Return of the Love Bird

Another month, another Launch art show! Last month I showed an excerpt of ever-changing feathers. This month I am contributing a new format of my Love Bird enamel pin – namely giving it a frame and a bit more blue sky. In addition to a framed pin, there will be a gaggle of pins for sale at the very affordable art price of $10. Come to the show (info below), or read more about the original inspiration for my little love bird.

Portland’s First Thursday @ Conversa
Theme: Proud as I am
June 7, 2018 from 6-9pm
734 NW 14th Ave, Portland OR

Thanks again to Aldo, Susan and Julio for organizing!

Enamel bird pin blowing a heart kiss with rainbow pride wings.

Proud as I am launch art show at Conversa

Chocolate Wafer Concept Packaging

One of my favorite types of design projects is packaging – specifically food packaging. It is also one of the more fickle types of projects. Sometimes products miss their window of opportunity, sometimes start-ups aren’t able to get an investor to put the product on shelves, sometimes budgets fall through or a product line is re-oriented. Specialty products are sometimes explored up until launch, at which point they are deemed unviable. Once an entire project was derailed due to a macadamia nut shortage. You just can’t plan ahead for these kinds of things!

Because of this, I have worked on almost as many packaging projects that have been shelved than have actually reached shelves. Gelateria Naia is my one exceptional client that has taken every product I’ve worked on to market (see a few projects here and here, with more in the works!). Even the packaging projects that make it to market often take a YEAR OR TWO between packaging design and hitting shelves. This is like 1,948,465 years in “designer years” – it’s definitely not an exercise in instant gratification.

Last year I worked on chocolate wafer packaging for a company that packages US and European products for the Chinese market. Because of quality perception and some food scares, the design brief presented an interesting mix of designing in a way the Chinese market was used to (bold, zingy, pop!) while making the product look and feel European-based. Unfortunately the project was put on hold, but I wanted to share a direction from the initial design round (with a placeholder product name). A more traditional approach was selected as the final, where I got to practice drawing the Swiss Alps and milk splashes, but is not shown here because it hasn’t been released. So while not everything makes it to market, it doesn’t mean it isn’t sweet!

Concept packaging for chocolate wafers in four flavor ways: chocolate, vanilla, milk chocolate, and hazelnut. Illustration in a modern style but with traditional European motifs.

Code/Art Participant Pins

Woohoo! To follow up on the Code/Art donor pin from last month, I’m happy to share a series of three pins designed for Code/Art participants – girls in their tweens and teens who explore code through art & creativity in guided Code/Art workshops. I had my own button and pin collection in my younger years (read: 1985-1990) so working on this series was flashback fun. Plus any time I can work with an organization that helps girls GO FOR IT, it’s all I can do not to hire a skywriter.

enamel pins for girls who code - a "code girl" banner, </> heart, and code sunglasses

MOO cards has been a steady companion of mine to provide pin backers that are sturdy and good looking, and this time was no exception. Along with the pins, participants also get stickers to kit out their computers, peechees (do those even exist anymore??), or other flat surfaces. The style and colors were derived from their core brand, but the project had lots of room for exploration. Read more about Code/Art on their website.

stickers for code/art girls including "code girl" banner, code sunglasses, </> heart, <xx/> and code girl brooch

Code-Art Donor Pin

Last year I checked off a designer to-do by creating an enamel pin for a Design Week Portland event called Pin That Shit. After the show, the extra pins I had ordered were given out to people as both business cards and old fashioned goodwill. As with many side projects created Just for Fun®, people took to it – from Sparkle Daddy Aaron Rayburn to an employee at New Season’s who engaged my 3-year old daughter in a discussion about art while he checked our groceries. Love Birds for everyone!

love bird pin in the wild

After a Moo Card blog post including my Love Bird was published, future client Amy Renshaw reached out to me about designing a series of pins for her organization Code-Art. Code-Art encourages girls to explore coding through art, and puts on workshops to give girls the opportunity to learn coding within their own interest areas. HIGH FIVE Amy. The first of many pins I designed for Code-Art was a donor pin to gift to supporters of her organization. Inspired by projects made in Code-Art workshops, it is a modern twist on the classic brooch portrait. We used Moo Cards again to create the pin backer with matching spot gloss accents. SO SHINY.

code art girls coding camp enamel pin

The theme of being a pioneer, present in many of my side projects, drew me to this organization and especially reading the stories of early female coders who led the way in the field, such as Margaret Hamilton and Ada, Countess of Lovelace who is often recognized as the first computer programmer. Margaret was instrumental in the code for putting a man on the moon. GO MARGARET! Reading their stories and seeing the photos (below Margaret stands next to a stack of code used in the Apollo mission) makes me both proud and frustrated at the pace of the representation of women in so many roles of society.

