Project Type: Style

Propper Tactical Brand Concept

Sometimes I showcase here the concepts that aren’t selected. I believe strongly in presenting only options to clients that are both artful and viable. However, of everything presented, only one can make it. This concept for military and tactical icon Propper International is a great example of something that was not selected, but that retains a strength and beauty that makes it worth sharing.

Let me just say, I love these guys. This assignment was a hell of a lot of fun to create and trust me when I tell you that though I really did love the work featured in this post, the concept they selected (and I have since executed) was the right choice and is VERY compelling. Frankly, I can’t wait to show you that work. We’re all very excited for the official launch.

This concept brings a heavy infusion of lifestyle to a powerful new tactical line of gear Propper is bringing to market. Colorful, iconoclastic and real, the work treats the target audience here with both the intelligence and consumer savvy so often absent in this sector. I was the hands-on designer for all of this, a co-concept lead and wrote the line descriptors (“Be Cool.,” Blend.,” “Perform.,” and “Move.”) for the brand.

Shown Here: Sample Advertising, Brand Identity Elements and Site Design

Flying R Mopeds Brand Exploration

Warm, chewy pizza, soft velvety gelato, the very beautiful Monica Bellucci… The Italians have given us so much that makes our lives rich and rewarding. And very few things maintain the cosmopolitain, outsider sense of cool that the Italian moped does. That’s exactly what fledgeling Flying R Mopeds of Menlo Park, CA thinks, too.

This brand package exploration draws its inspiration from all of that history and savvy sense of cool. Fun and quirky with a clear nod to the classic moto Euro style of yesterday, the package brings a whimsical elegance and pop to the brand and communicates its essence. I also created custom, hand-done typography for the “R” and “FLYING R” portions of the identity. The other elements in the mix add up to a collection with both a classic flair and a sly wink. Fun.

Shown Here: Sample Advertising, Brand Identity Elements, Business Card (Front and Back), Apparel and Site Design

flyingr_full

“The Golden Age of James Bond” Poster Series

Since I was a wee lad, I have loved the films of the “golden era” of 007 — think Sean Connery, George Lazenby and Roger Moore. There’s something terribly ridiculous, wonderfully infectious and timelessly ultra-cool about these films.

For this collection, I wanted to create a series of posters that looked like it might have come from a creative union of the legendary graphic designer Saul Bass with Frank McCarthy, the man behind so many of the iconic James Bond poster images that we associate with the image of “the man with the license to kill.” Bass would be the hands-on Designer here, with McCarthy acting as Creative Director. I know that would never happen, but hey…

bond_full_top—–
bond_full_bottom

UPBrand “Feel the Swagger” Poster Series

Built to showcase the three main areas of expertise at UPBrand Collaborative — Strategy, Service and Design — this poster series injects some swagger and retro funk into the agency brand. I used personal custom-created illustration and type for the main text elements on each poster to give both a contemporary urban flair to the series as well as an artful sense of touch. I was also responsible for all concept and copywriting on these. Fun!

Shown Here: Poster Series

Paric Corporation Rebrand

It’s VERY gratifying when a client simply does it right. Not only when they engage creatively with a progressive solution in mind, but also when they build out the solution across touchpoints from the macro to the micro. Regional construction leader Paric did exactly that. I was grateful to act as Creative Director and design lead throughout the process, designing both identity materials as well as a full signature style for the brand.

A revisioned Paric wordmark was at the heart of a new visual approach for the brand. The conceptual center of the design for the wordmark is within the “A.” The interplay of positive and negative space creates a dual image of both the cupola of a building, capturing what Paric builds every day and also a red pencil, representing the pre-construction process, a planning cycle that Paric is a recognized industry leader in.

Coupled with the revisioned wordmark is an iconic new logo. The new mark takes the building / pencil shape from the wordmark and builds on it, further driving the concept home. The mark leverages design touches from the international Art Deco period to echo a rich history of building; a nod to a time of fascination with and belief in the power of construction worldwide.

These core elements form the basis for a wide range of materials.

