What Am I Doing?

What am I even doing? Today. Tomorrow. With my life?

I’m sitting here, at my 9-5 (8-5 with an hour lunch, actually), wondering how I can go from where I’m at to where I want to be.

Where do I even want to be? And how soon?

The multitude of podcasts and YouTube videos I’ve watched on how to start freelancing, or how to be more productive all say that I need to have clear, measurable goals.

Well, I want to start a business or two and work for myself. I want to be able to provide the best life for my wife and kids. I want to not sit at a job, making someone else money. And I want it as soon as possible.

Okay, got my goals down. Now what? How do I measure that??

Gotta be more specific… right after I check my email to see if anyone has ordered anything off my clothing store (shameless plug: SpockPaperScissors.com).

No. That’s the OPPOSITE of productive!

Okay, focus. Like a camera. Like Mr. Miyagi always said on Karate Kid. That was a good movie. At least the original, the new one was “meh” at best. I remember Jayden Smith was in it before he got too weird. Man, that kid got weird. Or maybe he’s just trying too hard and it’s coming off as too far out there. I’m glad our kids aren’t that weird. I shouldn’t say that, they’re actually pretty weird. I wonder what they’re doing right now. Possibly homework. Is it odd that I kind of miss high school homework? I mean, when I was actually in high school, I never did homework. But now that I’m nearly 20 years out, I miss it. I also miss the tire swing near our house in Portland. Those were good times! My brother and I used to ride all over the place on our bikes. I wish my bike didn’t get stolen in Reno. I’d love to do more bike riding. I just need to get a bike. It’s gotta be much easier to buy a new bike than it is to buy a used car. Used car shopping is the worst feeling ever. Too much. Oh hey, an Instagram message!

NO! FOCUS!

I’ve made how many steps toward my goal in the past hour? Actually… I think I’ve stepped backwards.

This is harder than I thought. I hate that I have to actually get out there and talk to people. I’m not good at that. Let’s see if I can Google ways where I can generate leads without actually talking to people. Can I just buy a lead sheet? That’d be awesome! Maybe I’ll just start a business that creates lead sheets for purchase!

Aaaaaand now it’s time to clock out and go home to do it all again tomorrow…

I don’t know how to reach my goals.

I don’t know what I’m doing.

- J Noles

A Head for Hot Design

Over the last few years, it seems like products such as salsas, spaghetti sauces, condiments, and soups have really buffed up their package design game.

Walking down those aisles at the store is actually pretty exciting for me (don’t judge). And there’s one label that has consistently caught my eye every time I walk down the salsa aisle and that is Pain is good’s salsa.

Eye-catching Goodness

The one thing I really like about this design is the most notable aspect of it-the gray-scale heads screaming at me. At first look, you can understand that they’re supposed to be screaming in pain because of the spicy salsa. However, the more I look at these faces, the more it looks to me like they’re trying to sing a high note at the state choral competition. It is a nice identifier of the flavor of salsa, though. I don’t have to look at labels to make sure I’m grabbing the correct one, I just have to grab the one with the backwards hat guy.

In terms of branding, I’m not so sure about it. I mean, I like the connection between the heads and the flavor and between the color on the label and the level of spiciness. However, I’m still not sure if “Pain is good.” is what you would consider the brand name or not. Amazon lists Pain Is Good as a brand. Yet, doing a quick Google search for “Pain is good hot sauce” yielded OriginalJuan.com’s page for their family of products under the name “Pain is good.”

This may not matter to everyone, but if I like a product and want to tell someone about it, I want to be able to tell that person what brand it is in case they wanted to purchase it online or something. In my opinion, this is just too confusing, especially when “Pain is good.” isn’t even highlighted much as a brand name. Sure, it is a different font, but it’s the nearly the same size as the spiciness level and the “All Natural” text on the right. It just leaves a bitter taste in my mouth (horrible attempt at a pun only slightly intended).

Font Face (Get it?? Face?? No? Okay then…)

Speaking of the font of what we now consider the brand, it is one of my favorite things when a font has more than one shape for a repeated letter. It means that some amount of extra time and consideration was put into the detail that the 2 o’s in “good” and the 2 i’s looked different and not like it was a free font someone just downloaded. I’ve also always been a fan of a typewriter-style font, especially when it is on a light paper-bag color. For me, it conjures up images of a grill, flames, heat, etc.-perfect for a salsa or hot sauce.

A cleaner, less messy typewriter-style font is featured on the back with a little story about the origins of the flavor, straight from (Original?) Juan. The ingredients list matches this in both font and size, which makes it easy to read. An interesting side note; the included story on the back uses the Oxford comma. Bonus points for them!

