Well, I know nothing whatsoever about live sound engineering, but I do know how to draw things that people describe to me, especially if, like this client, they very helpfully say things like, “Make the logo look like this Velvet Underground album cover,” and then also send me a picture of the album cover. But I didn’t make it look too much like the album cover to avoid a repeat of the time I got a DMCA takedown notice for a design in which one of my original characters cosplays as Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top. I thought that was very unfair. Anyone can wear a knit hat and sunglasses and a very, very long beard and the comic was quite specific in identifying it as NOT Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top, but as someone simply dressing like him (against their will, even; the comic ends with the character deciding to shave), plus parody is protected speech.

However, as I point out in this comic, Fair Use only applies to people who can afford copyright lawyers, and even though I’m pretty sure I was in the right, I am not one of those people. So for this project I drew a totally different VU meter than the one on the Velvet Underground album. The client requested “an amber glow,” and I wasn’t 100 percent sure what that meant until I started looking at images of VU meters and saw one with an amber glow. I mentioned it to The Man and he explained that amber glow was a retro aesthetic that would fill tech nerds with nostalgia for old analog equipment. He knew what I was talking about without the visual (because he is a tech nerd). Creating the amber glow was fun, and very simple in Photoshop.

Amber Glow would be a good name for a pop star.

Another problem I had to solve was the font, which the client wanted to look similar to the album cover as well. Now, I know at least one word nerd who probably can identify fonts just by looking at them, and I was about to message them, but then I thought, “Hey, it’s 2022; surely there’s an app for that.” And there is. There are many apps for that. And then I said, “Well, if there’s an app for it surely there’s a website for it.” And there are many of those as well. It was easy to upload the image and find the name of the font.

The website I used also helpfully offered to sell me the font for $26, which is a RIDICULOUS price for a font, in my opinion, and to sell me the entire font family for $86, which is laughable. It turned out that I already owned some of the fonts in that family (Century Schoolbook) and while I didn’t own the specific one, I think I got pretty close.

The client wanted to use this logo for a few things, but since they specifically wanted to make T-shirts, I used my T-shirt template, which is…large. So this is a big, sharp file, but it should print out well in full size. I think it’s a stunning marketing tool. This guy has been in the business for a couple decades. You should definitely hire him for live sound engineering.

And I just got another logo commission! But first I have another, potentially high profile commission that I’m not sure if I’m supposed to talk about. But I’m very excited about both of them.