I also personally wrote the new tagline: “EXPERIENCE. EXCELLENCE.” The periods within the tag allow it to be read two distinct ways. Both “experience” and “excellence” are elements essential to a great build process and the periods allow us to call those qualities out in a specific way. The tagline does also read as a directive for clients to “experience excellence.”

I also acted as Director and Creative Director on video pieces for the new brand. I had the VERY distinct pleasure of working with Brant Hadfield as DP on the project, Susan McMichael who crafted the overarching story arc and Kyle Dufendach as editor. I LOVE framing up architecture in-lens and this was wonderful to shoot. The resulting style is progressive and elegant in turns. The motion graphics elements within the piece are also the result of design and motion direction on my part with Kyle using his great skills and knowledge to give it nuance and touch. I am showing a slice of the long format video here with the motion graphics logo build.

Shown Here: Mark, Brand Colors, Site Sign, Advertising Sample, Hard Hat, Truck Concept, Safety Logo, Business Card (Front and Back) and Selected Video Samples

“What if They Were ‘FACTORY?'” Album Cover Series

Peter Saville was the Creative Director / Graphic Designer at the legendary Factory Records from its founding in 1978. His work for bands on the label like Joy Division, New Order, A Certain Ratio and Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark (among so many others) coupled with his post-Factory work for a full range of acts including Roxy Music, Ultravox, Duran Duran, King Crimson, Wham! and Peter Gabriel was nothing short of seminal. Just gorgeous, highly influential work that helped inform and shape so many of us in the field “of a certain age.” You can see a solid sampling of Mr. Saville’s work here :: http://www.hardformat.org/designers/peter-saville-designer/ — AND — http://www.petersaville.info/sleeves/

In tribute to Mr. Saville’s work and in the spirit of Mr. Saville’s sense of exploration, I have taken 25 classic albums and redesigned their album covers in answer to the question “WHAT IF THEY WERE ‘FACTORY?'” It is always VERY fruitful to explore a master’s work from the inside out like this. The awesome thing at this point in my career is that projects like this become a strong fusion of my own sensibilities and the master I am “conversing” with through the project.

One other note is that all of the photography in these designs is my own. I love to take photos and it was a ton of fun to purpose-shoot with these covers in mind.

saville_full_top
—–
saville_full_bottom

“The Runner’s Manifesto” Poster

For the uninitiated, I have engaged a running coach. The past couple of years have been a wonderful period of rediscovery with running for me. I’ve been running a variety of types of races and putting one foot in front of the other with as much grace and elegance as I can muster has been a big part of every week. Jason Fitzgerald, a Silver Spring, MD gent, is my savvy coach and one heck of a talented runner. A recent piece that he penned entitled “The Runners’s Manifesto: 18 Inspiring Ways to Improve Your Running and Life” offered some truly awesome advice and inspired me to give the piece some design love. The attached poster was the result. A bit of a labor of love for me, please share it with your runner friends.

Please visit Jason’s blog to download a version of the poster, for awesome info and cool inspiration: StrengthRunning.com

Shown Here: Poster with Detail

PCL Construction “Horizons” Magazine

Another awesome project for $6 billion building giant and corporate mensch PCL Construction.

This contemporary refresh of PCL’s flagship magazine, Horizons, gives the company a great new outreach tool built around engaging storytelling and confident, progressive design. Evocative, full-page photography gives viewers a unique glimpse into the projects themselves while rich color overlays and forward-looking typography underscore the firm’s commitment to innovation. The grid elements throughout also hearken back to the nature of design-and-build projects.

In all, a wonderful example of the power of design to communicate the intangible aspects of a brand and the heart of an enterprise.

Shown Here: Front Cover and Selected Inside Spreads

“A Century of Horror Classics” Apparel Series

The 19th century gave us some of the most indelible images and stories of the horror genre. The monsters and men set forth in the books of that era continue to haunt us today and form the basis for our modern scene.

