also leave no stone unturned, can’t be careful enough, heavy guilt about leaving the 15-year-old cat alone for two weeks, etc.)

Something else that I spent way too much time pondering: whether to bring the narrow ace bandage or the wide. Guess how that one ended up.

If you can’t tell by my stick figure self in the pictures on the right, I am excited about this trip. A road trip with a dear friend through 5 to 8 national parks. Yay! Pictures will no doubt make it onto this blog at some point.

’till then!

happiness is: the end of the world

graphic design blog

I finished another large personal/work design project tonight. It feels good. Tomorrow I shall continue on to a different project—which will be either the ‘save the world creatively’ project or the ‘save my own creative world’ project. One of those may end up being both, but both are not all. There you go. Any opinions, let me know!

During the large personal/work project finishing, I realized there were a few past projects that made me particularly happy as finished products. To end this post, here are bits of one of them: The end of the world.

and finally,

graphic design blog, musings

This may not be an ‘and finally’ to you, dear reader, but it is to me. I finally finished my own identity pieces. It hasn’t been a horrifically long time I suppose, but when things are hard to put together it seems to take forever.

Creating your own professional identity is tricky. You know yourself so well, how can you narrow yourself down to that One Simple Thing? You’re so much more than that! And of course THIS part of you is more important. Wait though, what about this other part? Yes, that’s you but is it professional design you? The next day you feel differently, then you want to strip everything down and just letterpress your name beautifully on a gorgeous card stock… in the end I did go with my name. Except with a bit of humor that takes a bit of thought. Or a rewarding realization. This is how I approach design after all, with careful thought, but also with some humor.

Below we have: digital letterhead, resumes (one header for the personal side, one header for the carkneetoe side, only one is shown), invoice, business card front and back with optional small mailing address label, cd label, and a few versions of stickers to use for CD sleeves, envelopes, and possible randomness.

I’m good and done with this for now. But part of the fun of being your own thing—you can revise at will. I’m also planning on doing a yearly update to everything. It’ll still be recognizable from year to year but will show progression in design. I’m looking forward to seeing how it evolves.

you know what else is fun?

graphic design blog, musings, travel blog & musings

The Bean, in Chicago.

Says my brother when we were walking up to the Bean: “Hey, that’s really reflective. It’d be interesting to go up close and take some pictures of your warped reflection.” Says me “Yep, you’re the first person to think of that… or maybe the millionth or so…” Brother seemed disappointed he wasn’t the first to think of this (as we walked up closer to the bean and the couple hundred people taking pictures of themselves in the reflection at that particular moment in time). This conversation quickly devolved into a Whovian discussion of how we really were the first and will travel back in time in the future to tell all of this fabulous idea, and so pleasant Carnito equilibrium was restored. Discussion stopped and photography started.

(To be fair to my brother, he’s not that oblivious. He lives in Europe and hasn’t been to downtown Chicago since the Bean made its appearance.)

The Bean really is a fun dream of photo composition play for a designer. However, with all of the people around, it’s hard to get a clean photo! There’s always another person or a bag or a shoe in there somewhere. You can only ask so many people to get out of your way…


And now you know what I look like, what my brother looks like, and that my hair isn’t the kind that does all that well in humid weather.


ADDENDUM 2.19.2012:
Brother apparently would like for it to be known that he really is that oblivious.
(but I still don’t really think he is)

brochures are fun

graphic design blog, musings

Why are brochures fun? My thoughts are these: they generally have a short lifespan, so you don’t have to worry about them looking to trendy and not holding up in time. They can be a chance to try a new technique or design idea. And even if you end up hating the result (admit it, that happens sometimes) you won’t have to live with it for long. But it’ll be there, in your file of past work, to look back on and laugh and chalk up to a learning experience.

Here’s a companion brochure to the IPS identity I posted earlier. I like this one, it was fun. I don’t look back on it and laugh. Instead I look back on it and think “Hey, can I do more collateral work with this identity?”

design nerves

graphic design blog

I’m working on a book cover now (surprise). It’s the follow up YA novel from Blythe Woolston. Blythe’s first novel The Freak Observer won her a really nice award, hence the gold emblem on the front cover below. I’ve met Blythe, she’s a fantastic author, quirky awesome fun, full of random knowledge, from Montana (as am I), loved the cover for her book, and was very appreciative of what I did for the design.

Which brings me to the nerves part of the post: I have eight cover ideas for Blythe’s next book ready to show to our cover committee for approval/discussion. This is not accounting one bit for the nerves. What I’m nervous about is Blythe seeing the options and none of them to her living up to The Freak Observer cover. Perhaps what this means is I should never meet awesome authors (especially if they live in the homeland I miss) and add another level of importance to an already high-profile project? When you have a client you like, you really want to do awesome work for their awesome project, so you add that extra pressure and it can all get a tad overwhelming.

Sadly there are no body parts on the new book cover (yet). But there is a big hole on one of them. Should be a nice companion cover to the first. Crossing fingers.

Maybe after this, if they let me do her third book cover, that one won’t be as hard…


ADDENDUM 8.12.11
Blythe liked the cover. And the interior layout.