PrimeTime is an extension of a program already in place at a church in Southern California called GameDay. Their original artwork was fairly sparse. Here it is: With no color palette, multiple typefaces and weights, and no real artistic direction, it looks unfinished and unprofessional. Since it’s called PrimeTime and the original parent program is called GameDay, a sports theme is the obvious direction. Since it’s also a children’s program, I wanted colors that were both sporty and youthful. Here is the first idea: Notice the ball shape of the center panel, the field...
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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 one isn’t actually from the flea market. It’s actually the final brand. But I didn’t want to break the flow of the maxi-post. Expect the updated site soon. We’re working on finalizing the content right now. The goal here was to emphasize the great history and heritage of Eldorado Recording Studios in Burbank, CA. Grammys, Platinum Recordings, and superstars are not out of place here and they’re one of the oldest studios in Los Angeles. The design brief pointed out that we wanted to push equally on the name, the birthday (1950′s), and the hip...
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I have this friend who is steeped in the world of interesting images. He’s like that utility guy that always seems to see what’s cool long before the rest of us. The crazy moped advertising guys from this older post? My buddy was hired to train them. Who knew? On September 11, 2001, he happened to be living in an apartment just blocks away from Ground Zero and has painted a beautiful tale of what that day looked like. He’s got experience working for a Manhattan advertising firm, experience building cars for the motion picture industry (Transformers, anyone?), and a...
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  Every now and then, we get hired to design something that involves multiple comps that are refined, rejected, and renewed until one is chosen and everyone lives happily aver after. Other times we get hired to design something and the client goes in a different direction than we’d hoped. This particular instance is neither of those. For Eldorado Recording Studios (Burbank, CA) we were asked to update the brand and rebuild the site to signify new growth, new life, and to commemorate the new Great Park that is under construction right in its back yard. The guidelines were...
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About a year ago, we were contacted by a group who wanted to launch a coffee venture. Being addicts ourselves, of course we jumped at the chance. The initial pitch was that the coffee venture would act as a retail front for global social change. The principals were all professional church workers, but were hoping that this would act as more of a generic move for global change instead of a fancy public relations move for their respective churches. It was doing good for the right reasons instead of doing good to strengthen the individual congregations. Originally, the product was named...
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