As I have mentioned here, I’m a total horror fiend. I thought I would share a concept that I have created to pay homage to the great horror masterworks of the 19th century. I designed and illustrated shirts representing 7 incredibly seminal works from that era. Here a list of the works in chrono order ::

========

> “Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus” :: Mary Shelley (1818)
> “Melmoth the Wanderer” :: Charles Maturin (1820)
> “Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde” :: Robert Louis Stevenson (1886)
> “The Picture of Dorian Gray” :: Oscar Wilde (1890)
> “The Great God Pan” :: Arthur Machen (1894)
> “Dracula” :: Bram Stoker (1897)
> “The Turn of the Screw” :: Henry James (1898)

========

Annnd… Here are the designs in an order I thought presented well for the folio ::

horrorshirts_full

STLCC Campaign Approaches

I do a lot of conceptual work. These two campaign approaches for St. Louis Community College were really intelligent and engaging examples of how a basic brand can really come alive at the campaign level.

The first concept, written by a comrade at the agency, illustrates the intelligent “real talk”  reasons to explore STLCC as a higher ed option. The campaign really finds a strong sense of “life” and “pop” graphically. A contemporary layered approach and bold typography give this a style that sets it apart in very meaningful ways in the sea of sameness that is higher ed marketing. I self-performed all design on these.

I concepted, wrote and designed the second concept here. Built to deliver on the central idea of “There’s a Place for You Here,” the campaign shows that STLCC students are three-dimensional individuals with varied interests and passions. The core concept here is that it’s really not about co-opting the crest of some ivy-league to represent your personal brand, it’s about creating your own personal brand (represented by the individualized “passion-crests” here) and about how STLCC is one part of that. Overall, a visually engaging personal message of empowerment and validation.

stlcc_campaigns_full

“Word Play” — 2012 Design Project / Post 02

The second installment of “Word Play.” We go to Pusha T and Jay Z for the quotes in this update, more true masters of the rhyme game. The turn of phrase is incredible here and really inspired a textural, dimensional design take on my part.

Shown Here: Post 02

STL Symphony “Naughty” Campaign Concepts

In my work life, I have the privilege of calling the internationally known St. Louis Symphony a client. I’ve shown some of my work for them here before. Simply put, the classical music scene ain’t what it use to be — exciting things are afoot. These engagement concepts show a bit of that new spirit. Fun, irreverent and just a touch naughty, these designs highlight the darker, more subversive side of an avant-garde Prokofiev classic. These are concepts that were not selected, because we actually have some other ideas that are more fun than this (I can’t wait to see those come to fruition), but I had a ton of fun designing these and they had an undeniable beauty. I wanted to share them here.

Shown Here: Posters and Detail

LER Brand Concept

Laclede Energy Resources is a subsidiary of the Laclede Group focused on buying and selling natural gas from and to a wide range of industrial and consumer customers. These style frames were built to communicate the unique position LER holds in the marketplace and their commitment to their client base. Bold, strong, and progressive with a strong sense of movement, these designs give a fresh, compelling and honest face to the organization.

LER_style_full

2-Tone Conceptual Rebrand

Rebranding 2-Tone? Even conceptually, you’re just asking for trouble…

Now wait. Before all of you “rude boys” and girls start screaming “SACRILEGE” and try to string me up by your skinny tie… Please, just hear me out.

Allow me first to say that I am a SUPER fan of all things 2-Tone. The music, the politics, the style, all of it. And allow me to ALSO say that the work of designers John “Teflon” Simms and David Storey on the original seminal brand and style of the 2-Tone label and its artists was hugely influential on me as a visual creative. It all carried a sense of punch, impact and humor that I still strive to bring to my work today. I was but a lad when the label was in full swing, but I had my years in suits and pork pie hats skanking in smoky clubs. I still regard it all as a brief high-water mark on popular culture.

It is only on these grounds that I offer this flight of fancy — a rebrand of the classic label. I’ve given a new mark and new style pieces to the brand here. I attempted to capture some of the basic essence of the spirit of 2-Tone, but have given it more of a pulled back sense of cool. This was a really wonderful opportunity to pay homage in my own way to the brand.

