words and colors, pixels and paper, creative services and communication strategies

logo design

When I design a logo, my first question won’t be “What should it look like?” Instead, I’ll ask about words and concepts and mission and audience. Do you want to be seen as capable or revolutionary? Progressive or  unchanging? Friendly and welcoming, or elite and reserved? Artistic or technical, global or local, corporate or handcrafted? 

I start by looking at your company and then looking way beyond—your beginnings and your long-range goals, your reputation and strengths, the industry you work within. I explore and learn. And then I sit down to design, dialing back the conceptual ideas until I find the essence of what you need to communicate. Your logo should feel like you—but better. The dressed-up, out-on-the-town version rather than the mismatched pajama version. It tells others who you are, yes, but a good logo also helps you remember who you want to be.

brand identity

Building a brand identity is more than just using the right colors and fonts and slapping a logo onto every page. It’s about a whole lot of individual elements that add up to so much more when combined just right. It’s an image, a voice, a mood, an attitude that stays consistent across every medium. And by “consistent” I don’t mean identical. It’s a matter of grasping the message your company wants to convey and finding appropriate ways to do that within each medium’s limitations and parameters (and budgets). Long-term brand building goes hand-in-hand with long-term client relationships, and although I’m happy to do a single project, I really love developing an extended family, with all the variety and nuance a comprehensive family should be. So whether you are starting from scratch, or you need to refresh or expand your existing brand, we can create something together that is uniquely right for you.

book, publication, and product design

When I was a kid, I dreamed of writing and designing my own magazine, so my pen pals got hand-colored newsletters typed on onionskin paper. Luckily, the tools I have access to now make it a whole lot easier to pull together words and images into a cohesive publication—but why stop with paper and digital products? Selling resources and products  that support a brand’s mission is a great way for businesses to generate revenue as well as help round out a cohesive brand identity.

brochures, print collateral and advertising

There are designers out there who are flashier, who use heavily layered Photoshop files and esoteric images, who go to great lengths to live up to the stereotype of the temperamental artist with their complicated messages and illegible (but artistic) designs. Just so we’re clear: That’s not me. I don’t care how pretty or nuanced a design is. If it doesn’t express your key message to the people you want to reach, it will not be effective—and nobody has the time or money to waste on that. Good design is about solving a communication problem by providing clear, relevant messaging in an appropriate format. That might be a print brochure or a digital flip book. It could be email newsletters or direct mail postcards, sandwich board signs for a city sidewalk or public transit posters, billboards or building banners, digital banner ads or posters or flyers. Let’s talk message first, and audience, then figure out the best medium with which to reach them. And then I will do everything in my power to make the messages look good, too.

social media graphics

Social media graphics can promote your products, enhance your brand identity, connect with new segments of your audience, or communicate a message that enhances your mission and reaches people on an emotional level. Here are a few examples of graphics created to enhance the online presence of these brands while helping establish the organization’s mission and purpose.