Flitch Creative

Back like Lazarus!

2009-02-27T17:10:00.006-07:00

Hello everyone! Just in case you were worried, we're not gone. Much to my dismay our Flitch Blog fell by the wayside. We'll be trying to rectify that here in the coming weeks.

Things were a little slow before and during the holidays but have picked up nicely. The last two weeks in particular have been sweet music to our ears. Thanks to everyone that poked their head in the office in the last little while.

I wouldn't even know where to start for a recap of the last few months so I won't. Just know that we've continued to live off of Little Ceasar's Pepperoni Pizza (Crazy Crusted) with a side of Italian Cheese Bread (ICB) and a Pepsi to wash it all down. Ten bucks never tasted better! I'm sad to report a tragedy of sorts within our office however. For whatever reason our plant has been sick and we can't figure out how to heal it. We've tried a weird black tonic that was supposed to "revitalize" and "nourish" our poor little plant but I'm not seeing any improvement. I'm about one step away from hiring a witch doctor to cast off evil spirits within it or something! If any of you out there have any knowlege of indoor plants that you wish to impart to us PLEASE help!

In other news... we just finished a wrap for the guys over at Advanced Mobile Lube. Posted below are some pictures of it. Mike and Quinn are the owner/operators and are both great guys. You all should check them out. They'll come to your home or place of business to perform your oil change. Their rates are about what you would pay if your were to take it to a service station, but without the hassle. I for one will be using them, especially for my motorcycle. Let us know what you think of the wrap in the comments section below. Flitch Out!

Jake

Streamlined and sporty! Kinda like the mystery machine on steroids.

It's got a nice rear too

If you can't tell what that texture on the body is it's Rhino Liner.
Yep, we have vinyl that is designed to stick to rough surfaces like that one.

Happy Halloween!

2008-10-31T17:28:00.003-06:00

Hi everyone. In the spirit of Halloween Matt and I along with our wives attended a friends Halloween Party dressed as the Mac guy and the PC guy. Our wives were OS X Leopard and Windows Vista respectively. It got a pretty good rise from most people. It was a lot of fun. Of course we are both big Mac guys so Matt was a good sport for being the PC (even though it wouldn't have worked the other way). Thanks to Pete and Sadie Best for putting on a great party! You guys rock!

Jake

"Jake you look small. It's like trick photography. And Matt, you look like an Ogre who works in the library" -Murray-

Flitch Supports MDA

2008-10-27T11:10:00.004-06:00

Hi everyone. I want to take this opportunity to let you all know that Flitch Creative is raising money for the Muscular Dystrophy Association via a lock-up taking place on October 29th. We are proud to support a good cause to help these children afford to go to summer camp, have access to wheelchairs and other needful equipment, not to mention funding to find a cure for the disease. Please help us in this cause by donating whatever you can. We are suggesting a donation of $25, $50 or $100, but whatever you can manage would be greatly appreciated. Please go to:

https://www.joinmda.org/2008stgeorge/jake

Sincerely,
--
Jake Albrecht
Matt Dotson

Awear Spotlight

2008-10-07T16:19:00.005-06:00

I want to feature some of our clients on our blog here from time to time. Recently we had the privilege to work with Vicki Fitch to come up with a corporate identity for her new womens clothing retail store Awear. Vicki had some progressive ideas for her company so we wanted to come up with a clean and modern look for her logo, business cards and other artwork.

Awear is a recycled clothing outlet. Don't let the term recycled clothing fool you though, the clothes I saw looked brand new and definitely not like something you would find at Deseret Industries for example. All of you women out there should check it out. It's located in Ancestor Square on the boulevard side. We wish Vicki much success in her business.

Weather Master Truck Graphics

2008-09-26T17:21:00.004-06:00

Here is a project that we completed last Friday. The good guys over at Weather Master needed some truck graphics to be displayed in front of the Dixie Center during the SUHB convention. Matt and I did all of the installation ourselves and I've got to admit it turned out really nice. It took a little under two hours to install all of the graphics. We beat the sun and heat so that's all that matters. Here are some pics.

Clean cuts and seamless lines

It helps when you have a nice truck to start with

Late Night Party at Flitch

2008-09-22T17:15:00.006-06:00

Coming out of the gates we were getting a fair amount of business. That fair amount of business has turned into a small mountain of business – at least enough to get us coming back on several nights recently to catch up on projects. For the most part we don't mind the late night work. We come in and do our "All Request Live itunes playlist" which is basically taking turns queuing up our favorite songs and alternating playing them. The Pepsi and Dew flows like the salmon of Capastrano and we generally have a good time. Here are some pictures to prove what a slammin' party we throw late at night at Flitch.

