Background

The Spring at Last Expo and Getaway is a new expo for 2012 from Mid-America Events & Expos targeted towards families. Companies will be showing an assortment of products and services in a number of categories including outdoor/hunting/fishing, vacations, home remodeling, sports, health & fitness, clothing, and more. A logo was needed for this new expo that represented the numerous spring and summer activities that the expo is promoting, as well as diverse and varied target market (male and female, varying ages and interests).

Role

Designer

Background

This is a logo/identity to go with a new website for by the Malaysian Palm Oil Council. The new site – Palm Oil Health – is a consumer-focused website/blog with the goal of communicating the health and nutritional benefits of Malaysian Palm Fruit Oil. A companion site to the Malaysian Palm Oil Council main website, it will feature media coverage on Malaysian Palm Oil, recipes, research, and other useful information to consumers as well as marketers within the industry.

You can view the logo on the Palm Oil Health website at www.palmoilhealth.org.

Role

Designer

My nephew Jace had a birthday last week. He’s been interested in drawing lately – which is something I love to do – so I decided to get him some drawing supplies (pencils, sketch pad, eraser, and sharpener) and a “how to” sketch and drawing book. My wife stopped to pick up a card and a gift bag, and she got a blank gift bag and said that I should draw on it. So, here’s what I came up with. I think it turned out good, and he thought it was pretty cool.

Background

The company I work for – Kocina Branding & Marketing Companies (KBMC) – wanted to relaunch one of their websites at www.publicity.com last year (2011). KBMC has a number of divisions that do web and print design, event and trade shows, publicity and product promotions, and writing services. This website was to serve as the single voice of the company, highlight the products and services we offer, and complement the individual websites for each of the divisions. It was to be built on WordPress, and would be part of an eventual network of sites in WordPress.

My goal was to design a custom WordPress theme, and assist the web programmers in implementing the design.

I have included the website mockups here. In the time since the mockups were approved and the site went live, some changes were made to the design for various reasons, but they were relatively minor.

You can view the live website at www.publicity.com.

Role

Web designer

Background

Mid-America Events & Expos, a division of Kocina Branding & Marketing Companies, has been producing expos and events since 1997. One series of expos—The 50+ Primetime Living Expo—is targeted at retired adults in their mid-to-late 60′s and older, and feature products, services, and activities of interest to this demographic. There are three shows per year—one in spring, one in summer, and one in fall. This is a sampling of print ads for all three shows for various publications throughout 2011.

Role

Designer

Like many people, I was quite shocked to hear about the death of Steve Jobs a few days ago. We all knew he was sick, but didn’t really want to believe that the end was so near. When I heard about it, I had just sat down to do some drawing, so I wanted to sketch a little tribute to him. Normally I do not attempt to draw likenesses of people, since it is very difficult to do well and I don’t think I’m that good at it. But, I think it turned out ok.

I’ve listened to others talk about their reactions to this news, and one common thread is that people find it strange that they are so affected by the death of a public figure that they do not even know. That is something I’m feeling as well. And it is strange. Call me one of the fools who has bought into the hype, but since I bought my first Mac in 2005 I’ve never really looked back. I remember that feeling of using a Mac and iPod for the first time and thinking that this is the way it should be. I genuinely enjoy using Mac’s, iPhones, iPads, and iPods. And, they are a direct result of a set of values and principles laid out by this one person. They rail against conventional business thinking, but it’s like he was able to see through it to what mattered to users. There is a lot about him that I admire, and I’d call myself fortunate to have been around at the same time he was here doing what he does.

My wife got an iPad earlier this year. Normally she gets the hand-me-down tech, but when I mentioned on Facebook that maybe I’ll get the new iPad 2 when it comes out and she can have my old iPad, someone commented that maybe SHE should get the new iPad. Good point. And, she was definitely interested. So, she got the new iPad. It also happened to be just after our anniversary, and I thought it would be cool to sneak a custom wallpaper on the device as I was setting it up. So, I sketched up this rose, made an iPad wallpaper from it, and left the iPad on her desk with it set up on the lock screen. She loved it.

Background

Illustration to go with a blog post about social media disasters.

Role

Illustrator/Designer

See Also

You can view the blog post here.

Background

Mid-America Events & Expos, a division of Kocina Branding & Marketing Companies, has been producing expos and events since 1997. Two of their expos—The Senior Spring Show and the Senior’s Expo—were due for a re-branding in early 2011. These shows were targeted at retired adults in their mid-to-late 60′s and older, and featured products, services, and activities of interest to this demographic. They wanted to broaden the appeal of the shows to adults over 50, and really highlight this phase of life as one of continued learning, activity, and discovery. They were also expanding the number of shows to three per year—one in spring, summer, and fall. The new show was to be called the 50+ Primetime Living Expo, and the new identity needed to convey this new focus, and come in three variations— one for each of the seasonal shows.

Role

Designer

Background

At the time I started working with this client, he was in the early stages of opening a candy store in the Twin Cities area. He was looking for a logo with a nostalgic, old-fashioned feel to match the planned style of the store. He also wanted two versions of the logo—one with “LLC” and one without. I drew heavily off of the imagery of licorice and taffy, which conveyed the look he was after, and was able to find a concept that allowed for two versions of the logo as requested.

Role

Designer

Background

This is an identity for a friend who has a food and recipe blog. The name “Typical Pickle” was sort of an off-hand, alliterative name that she and her husband had come up with, and it kind of stuck. So, she decided to use this for her blog and wanted a logo to go with it. With the logo, she wanted to strike a balance between “serious” and “fun”; it should be friendly and inviting, yet represent the blog in a way that the content be taken seriously. After a few iterations, this is what we ended up with.

