Logo Design
Logo design is the core of branding. This is the soul of your company, the identity around which all else is centered. You want a mark that perfectly captures the essence of your business and sticks to someone's brain like duct tape.
Clockwork Dreams
These two logos were designed for a roleplaying game book entitled 'Clockwork Dreams'. The top logo, obviously, is the title treatment. The second logo is the name of
the fantasy world the book is set in, which is a mash-up of faerie folklore and the steampunk genre. The look had to have both a fantastic Victorian-industrial structure and a supernatural flair.
S.T.E.A.M.
This logo was designed for a line of steampunk monster hunter toys. Think G.I. Joe meets Van Helsing. The acronym means "Society for the Tracking, Examination and Apprehension of Monsters". It needed to have a pseudo-military steampunk look as well as elements of monsters and monster hunting.
scünci
Fashion Hair Products
These logos were all for separate product lines for a fashion hair accessory company, scünci. After studying the characteristics of each new line, I came up with all of the names as well as the typographic treatments, and tried to play on the uniqueness of the ü in the company's name where I could.
Martin Guitars
Custom Shop Logo
This lockup features Martin's original company logo at the top, combined with a newer element that represented the kind of custom engraving and inlay work done by their high-end cutom
order guitar shop.
Magpie's Jewelry Box
This logo was for a woman who made unique handmade jewelry. She wanted a black and white logo featuring a stylized magpie and a fun (but not childlike) font that matched the look of the bird art.
Are We There Yet?
This fun logo was for a group of women who had formed a running team for a charitable event. They wanted to be silly and sarcastic, so they chose a turtle as their mascot. They asked for the logo to be done in big, flat color areas that would print well on T-shirts and be recognizable on them when they were in motion during their running events.
Kitchen Creations
This logo was for a new line of culinary roleplaying toys; kitchen utensils, plastic food items, kitchen playsets with a refrigerator, stove, etc. The client wanted something incorporating kitchen elements into a joyful typeface.
Sick and Twisted Productions
This logo was for a roleplaying game company specializng in dark gothic themes, and they wanted a logo that reflected that with some gruesome elements.
Anthony and Sylvan Pools 60th Anniversary Logo
Anthony and Sylvan is a high-end custom pool designer, and in 2006, they celebrated their 60th year in business. They wanted to design a special logo and tagline for themselves. I used the play on the similar numbers as the core of the graphic, and came up with a tagline that made sense with their trade.
Advertising, Marketing
and Publishing
Catalogs, magazine ads, yearbooks, direct mailers, annual reports, menus, trade show graphics,
email blasts, posters and more —
If you need people to notice your message or product, I can help you. I have a decade of copy writing experience on top of my design background, so there's no disconnect between the person creating the words and the one creating the art.
Custom Shop Catalog
This is the front and back cover spread for Martin's high-end custom shop catalog. I fashioned
it like an antique book to capture the old-school, hand-tooled craftsmanship of the shop and
the fact that the company has
been passed down through several generations of the Martin family.
This is a sample interior spread for Martin's custom shop catalog.
Philadelphia Phantoms Poster Schedule
The Phantoms publish season schedules in a variety of formats; folding pocket calendars, online,
and wall posters like this one.
Philadelphia Flyers
Email Blast
The Flyers needed a graphic email invitation for a sponsor luncheon with their head coach at the time.
Coventry Magazine Ad
Coventry is a company that offers "poolscaping" services; a full makeover of your yard, including custom upscale pool design, landscaping, and a variety of pool houses. They wanted an ad that spoke to their architectural ingenuity, so I went with an analogy to one of the great masters.
5th Grade Memory Book
Stackpole Elementary School makes a 'memory book' each year, which is essentially a yearbook for departing fifth graders. They were tired of the bland look of past books where students' photos and names were lined up in orderly rows, not really capturing the fun and vitality of elementary school kids. What you see here is the front cover and one sample page with three kids' bios.
Courtside Club Ad
The new & improved Courtside Club in the Portland Trail Blazers' stadium went through a complete makeover, and wanted a full-page magazine ad letting people know they had reopened for business and featured a sample page of their new menu on the flipside.
Home Energy Guide
This was the cover design to a price and service guide for a group of home energy companies.
VNA Annual Report
The Visiting Nurse Association of Mercer County wanted an annual report that was warmer looking than past reports. They were looking for something that showed more of their compassionate human connection, something that showed them "at work" without being depressing, because many of their clients are for hospice care.
Package Design
They say you can't judge a book by its cover, but that's a load of hooey. People do it every day. Product packaging is the same story, and
it really helps to have a package designer and a product designer
all in one - someone who understands the entire project from concept to completion.