"Big" Matt doing work! Check the shoes!

Matt C. with the duel BlueTooths. The ultimate in multitasking.

My personal paradise... sort of.

If you ever thought for one second that we didn't love our jobs, I'm here to dispell that theory. I mean I think it is plain to see from the photos that we do. Imagine how fun it would be for you to go into work everyday and make someone look good. That's exactly what we do!

JAKE

Tutorial Requests

2008-08-29T17:40:00.003-06:00

I've been on a number of different designers' blogs and one thing that I found to be most interesting was some of them would post Photoshop or Illustrator tutorials. That got me to thinking that Flitch should be doing the same thing. After all it is our duty to help spread good design to the rest of the world. I've done a few little tutorials in the past for simple things, but I think I'm going to put together something a little more advanced.

The inner geek in me would love to wield this 3.5" of cold cellular steel. Great illustration too.

I'll be the first to admit that while I'm very competent in Adobe Illustrator, there is still more to learn. I do know a few cool tricks that I could share with you all. Keep an eye out for a tutorial sometime in September. Hopefully it will be something that can add to your design skills. Please give suggestions in the comments section and I'll try to do one of them.

Jake

Web Site is Live!

2008-08-14T18:31:00.002-06:00

Well, I think it's only been about a decade since our last update but that doesn't mean we're out of business. Quite the opposite in fact. We are staying busy and gaining new clients everyday. The Flitch Train is starting to gain steam and hit it's stride. We really appreciate all of those that have referred people to us. We couldn't do it without you.

The web site is live, but I know (and many of you have pointed out) that some things aren't working right yet. Those things will be fixed soon and we'll have our website running slick as a whistle. We want to especially get our portfolio out there so that you can see all of the great things we've been working on. We are going to strive to put out a funny and interesting newsletter each month that is worth your time. We don't want it to seem like spam. We also have been laboring away on a new advertising medium that will be very exciting for some of you. Look for these and other updates in the next little while. Thanks again for your support and make sure to send us some feedback.

Jake

Updated Finally!

2008-05-02T14:03:00.003-06:00

Hi everyone. We have been so busy that it has been hard to find time to update the blog. But because we love all 5 of the people that read this blog we will give you an update.

We recently provided graphics for the Dixie-Escalante Kite Festival. It was a stage backdrop made of a material called building mesh. It worked great for the stage because when the wind blew 80 mph (or close to it I swear) it was able to withstand the force because of the tiny wind holes in it. It wasn't a huge parachute like some of the other banners ended up being. All in all I would say it turned out nice.

They wanted wind and they sure got and then some!

We've got a few large projects we are working on at the moment that I can speak about a little later. Oh, I almost forgot. I promised office pics in an upcoming blog entry. I will take some photos and post them next week sometime. We finally got most of our office furniture a couple of weeks back. We think it looks very nice, but we'll let you be the judge when you see the pics. So long for now and look forward to the update next week!

Flitch Wraps

2008-03-28T08:47:00.006-06:00

Hi Everyone. I wanted to let you know about one thing we've been working on. We just finished wrapping a motor home for a guy who wanted to "Jazz" it up. He pulls a toy hauler full of 4-wheelers behind it so he needed something race inspired. Matt came up with the design and I helped him install it. Here is what the motor home looked like before.

And after....

We can make your vehicle look "10 years younger"

It was a fun project and something we enjoy doing. Thank you Shayne!

We're having a Flitching good time!

2008-03-20T20:32:00.003-06:00

Hi everyone. I know, I know, we don't post to our blog as often as you would like... errrr... I mean as often as we would like. For all of you that have commented so far, kudos to you. It really makes us feel loved in this cold corporate world we live in. Kinda like sipping hot chocolate next to a blazing fire when it's butt-cold outside.

This week was a great week. Business continues to pick up and the response we have been getting is tremendous. We are definitely ready to take things to the next level. I'm posting from home so I don't have any great artwork we've been working on to display (next time I promise.) In the coming month we want to finish furnishing our freaking sweet office so that we can post some pictures of it. That way all of you can see what great working conditions we labor under. You'll see such luxuries as a stainless steel mini-fridge, a 1.5 cubic square foot microwave and don't forget about the awesome transformers poster that will overlook my workspace. Please, I beg of you... contain your excitement. We won't be able to roll out this kind of bling until at least the middle of April (the time of our business trip.)

