I have been around long enough to remember a time when there was no internet. (Yes, 35 is still reasonably young.) Seems like only yesterday that my father's computer slowly dialed up a phone number beeping and spurting fax machine like noises as it attempted to connect up to an email service called Prodigy. Once connected, we got to send notes to my Aunt and Uncle's family in California, also known as the only other people we knew who had this service.
Since then the world wide web has grown into a never ending galaxy of connections. It is a major component in our everyday lives. At any given moment, we can simply google what we are looking for and through a moderate amount of searching, find just the right thing.
Never before in my life did I truly feel the power of this tool then when Kerrenda Crandol of North Carolina emailed me out of the blue for a design request. Her note inquired about whether or not I still designed custom clock faces. At first, I thought it was spam, but sure enough she had found the picture of the clock I did for the
Fasanos back in 2009 and it was just the style she was looking for. And all she did to find me was put "custom clockface designs" into a google search - Amazing!
Every year, Kerrenda's family has a big reunion. Her grandfather is one of twelve children and every year, the younger generation presents the older generation with a gift. This year, Kerrenda was in charge of the project. She sent me a bunch of family pictures from over the years and she liked the blending techniques I used on the other clock. The only text we added was the family name and the tagline that they used every year at their reunions: Still Holding On.
ROUND 1, VERSION 1
Since we had a mixture of group shots and heads, I fit the larger head shots inside the spaces between the numbers first. For the other images, I chose to create scattered pictures across the bottom half of the clock face. The primary pictures featured at the center, were family members that she wanted to have prominence in the layout so they have a slightly different frame style then the rest. The way the pictures scatter have a nice way of framing the rest of the circle and create a space for the copy, “The Crandols: Still Holding On”.
ROUND 1, VERSION 2
In this version, I wanted to try something a little different. Since this gift is for a reunion, it gave me the idea of a wall of framed pictures. The two feature photographs are still in the middle while showcasing the other supporting images in decorative frames. I also tried simplifying the clock face by only featuring the 12, 3, 6 and 9. I was hoping this layout would help show the generations of family, over the years, without looking old-fashioned.
ROUND 2
In the next round, Kerrenda liked the way the headshots were fitting into the spaces between the numbers, so she sent me more shots of the rest of the family and we decided to do the whole clock face this way. I did two different versions with minor variations.
During this round, I also did significant retouching to many of the
headshots. Some of these shots were from the 40s and 50s and had some
bad cracks and creases in them. I did my best to bring them back to
life.
Kerrenda chose version #2 and with some minor changes we arrived at the final clock face design.
It was truly a pleasure to work on this project. It really made me feel like I had a brief window into this family's rich history. I hope they will enjoy their clocks for years to come.