Conclusion

In total, there’s not much that I dislike about this design. Sure, the brand name is kind of weird and there’s some major text (including the flavor) that is sideways, which might make some people turn their heads to read it. But in total, it’s a very attention-grabbing design that almost literally screams at you. And if you have to send someone to the store to get a jar of it for you, you can simply tell them to “just grab the one with the bearded guy screaming on it.”

Do the Dew!

In honor of my wife, I figured that my first package design post should be on her favorite beverage – Mountain Dew… er, Mtn Dew.

I recently noticed that Mountain Dew changed the look of the packaging for their regular flavor soda. Looking at the picture above, you can see the older design on the right and the newer design on the left. I just happened to get the opportunity to get a picture of both of them on one of my Walmart runs.

All I See is Green

Now, I’m torn on my feelings for the new design. Yes, it’s much more eye-catching than the old design. It has brighter shades of green that stand out. And it doesn’t have what looks like an army of stalagmite rockets, like the older design. The vector graphic that reminds me of the “XTREME!!!” 90’s is very eye-catching. However, I have, on a couple occasions, mistaken a Diet Mountain Dew for a regular Mountain Dew with the new design.

The Pros

Personally, I like the new angle of the logo, which allows it to be less skewed and larger/more open feeling. It doesn’t feel squished and confined, which allows it to give an energetic feeling.

All the information, such as calories, quantity, and size of cans has all been put in the same corner. Yet, the majority of the information has been given less of a presence than it used to have. I don’t personally mind this as much because I’m not worried about how many calories or grams of fat are in a can, but those who are worried about it might have a harder time.

In total, I think the new design conveys a more youthful, energy-filled vibe than the old design. Especially when you compare the two designs side-by-side.

The Cons

There’s not a lot that I don’t like about this design, so for the cons, I have to be a bit nit-picky. One thing I noticed is how the design kind of looks like it’s a shoulder strap for the package. The bulk busyness of the design moves from the top-right corner to the bottom-left corner (or vice-versa, if you prefer). There’s “white” space in the upper-left corner and in the bottom-right corner, though the nutrition information covers that corner. Again, not a huge deal, just something that I noticed.

Mainly, my biggest gripe is how similar the new Mountain Dew and Diet Mountain Dew designs look. It’s almost identical, when you’re looking through the window of one of the beverage coolers at Walmart and you’re reaching down with a basket full of stuff, so you’re doing a no-look grab for the bottle of regular Mountain Dew while your foot keeps the door open and the most embarrassing groceries in your basket are falling out while everyone else in line is watching you, trying to not make eye contact.

You can see why this could be a problem.

A Mountain of a Conclusion (But Not Really)

All in all, I think this redesign was a good one. I didn’t realize Mountain Dew needed a redesign, until seeing the new and old designs together. This new, brighter, energetic design makes the old design look dingy and almost 80’s retro, but not as cool. Much like an Uncle Steve and his red 1985 Firebird, complete with cassette deck.

The new design feels refreshing and vibrant and is certainly eye catching. You definitely won’t mistake a Mountain Dew container with a Sprite/7-Up/Canada Dry/another green packaged soda container. Just watch out for the Diet Mountain Dews. They’re tricksy!

Clever Titles Are Hard…

There’s nothing I would love more than to think of a clever title for this post and for this blog. But I’ve always been pretty weak at naming anything.

What I’m not that bad at is noticing good (and bad) design in everyday life. So this is a blog about what I’ve seen.

A Blog in the Making

This blog has been quite a long time in the making. Mostly because I’ve lacked the motivation to get off my keester (figuratively speaking, because in actuality, I stay on my keester to write the blog) and actually start this thing. I’ve also had a personal reservation with starting a blog because I wasn’t quite sure how I wanted to go about writing it. At first, I thought the blog (and the entire Midnight Skies Design website) should be professional. In this case, I seriously sucked at writing interesting content. It always came out so boring and cliché.

I then decided to try and write naturally, more or less how I talk in my everyday life. My odd sense of humor will shine through and it’s so much more enjoyable and easy for me to write this way. I’m hoping that readers will enjoy this blog because of that. I’m also hoping that it will help me to keep up with this blog. I would really like to see this take off.

Walmart Trips

Most things I post will probably be package designs that I find at Walmart. With a large family, I’m at Walmart quite often and I notice some really interesting designs on packaging. It seems like even the generic packaging has begun to step up its game on design. I’m seeing some really cool things that I’d like to share my thoughts on and you are invited to share thoughts as well.

Sometimes, I’ll even be able to purchase the item and describe how it tastes, which I think will be a fun experiment. In any case, there are a truckload of really cool designs that I have seen that all deserve a blog post, so be ready for more!