I have run my freelance and consulting business for close to 15 years. I love helping people develop their brands visually. I'll never forget my first client, they never paid me. I had done a ton of packaging concepts and he didn’t like any of them, so he decided he was not going to pay for anything he was not going to use. I guess the hours I spent crafting my masterpiece, practicing my presentation and printing the artwork on glossy paper no less (looking at the designs now I would be embarrassed too show anyone) was worthless. That’s when I decided this was the industry for me! :)
My next client was a referral. I was designing automotive ads and mailers for dealerships on the West Coast. I designed for San Diego, Los Angeles all the way up to Oregon and Seattle. Then the recession hit and business took a dip. People were not doing mailers, postage was too much. Matamala Design (the name of my business at the time) was on the decline. Well that client, my referral decided to do online advertising. 16 years later, we do emails, digital ads, E-books & website updates. The times have changed. They evolved with the times. One of the hardest things as a designer is to design for themselves. I’ve had school projects where you needed to design your brand, design your identity & build your logo. I must have done over 100 different versions of my logo/brand and I’ve hated every one, until now. I finally did it! I love my new logo. Clean, modern, typographic, sexy (yes, I think typography is sexy) And yes I did design it. It’s based off of the typeface Museo Sans designed by Jos Buivenga. Years ago a junior designer introduced me to the typeface at an agency during my love affair with Proxima Nova, I always thought it was a great font. I manipulated the bar in the capital A to give the logo a little motion. I adjusted kerning on the letterforms. That’s my Identity until its time to evolve again! |
Mike MatamalaCreative Director, Archives
November 2020
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