So I guess this blog didn't have much of a point, but wait... check out this cool image. OK, that's better. That gives this post some validation no?

(actual artists rendering of me, mere moments after birth)

A tribute to my Heros

2008-03-13T16:03:00.003-06:00

"When the fantasy has ended
and all the children are gone
something good inside me
helps me to carry on
I ate some bugs
I ate some grass
I used my hand to wipe my tears
to kiss your mouth
I break my vows
no no no no no no way Jose
unless you want to
then we break our vows together"

Nacho Libre (Jack Black)

What is a hero? I guess there are the pat answers-- the guys (or Gals) that really inspire you. Or someone like the fireman that pulls your butt from a burning building. Then there are your leaders that help to make you a better person, or help you to stay on the right path. But someone that I really consider to be a hero is the one that has values, and can stand up at that time that his values are challenged and say NO thats not right.

Whatever it means to you, I have my own hero's in my life that I will always look up to. Whether that is the person now or the person that they used to be... The person that I remember in my clouded memory.

So, why all this talk about hero's. I just wanted to say Thank You to all those that have helped me be the person that I am today, or better yet the one that I hope to be someday. I could not be here without you.

Matt

You've Won a Neeeeew Car!

2008-03-06T17:45:00.000-07:00

I thought it might be nice to give all of you an idea of what we have in mind for our official FLITCH CREATIVE vehicle. Ladies and Gentlemen... the Flitchmobile.

Isn't she a beauty.

Well, we actually don't own it yet, but it would be perfectly suited for us. First of all it's a BMW, need I say more. Secondly, it has the extra room in the back for special deliveries and hauling around tools. Oh, and don't forget, with a little (a lot) money dropped into it, we could race for pinks! Love it– hate it, let us know what you think.

Here's to YOU!

2008-02-28T18:58:00.001-07:00

We haven't posted in a long, long time. For that we apologize. Looking forward, we will try to post at least 3 times a week. We are still alive and well. In fact we are doing very well. We have been impressed by the quality of customer we have been able to work with so far. So to celebrate this I've made this lovely little poster to illustrate how we feel about our customers.

click to enlarge... maybe

We really do appreciate everyone who has helped us thus far and we look forward to working with all of you again. Let us all raise our glasses (of whatever beverage you prefer) and make a toast to SUCCESS.

Flitch enters into the world

2008-02-14T16:25:00.001-07:00

Here we are world...

We stepped up to the edge, and took the leap. For better or worse, we are on our way. Fame and fortune, or crash and burn. Only time can tell us that, but we are going to give it all we got.

Just a little about who we are, and what we are doing. Flitch Creative is a Graphic Design studio. We are going to specialize in design on the business level. We want to be there to help the little guys. From logo design and corporate identity, to vehicle wraps and web design, we want to be able to do it all. This is an industry that has a lot of potential. Everyone, no matter what kind of business they have need someone like us. Jake and I are here to assist you in any of your design needs.

So now your thinking, "What does a company like Flitch Creative need with a Blog?" Well, let me tell you. We just want an outlet to show our creative design that we do. We want another place to network with others, and connect with our friends. We also thought it would be fun to open this up to others that might have questions about design, or the Creative Suite program that we use. We are also looking into doing some podcasts or tutorials on trick and tips that we have learned along our way to where we are.

Where did we come from? Jake and I both were groomed to be the designers that we are from the hallowed halls of Design To Print. A wonderful place to get our design feet underneath us. With great mentors like Josh Bevans and Cody Bender, we were able to learn the basics of design and out putting files. They were able to teach us many great things. Then with great co-workers that we were able to bounce things off of, it was a great environment to grow. "So, if it was so great why leave?" It was time, things fell into place enough that it made it difficult not to. We both owe so much to the knowledge that we gained from DTP. But, it was time to walk free, so now we are on our own. With all the struggles that come with that. :)

Where do we go from here? The only place for us to go is up. We have had break away from comfort and walk out on the thin ice. Thats where we stand today, but the good thing is, I can't hear any cracking yet. And we are looking forward to a hard freeze in the weeks to come.

Ok, enough with the analogies. Just welcome to the world of design, and look out we are now about to hit our stride.