Role

Designer

Background

This is an updated logo for Flapping Crane, a sketch comedy group I am part of. A few years ago I took a stab at a logo redesign, ending up with a six-tile layout of the main group members incorporating stills or photos from past sketches and used a multi-color “pop art” color scheme. I sort of left it at that, not completely settled on the design, but I knew I liked the direction.

Fast forward a few years, and I decided to revisit the logo. We had been talking about becoming more active again, and wanted to try and freshen up the logo and maybe finish the idea that I started.

Role

Designer

See also

New Flapping Crane Website

Background

This is a brochure design for the 2009/2010 StayWell Cold and Flu Clinical Trials carried out by Medicus Research, LLC. It serves to educate and recruit participants in the trial with the goal of determining whether certain homeopathic products can reduce the onset and spread of the cold or flu within a household, or affect the duration and severity of symptoms of the cold or flu.

Role

Designer

Drawing the body, and specifically the face, is difficult. It’s something I always wished I was better at and am in awe when I see people who can do it well. Break it down into pieces, though, and it’s a bit more manageable and not so daunting. This is a collection of sketches from a few years ago that I think turned out pretty well.

Here’s something I was working on during a break at work. It sat in my notebook for a couple of months before I decided to post it. I think I was hoping to “finish” it at some point, but then I realized that it’s just going to sit there, so I may as well post it. A little bit “Terminator”, some C-3PO from “The Phantom Menace”, and a dash of “Robocop”.

Here’s an illustration I came up with a few years ago. We were shooting a Flapping Crane sketch, and had taken a musical diversion, as we were known to do from time to time. (As a side note, GarageBand is the greatest tool ever created for a bunch of hack and not-so-hack musicians to mess around with.) Amongst the many nonsensical phrases that were thrown out while coming up with lyrics, “wrestle that shark” was one of them. I pretty quickly went to the visual of a lucha libre wrestler (think Jack Black in “Nacho Libre”), and then this final illustration is what I ended up with a few days later.

Incidentally, the shark has shown up in a couple of places since then.

• First, the phrase was originally used in the song mentioned earlier, which went into a sketch called “Rum Ade”.
• Then the illustration showed up on the label for a cleaning product in the sketch “Shark Hamburger Cleaning Spray”.
• It also became the name and logo for a philosophy podcast by Flapping Crane member Joe Lillibridge.

As you may or may not know, I am in a sketch comedy group called Flapping Crane. We haven’t been too active the past couple of years, but every so often there are rumblings of activity. Just the other day we finally put up the new version of the website that was in development hell for a couple of years. I did the original design, fellow Flapping Craner Alex Kretchmer did a slight overhaul more recently, and then Joe Lillibridge (also in Flapping Crane a web developer) applied some YUI and Javascript voodoo to make it live. We’ve built up quite a catalog of sketches, and it’s fun to browse through them all. Ah, the memories. There are veiled threats to get the band back together and shoot more, so we’ll see — there may be some new videos posted soon.

Grab a sandwich and watch some sketch comedy at flappingcrane.com (Not all SFW).

A number of years ago my wife Jody was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis, a thyroid condition resulting in hypothyroidism. Over the years she has gotten a lot of information and support about the condition from various online communities. A few years ago she started a blog called “Hypogirl” which served as her personal blog and also a place where she could discuss living with hypothyroidism. Then last year she wanted to get a little more serious about it, and I had never been happy with the graphics and design I came up with at the time for the make-shift logo and blog. So I created a whole new identity for Hypogirl and also created a new custom WordPress theme for the site. The identity and website are part of my portfolio (links below).

Now, just a couple of weeks ago, she told me that she wanted to start a podcast. I’ve been interested in producing a podcast for some time now, so this gave me a chance to do that. So far she has two episodes out and she has received some great feedback on it. I’ve also got her blog cross-posting to a Facebook Fan Page and Twitter account to help grow via social networking.

For me this has been a great opportunity to help someone who is passionate about a specific topic create an identity and carry it across different promotional channels to reach people. I’m excited to see where this goes in the coming weeks and months. Speaking of which, as things are scaling up, I think she is going to outgrow the current website layout pretty soon. So we’ll be looking at a redesign. Probably need to design some t-shirts too. You’re not for real till you have t-shirts.

To see the live site and listen to the podcast, visit Hypogirl.com.

From my portfolio, see Hypogirl identity and Hypogirl website.

Background

Gianna is a planned community of adult care services providing memory care, hospice services, day care, and a women’s home with uncompromising compassion and integrity in an upbeat, positive, family environment. This newsletter was to be a template that the client could use in Microsoft Publisher to create future issues with, so a mockup with placeholder content is shown here.

Role

Designer

See also

Gianna identity, Gianna poster

Background

This logo is for my wife Jody, who has hypothyroidism (Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis). She wanted to create a blog where she could share her experiences living with this condition. I created a logo for her a while back, but it didn’t really fit. I felt that this new identity needed to at least suggest “hypothyroidism” or “thyroid disorder” in a some way, even if just to other people who are familiar with this condition. I did not want it to feel clinical or medical, but rather be more holistic, natural, and have a feminine feel to it. I wanted to create something simple and unique that could stand alone and represent her. After some initial ideas that weren’t really going anywhere, Jody told me that the thyroid gland looks like a butterfly, and I thought that would be the perfect symbol to build off of. So, I started working the “H” and “G” from Hypogirl into a butterfly shape and this is what we settled on.

Role

Designer

See also

Hypogirl website