Annnnd, for the purists… YES… I do know that Dekker only recorded for Stiff Records in the 2-Tone era. I’m just playing here.

Shown Here: Identity, Promotional Style Elements and Detail

2tone_full

“Showdown” Movie Poster

This poster for independent filmmaker Brant Hadfield’s surreal war opus “Showdown” is a feast of texture and style. The interplay of illustration, photography, color overlays, type and texture creates a rich, heady effect that underscores the grit of war, the intensity of the performances and the film and the surreal quality of the story here. The client loves the piece.

Shown Here: Full Poster + Texture Detail

“My Film Chronicle:” Lynch Movie Posters + A New Beginning

In 2011, I chronicled every film I watched for the year in a series of minimalist posters. It was an incredibly fun personal project for me. You can read more about the full undertaking in this post. In 2012, I  shifted my focus to other personal work and on this front, only created selected posters for films I had a special place in my heart for, paying homage to seminal works of the genre from my experience. However, I missed the regular creative discipline of distilling EVERY film into a poster. There are wonderful learning experiences inherent in this type of exploration. Plus, many of my friends (in and out of the design community) told me in no uncertain terms that my new projects were not nearly as fun to watch. So, with all of that in mind, I am bringing back the project for 2013 in its original focus. I will again be capturing every film I watch into a poster capturing its essence, but passing no judgement on the films themselves. I have already uploaded four new works.

Before we move completely on, I did want to share a series of six posters I created over the course of last year paying tribute to the films of David Lynch. As a college freshman in the fall of 1989, I was lucky enough to be invited to a “film series” in an upperclassman’s small apartment. The first film was David Lynch’s surreal masterpiece Blue Velvet. Though it might sound cliche, it was literally like a light had been shined on a dark corner of a room I had been living in for years, but had never seen. Like all great art, it was a doorway — it was a cathartic, watershed moment for me. I have always loved Mr. Lynch’s “challenging” work. It never ceases to inspire and evoke. These posters were a true labor of love for me. Thank you, Mr. Lynch for all of the years of realizing your visions.

Shown Here: David Lynch Poster Series, Please Watch the Site for This Years Films.

filmchronicle_lynch_full

Pear Tree Dressing Packaging Suite

Carrying forward the packaging redesign I started for gourmet brand The Pear Tree, I recently created a new packaging suite for their signature dressing selections. Fresh, clean, contemporary and eye-catching, these designs capture the spirit of the brand while generating new interest in the product among a sea of sameness in the supermarket refrigerated dressing section — see in-store photos below to get a sense of the “pop” inherent in this graphic approach.

Shown Here: Flat Label Designs and In-Store Photos of Packaging

“Word Play” — 2012 Design Project / Post 01

With the (formal) end of my first film poster project, I’ve been lining up my project for 2012. It’s important for me to have something like this, a larger story and a client-free art / design project. Exploration of this sort is the lifeblood of any successful creative.

With one project for 2012, I will be engaging in “WORD PLAY.” I will be taking the best lines from our urban poets, the masters of rhyme from the rap game and exploring typographic posters built on experimental type design and the interplay of the language itself. On the heels of bold, red posters from last year’s design project, I am restricting myself to a muted, neutral color palette.  I will be posting posters as I am able.

Shown Here: Post 01

“My Film Chronicle” Move Posters — An Ending and a Beginning

I recently completed a year-long personal art / design project and wanted to acknowledge it here. Here’s the description from the site itself:

I love film. This site is a new extension of an attempt to chronicle the films I am seeing so I can look back with some sense of continuity. I pass no judgment on the films themselves here. I am merely creatively recording what I am watching from January 1, 2011 forward. Inspired by the historic work of Saul Bass and contemporary designers like Olly Moss, I felt moved to attempt to distill the essence of each film into a poster using only two colors (red + black) plus the color of the paper itself and employing as few elements as I can in the design.

74 posters later, the year came to an end. What a fun project! I will now be broadening the concept to challenge myself on classic films from my favorites.

