Category Archives: Business Services

You’re right next door.

I work from my office in Western Mass, serving the Northampton area, but I work with clients from almost anywhere with an internet connection and a phone. That work includes web design, print communication, book design, visual identity development, business cards, interpretive lettering for book titling, signs and display, illustration – anything involving visual communication. Because of the internet and my technical background, I am able to communicate with printers, engravers, sign companies, web developers in your area to get the design onto a production path and in a way that is convenient to you.  Here are some examples of long distance work I’ve done in the past.

 

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Columbia, Missouri
This was perhaps one of the more difficult jobs on the production end from over a thousand miles away. After having created a visual identity for a crafts gallery, I was asked if I could design their sign utilizing an existing, odd shaped projecting sign frame left over from the 1950s. I worked closely with a local sign company and was able to design to fit the odd space exactly. Angles, curves, frame thicknesses, etc. all conspired to undermine the project, but with photos, careful measurements provided by the sign company and my familiarity with materials, we managed to get it right.

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Palo Alto, California
This was the creation of a visual identity utilizing my interpretive lettering skills working with Adobe Illustrator. The project was art directed by a San Francisco design firm that hired me for the logotype development. The client was Imagine Foods, a natural foods producer famous for their Rice Dream products.

 

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Pretoria, South Africa
Wilmette, IL
This was a workbook and  cover design for the late Deborah Christesen in collaboration with  Julie Burnes Walker who together created the Oneness Model. This was a spiral bound workbook loaded with illustrations. At certain times we even managed conference calls between South Africa, Illinois and Massachusetts. Not so easy back in 2008.

 

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West LaFayette, Indiana
Visual Identity,, website, blog and various print pieces such as business cards, stationery, etc. Iris Karas began this consulting practice not long after moving to indiana. Once the website was up and regular posts were being made to her blog, her business grew steadily.

 

 

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El Sobrante, California
This was a DVD cover design including front (right) back (left) and spine (middle). This was part of a series of DVDs produced by Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen founder of the School for Body/Mind Centering. Bonnie travels the world giving workshops and overseeing the training programs she has developed for certification. The DVDs are another method of educational outreach.

 

 

 

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Design comes first!

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I design websites, visual identities, print advertising, signs, books – anything that involves effective visual communication that will be busy working for you even while you sleep. And though I have lots of production experience, I mostly work with printers, sign companies, engravers and other production specialists to arrive at the finished product.

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Printers, sign companies, etc. often employ designers and usually the quality of the design is excellent particularly when the design requirements are pretty straight forward. However, the emphasis and pace in such establishments tends to favor production. 

My own technical experience does help in terms of understanding the unique demands of these very different disciplines as well as knowing how to prepare artwork for efficient production, but I am first and foremost focused on design and visual communication.

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For me, the design process comes first and that means collaboration with you and understanding your enterprise, whatever that may be. Our first hurdle is making sure that the right message gets communicated.

Once the ideas are in place, I can make them work for you in any number of ways and with great efficiency because of my experience working with the various production options available. That saves you from a lot of running around and allows me to make sure that your ideas are being communicated in a consistent manner, maintaining the highest standards.

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…and that has made all the difference.

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Early on in Sandra Boston’s life she decided to head down a road less travelled by. That road has taken her around the world and into the hearts of those she encountered. In this memoir, Sandra details her journey and what it has meant to her along the way. She asked if I would help her with her cover design for Out of Bounds: Adventures in Transformation.

I agreed, and working with photos taken along her journey I developed a design concept for the front and back covers. At first, I used a font for the book title, and though it looked fine, it somehow didn’t quite reflect the sprit of Sandra’s life. So I custom designed an original hand lettered title – what I refer to as interpretive lettering. Sandra was on board as soon as she saw it and the book was soon thereafter published.

Above is the finished book cover and below is the artwork I developed using Adobe Illustrator and incorporated into the cover. 

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So, what’s your story?

