Jaybird Designs

// Toronto Based Graphic & Web Designer

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A thumbnail concept for the ever energetic Colin Furze!

The Idea:

If you’ve ever seen a video by Colin Furze, you’ll know that there’s absolutely nothing quiet about him. So here’s a thumbnail with nothing quiet about it either.

Things I like:

     - I really like the phrase “There’s nothing quiet about this guy.” I didn’t have a specific concept in mind when I started this design, but the thumbnail came together really well because I always had that line to reach back to and say “Okay. I like this element, but does it mesh with that statement? Is it loud enough?”

[[For example, the title text peeks out over the borders of its orange background. Nothing is contained within its box, everything POPS.]]

Things I’m not sold on:

     - I think the lines around the “Colin Furze” could use a little cleaning up. Not difficult, just time consuming.

      - There’s also the fact that this is meant to be placed over any image as needed; so images with dark backgrounds present a problem.

[[For this, I have two solutions: 1. Just make another version with the “Colin Furze” text white. Boom. Easy fix. OR 2. Have a subtle white glow around the letters, which solves the problem in images that are mostly light, but have dark patches in them - much like the garage door here.]]

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This is the evolution of a logo for an app called Chedrr! (The existence of which is forthcoming. They only just got their logo!)

I’m really happy with the final product! And it looks really great when it’s tiny, which is especially nice because it’s going to be anywhere from 57 - 114 pixels on phones and tablets.

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A mixtape cover for local DJ, DJ QueenStar!

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A reworking of the into I did for The Listener’s Guide!

[[Thoughts about this design on their way, they’ll be here soon!]]

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Takin’ a break from the serious stuff today. Here’s a fun little work in progress I've been messing with!

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A design for ME! For this very blog!

The Idea:

Hypothetically, Jaybird Designs is a real thing that I’m really doing, so I wanted something that looked reasonably professional and was a little less “of its moment” than super light sans serif text. This one feels a little more old timey and elegant. I feel like an insurance company.

Things I like:

    - The bird. It’s not complicated - just a few lines - but I think it does a good job of evoking a bird, and even more specifically a blue jay. It’s also iconic enough without the words that I could use it as an avatar and still be recognizable as Jaybird.

    - The underline. Much in the way comic artists talk about the line of action of a character (that is to say, the way a character bends in their pose - the rule of thumb is a straight spine is a boring spine), I think the underline adds some dynamic action to what would otherwise be a pretty stiff design.

Things I’m not totally sold on:

I’m using this one for real, so as far as this blog’s concerned, it’s perfect. I’m not pointing out all the little things I don’t like for you to see every time you look at my banner.

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A logo concept and animation for the obscenely talented Rob Scallon!

The Idea:

A lot of Rob’s success is based on going viral, and there’s not always a part at the beginning to say, “Hey. This is who I am.” This is a not-so-subtle way of doing that, and saying, “I do this. There are more of these.”

The grey would be opaque, and the animation would play silently over the first second or so of the videos.

Things I like:

     - I like the purple and grey circles. I think they’re strong and easy to run with in other designs. It’s not specific to this logo in this context, and can be an interesting motif across thumbnails and banners and lower thirds (and end slates and intros and t shirts. Are we getting ahead of ourselves here?)

Things I’m not totally sold on:

     - The animation is just too much on loop. Fortunately, It’s only supposed to play once in the proper context. This is just for show.

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A logo & animation for Mr. Movie Bob Chipman, who, if you couldn’t tell, reviews movies (and more).

The Idea:

I mean, I’m not sure this one needs a ton of explanation?

Things I like:

     - I like the animation. I think it’s clean and gets its point across.

     - The simplicity. It’s two colours, and doesn’t have a lot of extraneous crap happening (and, even though I was complaining about my designs being flat recently, the flatness of this one works with its pixelated makeup. I’m a hypocrite. Sue me.)

Things I’m not totally sold on:

     - The beginning. I don’t like that it says “Movies Bob” when it first pops up. I’m curious if a reordering of the list would fix this, or if “Comics Bob” would be just as bad.

     - The flash? I like that it feels like “Movie Bob” is set in there, but I think the actual finer points of the flash don’t really grip me. I think the easy fix is to just make the yellow flash faster, make it pop more instead of having it be a half-hearted fade between colours.

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A Thumbnail concept for the lovely folks behind Sailing La Vagabonde!

The Idea:

Sailing La Vagabonde is a channel about documenting the couple’s travels, so the idea for the thumbnail was to make each video like an entry in a photo album.

Things I like:

     - The thumbnails on this channel are often gorgeous shots of sea and landscapes, and I like that the design doesn’t step on that too hard. There’s still plenty of room for the picture, unlike other designs I’ve made, like the JBU thumbnail.

     - I like the way it’ll look when there are a few collected. In playlists, and especially when a video’s over and the recommended options come up, it’ll look like a neat little photo album.

Things I’m not totally sold on:

     - The text can be a little tough to read, especially as the picture changes each day. You might be able to solve that by using a thicker brush, or just making sure the picture you choose always has a nice solid area for the text to live in.

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I was watching a video by the excellent channel Now You See It recently, and saw that he didn’t have a very neat way of putting the information of the clip he was showing up on screen (a la this - note the text feels out of place and not terribly interesting)

The Idea:

The show examines movies, and uses many clips from multiple sources to illustrate points. Each clip is accompanied with a little information about the movie it came from. The goal of this design is to find a non-intrusive way of displaying the movie title, while keeping it classy and easily adjusted for different titles with vastly different line lengths.

Things I like about this design: 

     - Its smoothness. I like the way it slides & fades in. It feels slick and cohesive to me.

     - The opacity of the background. Kind of a weird thing to harp on, but I like that you can see the clip through the lower third. It feels like it has a place in the frame, as opposed to haphazardly slapped on top.

Things I’m not totally sold on:

     - I think the animation of it may not be very subtle, and I’m afraid that in the context of an actual video, it may be too distracting. I’d have to see it in action.

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A thumbnail concept for Comic Book Girl 19, to be used for live shows like Rewind.

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A thumbnail concept for the ever articulate Anthony Fantano, aka the internet’s busiest music nerd, over on The Needle Drop.

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A thumbnail concept for the wonderful channel Just Between Us. You can even change the colours to use on different shows!

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A banner concept for Josh Sundquist’s Youtube channel f. some pretty slick Halloween costumes.

Just make sure you don’t look at the corners, especially on the foosball one. Definitely don’t look there.