Shown Here: Selected Posters

“One Foot in the Graveyard”

I LOVE horror in general and I have always had a serious weak spot for the Gothic and the classically macabre. So, it only follows that Halloween is a a special time for me. Perhaps I never shook the thrill of a season dedicated to things that whisper at your shoulder on a crisp, Autumn eve.

In honor of my favorite season, I have just launched a new personal project, “ONE FOOT IN THE GRAVEYARD.” I am posting daily computer wallpaper creations for each of the 31 days of October — as the site says, “31 Days, 31 Wallpapers, One Scary Season.” It’s a ton of fun and it’s been wonderful to explore further the rich, layered, textural compositional style that has been a hallmark of one of my signature personal approaches.

Please visit the site to follow along for the month of October (and after — I’ll leave this up). There, you can click through to full resolution images. It really is worth viewing them full size in full detail.

UPBrand Storybook

Delivering world-class creative and brand clarity across the full range of channels and client areas of focus is the UPBrand mission. This “storybook” for the agency tells that story.

Built upon the “signature style” I had previously developed for the brand, this piece acts as the most complete exploration of that style in print to date, bringing an artful flair to the Bauhaus-driven grid present throughout the agency’s materials. The piece balances iconography and razor-sharp typography with rich photography, color blocks and whimsical vintage illustrations to create a unique approach. Overall, it’s a very inventive and engaging piece and was a ton of fun to create.

I also functioned as concept lead and copywriter on a good portion of this as well.

Shown Here: Cover Detail and Interior Spreads

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Parkway Schools Rebrand

Founded in 1954 and now serving over 17,000 students, the award-winning Parkway School District has long had a reputation for excellence, innovation and advanced thinking. However, Parkway was ready for a new face to the world to coincide with an exciting new strategic direction for the district.

The excitement of a “new day for Parkway” catalyzed my work and provided inspiration throughout the process as I developed everything from a progressive new visual brand platform with a new identity and brand standards to new print and video applications to tell the story of the galvanizing change redefining this educational leader. Overall, the approach is fun, clean, classic and friendly.

The mark itself carries a double meaning through a hidden image. At first glance, the strength of a sunrise image provides a clear link to the concept of a new day. With a longer look, the image of a open book, with pages actively spread reveals itself.

For video, I personally created the motion graphics aspects of this including the logo sting and type and graphic animations. I acted as director on shoots for both video and still photography for all district rebrand materials and also directed the edit of video elements. Editor Christina Geisen acted as the video editor here and I had a ton of fun working with her on this. Brant Hadfield and John Fedele did an amazing job of shooting video and still photography respectively and I really enjoyed working with them as well.

As the father of a daughter in the Parkway district, I was thrilled for the opportunity to create such an exciting new face for a brand I care so much about personally.

Shown here: Brandumentary Video, Mark / Wordmark with Color Choices for Individual Schools, Brand Standards Book (In Spreads) and Strategic Plan Book (In Spreads)

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

The Salvagery Brand Package

Portland, OR improv jazz trio The Salvagery’s July 2011 release “Triage” is a triumph of experimental work. At once contemporary and exuberant, “Triage” builds on the heritage of great albums in the improv tradition. The work is pure fun.

These designs built around the album build on that iconoclastic spirit and birthright. The look and feel here balances personal, custom-created typography and illustrations with rich color to create a bold approach that captures the essence of vintage 40’s -60’s  jazz album covers from great labels like Columbia and Blue Note. I loved working on this one!

Ready + Willing Site

The St. Louis-based not-for-profit “ready+willing” represents an amazing idea — ready+willing forms mentorship teams in the creative industry (experienced creatives with those at a lower experience level) and connects them with non-profit organizations to help them with their marketing needs. A wonderful and timely concept.

This site for the organization strikes a great balance between a clean, easy-to-understand typographic approach and organic, dimensional hand-wrought elements. Engaging and engaged people shots representing the young, diverse St. Louis creative community that is the lifeblood of r+w are included throughout the designs and in a rotating home page animation. The doodle patterns in the designs bring a sense of fun and personality to the site as well — each section has a unique pattern integrated into the page.