I focus on designing websites primarily for individuals and small businesses and I’ve developed an approach that is fairly simple, but effective given that my clients sites are all on or near page one when the service and region are typed in a search, such as in my case where someone might search for graphic designer, Northampton Mass.
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Website home page for Visage Salon

But for me the key issue is having a place to present yourself to your community and beyond in the most complete manner possible. In other words, all of your marketing efforts, both online and traditional point to your website as the place where visitors can discover your unique story, one that expands, grows and changes as your business does. It is by far the most cost effective and convenient way to get that story across.

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Visage Salon website, featured hair products page


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Visage Salon blog post featuring product line

I recently visited a restaurant after having researched it online. The decor and the dining experience were way out of synch with what was posted online. The restaurant in the website was great and I was really looking forward to visiting. The restaurant in the flesh was a real disappointment by comparison. Perhaps if my expectations were more in line with the reality, I wouldn’t have felt so let down. Visually and technically, the site was great, but whoever created it failed to get at the essence of the business and show the reality in its best light.

Usually however, the opposite is true. An online presence is created, which is better than no presence at all, but the website falls way short of the reality. Some businesses lose perspective of what they have to offer and undersell themselves.

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Visage Salon sign face for sandwich board display on street level

As a web designer, I look for the story and work closely with my clients to make sure their online presence is accurate and fully represents what their business has to offer. Because of my background in branding (visual identity), designing for print and signage, I can then create a seamless marketing approach with the website at its core.

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Visage Salon label for product bags

All of these things require technical knowledge and expertise that I can provide, but for me it’s all about the story and how to communicate that through words and images.

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Visage Salon customer appointment card

 

 

 

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Book by its cover…

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A few years ago a client approached me about designing a cover for her self-published book which is now available as an ebook. The finished design was constructed with a variety of publishing options in mind and last year was adapted for ebook publication. Should the author choose to do a print version the design can easily be adjusted for that purpose.

In our initial meeting the author showed me some images she found on the internet that she thought might be appropriate to purchase for the cover, but I insisted on seeing the manuscript so I could get a real sense of what the book was about.

For a while we toyed around with a number of photographic images available online, but as is often the case, though there were millions of images to choose from, none was quite right on the mark. We discussed illustration, but that idea was nixed due to restrictions in the budget.

In our conversations I discovered that she had a good camera and that photography was an important part of her life, so I suggested that she try to set up her own photo shoot using props that were suggestive of the content of her book. I knew that if the resolution was high enough I might be able to work with the images to come up with something.

To her credit, she jumped at the idea and gave me a disk containing lots of high resolution images. From that I selected a few to work with and after some back and forth we settled on the following image.

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I then set to work to adapt that image to fit the atmosphere of her story and writing and what emerged was the image below. It is a good example of the kinds of thing that can happen working with Photoshop.

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We then spent a while exploring typographic options and in the end arrived at the cover pictured at the beginning of this post. We were both quite happy about the outcome and I was particularly pleased that we were able to incorporate one of her own photographs.

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A World of difference…

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Some might think design was simply a matter of developing a compelling style and applying it to whatever walked in through the door. Consciously or unconsciously, I’m sure there are designers who work in this manner. Designing this way would be quick and easy and execution would follow in a straight line toward the finished product.

I prefer an approach that is collaborative and exploratory in nature. It is rare for me to have a clear preconception of the final product. Presented with a project, I often have strong instincts that inform the discovery process, but of equal importance is client input. Together, we move the project forward toward a final conclusion.

Last year I posted Four Centers and an Auditorium, describing the evolution of a job I did for Smith College. Part of that project was to develop separate identities for most of the centers, under a tight budget and time constraints. The results were fine, but the Global Studies Center identity suffered some from those constraints.

Recently that center received an endowment that allowed it to reconsider that image and  rework the signage. What follows is a brief summary of the evolution of that process.

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Finished sign for Global Studies, Smith College, completed in 2011.

After meeting again with a committee from the center and discussing its mission, I put together some initial ideas.  The second image down in the left column and the top image in the center column were chosen by the committee for further exploration.

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Here are the results of that discovery process.

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The image at the top of the right column in the second of the three examples above was chosen for further refinement.

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It was at this stage that the smaller globe surrounded by the yellowish corona found its way into the design. In the end it was the middle image above that the committee selected as the identity for the center.

