Logo for A Year of Success, a video series from four respected business personalities from different industries. The challenge here was how to combine prestige and permanence with playfulness and approachability.

For the Underground Shakespeare Company’s performance of Titus Andronicus, Director Kate Davis requested a poster and graphic logo to reflect the production’s Neo Victorian and Steampunk styling. Also, it needed to be bloody. Very bloody.

This was a fun project, allowing me to dust off the Photoshop skills and work with layer effects, textures, 3D extrude, and with airbrushing to create the brass look of the title text. Research revealed what sort of type, textures, colours, and iconography would be appropriate for graphics inspired by Roman and Victorian sensibilities. The typefaces are Clarendon for the main title and Knockout (various weights) for the detail text. The background and border patterns were compiled from various internet sources and the textures were taken from Von Glitschka‘s Crumble Crackle Burn, among other sources.

Writer, Lecturer, and Medievalist Dana Cushing needed an identity for her business, Antimony Media. After working with Ms. Cushing to develop a brand strategy, I set out researching imagery and symbolism of her subject — medieval art and culture, especially of the Crusades and 12th Century.

The challenge here was creating a modern brand identity that references the old, without mocking it. The last thing the client wanted was a pastiche of the Middle Ages or something that looks like a publisher of Tolkien fan fiction. The resulting identity is taken from a cathedral’s arch, simultaneously serving as an A letterform. The typography for “Antimony Media” is custom-built, using the same curves as the arch itself. Neutra Text is the brand’s main typeface, also seen on the stationery.

To accompany the logo and wordmark, I created a brand pattern — a sort of modern tapestry — which brings in symbols and elements of medieval history, culture, religion, and military.

A basic stationery system and brand style guide were produced. The stationery system is printed in two colours, using gold metallic ink and blue, on several different paper stocks.

Drexel’s Performing Arts Department needed to create a full-colour brochure and calendar to promote the events of the upcoming academic year. The goal was to highlight the offerings of all groups within the disciplines of dance, music, and theatre. The brochure serves double-duty as a recruiting and awareness tool for students and as an advertisement for the wider arts audiences.

After coordinating with photographers, writers, and department staff, the resulting brochure is a twelve-page glossy brochure used in mailers, media kits, as handouts, and on display around campus.

Photography by Jacques-Jean Tiziou, Jules Victor, and Evan Rosen. Printing by Compucolor

The Armory Show is a huge international festival of modern and contemporary art, where galleries and art dealers come to see, to discuss, and to deal. The Armory Show needed a unifying identity for this years show that is simple, easy to recognise, and versatile enough to be featured across many different media.

The resulting branding for The Armory Show was featured on signage and site graphics, stationery, mailers, advertising, websites, badges and event materials, printed catalogues, and a host of other pieces.

Work performed in the employ of MD70.

What would happen if you took a quintessentially British department store, and exported it to New York? Marks & Spencer New York City is the result of research into cultural identities, national imagery and iconography, and retail fashion. This project manifested as three alternate concepts, each with a different approach to brand personality, audience, and market.

The Black Route is a traditional 7th Ave. fashion label, focusing on business clothing. It is a mid-market brand drawing ties to London’s Bond St. The Red Route is a more downtown brand, influenced by pop art and counter cultures. This is a down-market brand intended as nightlife clothing for a young, urban audience. The Brown Route is an upscale, outdoor brand. This is the most traditional approach, tying in icons of heraldry and European aristocracy to a modern New York brand.

In all cases, the project explored the use of brand patterns, sub-branding, visual style, photography, advertising, in-store and signage, retail packaging, and other aspects of the brand.

Remember when Snapple arrived on the scene with their quirky and unconventional style? In a world of colas, it was a refreshing twist on marketing, packaging, and style. Over the years, Snapple’s brand messaging had become diluted, so it needed a re-focus. My solution is a back-to-basics re-brand that demonstrates Snapple’s unpretentious values. Relax, it’s just a drink.

This project explores a brand identity re-design across logo systems, colour, typography, packaging, outdoor advertising, livery, signage, and brand behaviour in general.

Boutique hot sauce brand Joaquin’s needed an identity and packaging to highlight their traditional-yet-modern duality. The typography and packaging reference the Spanish and French colonial traditions in Southern cuisine. Since Joaquin’s uses ingredients and recipes from the American South and West, I sought to make subtle affiliations with those regions, and break the trends of flamboyant and puerile design in hot sauce.

