Flyin' Cows and Concept Art

Commercial design and photography is an art, to be sure, but it also involves a good bit of marketing. The whole idea behind it is — the communication of an idea, a brand image, or a way of life — and to get a consumer (for the lack of a better word) to perform an action, or to take that next step.

It's easy to fall into a "let's just do more of what we did last time" way of thinking. It's a little dangerous because consumers are forever evolving. The art and design behind any marketing message must evolve and change as well.

I don't really have the luxury of starting a "for the sake of art" project... so every once in a while, I like doing a project that doesn't seem to be attached to anything... but is still commercial in nature. A break, something different, totally from out of the blue… but it's usually for an existing client.

One of the best things about social media is that it's always hungry. You must feed it day after day… it's the perfect place to try out something different. But even if the end-result doesn't end up getting used for anything, I feel refreshed… out-of-mold broken… and I always end up with a few new, creative, (and useful) ideas about everything — than what I started the project with.

Flyin' Cows
Case in point, soon after the P.S. Flavor!™ Spice Blends label re-design work was completed, I took a couple of the early version labels, (that were not going to be used), and started playing around with the various parts in AfterEffects. It's always fun having vector-based content to work with in AE because you don't have to worry about scaling issues. I was flying in different parts here and there, just having fun, when I dropped in some of the protein icons that were on the front of the P.S. Flavor!™ labels, from the very top of the frame. The idea was so much fun, but the look was a little stilted and kind of… off-the-shelf, "slide show builder", kind of looking. That led to a two-day activity of writing a new expression script to simulate gravity and elasticity (heady stuff for a guy that basically "passed" Calculus with a D+).

The end result of that little off-road experiment was something we (the VP of P.S. Flavor!™ Nicole Ramsland and myself) nicknamed "Flyin' Cows".


We really wanted to use these somewhere, for something, but weren't really sure where it would fit in. Just showing one quick video clip of "Flyin' Cows" on social streams didn't seem very impactful. Putting all nine labels in one clip as a "grand introduction" for the new style labels — would have been just too long to be a social media piece. Somewhere along the lines, the project just faded away.

Months later though, I had the opportunity to work on a brand new logo for the P.S. Flavor!™ Club... and the finished logo for that project, brought with it an opportunity to use the gravity and elasticity scripts again!

There were nine color balls that sat atop the logo, representing the nine colors of the core blends that P.S. Flavor!™ is known for. When a stinger logo was needed for some video pre-rolls…. guess what I had in my back pocket? A perfectly great set of gravity and elasticity scripts to drop those balls into place from the top of the frame!


Because time constraints are so tight with any kind of commercial art form, this amazing little motion logo may not have ever been created — if I had not experimented with it months earlier.

Not ready to let go of the script just yet… I wanted to see if there was a way to use the "fly-in label" design that was at the heart of it all… and so this new little "Hello Spring!" motion clip was created.


I don't know if it's actually going to be used by P.S. Flavor!™ and they certainly didn't request it… but I had tons of fun creating it… and more, new, code-based motion scripts were created for this little project... just like they were last time! Not only that — but a couple of brand new, cool, non-motion based concept ideas were generated because of it too!

I did get to use the gravity and elasticity scripts again (on the flyin' proteins and the Club logo ball colors) but there's now also a "Box Pop" which is a crazy cool bouncy way to quickly get an object on-screen (yes, yes I do like naming things). A new "Whole Panel Breakaway" is a second script which keeps a transparent frame ridged, while dropping it away quickly.

A third code-based expression is the "Bendy Bottle Wrap" script, which takes the flat label design, and bends it around a still photo of the actual bottle! The "Bendy Bottle Wrap" script is exciting because it might lead to a new way to toss up type… aka "type rings".

Finally, a variation on the "Whole Panel Breakaway" script is seen in the closing moments of the 42 second clip… where four photos of the Spring 2018 Club Kit are shown in quick succession. I'm calling this one "Flutterby Photos"… (a play on the word butterfly — because that's what they remind me of). It is a really useful way of showing images, because it provides your eye with enough time to determine what the photo is… but it's also moving those photos past the end viewer in pretty quick succession (which is great for re-watch-ability).

People say I work a lot… and it's true. But doing this kind of project is what keeps it all fun and new… and maybe, just maybe… useful to P.S. Flavor!™ as well. The code and ideas that came from going off-campus even just this one time, are sure to be used somewhere else before too long!