It has been since December that we’ve posted an update. We figured a quick glimpse into some of our work is long overdue. Not only have we been busy as usual with design, but plenty of other creative ventures as well. The only bad part of the last 6 months has been an April 1st hard drive crash that left us empty handed and brought business to an absolute standstill for weeks. You can imagine how NOT funny it was to have to explain to clients that, “no. This is not, in fact, an April Fool’s joke”. But, alas, three weeks and $1,900 in data recovery later, we were back...
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  Normally, we wouldn’t quote a Bon Jovi song from 1987 but- well… yes. Yes we would. The last update to the Dog n’ Moon World Headquarters blog was in June. It’s now December and we’re fresh off a Fall Tour to 19 US states over 8 weeks. As you can imagine, it’s difficult to keep the home fires burning. Ironically enough- a flight from DC landed just in time to get home, swap out clothes in the suitcase with fresh ones, and get evacuated from the SoCal Wildfares that were dangerously close to DnM World HQ.  Initially when we started Dog n’ Moon, it was a small graphic...
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Yes, it’s Christmas!- however in California, the holidays look suspiciously like the Spring… and the Summer, and the Fall. Here are a couple of quick projects that came across our desks last month. Merry Christmas to all and have a blessed New Year. (yes… yes, this does mean that we probably won’t post updates until Q2
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We were approached by Azusa Pacific University to create an invitation for a symphony that featured pieces by a Finnish composer. The look was to be relatively sophisticated and had to obviously signify the importance of these Finnish pieces and their creator. This is where our creative side kicked in a little bit and can obviously become a little “case study lite”. A diet case study?.. case studette? One of the first artistic principles that many of us learned in art classes in high school was the idea of closure. We reference it when we end a relationship and we allude to it...
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We’re big fans of campaigns. In short, we want things to match. That doesn’t mean that we always need to be wearing a one-color outfit or that everything in our office is washed in a single print- it means that peace comes from having ideas and elements organized in a logical manner.  Having said that, you can imagine how we jumped at the chance to design a series of cards advertising an ongoing Choral Concert Series. In the past, these announcements had been made on black and white copies created in-house by an employee who probably had other duties. Convincing the client...
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I can’t take credit for this idea, since another designer shared with me his theory of “angel projects”. One way to be a designer without losing your soul is to take on an Angel Project every now and then. It’s a project that offers no financial benefits whatsoever, but is fun to work on and offers an extra dose of creative latitude in place of payment. Also, when you’re approached to work on a project with little to no budget, you can say that you’re already working on an Angel Project. Not only does it clearly distinguish between what you’re doing...
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St. John’s Lutheran Church, in Orange, CA asked us to solve a problem for them. Having been around for more than 125 years, they had a balance of power that needed a refresh so that individuals from within the church could rise up and take ownership in forwarding the goals of the congregation. Imagine if your garden variety large company decided to do away with a CEO and instead create a base of Vice Presidents to run the planning and operations. Neat idea, right? Now, imagine that you have to find a way to communicate this change to the rest of the company… do you do it in an...
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This past Fall, we were asked to lend a hand to Concordia University Irvine’s Graduate Admissions Department. In conjunction with a strategic email campaign, we created a couple of hardcopy direct mail pieces, meant to pique the interest of those on the email lists. Of the 4, the last two were comps that were passed over. A wash of color taken from the university’s brand tied it into the look, but it had little “wow” factor. The bright yellow was eye-catching, but in advertising, it’s not just the ability to draw attention. It’s the ability to convert...
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10 weeks of traveling. A dozen states. Hours upon hours of plane flights (there may be a future case study on how JetBlue has the right idea). Lots of frequent flyer miles and hotel points. Lots of video chatting with the family. The one thing there hasn’t been much of is posting here at the Dog n’ Moon World Headquarters. We’ve still been working, just from abroad. Please take some time to look through the next 5 posts to see some of the stuff we’ve been working on. And actually, you’re getting to see an insider’s view of the design work that was passed...
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This is our most recent work for Azusa Pacific University’s School of Music. We started building this thing last year while it was still in production and it’s great to see it finally head off to duplication. We tried to keep with this larger, grander, more celestial mood for the artwork. We didn’t want to do anything that was too tongue-in-cheek or playful because we wanted to avoid anything that would detract from the reverence. And that was certainly self-imposed, the fine folks at APU have always been really receptive to our more “outside” ideas....
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