Startup software company Intelligent Editing needed a brand identity that speaks to their audience of busy accountants, publishers, educators, and business professionals. Based on primary colours and simple geometric shapes, the identity reflects the brand’s personality traits as easy-to-use but capable of great things.

The resulting identity was implemented on the website, packaging, stationery, advertising, software graphics, and more.

Lis Hubert of Hubert Experience Design desired a logo to better represent her consulting business. We created something distinct, bold, and playful, while referencing her existing logo.

These Diggnation Wine bottles were designed and produced for a special live recording of popular web show Diggnation. The hosts of the show, pictured on labels, are avid beer drinkers, but had been demonstrating a growing interest for wine on the show. And so the cheeky effort was born.

GeekBrief was a popular video podcast that delivered “shiny, happy tech news.” With a large following and high production value, the show had a lot going for it, but the existing identity didn’t reflect the nature and values of the hosts or the tech industry.

Working with host and producer Cali Lewis, I created a new identity designed to appeal to the tech-savvy-yet-approachable audience and to inject that extra energy into the show. The logo and supporting graphics appeared on the website, show titles, stationery, and even a metal sign cut with a plasma torch.

While famous for many things, London lacks a unifying, cohesive identity where all sectors can co-exist. The London identity seeks to bring together the previously branded elements of transport, tourism, government, the Olympics, and other public programmes.

“A Rectangle?” you’re probably saying. Yes, you’re right. But like many large-scale branding schemes, the strength of the logo itself only goes so far. The logo is part of a greater system, and expands to fit the particular needs.

The identity is hinged on an updated version of the classic British typeface Gill Sans. This new version, which I’m temporarily calling “Giww”, has simplified some of the characters, especially those with curves. It exists now only as an upper-case font, but may be expanded as needs emerge.

The identity is carried across various media including posters, transit signage, stationery, environmental graphics, and vehicle livery.

PLTMD aims to be an online music outlet where artists can be heard by music professionals and help self-promote and cross-promote. The bold type and headphones icon represent the retro and homemade nature of demo tapes, an enduring icon of the upstart musician. The logo lends itself to screen printing and apparel design, which will likely be avenues for marketing the site.

PleaseListenToMyDemo.com

Open Communities are diversity consultants dedicated to creating diverse, strong, competitive environments for municipalities, corporations, faith groups, and other organisations.

In creating the brand identity for Open Communities I utilised four basic colours to represent the four core values. The main logo is a symbol of four interlocking hands forming a ring. This is a reference to the letter O as well as a metaphor for cooperation and unity without hierarchy — as a healthy community should function.

This project included brand strategy and the creation of identity and matching in-depth style guide. In addition to the logos and brand pattern, directions for colour usage, typography, photo selection, and layout was included.

Synergy Showroom is a fashion importer and showroom based in New York City. They needed a versatile logo to reflect the luxury clientele and the sleek, minimal aesthetic of the hi-end fashion industry.

The result is a simple one-colour logo that could easily be translated across many different media. The business cards make use of a custom duplex paper, with the grey side featuring a black foil metallic stamp of the logo.

Featured here are some alternative concepts for the identity. These are both more abstract approaches and make use of more colour, clearly.

Vigne facilitates wine & food travel by connecting people to local sources, and enabling authentic experiences. With a focus on local producers, personal interactions, and knowledge resources, Vigne needed a brand identity to accurately represent them, and to differentiate them from other tour and travel brands.

This project included brand concept and strategy, logo and logo system development, colour and typographic exploration, and direction for website and packaging design. Unfortunately, this project was put on hold, and these designs were never put into production.

Jersey Vintage is a concept T-shirt and apparel company built around New Jersey-themed designs. Cheek and humor are at the core of this brand.

Images courtesy of Threadless.

Shakedown is an iPhone application that alerts your friends whenever you’re on line at New York City’s Shake Shack. Since the wait at Shake Shack is famously long, Shakedown allows you to give friends get an accurate view of how long the line is, and whether they can join you for a burger.

Website interface and graphics for Multaq, a drug to treat Atrial Fibrillation. For site pre-launch, we created an animated mini-site, in addition to the layout and graphics for the main site. This website is built with a multidisciplinary team including developers, Flash animators, UX experts, copywriters, and pharmaceutical compliance advisors.

Work performed in the employ of Saatchi & Saatchi Healthcare