CGZ Graphic Identity Program
Here’s a new logo design and integrated branding program we recently completed for an accounting firm in San Diego, California.
The primary objective of our work is to create unique, memorable and appropriate graphic design and marketing solutions. This typographic identity was solved by combining the partner names with plus signs, symbolizing the nature of their accounting business.
CGZ logo design
CGZ signage design
CGZ business cards, front and back
CGZ #10 envelope
QR Codes
We’ve been educating several clients recently on how to include QR codes into their print campaigns. A QR code is a type of 2D barcode that can store a variety of data including a link to a web landing page or video. It can be scanned with a 2D barcode reader app on a Smartphone.
One of the beauties of this technology is to expand a print campaign to include an interactive element. For instance, if you have a print advertisement, you can have the user link to a video, promotion, specifications, or whatever you can imagine.
For Brammo, a leading electric motorcycle company, we’re working on a campaign which includes an artistically customized QR code (see below). Customizing a code in this situation involves manipulating the actual data to include the company logo within the code itself – some of the data is redundant and can be removed or altered and still retain its function. We also rounded the corners to give it a softer feel and colorized it to make it more brand-appropriate. We’re currently exploring interactive concepts with Brammo to effectively use it.
We recently presented a QR code ad campaign concept to a fortune 500 company (I can’t mention the name). The print ad features a photograph of an important business person and a testimonial quote of why they love this company. When the user scans the code they’re linked to a video of the entire interview. It’s a thoughtful use of merging print and interactive design.
QR codes can be used for a myriad of purposes, but the nuts and bolts of using this technology successfully in a print advertising campaign is the interactive experience the user has after scanning. In general, it should provide some special value to a customer, above and beyond just landing on a website homepage.
The original QR code (left), and the custom QR code (right).
2012 Ashland Gallery Guide
We’re getting ready to do our fifth Ashland Gallery Guide. The 64-page annual magazine features photographic listings of local galleries and artists, as well as editorial content and advertising.
The first step in designing the Guide is to create the cover. The cover design influences the rest of the publication and is featured in various advertising promoting the Ashland Gallery Association. This year I wanted to get a local photographer involved to capture an actual gallery experience. We were lucky to get acclaimed photographer David Winston to shoot several locations on the First Friday Art Walk in October. The selected image was taken at Bohemia Gallery. I felt the image presented an authentic moment. I love the center glow, the industrial and utilitarian elements at the top, the foreground and background art elements, the blurred movement, and the overall composition. The typography merges with the lights and highlights, and in combination with the image, conveys a sophisticated and slightly edgy metropolitan art scene. Overall, the cover is a departure from previous issues which were represented by a single piece of featured art.
The Guide will be produced in January and on shelves mid-February.
2012 Ashland Gallery Guide Cover
Harry & David
Sometimes when I work on a project intensely for a good stretch, I have a difficult time admiring it right after samples are delivered. I pulled this piece out recently with a new appreciation, and decided to enter it in the Rosey Awards, Oregon’s creative event of the year for locally-produced work.
Last year we were focused on an abundance of work for Harry & David in Medford, Oregon.
Of all the multi-channel graphic design and marketing projects we worked on, this one stands out. It’s a Holiday brochure, handed out at all the Harry & David stores. The original concept was to make it like Trader Joe’s Fearless Flyer, but it took on a more elegant and sophisticated, “from the orchard,” brand-appropriate design. It included heritage, story telling, recipes, entertaining tips and, of course, product. We collaborated closely (even working late into the night at our studio) with Portland, Oregon writer, Tom Lux. Tom did a brilliant job. Some astute creative direction came from Gwenne Wilcox at H&D, but other than that we had almost total creative control. The result was an engaging, playful and beautiful piece, flavored with texture and warm fuzzy feelings.
In addition to this piece for Harry & David we have done B2B catalogs, print advertising, web banners, eblasts, icons, templates and flyers for the gourmet, food-gift giant.
Harry & David Holiday Brochure Cover
Notice the children's chocolate finger prints and how they relate to the copy
John E. Anderson Book
In August we were asked to design a memorial book for billionaire philanthropist, John E. Anderson, who past away in late July. He and his wife were the major donors for the Anderson School of Management at UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles).