Amongst many other things, these stories made me want to support Amy and Code-Art’s mission to the umpteenth degree. And if you’d also like to support or donate to CodeArt find more information here. As a registered nonprofit 501(c)(3) all donations are tax deductible.

three photos of female coder Margaret Hamilton who worked for Nasa and helped with the Apollo mission

Olympia Provisions Holiday Card + 10% off

Tis the season for holiday cards and charcuterie. Following up on last year’s meat wreath, this year my client Olympia Provisions went for a more pyramid shaped meat art for their annual card – a stack of charcuterie bedecked with a merry star. Meaty Christmas!

Christmas pyramid of charcuterie - probably salami - from Olympia Provisions 2018 holiday card design.

On another holiday note, Olympia Provisions is hosting their second annual charcuterie box building party. Get your tickets here if you want to fill your own box or basket with meats galore and either take it home or send it to a lucky recipient.

MORE Deals! Deals! Deals!
Enter METTERULES as a promo code for 10% off online at Olympia Provisions.

Softy Icons

This style of icon was partially developed in the early stages of a branding project. A cleaner more geometric style was chosen, but I liked the imperfect, soft nature of these. So I did a quick study to build out a set of six, just for fun.

series of six icons with flowers, bursts, hands, speech bubbles etc to portray a soft, female-focused brand look

Olympia Provisions Catalog

My most recent project for Olympia Provisions was creating their consumer catalog – a curated line-up of OP’s best charcuterie in a small, fun digestible size and format. It is used promotionally at farmer’s markets and trade shows and sent directly to customers, and later in the year will also function as a holiday gift guide. From a designer’s perspective it was also a lovely project because it combined a photoshoot with David Reamer, working with one of my favorite food copywriters Jen Stevenson, and detailed page layout (yum, stylesheets!).

While working “out of season” always feels a little strange, many holiday pieces are created in early summer to allow for wholesale order planning, product production, etc. In fact most of my work in May was focused on the Christmas season…

A bright red cover in a hand-held size of 5×7 inches catches your attention merrily and is festooned with a border of bow-tied sausage links. The cover artwork was painstakingly created from scanning vintage cuts, or letterpress images, and piecing them together to create the scene we wanted. Of special note is the The Whole Shebang spread, technically described as half a pig. Read more about the creation of the photo here, and may you never experience a pork shortage again!

Olympia Provisions holiday catalog - a red booklet with stack of sausage on display

Welcome letter from Eli for the Olympia Provisions holiday catalog.

Olympia Provisions clubs of the month: salami, sausage, pickles and pates.

Charcuterie gift sets from Olympia Provisions from their 2017 holiday catalog.

The Whole Shebang - half a pig from Olympia Provisions, with all the cuts of charcuterie arranged in the shape of a porky pig.

Eli Cairo's honey glazed ham recipe.

Olympia Provisions spread of Good Food Award winning charcuterie.

Build your own charcuterie board with Olympia Provisions.

Evergreen Calendar for Umpqua Bank

One of the reasons I love working for myself is getting to use most parts of my brain: design, intuition, research, organization, efficiency, critical thinking, non-critical thinking, and chocolate consumption. Which is exactly why I enjoyed this Umpqua Bank project designing an evergreen calendar – there were many interconnected parts that created the end result. The goal was to create a keepsake piece for new employees that reinforced the philosophy of Umpqua, which employees had just learned during their on-boarding training. The format chosen by the client was a desk calendar featuring 12 tenets, and that is where my work started…

An initial round of sketches was created to explore an “evergreen” form factor, ease of usability, creativity, and how it lined up with the per unit production budget. Everything from rotating columns, flippable panels, turnable magnets, reversible cards, and game-inspired counters and pegboards were a part of the first round.