Overall, something very fun and engaging that I was proud to be a part of. The site is currently in development.

UPBrand Promotional Poster

Who doesn’t love The Muppets? And, if you don’t…I’m not sure if you can be trusted. They’re at the center of both the concept and the design of this promotional poster for UPBrand. Created as a piece to reach out to prospects we’re courting from a business prospecting standpoint, the poster brings a metaphorical smile to the concept of working together. Fun.

Connexio Media Presentation Materials

Connexio Media offers college and university campuses a new way to reach students, faculty and visitors with information and alerts. Each campus gets its own network of state-of-the-art outdoor digital displays to connect the campus community with vital information — providing both safety and better engagement.

On this project, the client came up UPBrand with a logo and nothing more. As part of our storytelling approach, we took Connexio through a full discovery process, giving them a complete brand platform to work from. These presentation materials came out of that.

Bold, engaging, dimensional and textured, the visual “signature style” I developed was devised to convey a strong sense of movement and inter-connectivity. Coupled with a system of iconography, the overall approach balanced clarity with excitement and engagement. This rich style was a natural fit for a motion graphics piece and the animation I created leverages the dimensional overlays and shapes to interesting effect.

Shown here: sample presentation screens, iconography samples and motion graphics company overview

Halloween Event Poster

This one is just something fun and beautiful. Created for a Halloween event at UPBrand, this rich, layered poster was just too evocative and pretty not to share. A highly nuanced blend of vibrant color, historic illustrations, found elements and a bit of Photoshop light and magic come together here with a decided sense of drama. Happy Halloween 2012, all!

Shown Here: Event Poster

Children’s Home Society of Missouri Site

Another recent launch I was very pleased to see was the site for the Children’s Home Society of Missouri (CHSMO).

CHSMO is a treasure on the Missouri non-profit scene. Founded in 1891, the Society has been focused on providing children with safe, loving and happy homes. Strong families, counseling, education and advocacy have also become hallmarks of CHSMO.

The site dovetails with an identity evolution being explored by Heidi Jost and leverages the brand’s central colors while building interest through simple use of type, graphics and bold, evocative and immersive imagery. Both this and the recently posted Trailnet site (see below this post) demonstrate the proverbial “Holy Grail” of web design for me — a mix of informative and organized information design, typographic hierarchy, supporting graphics and beautiful photography. For me, that’s a perfect mix and I think this site does a great job of illustrating the elegant power of those elements. Who says great usability, system fonts and information-oriented sites can’t be beautiful?

Trailnet Site

I was thrilled to see the recent launch of a project I provided the design and digital brand for.

Trailnet is a great Missouri organization that focuses on building healthy, vibrant communities through activity and community connections. I led and creative directed the team that established new brand standards and messaging for the organization and was pleased to be able to personally design all of the digital extensions of that brand, breathing life to a great platform for the print world created by Rob Hutti, a team member.

The result is clean and evocative, bringing both an approachable feel and a sense of simple honesty through scale, clarity and organization of design and typography. Shown here: homepage (original design), second level page (as launched) and sample interior page detail.

UPBrand Brand Package

Recently, I started my tenure as the Vice President / Creative Director of UPBrand, a St. Louis-based agency focused on building brands through storytelling. I’ve already been having fun with great design and concept and one part of that has been establishing the aesthetic and visual brand for the agency itself. A good friend and talented independent designer Ben Franklin had started the proceedings with identity work before I arrived. I have taken the mark that Ben established and created a look and feel for digital assets, packaging, presentation materials, apparel and motion / video.

The work strikes a balance between a very clean, linear, type-driven, Bauhaus-inspired approach and found ephemera and organic, hand-wrought design elements used both metaphorically and to bring a human touch to the designs. It’s always very rewarding to bring a brand that I am close to like this to life.

