Last month I had the opportunity to work with the team at Liquid on an Adidas project. MEGA is a new product line-up, and Liquid was tasked with creating a range of in-store displays to sell the new shoes. Photography, which was based on the commercial, included celebrity appearances by B.O.B and Paul Iacono. The campaign was centered around a diner theme, and I worked with the team to expand the MEGA print and in-store branding with typography, graphics and 3D ideas for the displays.
Above are a few of my contributions and digital sketches from the project (not all of it made the cut). Thanks for having me Liquid!
Some ideas take a while to surface, time to percolate, breath and take the shape of what they are meant to be. A few years ago I hosted a Julefrokost and made some fun invites – a knitted nordic advent-calendar-inspired card with little flaps that open to show party details like 1) how much pickled herring would be consumed, 2) what time to show up promptly by, and 3) a partial menu printed in both English and Danish.
Julefrokost is hard to pronounce for Americans, so my friends called it Joogala Froogala.
Some time passed, and I added a title to the idea when I was inspired by someone and sent them a book of words and pictures. More time went by, and the moose wouldn’t leave me alone. I thought: they need to be Bigger! Grander! Fuzzier!
Most things start out simple and kind of ugly, like this. Usually they get better. These sketches gave me enough of an idea of what the thing should look like to fire up Illustrator.
So I started working on the most complicated illustrator file I’ve ever made and nearly succumbed to carpal tunnel syndrome. My hours of toil wouldn’t be for naught as I planned to share the story of smitten moose, fuzzy creatures and a house in the woods. Stories are for sharing, right? Friends, people I admired or who inspired me, clients, agencies, people I’d like to work with – the list was all encompassing. I even sent one to Conan O’Brien. I hope he got it.
A large part of this project was finding a vendor to produce the poster. Flocking seems to be a very niche market, and my goal of producing it in the U.S. was a long shot. After Googling for weeks, following endless phone leads from local screen printers, and being told that China was the place to go for this kind of thing, I found the American Flocking Association. Flocking has many purposes: lettering on t-shirts, lining telescopes, glove boxes and jewelry cases, and looking like fake snow on fake Christmas trees. All of the companies who flock these items were mighty confused when I called and asked if they could just flock a piece of paper.
Finally, I found Great Lakes Flocking, who was not only in the US of A, but also had a very nice employee WITH MY SAME LAST NAME that helped me on each step of my flocking adventure. After a few weeks of production, a giant pallet arrived at my studio. “Like a Glove: A Love Story” had finally arrived!
I think the third time was the charm on this idea, and I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out. If you ask very nicely, I will send you a copy.
My pioneer rabbit, lurking in the background. Sneaky fellow.What it's all about.
Eighty-Five was a good year for sprinklers. The kind that go back and forth and form tunnels for dashing through, the kind that spray wildly in every direction, and the kind at the park that can be a hit or miss depending on how fast you run. Summer, where are you?
When friend and food blogger Jen Stevenson of Under the Table wanted to start her own writing business, she came to me asking advice about collateral. She had chosen Wordcake Communications as her business name and needed a logo, business cards and a simple website to get the business going. “I was thinking I could have a big cake, with the word Wordcake on it!” she said, giving me creative rein with a theme. I replied with a somewhat muffled “Let’s see what we can do with that…”, and got to work.
Riffing on the idea of frosting, I found this typography sample in an ornaments and borders book and transformed it into Wordcake.
BeforeAfter
The idea of a sophisticated take on a “cake on a platter” appealed to me since Jen is the epitome of a hostess with the mostess, even when she is stuffing your gullet with stinky cheeses and sweet confections. However, Jen wasn’t rolling in dough from creative writing (yet), so an economic solution was needed that would still help her stand out. I scoured the internet for an oval punch that could take the place of a diecut. Turns out, crafters have thought of almost everything, so after a bit of sleuthing I found several oval punches, perfect for the miniature platter shape that her business cards would become.
The cards were printed digitally and then hand punched by Jen in about an hour, after which she claimed she’d sprained her thumb. I told her she would have to toughen up, because once The Onion started calling and she had to churn out snarky story upon snarky story in record time, her thumb would have no reprieve.
Punch, punch.Punch, punch, punch.Many punches later.Little paper hors d'oeuvres.Wordcake Communications : Jen Stevenson : Pen for Hire
