Before Glitschka begins working digitally, he thoroughly explores the drawing phase. “Lots of sketches and drawn experiments lead to what I call my refined sketch. I’ll use this as my road map for building my vector art in Illustrator,” he says.
The Wicked Wheel Bar & Grill in Panama City, Florida, needed a logo that reflected their passion for cars and bikes, and one that their patrons would appreciate. Enter Von Glitschka. His handcrafted sensibility was key to this project, just as classic car and bike enthusiasts don’t mind getting their hands dirty when it comes to their rides.
“With the name ‘The Wicked Wheel,’ the type needed to be sinister of sorts, regarding its letterform styling. So instead of using existing typefaces, I hand-lettered the design,” he says. “Choppers and classic cars are carefully built from scratch, so I felt the name should be treated the same way.”
Once he got the type right, he began adding other elements to the design. “Those who enjoy bikes and classic cars also like nefarious themes like skulls and hot-rod oriented visual props like pickelhaube helmets. So I mashed those together and threw in a pair of wings to represent their free-spirited approach to their hard-core passions,” he notes.
Because he didn’t want the design to look too clean and perfect, he created a black-textured background to house the logo, giving it a lived-in look. Although Glitschka considers himself a digital designer, he likes things to be a little rough around the edges. “Digital design can look too clean, so everything I do first exists in analog. I draw out my shape and form before I build it in Illustrator,” he notes.
“I may build it precisely, but the style I try to achieve is aesthetically handcrafted of sorts since it was worked through in analog.”
—Von Glitschka
Before Glitschka begins working digitally, he thoroughly explores the drawing phase. “Lots of sketches and drawn experiments lead to what I call my refined sketch. I’ll use this as my road map for building my vector art in Illustrator,” he says.
Glitschka further refines his sketch and experiments with other design elements. He decided against using the banner or the cog in the final development.
Sometimes Glitschka creates specific motifs, like this textured nesting shape, to house the overall design so it works well in the specific context of use.
The final design utilizes real-world textures from splattered paint and cracks from an old painted door in order to encapsulate the design with an authentic look and feel. “The design isn’t perfectly symmetric so I wanted the textures to make the forms imperfect too,” Glitschka notes.
Glitschka did this variation to be printed on a black T-shirt.
The Wicked Wheel logo hit the right notes for his client and their customers.
Almost every culture around the world has an established mythos related to its own history and lore. Ironically, when you get to the United States, our own history has a distinct lack of that same type of mythology and the visuals that go with it. I’ve always gravitated toward symbolism whether overt or subtle in context of design.
Growing up, I enjoyed learning about Greek or Egyptian gods and legends. I just found the imagery very intriguing. The closest we get to that level of mystery in American culture is the symbolism surrounding the Masonic Order, and those who set forward the whole Manifest Destiny ideal that is still reflected in our monuments and even the money we use. Many of these images were derived from other established mythologies such as Egyptian. One example is the obelisk, like the Washington Monument. Another is the all-seeing eye.
The world is far more global now than ever before, and I think people like supernatural topics in general. Mythology is squarely derived from a supernatural mindset, whether it’s ancient or more modern like Bigfoot, Loch Ness Monster, Mothman, or UFOs for that matter.
I grew up in the Pacific Northwest, so from the time I was a kid I had heard of and followed everything mentioned about Bigfoot. I’ve known people who swear to have seen one, and they’d debate labeling the phenomenon mythological. I like playing with the concept though.