Knollwoods

Owner: 72o
Designer: 72o / John Faulhaber (J5 Designs)
Year of birth: 2016

I live in a small prairie-style craftsman ranch house and have about 1/3 of an acre in a nice quiet neighborhood just outside Boston...certainly nothing great to most people but my family and I love it here. This is my little piece of this world that I can call home. My backyard is all grass, fenced-in and has 2 fairly large oak trees spaced just far enough for a hammock to reside in between. It is our sanctuary. It is who we are and we will always have roots here. I knew right away that if I was ever to do a custom chip set, I was going to involve my love of my house/property in some way.

The name Knollwoods came about due to the name of my street. And the inlay is a representation of exactly why the street is appropriately named...large tree(s) on top of a knoll. I searched for a long time for a font that I liked, but ultimately decided to just draw something up freehand that not only fit the dedicated curved space, but captured the whimsical feel that I was looking for.

Here are just a few bullet points of ideas/thoughts/feelings that drove this design.

• 7/8" inlay size - didn't want the edgespots to touch the inlay
  
• All different spot patterns and spot sizes
  
• No repeating colors
  
• Muted but contrasting earthy colors with limited fluorescent-type (bright dayglow) colors
  
• Illustrative inlay look with a weathered background
  
• Rustic, cigar lounge feel
  
• Guys who drive trucks and drink beer
  
• Jeans, t-shirt and boots atmosphere

Choosing the chip colors and the spot patterns was an exercise in patience and perseverance. It took me about 6 months to land at the finish product. The base colors were decided on pretty early (except for the fact that I switched from a black $20 to a green $25 late in the game). It was the spots that were a challenge because I really didn’t want to repeat any colors and I had eliminated a bunch of colors due to the ‘feel’ that I was going for. I loved the pink frac. right off the bat and I knew that I had to have gray and charcoal as the spots…easy. The dollar went thru a lot of changes as it was tough to pick 3 spot colors that not only look good side-by-side (without any base color in between) and compliment the chip’s base color as well. The spot pattern for the fiver was one of those eureka moments. I hadn’t planned on that pattern but was flipping thru the CPC design tool and once I saw it, I just had to have it. I chose red and light chocolate for the spots here because there are a lot of spots on this chip and I wanted the colors to be kind of similar in hue so it wasn’t so ‘in your face’ like a high denom chip would be with contrasting spot colors and this same pattern. As soon as I decided to go with a $25 chip, I knew it had to be a mint chocolate chip so this one was easy. And the spot colors for the hundo is where I chose the contrasting colors that I didn’t want for the look on the fiver. I loved the look of the retro lav right off the bat on the black base and the peach provided the needed contrast.

Final count (after a few add-ons) currently sits at 2,500 total:

• (400) $.25 – 2A12 Pink base with Charcoal and Gray spots
  
• (1000) $1 – 3TA316 Blue base with Light Blue, Orange and Dayglo Arc yellow spots
  
• (800) $5 – 6DSA18 Canary base with Red and Light Chocolate spots
  
• (200) $25 – 414418 Light Green base with Maroon and White spots
  
• (100) $100 – 8D18 Black base with Dayglo Peach and Retro Lavender spots
  
  I would like to thank all my fellow chippers for chiming in with their thoughts along the way in the design mock-up thread. I know it was a really long thread, and I probably annoyed a bunch of people, but it was required for me to feel I was on the right path. And especially for picking this set to be included in the Custom Chip Hall of Fame…I am truly honored!
  
  A special THANK YOU to @Johnny5 and @David Spragg for their patience and incredible art...John with his graphic design skills and David with the craftsmanship needed to produce these chips for us.