BTS | Tournament Logos
VC designer Etán Santiago keeps surprising us with these magical little extras every time he sends us new logo concepts for review. They are often photos of pages covered in hand-drawn doodles, and we love them. We asked him to tell us more about how this fits in his process.
The Centex 2022 logo comes to life! Read the story.
Tell us about your sketches. Why do you like sketching out ideas first, or what benefit does that have for you?
Etán: There's more than one concrete reason as to why I like to sketch and write everything I do before I attempt to get it done, but the main ones fall on the following:
A Busy Mind
I have a busy mind but not always the most productive! And along my years as a designer (I didn't always use to sketch, more on that ahead) I have found out that sometimes limiting the amount of tools I have at hand will drastically help me reduce the amount of time spent "exploring".
To explain that, for example if I start working with my references and ideas straight away on a digital space, the possibilities are endless! And I will most likely end up doing a bunch of things that, although are usually very fun, aren't really going anywhere by any means.
My fix is giving myself only 1 black ink pen and 3 pages total. 3 ideas usually go in on paper, 2 or 1 go out digitally!
Hence why one of my main objectives with sketching ideas with ink and paper is to keep the amount of ideas explored relevant and practical. However I must admit this also required a bit of tuning as I happen to enjoy sketching a lot so at first it would backfire and I'd end up spending hours on sketches that would ultimately never be used.
Midwest Throwdown 2022 | Read all about it here!
Visualization
It helps me visualize shapes, spaces and other geometric viewpoints that help me better understand how I should approach an idea on the digital realm. This might be me just making things up to be honest but I like to think there's a certain flow that you get a feel for when you sketch out an idea that otherwise you could really struggle to find if you go straight into it with a program like Illustrator in which you can't really create and shape up your ideas however you want.
As we say in in México, si no se sabe de dónde se viene, no se sabe a dónde se va. That's to say, if you don't know where you're coming from, you won't know where you're going.
Drawn by Hand, With Love
Another main reason as to why I like to sketch my ideas, and especially logos / design graphics, is because it allows me to put a lot of thought, thumb and heart into the things I do.
I like to look at the creative process not as making something out of what they ask you to, but rather creating something out of what you've learned through the journey you've embarked on with the client that will bring value to both parties.
In other words, being able to create something and be proud and excited with it from end to finish is a very big incentive for me to get so personal with each project. It helps me grow as a designer and as an artist.
Mardi Gras 2022 is getting a new look!
PS: No matter how whacky it ends up, there's nothing quite like holding up your sketch to your screen and seeing where you started and where you've ended while saying "This, I made this. There might be some better ones out there, but this one is mine".
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I show my sweetheart what I sketch and she'll help me pick the ideas with the most potential. I'd say she's the true mastermind behind this old bean. She'll also say I'm very good at it so it's a big win in every aspect for me.
Join us
To learn more about our new designer, read our Welcome Etán post; stay tuned for more behind-the-scenes insight on VC designs.
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Interested in having VC merchandise your tournament, virtually or in person? Let's talk!
PS - A Note from G
If you have read anything from VC in the last forever years, or ordered jerseys form us and NOT seen any typos, it's because G (a.k.a. Genevieve Daigle) edited or was behind it.
When editing this blog, she noted on its subject: "It's a LOT faster to sketch out ideas on paper than using software. As a graphic design student in college, my teachers strongly discouraged going digital right away (some would also request a minimum amount of hand sketches/concepts along with the final artwork to show how much thought was put in the final submitted design). Obviously these days there's tools allowing you to 'sketch' digitally (tablets, procreate...) so to me it's pretty neat to see that at his young age Etán still values a hand-drawn approach."