At this point, we needed to explore how the typography would work with the image and together how they would be incorporated into the existing signage. Along with the endowment, the name needed to be changed to reference the benefactors. Here are two sets of variations combining image and typography, as a logo and as part of the sign.

GLOBE16BlgEven after it was decided to go with just Lewis Global Studies Center, we needed to explore a few combinations as well.

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Below is what was finally decided.

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Here are some photos of the final sign installed. We were also able to install much needed lighting since the center was situated in an area not well lit. Lawren Rosen, the CEO of ArtFx Signs, came up with a nearly invisible lighting system that illuminates the sign without calling attention to the fixture. ArtFx Signs also fabricated and installed the sign.

In my previous posting, I expressed some disappointment in the interior lighting as pertaining to signage. The lighting of this sign solves that problem, revealing all of its details and subtle coloring – a very satisfying conclusion to this project.

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It remains somewhat of a mystery as to where this identity came from. It’s certainly nothing I could have imagined ahead of time and that’s exactly why I keep designing.

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Can’t Help Singing

I’ve been working with a client since early 2012 on a variety of projects for her daytime business. We worked together in the past but lost touch for several years, so it’s been great to be in on helping her further her business identity.

However the story doesn’t stop there, because on nights and weekends Barbara is a jazz vocalist regularly performing at clubs, restaurants and special events. She’s been wanting for a while to record her first CD, so she had me work on the design of the CD Jacket and disk art, and in September Detour Ahead made its way into the world.

We worked through the concept using some of her favorite photographs and during that time I only managed to hear her sing through some roughly recorded sessions on YouTube and audio clips. It was enough to inform the design process, but nothing could have prepared me for the final CD.

When I played it, I was stunned. Barbara has the voice, the skill, the experience, the intelligence and the heart to really deliver a song. And that she does throughout the whole CD, working closely with a number really fine musicians. These are nuanced performances that beg to be heard again and again.

Information about the CD, audio excerpts, and how to order it can be found on her website, BarbaraWeen.com and blog, both of which I helped her develop.

We started with the website concept and ran through quite a few ideas until one day I asked if she had anything recorded so I could get a better idea of  how that would influence the design process. She emailed me some audio files and it worked out well because what caught my attention was the fluidity of her voice. Thus was born the squiggle under her name in the header, a graphic reference to that fluidity. I then echoed that to create a kind of accompaniment, showed it to Barbara and we were on our way.

At first I couldn’t see the necessity of adding a blog to the site, but as the CD started to become a reality I became aware of all of the marketing potential the blog could deliver. The CD opened things up, making it possible to see more opportunities to communicate that just weren’t there in the beginning.

I use an easy to navigate WordPress blog template, doctored up to match the website for all of my blogs, keeping things simple so that my clients can work with it as easily as possible. Here is the blog site that interacts with the website. You can also visit the blog online.

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Signage for Four Centers and an Auditorium

The mandate

To design, fabricate and install wayfaring signs for one of the academic buildings on campus. There are four centers and a lecture hall that need to be identified in a tasteful way as one enters the main lobby of the building.

The above project description was part of the initial request I received from Smith College in early November of 2011 for a projected installation of January 2012. Skipping ahead, the photo (below) was taken of the main signs just prior to installation. What follows is an account of the process from that initial inquiry to completion and installation.

Above: I developed the concept and created the final artwork, collaborating with ArtFX Signs in Bloomfield, CT, a top of the line, award winning, sign manufacturer. What you see was all fabricated from raw materials in their state of the art facility.

Evaluation

After initial meetings with the heads of each of the centers I did a thorough site evaluation taking measurements and photos and making observations and within days of the meetings returned with a proposal based on my impressions.

What stood out the most in my mind was visual distraction – lots of steel and glass, bold floor pattern, brightly colored furniture, white walls, black pillars, low ceilings, dark corridors and a wide assortment of functional and informational furnishings. There was little in the way of natural internal logic to guide a visitor to their destination.