Duo + Quintess Brand Package

The most beautiful vacation homes in the world’s most coveted locations totally staffed to meet your every need. That is Quintess — a luxury club for discerning vacationers with resources. I recently had the opportunity to offer up site designs for the main Quintess site as well as both identity and digital brand assets for a new vacation club within the Quintess house of brands called “DUO.” The work strikes a balance between sleek elegance and a rich, textural approach. The site designs themselves use a mixture of gorgeous photography of the properties themselves, clean, elegant typography, deep, evocative color scheming and custom damask patterns. The DUO identity is at once bold, contemporary and rich. The split “O” at the terminus of the mark signifies the concept of “II,” speaking to the brand’s direct relationship to the main Quintess offering. I really enjoyed putting these together.

Ad Week STL Poster + Mark

These initial designs for a fledgling concept here in St. Louis are pure fun. Speaking as a creative, I will say that we can be a pretty annoying and self-absorbed bunch. So often, groups and events designed to build  a sense of community can devolve into pettiness. That’s where AD WEEK STL comes from — a desire to stop the complaining and infighting and to move forward, building something vibrant in the St. Louis creative community.

I led the theme concepting on this as well as the brand development itself. A senior writer at 4ORCE landed on the title of an Aerosmith song as the perfect way to convey our central idea — “Shut Up and Dance.” The supporting mark and poster materials leverage the edge of the creative mind while cutting through the lethargy and ennui that plague the scene. Fun.

I will be flowing this out to more materials and digital assets. Shown here: Poster + Detail and Mark.

Scottrade Careers Site Designs

So many young designers have asked how they can impress me. I always tell them that Photoshop pyrotechnics are a ton of fun, but that I am most impressed by what a designer can do with the basics of great design, items like layout, typography, balance, color and image. Those principles are what makes this set of designs compelling in their bold and elegant simplicity.

Built on stalwart Midwestern values and a commitment to great service, Scottrade has a corporate culture that is truly unique. Recipient of numerous awards for that culture including a spot on FORTUNE magazine’s coveted “100 Best Companies to Work For” list and always looking for new talent worldwide, Scottrade knew it needed a better way to communicate it’s essence to prospects everywhere. This initiative is designed to convey both the “tangible” and “intangible” aspects of what it means to work at the financial services company. This site has been taken through a full interactive user-testing design cycle, always my preference.

Save-A-Lot Licensee Campaign Concepts

Targeted at potential store owners, this campaign is about making a difference for the future. Current Save-A-Lot store owners express a marked pride in the business they are building to pass down the generations within their own families and a pride in the good they are doing in the economically challenged communities they serve. These designs are a call-to-arms, inspiring through real owner profiles, imagery and stories providing a window into what store ownership can mean for a licensee’s family and for the communities they work in. The design itself is a more progressive and elegant take on the main SAL brand, leveraging basic brand elements, but amping up both elegance and touch.

Shown here: Collateral Cover + Inside Spreads, Site Design and Trade Show Application

4ORCE Feature Wall + Interior Design

This project has been not only a labor of love, but also pure, unadulterated fun for me. I have acted as the interior designer / installation artist / signage artist for NGAGE / 4ORCE. I worked with agency owner Dan Curran and architectural firm SPACE on the main layout and it was Dan’s vision to move beyond creating just another loft space in St. Louis. That vision was the basis for my work.

The main signature feature of the space is a large sculpture wall in the lobby that is entirely my concept and design. The wall uses light, texture and materials to create a truly dramatic effect with a bold, almost overwhelming presence. Though visitors comment on the space as a whole, the wall is the most talked about portion of the entire space design.

The rest of the space uses a mix of bold and muted color blocks over a base of bright white to establish an almost museum or lab-like quality. The artistic accents in the space are a mix of architectural salvage and poster art including one large 9-piece authentic Soviet piece from my personal collection that acts as a major accent in the main conference room. I personally selected a vast majority of the art and I placed all of the artistic features in the space based on lines of sight and the space as a whole. The overall effect is very much an homage to the interiors of the German Bauhaus school with a splash of the sensibilities of American Pop artists of the 1960’s.

The signage for the space uses both oversized lightboxes with 3-D lettering for impact and door applications with extensions of the 4ORCE brand on them. They round out the space with a clean, usable visual language with a wink and a chuckle.