Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween! I had to make adjustments to Isley's Working Man costume. Instead of a big logo screen-printed on a shirt, I have designed a sticker to go on the front of his hard hat. Color yet to be determined! I love them all but we'll see how they looked printed out and attached to his hat.

Isley's Halloween Logo

I have been working on my son's Halloween costume today. He is a two-and-a-half year old that is obsessed, as many little guys are, with construction sites. Well actually, construction sites, backhoes, front loaders, bulldozers, excavators, you name it, he knows it. And l.o.v.e.s it. (What is up with how that so many little boys are into big machines. It's kind of cray-cray.)

It makes sense, then, that his heroes are the people that make it all happen. He calls them the"Workin' Man." And since we all like to dress up as our heroes, that's exactly what he's going to do. Ask him what he is going to be for Halloween and that is what he'll tell you with great gusto. A Workin' Man!

I felt like I had to come up with a strategy, however,  for when he goes Trick-Or-Treating. I want folks answering their doors to look at Isley and tell him "aha, and you're a working man, I see." Not something close, like a construction worker, or a carpenter. And since I am a nerdy graphic designer, what better way to sell something than with a logo?? A "Workin' Man" logo that he could wear proudly on his chest. 

I found beautiful and classic Union labels and logos to pull from for the design. I will screen-print it, with help from me good friend, Cynthia Warren. I still have a bit more finessing but I think I am close.

The coolio facet to this costume is that when Isley was born the baby announcement I designed had a union-made logo as well. Guess I am starting a trend with this little guy...

Oaktown Spice Shop Website Burst

My wonderful Oaktown Spice Shop peoples asked me to design a callout burst for their splash page. The burst would redirect folks to their holiday e-commerce site. To keep continuity with the existing page, I designed a burst that felt like the original artwork in style, color palette, and texture. The complimentary teal and the sans serif typeface made the burst visually stand out. They loved it! Practicality won out over fun design, however, and we set up a straight-forward redirect to their e-commerce page. They admitted their undying love for their splash page, and requested we somehow keep it in the design of our full e-commerce site.

Volunteer Poster for The Edible Schoolyard Project

I am working on a volunteer poster for the most freaking amazing edible education program, The Edible Schoolyard Project. The local and flagship garden is at the nearby King Middle School here in Berkeley, CA. The poster is to grow the connection and friendship between the garden and the staff at Chez Panisse. (The Edible Schoolyard is the brainchild of Chez Panisse's Alice Waters.)  

Bartavelle Trading Card. Just for fun.

Just playing around with a vintage chocolate collectible card for my Bartavelle client, Suzanne Drexhage. This is what I do for a quick fun project to get myself going in the morning. 

The Edible Schoolyard Project Newsletter

In 2011, Alice Waters decided to use the national spotlight of Chez Panisse's 40th Anniversary as an opportunity to introduce and discuss her passion of edible education to a larger audience. A part of this strategy was to rename the Chez Panisse Foundation to The Edible Schoolyard Project and launch its new identity and website. I worked on a newsletter with the newly designed assets of the Edible Schoolyard Project. I was like a kid in a candy store. I was able to chose from a rich palette of colors, badges, imagery and fonts. 

Ice Chamber Kettlebell Team Emblem

The Ice Chamber emblem and t-shirt for their nationally ranked kettlebell team.

Gemma's Baby Announcement

As a gift to a friend, I designed and letterpress printed her daughter's baby announcement. I used one of my photographs as my inspiration. My good friend and incredibly talented Cynthia Warren worked with me printing this on her 100 year old press. We learned a lot with this project about color and registration. It was a four color print job. Registration is one tricky beast and the more colors, the more  rascally the process!

Balancing creativity and staying on brand

Electronic Save-The-Date for LeapFrog CEO

Collateral Exploration

Promotional Booklet

Promotional Booklet

Promotional Travel stickers for PR packages

A few years back I was brought in to LeapFrog to create new collateral pieces that would work with their new identity. I stayed on and worked on packaging and various promotional pieces for different lines of toys. The creative challenges were, as always, to bring joy to the work but respect the brand. 

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Kabongo Logo and Splash page

 

I did a short stint at Formium Creative Agency a few years ago and had the privilege to work on a new online educational company, Kabongo. We had fun coming up with concepts for their logo. (Shown are unused versions.)  Then it was on to the temporary splash page. The design was animated with various moving characters throughout the island. It turned out to be very charming.

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Fishkill Farms Labels

Just got word from Josh Morgenthau of Fishkill Farms that the our new labels look great. Yay! Our design challenge with these was in consideration of production costs. The farm will be printing these labels out themselves so I needed to come up with a family of colors that was both low in ink usage, but still had continuity with the apple cider labels we created. We also wanted a fresh feel balanced with the idea of  vintage fruit crates. Here are a few of the labels.