Here is a small excerpt from a project I worked on for Xplane, illustrating an internal process diagram for Coke. The style direction for the project was simple and modern without being completely stripped down. The overall diagram was more complex but also top corporate secret, so here are a few made-for-public-viewing icons from the project to give you an idea of the whole.
I remember as a child an activity my mother would put before my sister and I when she wanted our full concentration on something – i.e., peace and quiet. Bead artwork, where you place small plastic beads with holes in them on a plastic form, after which you melt them with an iron. The final product was never really worth keeping, but I imagine the hours it kept the two of us occupied were priceless.
So when a friend of mine recently went on a bead buying binge at a craft store, I was gripped by nostalgia and later a slight streak of OCD when I started on some bead artwork again. The process was both frustrating and meditative, but after some warm up I was able to pick up two beads at once to place on the gridded plate.
The first plate I made tested my skills in one-bit typography in spelling Oink, Moo, Juhu. The background became a gradient to create the contrast needed for the type to stand out, and because the bead bags I had were a random blend of colors, so there wasn’t enough of one color to make a solid color background. The second plate used all the beads I didn’t use for the first plate in a much simpler patchwork composition.
The words are much easier to see if you close one eye and slightly blur your vision. I suppose a composition with 1500 beads would have given a crisper image, but I also would have had to put my wrist in traction afterwards.
Each of the little plastic beads is 2.5mm in diameter. That is very very small. So small, that picking up beads with your fingers would be near impossible unless you were a hamster. So out came the tweezers to assemble the 784 beads per plate. The bag of beads cost 10 kroner, so I’d say I got my money’s worth based on hours of entertainment per bag.
While making these I also had plenty of time to invent a new party game. Best played in the wee hours after guests are sufficiently inebriated to think just about anything is amusing, I call it “Sweaty Palms”. The rules are:
Finally, a game that gives sweaty people the upper hand.
Recently I had the pleasure of working with Danish singer-songwriter Niel Irson on artwork and schwag for his debut album, “The Sweet Joy of Hunting Someone Down”. While the title of the album might feel like a spurned revenge, deep down he’s a softie which is evident in one of my favorite songs from the album, the sweet duet “Mostly in Love”.
A simple logotype was needed to apply to all manner of materials large and small, so functional Futura was chosen with slight alterations. Another benefit of Futura, commonly available, is that the artist could create branded materials on the fly. The counter in the O was knocked out to allow for a smidgeon of graphic flair in the form of a two arrows at a crossroad.
Niel provided some key words to guide the design: journey, the road, hunt, adventurer, and romantic. After some brainstorming together we decided to create a nighttime landscape full of experiences guided by the stars. Orion, the original Love Hunter, was subtly featured in a splotchy skyscape. To get the most out of creating name recognition, the logotype was placed front and center on the cover artwork so that even on small uses such as Facebook the name is reinforced visually.
Irson is a man of grand gestures, he doesn’t do things in a small way, and the more I got to know him the more this was apparent in both his music and life choices. A few years ago he quit his job to move to Portugal, spend some time writing and playing, falling in love, and finding out about things the way you do when you’re in a new pool.
A year later he headed home, richer a plethora of recordings that he became determined to release as an album. After working at a day job as a programmer for a stint, he took the leap and became a music man full time, including a move to the UK to promote himself in a climate suited for the singer-songwriter. Kudos to anyone who has the guts to know they are meant to do something, and then follow through on that responsibility.
To help spread the word, we bit off the very tip of the merchandising iceberg by making a series of pins and postcards. There’s more to come, that’s for sure!
Niel is a throwback to the time of chivalry and love at first sight, a valiant modern gentleman. I wish him the best on his new adventures in moving to London to pursue his dream as a singer-songwriter – if putting your heart on the line gets you anywhere, this man will go far.
I’ve worked with Xplane several times in the past. They have offices in both Portland and Amsterdam, and focus on Business Design Thinking. Over the past few years they have changed ownership, but have recently returned to their roots. To help communicate this recalibration and new start, I illustrated three vision posters for the company. The content and structure of the diagrams were decided internally by the Xplane team and my job was to interpret the blueprint sketches to final illustrations.
See the full posters after the jump, or read Xplane’s blog post about the project.
Continue reading “Xplane Poster Trio”
Created for an in-store campaign to promote the health benefits of eating fish, here is some lettering I made for Alaska Seafood. Here fishy fishy fishy…
I’ve started a little thing called “Creative Night”, where a small group of friends gather to eat dinner and work on a project of choice that they bring with them. It is a great way to get inspiration, block out time for social creativity, get feedback, and follow along on other’s projects.
The theme for Creative Night #6 was ‘still life’. I chose to draw the closest thing to my Micron pen: a small box of matches. I also directly translated the Danish text on the packaging, so now you know that Safety Turn-on Sticks are widely available in Denmark. How you choose to use them is up to you.
After staring at the mystery man on the box for an hour, I was curious who he was. Perhaps a Frederik or a Christian? Denmark’s history has plenty of those, all who have various castles, squares and monuments in their memory. According to the company that produces the matches, Tordenskjold, the dashing man is Peter Jansen Wessel Tordenskjold. Also, did you know an Aspen tree can make up to 370.000 matchsticks?
Peter Jansen Wessel Tordenskjold? What a name! And the man lives up to it. Peter Jansen Wessel was born one of 18 children in Norway. He was a troublesome child and ended up running away from home by hitching a ride on Frederik IV’s boat when he sailed home to Denmark. Once in Denmark he became a sea captain, defeated many a Norsk army, was bestowed the noble name “Tordenskjold”, and found an untimely end at age 30 when he died in a sword duel against Jacob Axel Staël von Holstein. Apparently dueling is verboten for seamen, so he was buried quietly without fanfare. Until 1865, that is, when he became the leading face of matchsticks at the suggestion of a matchstick maker’s wife. Ladies love a sailor…
I’m happy to share a project I’ve been working on for Umpqua Bank. The site is for their Private Bank that focuses on the needs of highly monied clients. I use Umpqua Bank for my business needs and their customer service (and chocolate treats when you visit in person) are unparalleled. This is a bank I can get behind so I was glad to be brought onto the project.
The task was to translate Umpqua’s sunny and upbeat public facing visual identity to a more formal space online without becoming a dry biscuit of financial conservatism. A custom tiling wood pattern background was made to reflect the use of wood in the interior of the bank while all content is contained on a piece of digital paper. Umpqua brand fonts were used in a large and friendly manner with short digestible text.
To populate the site, Chris Hornbecker took portraits of the private bank team with both the typical serious banker face (no smile), and the Umpqua face (smile!). Juliet Zulu created a video featuring one of their customers, Steve Smith of Smith Tea, which is shown on the homepage. I worked directly with Mark Jacobs who works in the Creative Strategies Department at Umpqua (and was also my partner in making the Goodie Monster in 2011). Matt Distefano of Umpqua coded the site.
Here are some shots of the site, or you can visit it here and see the exquisite video vignette.
I’m a fan of Mark Jacobs, I’m a fan of Smith Teas, and I’m a fan of Umpqua Bank.
TRIPLE SCORE!