Other Small Projects

Small, quick, or quirky projects about obscure or minor subjects.

Over the past few years, I've been working on small, single-asset projects which often consist of just one logo or image. The ideas for them come from various places and it would be a waste of my time to make a page for every single one of them. This is a page that looks at all those small projects that are born from little sparks of inspiration. All projects in this list are not client work, unless otherwise stated.

01 / Roscosmos State Corporation (Госкорпорация Роскосмос)

Roscosmos is Russia's government-owned space agency. I noticed that the roundel of the agency appears unprofessional and looks as if someone created it in Microsoft Word. It definitely needs a touch up.

I took the basic shapes that are used and redefined them in relation to each other. I intended so that the circle represents earth in one way, but also as a sound wave coming off of the arrow that is about to break the sound barrier, symbolizing rapid space flight. Note that the arrow also bisects the circle so as to represent Earth's equator.


02 / Kommunar rural settlement shield (герб ДПК Коммунара)

Cottages in Russia often are in the form of rural settlments of various sorts. Our family's is called Kommunar, becuase old Bolsheviks used to live there. Thankfully, they are gone today.


I wanted to create some sort of heraldic symbol for this small, administrative entity. The design is based on the view of the field that is just beyond the adjacent settlement.

I added three clouds to symbolize a perfect summer day in rural Russia. I find it is a very defining characteristic of the landscape there. 


You can see a 360° panorama of the field on Google Maps here.

03 / Moscow Federal Gaming Division (MosFGD)

I watch gaming videos on YouTube by various people and I recently subscribed to an English gentleman who goes by the name SovietWomble. 

In his videos, he mentions that he is part of a gaming group, called Zero Fucks (ZF). In one of the videos, Womble uses a military APC with the ZF logo on the side. 

I took that idea and thought if maybe regional gaming groups could exist. Thus, I created the Moscow Federal Gaming Division (russian, Московская федеральная игровая дивизия; МосФИД). The number 77 is the number of the federal subject that is the city of Moscow, as part of the Russian Federation.

MosFGD has a Steam page. There's nobody on there, but it exists.


04 / Junior Science Olympics

At the start of my interest in graphic design in my final year of school, I was asked to create a logo for the upcoming Junior Science Olympics. It was an academic marathon for the lower grades of my school. 

I was honoured to make the logo and consider it as an early milestone in my design journey. The idea for the hexagonal design came from the way chemical compounds and bonds are often visualized on paper (example: en/ru). 


05 / Bicycle Safety and Awareness Club (BSAC)

BSAC is an sub-organization at Western University that aims to advocate and educate about safe practices with regards to cycling. I was asked by two of my former schoolmates to design a logo for the organization.

You can visit their Facebook page here.

BSAC social media banner.

06 / Western Student Scholars Association (WSSA)

Another little project for Western University was a logo for a student government body that represents 1500+ Western Scholars students who have 90%+ averages.

You can visit their Facebook page here.


WSSA social media banner.

07 / Western's Initiative for Scholarly Excellence Student Association (WISE-SA)

Also for Western University, this is another student government body that represents 100 grade 11 and 12 students part of the WISE program, which is where high school students take 1.0 university credits.

WISE-SA social media banner.

08 / Mist gradient (abstract)

The Mist Gradient is a small abstract idea that came into my head without really any specific inspiration. I despise smooth gradients because they're often misused and look overly fancy and unnecessary. If I want to add a gradual gradation of colour, I use what I would call a "stepped-gradient." 

The image above uses a rather generic grey gradient but ever so slightly saturated with a blue. It's available on Redbubble on many different things. They now sell clocks, and I find this design looks really good on a clock. I was surprised myself.

09 / Catalan stripes

This was a little project that has its origins in typography. I was experimenting with a typeface called Miso. It's a geometric sans-serif that has almost DIN-like characteristics. 

I started playing with the lowercase forms of the letters 'I' and 'L'. I later recognized that the exclamation mark was an almost perfect inverse of the 'i' and could have used it instead. I decided to make the dot where Barcelona is located stand out. A little geo-administrative touch. 

The original intent was to make a simple and iconic design for Catalonia using its striped flag, the Senyera, as inspiration. 

The 'i' and '!' in unison during the setup for final repositioning.

Three designs are now available on various products via Redbubble.

 

10 / "Zhe" fabric design (abstract)

This is a purely accidental design made using the repetition of the Cyrillic character 'Ж'. I noticed that when stacking the letters, you could create a pattern. 

Something about that pattern reminded me of Marimekko, a Finnish textile design company. I love their simple, minimalist designs that use only a few colours, so I tried to imitate their style in this work. It is available on Redbubble for a number of products.

11 / ALS Association of Western University

Western recently started it's ALS association, so they needed a logo. Since ALS is a disease that affects the brain, I wanted to create something curvilinear yet resembling a brain. Two ovals, modified in just the right way create the image of a brain. 

I used a complementary typeface, Varela Round and Western University's brand purple.

I created a logo, two profile icons, and a social media banner. You can visit their Facebook page here.

Social media banner.