I am still trying to decide if I want to commit to the “design something each day” challenge from Smashing Magazine. I have several other goals that I am considering. I don’t want to stretch myself too thin.

I have had the chance to design a couple of things over the past 2 weeks, so I am going to go ahead and throw these out there.

Andy Clarke issued a challenge on January 5th to design a business card for a detective agency. I started working on a concept on January 8.

From the beginning, my idea was to play on the 404 - Page not found that is very familiar to me in my work in Web design. I also thought of a lot of different elements associated with a gumshoe.

I have not had a lot of time to work on my idea because I am Dad at home watching three young kids 9,6, and 3. I worked on the concept on Friday and then got into Photoshop and Fireworks yesterday and today.

I happened to see a post of 404 error pages and saw the page Mike Kus designed for Carsonified. It fit well into my concept idea. But I feel like it is too close to Mike’s design for me to submit this iteration to Andy Clarke’s contest.

Colophon: Slab Serif typeface is Clarendon LT Std and the San-serif typeface is Candara