From the time we were contacted to do the project, we had five days (including a weekend) to develop two design concepts, select all the materials, and release to the printer the InDesign documents for the entire 42-page, hard-cover book. Needless to say, it was a fire drill.
There were numerous photographs, two eulogies and several quotes included throughout. Only 60 books were ultimately produced, but the project printed offset with 4-color process, plus 3 PMS spot colors. The cover was linen-wrapped with a debossed, foil-stamped title and the entire piece was bound with a printed velum band. The printer, Lithocraft in Anaheim, had nine days to deliver the completed books.
John E. Anderson Book Cover
John E. Anderson Book Interior
John E. Anderson Book Interior
Print Advertising Success
Signet Research Inc., a third-party marketing research firm, has recently ranked our Modern Fan Company print ad #1 in reader recall scores. To make it more impressive, our ad was a half-page vertical, and it out-ranked even every full-spread and full-page ad in the July issue of
Architect Magazine.
The study was conducted using 213 people who specified what ads they remember. Subscribers of the publication were invited to participate in the study. 76% of the respondents recall seeing the ad and 71% recall reading it, placing our ad at the top of the list.
We place between four and seven print ads per month for the Modern Fan Company.
Modern Fan Company half-page print ad in the July Architect Magazine
The Dieline
We have recently been featured again on thedieline.com, the world’s #1 package design website.
The featured design was for William Augustus White Wine.
Augustus “Gus” Janeway of Velocity Cellars came to me with an idea of creating a white wine packaging in honor of his great grandfather and namesake. Among the materials he showed me was a photographic image of William Augustus White in 1923, on top of New York State’s highest peak, on his 80th birthday. I worked with the image to create a simple and elegant, craftsman-inspired, label.
Several images of the package design were submitted to the dieline. The first image below was shot as a favor by a friend and highly acclaimed fine art photographer, Pipo Nguyen-duy, who has just been awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship in the field of photography. He told me “commercial photography isn’t my thing, John,” and proceeded to capture this image in about a minute and a half. Maybe less.
Photo by Pipo Nguyen-duy
William Augustus Seal
William Augustus White Wine Packaging Design
The Modern Fan Company
For the past several years we’ve done all the graphic design and advertising for the Modern Fan Company, a business not shy of adventurous marketing.
This years’ ad campaign is based on a bold typographic treatment to the headline “cool by design,” a double entendre reflecting the cooling effect of ceiling fans and the distinctive modern flair of the product. The word “design” was hyphenated as a playful, attention-grabbing device, and it also mimics the hyphenated word “modern” in the logo. A series of bold, lively colors were used. All elements were carefully composed on a background of concentric circles. Most of the ads are in a half-page vertical format, which suitably fits the body of a hanging fan.
The ad campaign, which is running in national publications such as Dwell, Architect, Interior Design and Modernism, was stylistically integrated with a 36-page catalog, website and various print collateral.
Every month we manage the advertising by placing about five to seven ads.
Three half-page vertical ads for the Modern Fan Company
The Modern Fan Company logo
Ashland Gallery Map
This week we’re finishing up the redesign of the Ashland Gallery Association monthly map. In the past, a black and white version of the gallery map was distributed monthly. We came up with a strategy to run it in full-color and distribute it only bi-annually. The monthly gallery highlights included in the old version, will be done as a small, separate insert.
Ashland Gallery Map Cover
Ashland Gallery Map Inside Spread
The new map was redesigned as a companion piece to the annual 64-page Ashland Gallery Guide (below), which we have designed and produced the past four years.
2011 Ashland Gallery Guide Cover
2011 Ashland Gallery Guide Inside Spread
GNC Identity Project
We generally give our clients multiple designs to choose from in the initial phase of an identity project. We may refine one or two directions for a second presentation. Occasionally, a design version that is not ultimately selected by a client is of equal quality to the final (sometimes it’s even better!).
Here is a situation where the client, Great Northern Corporation (GNC), had a difficult time making the final selection between these two logo designs.
GNC is an awesome group of people working to help improve the lives and create economic development throughout Siskiyou County – a beautiful and sparsely populated mountainous area of Northern California. The non-profit group offers housing rehabilitation, rental assistance, energy assistance, AIDS assistance, food commodities, etc.
The “lights on” in the house conceptually sold the deal for the final selected identity.
GNC Final Business Card
