April 2002 – March 2015
Corporate identity projects remain a highlight during my work for A Simple Design. Most of my identity work consisted of logo work for small local businesses during their first steps in building a brand. I found the most important aspect of my role during these projects wasn’t creating the art, it was guiding the customer in decision-making for future brand promotion decisions.
Cran-Razz by Cold Spring Brewery
Cran-Rass by Cold Spring Brewery was the largest branding project I participated in while at A Simple Design. We were given the logo, beverage can design, and the opportunity to create a marketing campaign that consisted of on-location city events, liquor store tasting booths, and online micro applications. As the sole designer for this campaign, my job was to build supporting graphics for garments, event posters, social media, web applications, race car graphics, semi-trailer graphics, and ASI promotional items.
Logo Development
I will always hold logo design in a special place in my heart. Like icon design, I enjoy flat vector-based design work. The concepts of what a logo’s purpose is and what the personality is intended to represent fascinates me. My method starts with getting to know the personality of the business and the owner. My first step is to explore fonts that I feel represent the personality. After narrowing the font selection down to a few I believe are strong candidates, I begin exploring shape and negative space by combining and playing with the type styling. I introduce glyph element concepts after typeface exploration. Glyph concepts take on an organic process based on personality interpretation, font exploration, and the solutions offered by the business.
Branding is more than a logo. Your brand is your personality and should visually represent the qulity of your service and products.
Business Stationery and ASI Promotional items
A large portion of my responsibilities included expanding the logo work into business stationery and promotional items such as garments, handout items, and vehicle graphics. A benefit to designing for a small business is the production experience I received. I was often in charge of the product production as well. I have experience in printing, garment decoration, vinyl graphic application, and event display setup. Production experience made me a better designer in many ways. The most valuable lesson is in the design work itself, and understanding the limitations a production team has within each product application and type.
Social Profiles