Summer is almost here, and you know what that means…BBQ season! So I’ve created a miniature ode to the two most common condiments used at outdoor soirées, picnics, beach bonfires, camping excursions, tailgate parties and Fourth of July fests. Here’s some typographic ketchup and mustard for all your summer celebration needs.
I looooooooooove to work on food identity and packaging, so when Substance contacted me to help work on a new gelato product, I was psyched! Their long-time client Gelateria Naia was preparing to unveil a gelato in bar form, and needed branding to support their pilot efforts. While Substance managed the project, marketing and created the Bar Gelato website, I was focused on making a custom logotype and labels for their first run in stores.
After lots of sketching, we agreed a “just gelato” approach was best, using a simple and bold type treatment reminiscent of window signage. Orange worked two shifts as a bright and cheerful color that stood out against the bars while nodding to colors used in Naia’s branding.
To get into the gelato mindset wasn’t hard, as I often think of what’s for dessert after I’ve finished lunch. And I was in luck, because Naia had sent Substance a batch of sample gelato bars, which I nabbed six of for a personal tasting session. And thus began the Great Gelato Hoarding of 2011. Knowing that I only had a limited supply, each night I cut 1″ chunks off of each bar and then stapled shut the cellophane wrapper to keep it fresh for the next “serving”. Out of 6 bars, I made about 30 mini-desserts (except for the hazelnut bar which I ate in one sitting because I couldn’t help myself). These gelato bars are the most delicious thing I’ve tasted in a while!
The first roll-out of Bar Gelato in San Francisco and other Central Coast California locations has gone very well, and I encourage any of you Californians to stop into a Whole Foods to try a bar or two. OR, buy some and put them in one of those styrofoam coolers made for shipping things like special Danish hotdogs or other perishables, and send them to me. I will take gooood care of them, I promise.
Thanks for having me, Substance…and to any other artisan food creators out there who provide samples to inspire their designers – bring it on!
I’m excited to finally share a project I worked on at the beginning of 2011 for Boyds Coffee. The project entailed updating their logo and branding for Island Mist, a line of iced teas. Their previous logo used the font Papyrus, and the people at Boyds wanted to nix it…I felt like I had hit the designer jackpot! The new logo is a refined version using a “cool pool” border and some slightly retro island-inspired type.
Another portion of the project was to create flavor labels for dispensers in restaurants and convenience stores. Most of the competition used giant images of iced tea in a glass, usually splashing out of it with lots of ice everywhere. It kind of looked like watered down coke. It’s my belief that you don’t always have to SHOW people watered down coke to make them want iced tea. So for Island Mist’s new dispenser wraps we chose the next closest thing to induce thirst: a series of summer beach illustrations.
A bevy of spot illustrations were also created to populate the wraps and be used in various point-of-sale and marketing materials. Here are a few of them…
A few months ago I did some lettering for Hanna Andersson’s spring catalog and retail environments. In their own words, “Hanna Andersson makes soft, quality basics inspired by our Swedish heritage”…and some rad striped pajamas in sizes for the whole family!
The client wanted a playful messy script that didn’t look like a font. I always enjoy working with custom type and letters, so this project was right up my alley. After completing the phrases using a brush pen, they were traced so they could be used at a large scale in-store.
Whether I’m stuffing myself silly, drawing food while thinking about my next meal, or planning my next smorgasbord, food is always at the top of my mind. So, below I have outlined the major events that will be taking place today, involving Blenheim’s Ginger Ale, some frikadeller and homemade chocolate-chip-walnut-oatmeal cookies.
For all you font people, the top font is hand-traced from a sample called Marbleheart, the middle font is from my food-addled mind, and the bottom font is Phosphate.
Late last year I signed up for The Sketchbook Project so that I would have a fun extra-curricular activity to fill my spare hours with. The project is organized by Art House Co-Op, and the basic premise is as follows:
As these things usually go, my spare hours dwindled and I was soon left with a looming deadline to fill an entire sketchbook in 2 weeks. From the 20 or so pre-set themes, I had chosen “adhere to me”. So I titled my sketchbook “Things That Stick” and got to work.
After working so ardently on my sketchbook I was a little sad to see it go, but it was also a bit of a relief. I showed it to a few people who I thought would enjoy it before putting it in the mail, never to be seen again. It was a good exercise in doing something for the experience rather than the results.
Since I had procrastinated, the first order of business was to halve the number of pages in my Moleskin from 80 to 40 by doing a fake french-fold by double stick taping every other page together. After getting some basic pagination down, I had figured out that each left facing page would be found images from catalogs, stockbooks, etc., and the right facing pages would be accompanying text.
Since I only had one sketchbook and therefore zero room for error, I sketched out most things before drawing or tracing it directly into the sketchbook. Some of the pages I like best (Grandma’s Gun, Boys & Girls, Dreams, A Good Book) were created on the fly with maybe just an outline of something that I then filled in without a plan. The sticky shadow page was inspired by a stint I spent filing at a previous job. After about 3 weeks, I felt like my own head had turned into the very same label maker I was using so diligently to organize an entire room’s worth of documents. I started drawing this poster in memory of what I called File-a-palooza, but never finished it. Here are few more in-progress sketches:
Most of the stock books I had were from Veer or House Industries circa 2003. I used my Whale of a Punch to punch out circles from various pages. The cover circles are from a hand holding a diamond ring, and the back side of the sheet gave me the little pink house on the Dreams page.
If you’re interested in checking out the sketchbook project, the tour dates are listed on their website.
(Click image to zoom) Here’s another spread from my sketchbook, some smoky shady type from an embroidered gun. Yeah, I imagine someone shouting “Granny, get your gun!” and then an 80-year-old lady whips out her crochet hooks and makes this.
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Update: the finished sketchbook is filed under my side projects at Sketchbook Project 2011: Things That Stick.
(Click image to zoom) Here’s another spread from my sketchbook, some smoky shady type from an embroidered gun. Yeah, I imagine someone shouting “Granny, get your gun!” and then an 80-year-old lady whips out her crochet hooks and makes this.
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Update: the finished sketchbook is filed under my side projects at Sketchbook Project 2011: Things That Stick.
