Behold, my trusty designer Scott Wills. It’s now official and I am thrilled to have him on board. He brings a great amount of experience, creativity and enthusiasm to the table and we’re both anxious to get a move on. So contracts have been signed, initial installment has been made, and design has commenced. He’s working on the logo as we speak in fact, and hopes to have something to show me later on in the week.

In addition to the contract, Scott has agreed to sign (and actually took the liberty of drafting) a non-disclosure agreement. It’s not that I don’t trust him, it’s just that I am a paranoid person with an idea that could very easily be copied and I feel better having an agreement in place. Idea secrecy may not always be the best approach, as explained here, but this project is relatively low-risk and I have a good feedback network of close family providing honest criticism. Plus, its how paranoid freaks like me roll. Just ask Harvey Danger…

Paranoia paranoia!
Everybody’s coming to get me,
Just say you never met me,
I’m runnin’ underground with the moles,
(Digging holes)

I don’t think I have it quite that bad though. So as I was saying, the designer has been sworn to secrecy and has endured a series of lie detector exams, torture endurance tests, and other CIA tactics that I have made up. He’s been surprisingly cooperative and even seems to respond well to the self-destructing emails I send him (zing, watch out for that one folks)! Seriously though, I know we’re going to make a great team. Yesterday, I briefed him on the appetizer idea and he feels he has enough information to begin branding.

Here is some of the design specs I have given him (excluding idea specific info):

This is a fun and entertaining app so I’d like something creative, new, and exciting [in a logo]. Something that will outlive fads. “Simple, Clean, Crisp, Shiny, Fresh, Fun, Abstract” would be good words to describe the logo in my mind. Simple with an edge, if that even makes sense. I really like the design work done on cork’d.com.

And here is our current plan of action:

As you said, I would expect us to get the branding out of the way first and then move on to layout and page design. I also have sketches of the basic components on each page, and I will get those to you when we get to that point. Of course, these will just be there to give you an idea of components, not as a design/layout reference. You will have creative control to move things around as you like and we can go from there.

Scott and I have agreed to the following payment plan: 40% up front, 40% on delivery, and 20% on go live. As I mentioned he received the initial 40% yesterday so the design work is all systems go at this point. There’s no turning back now!