Disney Fairies Art Set
I had to combine the style guide art for both Disney Fairies and Elmer's arts & crafts line. In addition to designing the outer packaging, I also assembled the artwork for the components,
which included stencils, markers, glitter glue pens, an art pad, sticker sheets and line art posters.
Blendy Pens
RenArt wanted to give their line of coloring products a bright, fun, yet fairly simplified packaging facelift. Their main directive
was to show in the packaging
that the pens belnded colors in 100's of combinations.
Blendy Pens - Blasta
This blister card was for a Blendy Pens product called 'Blasta', which could be used in conjunction with Blendy Pens to make a cheap airbrush effect. The Blasta packaging had to be compatible with the new branding look of
the main Blendy Pens packaging.
The Incredibles
Disney Pixar's Incredibles license made a desktop-sized pinball game that required packaging according to their style guide. I designed the packaging and managed the photo shoot for the product itself.
M&M's Ice Cream Maker
I scream, you scream, we all scream.
I designed this packaging (using the M&M's style guide) as well as oversaw the photo shoot for this kids' ice cream machine. There was a lot of Photoshop work to be done after the shoot: all the ice cream and M&M's were added afterwards because they couldn't survive under the bright photography lights.
McKids Playset
McDonald's child product line, McKids, didn't have a style guide for packaging, just a bunch of graphic elements. I put this package design together using those elements, and McKids decided that this would be the basis of their packaging guide going forward. I also designed the McBeetle you see at the top (but not the restaurant itself).
Health Visions DVD
Health Visions is a small company who puts out educational video slideshows for patients to watch in waiting rooms. This is the flattened out DVD slip cover for their first dental video
Health Visions Vol. 2
This is the DVD slip cover for the second dental DVD, this time a trivia game. They wanted to keep the same design format as the last DVD, but without people or dentistry tools, just graphics consistent with what
was on the DVD, including
some of the trivia frames on
the back cover.
Hannah Montana
Stationery Set
This package was designed using the style guide for Disney's Hannah Montana franchise, but modified within suitable parameters to also be consistent with Elmer's other back-to-school items. Additionally, I designed the components for
this set, also according to Hannah Montana style guidelines.
Product Design
I have over a decade of experience in product design, primarily with toys and games, but that's not the limitation of my Jedi powers. In addition to being able to bring ideas to life on paper and screen, I also do a lot of concept work. Need ideas for a high-tech dollhouse? Trying to figure out how to effectively combine stationery products and the NFL? What? Brainstorm 20 identities for graphic arts superheroes? Done it.
Yes, I know. You saw this in the packaging section. BUT...I also designed the product itself. Mars asked for an easy-to-use design for children, and wanted to incorporate their two well-known animated candy characters into the product to make it more fun.
M&M's Vending Bank
Mars wanted to create a kids' piggy bank that doubled as a mini candy vending machine, which they thought would encourage kids to save their change more. Again,
I designed the product, the packaging, and oversaw the photo shoot of the prototype machine.
Disney Fairies
Sparkle Art Set
I was given a basic list of components to use in this arts and crafts set, and used the Fairies style guide to design them, as well as the packaging, which I had to also combine with the Elmer's style guide.
Disney Princess
Karaoke Boom Box
Ah, back in the day when account execs still used to say "boom box".
This set was designed as a little karaoke machine for girls to sing along with their favorite Princess tunes. The mic was functional and a lyric booklet was included.
Lock'em Designer Locks
I designed several custom-shaped padlocks (and packaging) for some popular tween brands like Hello Kitty, Spongebob Squarepants
and Hannah Montana.
Rescue Heroes Roleplay
I designed a line of roleplay clothing and accessories to go with Fisher-Price's Rescue Heroes line of action figures so kids could dress up as their favorite Hero. This is one of the prototype sets, made for the main character, Billy Blazes, a fireman. The flip-up communicator/tracker had several electronic functions, and the set included a backpack (left, back).
Princess Dollhouse
This big project was to design an entire Princess-worthy dollhouse for the Disney Store. I included features like an elevator, balcony, and a full compliment of Princessy furniture (yes, including a mirror, mirror on the wall).
Who's That Girl?
Rock Star Playset
Before the Guitar Hero/Rock Band craze hit, I designed this playset with a functional mic and a toy guitar that operated in a similar way to the GH & RB controllers you see today, only it wasn't connected to a video game.
The fret buttons played different notes, and the flower buttons made different tonal effects.
Play Cosmetic Set
Here, I was called on to design a set of play cosmetics that went hand in hand with the fledgling style guide we were also developing, as well as some fun, non-traditional packaging shapes
to go with the various playsets.