initial form factor sketches for an evergreen calendar

After the sketch presentation, the array was narrowed to three main form factors to price specifically. Umpqua wanted to focus on premium materials so some simpler options were chosen to give more of the budget to materials rather than form complexity.

three refined evergreen calendar sketches

A combination of B and C was chosen to move into the visual design phase, with some modifications to meet the budget. After the form factor was nailed (for now), visual directions were explored to find the right balance of “Umpqua”, banking, fun, and feeling like a custom piece that could hold its own on a desktop. A few focus areas in the initial design process were how much emphasis to put on the date (month, day), how integrated the messaging and illustration should be, what style the illustration should have, and what color impression the calendar should have. The option chosen (C) placed the most focus on the tenet, leaving the dates to be purely functional to highlight the messaging and illustration.

initial design concepts for Umpqua Bank evergreen calendar

Throughout the production process, the per unit budget was the major factor in determining the final form. The more parts there are to assemble in production, the higher the cost, so a simple solution was needed. In the end a compromise between materials and functionality was reached. A triangular wooden stand with a powder coated lip met the cost requirement, and could hold the tenets and dates in a nice presentation. A bit of functionality was ceded in that the panels have to be manually rotated instead of flipping them on fixed rings from front to back of the stand. Real projects = real budgets. IT BE REAL, FOLKS!

wood triangle stand with powder coated metal lip to hold evergreen calendar date and tenet panels

When the term evergreen calendar is used it usually refers to a calendar that can be used for any given year because it isn’t dated specifically. We took the term “evergreen” to the next level so both the information panels AND the form factor were evergreen. Umpqua wanted the option to switch out the panels, so the structure was designed to accommodate rotating messaging without it being a hassle to change out and didn’t create too much waste. An added bonus of the form factor was that it could also serve double duty as a picture rail, note holder, whatever, if users took the tenet and date panels out.

wood triangle stand with powder coated metal lip to hold evergreen calendar date and tenet panels

tenet panel series

Tenet themes were used to guide each illustration which were created in the Umpqua brand palette, which thankfully is quite broad with multiple blues, greens, yellows and oranges. Client provided themes included: strive, thrive/challenge, change/versatility, knowledge, collaborate, diligence, grow/curiosity, heart/kindness, betterment, generosity, commitment, and unity.

twelve hand drawn illustrations to match the 12 tenets of Umpqua Bank new employee training

Credits
Client: Umpqua Bank
Creative Director: Kylie Emers
Project Manager: Jason Resch
Calendar Stand Production: Axiom
Calendar Panel Production: Pod4Print

Well Vegan Brand Refresh

Six years ago marked Well Vegan’s launch when Bureau developed the brand from scratch for food-entrepreneur Katie Koteen to market her vegan meal plan subscription service. This spring, with a ton of new site features and her first cookbook under her belt, Katie wanted a refresh for the logo and website.

The first thing on the docket was a logo update. The friendly hand drawn script was a keeper, but legibility was increased by redrawing it on a level baseline and separating the two words with a visual – one of Katie’s favorite illustrations from the initial branding, a white radish. A pop of green was retained in the radish leaves, but the overall impression was more toned down.

before and after logo for well vegan, from a smiling pea pod to a white radish

The inaugural 2011 branding for Well Vegan included lots of hand drawn elements, borders, spot illustrations and illustration as main images (see it here). In 2017 Katie wanted to update the site based on the increase in photography and recipe posts, as well as make the site feel a bit simpler and cleaner rather than the homespun start-up it used to be.

well vegan hand drawn logo in black brush pen with a radish illustration and green color pop

A major area of focus was paring down the use of illustration and color to allow the food photography to shine. Instead of being the main focus, illustrations were used as accents and often in black & white instead of full color. The fonts also were refreshed – headline and accents were kept in the friendly legacy font (Skolar) while body and informational text was updated to the lighter, brighter Mr. Eaves.

Well Vegan blog post design

In the instances where illustration is used for main effect, we stuck with the black line-work style with color accents. This also left room for future promotional illustrations which had been a heavy favorite over the years with subscribers and the Pinterest crowd.

Illustrated grocery bag for Well Vegan's plan page

The new streamlined feel was leveraged lightly throughout the site and in the cookbook design, featured on the cover and as page accents. The book is currently available.

well vegan plan page and promotional Frugal Vegan cookbook page