Conclusion

Hmm. Challenging. There had been some talk about each center having its own identity, but the thought of adding even more variety to that space made me nervous. Anything subtle would be quickly overwhelmed. Instead, the words that rushed into my mind were bold, in order to survive, unity rather than more diversity, simplicity rather than complexity, clarity rather than confusion. The photo below is a typical example of what I proposed.

All the lettering would be a metallic finish such as aluminum on a black background. I was considering a variety of possible materials that could add elegance to counter the simplicity of these signs, but I wanted to get everyone on board regarding the concept before going too much farther.

Client Feedback

The concept, along with my concerns went to each of the centers as well as administration for review. The feedback was very positive, but in separate meetings with representatives from each center, I was hearing concerns suggesting the strong need for separate identities along with a more colorful approach.

In particular, one of the centers had invested in an identity that had been applied to a signage concept used in their former location on campus. They would have simply moved their main sign, but it wouldn’t fit the new location. They appreciated my thoughts on simplicity and unity but were reluctant to give up the look that they had achieved and were so loyal to.

These were valid concerns and since none of the other centers had an established identity, I decided to modify my approach, keeping in mind my original concerns, but addressing the individual needs of the various centers at the same time.

Since the one center had a very clear idea of what they were after, I decided to carry elements of their design into the remaining signage throughout the rest of the building. The photo below shows their finished sign above the entrance.

The sign is made of clear thick glass, offset from the wall using simple stainless steel brackets. Their logo is applied to the glass using cut vinyl.

The one common denominator that everyone agreed to was that the main signs would be long and narrow and located in the narrow space above each entry. Foremost in my mind was that the sign backgrounds should be black as they were in my initial proposal and that I wanted to carry forward the idea of using glass as a primary material offset from the background, to echo that used in the Poetry Center sign (above). Beyond those three unifying factors the goal would be to make each sign unique with its own strong identity.

Since the Poetry Center identity and sign concept predated this job and because that center’s entry is located just to the right of the main entrance, with taller ceilings and greater visibility, we all agreed that it would retain it’s original look without a black background. We also agreed that given the particulars of the other entrances that we couldn’t carry through that type of sign to the other centers because that approach would be too subtle. With that settled I moved ahead with the other designs.

I began with meetings with staff from each of the centers, trying to learn as much as possible about each center’s mission. Since there was no real budget for building strong identities for each center, I looked for any imagery the center might have worked with in the past. I then developed a graphic image for each center along with a typographic style and a color scheme that seemed appropriate.

Because of budget constraints we kept the back and forth on the design to a minimum, but just enough, so that in the end each center was pleased with their own identity.

At that point my focus shifted to materials. I had done some work for ArtFX Signs in Bloomfield, CT and was familiar with the quality of their work and extensive facilities and resources. They agreed to take on the job and so I sent my concepts, that had been approved by each of the centers, to Lawrin Rosen, CEO so we could discuss materials and fabrication possibilities.

I then developed a structural concept. In the above rendering, the proportions were purposely distorted to emphasize the construction more than the appearance. The angled section is what viewers would see, namely a thin strip of brushed metal top and bottom followed by a stripe of color along the top and bottom, part of which would appear outside the glass and supporting it and part of it showing from the inside of the glass and supporting the glass from the other side. The majority of the glass would then remain clear even though it is not pictured that way in the diagram. The clear glass would look into an all black interior. Dimensional letters and logos would then be adhered to the front of the glass (not pictured here) in contrasting colors to stand out against the black interior.

The ArtFX staff then worked out a more efficient means of constructing this proposed concept the results of which can be seen in the photo at the beginning of this post. Both the design and construction plans were approved and the signs went into production using half-inch glass and aluminum. The signs were installed in early 2012 in time to meet the deadline.

Below are the major signs installed except for the Poetry Center, already shown above.

This center is on the first floor along with the Poetry Center. The other two centers and the auditorium, below, are located in the basement level.

The assignment also included various directional signs strategically placed throughout the building. The first two photos are different views of the directional sign at the main entrance followed by an example from a different location.

About 9 months after these signs were installed, another center was being opened in a different building on campus and the college contacted me again to design new signage similar to the ones from the other centers. Here are two views of that sign installed.

 

 

 

 

 

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