Iron Designer: MateVana

Imagine a client brings you a brand name, a niche market… and tea. The client wants branding, website design, and a few interior design ideas for an upscale, Japanese-themed cocktail bar named 'Katsu' (Japanese for 'thirst'). Your inspiration is a variety of loose-leaf tea sold by Teavana, the MatéVana^®. Iron Designer, begin!

MatéVana^® is a blend of mate and red rooibos teas with cocoa, almond, chocolate chips, and enhanced with hazelnut. It's mostly chocolate and nut browns, all with a woody but smooth texture. The tea is accented with a striking violet blue and a few shades of yellow ranging from citrus to sunflower. These portions of the tea are leaf-like and feminine. The client wants something that incorporates the clean, simple lifestyle of traditional Japan with a modern, rich atmosphere.

Color by COLOURlovers

I pulled the palette above from the tea provided. We have a dark rich brown, a milky chocolate, two tones of gold, and a vibrant electric blue. Once we have those, we can apply them to our logo ideas. The client wants something sophisticated, but also evocotive of Japanese design and culture. On that vein, we have the logo ideas below.

I chose design at the bottom right to fashion a web site. I used the textures of tatami and wood grain. The photographs are simple and all match with black backgrounds. The site design is spartan and clean.

The bar itself should feature the textures of tatami, a touch of brushed metal, dark wood, rice paper, and a nice blue and neutral Japanese print fabric. The fabric brings in the feminine touch we found in the cornflower petals of the tea. Lighting should be intimate and utilize the golds in the palette.

Clients often find inspiration in things you may not expect. Sometimes it's good to practice by figuratively pulling an idea out of a hat. To be an Iron Designer, you have to be versatile and agile and ready to tackle any request. Explore the possibilities and take a second look at the world around you.

^{Teavana and MatéVana are registered trademarks. No copyright infringement intended.}

Iron Designer: Guacamole

Happy New Year everyone! Let's start out the new year with something appropriately new. Iron Chef is a popular cooking contest where chefs are charged with creating amazing dishes with a special, secret ingredient. The world of design is a lot like Iron Chef. Oftentimes, designers are broadsided with the most random and inexplicable requests. The best designers, like the best chefs, are able to think on the fly and use what they've got to create something wonderful. Based on this principle, I created Iron Designer. I picked an 'ingredient' and did illustrations, graphic design, and a room design around that ingredient.

Avocados are one of my guilty pleasures. I love everything about them. It would stand to reason I also love guacamole. Using guacamole as a starting point, I first created some illustrations freehand in Illustrator. I used this watercolor method tutorial to sketch out the ingredients in guacamole. From there, I tiled the items into a vector pattern, creating what I call 'lickable wallpaper'. Did I mention I liked guacamole?

Moving from the illustrations to the colors, I created a room design scheme. A kitchen would have been a natural room to choose, but I wanted to show the versatility of the colors. Here, I showcased the buttery green of the inside of the avocado (Behr: Citron 400B-4), accented in the ceiling wells by lime zest (Behr: New Green 420B-6), and crowned with rich red onion (Behr: Cranberry Splash 120D-6). The sofa, I slipcovered in a stripe of a lighter onion hue. The throw pillows and accent items use blocks of the green and purple with a punch of tomato.

From colors, I moved to texture. The avocado-skin background helped me create this web site design for the fictitious coffee shop, Javavoom. Again, I wanted to show how the colors and textures of guacamole could be used in something that wasn't directly related to the food. Inspired by guacamole's fresh and spicy nature, I chose a free-flowing script font for the logo. The static buttons pop in tomato red against the wick green content background. Rollovers flash to the onion purple, reflecting in the dropdown content.

Iron Designer is a feature I hope to continue. The next time you find yourself faced with a design dilemma that leaves a bad taste in your mouth, pull out your skills and an apron and get crackin'!