Portfolio Highlight: Mt. Hood Jazz Band CD Cover

This was a CD cover and inlay created for the Mt. Hood Jazz Band using Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop CS4. For the design, the intent was to capture the feel of jazz within the cover-raw, edgy and underlying elegance. The music notes used in the design are adapted from one of the tracks “Georgia On My Mind”.

Portfolio Highlight: Alam Cocoa

The purpose of this project was to illustrate the ideation process in which a visual identity system was created for a theoretical cocoa company that is a member of the World Cocoa Foundation.  This included determining a name for the company relevant to the country of origin, creating a logo, and developing product packaging for three sample products. The country selected was Indonesia. The company that was created was Alam Cocoa, a company that specializes in organic chocolate products.

Portfolio Highlight: Dave’s Killer Bread

For a school project, we were asked to choose a brand or product that we love, and re-design their current logo. I selected Dave’s Killer Bread, which is a local successful bread company.  The current logo, while fun and playful, undermines the quality of the product, and could be perceived as “cheap”, when the bread itself averages $5.00 a loaf. The intent for the redesign of the logo was to enhance the logo, giving their quality product the recognition it deserves, but while maintaining the integrity of the original logo and illustration. The solution was to re-create the arm, remove the balloon text, and used Gill Sans Bold to call attention to the logo.

Dave’s Killer Bread logo Redesign Process

Dave’s Killer Bread Final Logo

Application of Dave’s Killer Bread Logo

Disclaimer: Dave’s Killer Bread did not commission me for this redesign, nor are they affliated with the redesign in anyway. This was simply a school exercise. They make the best quality organic bread, and once you try it, you won’t buy anything else. Trust me, it’s killer!

Are you a member of the Civil Defense?

As I was plugging away the other day, I had the tv on the History Channel, where an episode of Lost Worlds was on. This particular episode was focused on the creation of U.S. Secret Bunkers during the Cold War. These bunkers were to offer shelter in case of a nuclear attack or nuclear fallout, but what was most interesting to me, was that in the unfortunate event of a nuclear attack, a Civil Defense was already in place to deal with the situation. The Civil Defense’s primary purpose was to organize and prepare for the protection of civilian lives, their property and the means of economic production before, during, and immediately after large-scale emergencies, such as a nuclear attack. This also includes the organization and training of volunteers in the means of self-protection and in learning to reduce loss of life in emergencies. Their logo is displayed below:

Civil Defense Logo

There was alot of propaganda that went along with the Civil Defense, in addition to effective warning systems, shelters inside and outside the home, stockpiles of food and medicine, firefighting, carrying through necessary rescue operations after an attack. The CivilDefenseMuseum.com has collected a vast portion of this material,  along with the pamphlets and posters. I’m a big fan of retro design, and there’s great design here as well, so naturally I posted some of my favorites below. As always, click the pic to head over to the CivilDefenseMuseum.com to see more.

"You'd best know where the shelter is, son."

WHAT?!!!

HAHA! Nuclear War is SO silly!

Yes, but man cannot live on pickles alone...

Care for a beer? How about with a little rust on it?

Vintage Beer can

The question I’m asking myself is, if this were to be re-introduced today, would people buy this? And could it be recycled? The other problem is, you couldn’t stack a sixer on a sixer, however I guess you can’t do it with bottles either. I like the packaging design, but the can shape reminds me a bit of motor oil. I would like to see some beer company re-introduce this as a promotional limited edition can or something to the likes of that. And whatever happened to Esslinger Beer Little Man Ale I wonder….

Thanks to TheDieLine.com for the interesting piece.

Coca-Cola is ready for the summer

Cocoa-cola has a new packaging design for the summer!

Sum sum sum summertime! (sang to tune of the Will Smith song)

I’ve always liked Coca-Cola’s ad campaigns and packaging. Usually very imaginative, simple and refined. That said, I think these cans carry on their great track record into Summer ‘09.  I like the simple gestural shapes. Nothing else is needed. Excellent example of “less is more”. Nice job Coca-Cola. Thanks to TheDieLine.com for the heads up.

When Toys Suck

I’m a big fan of action figures. That’s right. I’m 28 years old, and I like toys. I’m not afraid to admit it. However, there’s  a problem with how they’re designed today. They suck. Especially movie tie-in toys. The molds are shoddy and cheap, and hardly ever resemble the characters of the movie. Most notable of recent, I give you, Terminator: Salvation crafted poorly by Playmates Toys. Check out these laughable likenesses:

This is cool?!!

This is Christian Bale?! He looks like Al-Quida!

Good thing Christian Bale had Batman, because those action figures of himself were pretty sweet.  Also, when I see promotional stuff like this, and already I’m skeptical of the movie, it pretty much confirms I will not see this movie. You can’t spare expense in toys for movies like this. You just can’t! Rant end.

Student Spotlight-Dairy Packaging: Part Deux

Let's take a trip to....DAIRYLAND!

In lieu of the controversial “highlight” that I and every other person blogged about (here’s the link) TheDieLine.com has redeemed itself with a new highlighted dairy packaging by a student. Julius Tigno created this Dairyland packaging while at the Academy of Art University. He color coded the caps and cartons to identify the different flavors which are; non-fat, one percent, two percent, homogenized, chocolate, and buttermilk. The design is very light and airy, just like milk. The pastel colors work nicely with the typography. Simple and refined. I’d would definitely like to see this in my dairy case at the store.

Bad Angels and good beer

TheDieline.com has highlighted some cool beer packaging from the McKinney agency done for Big Boss Brewing.

Bad Angel from Big Boss Brewing

I think this packaging is original and consistent between the products, and I like the illustrations, layout, and balance of information on the packaging. Nice job McKinney! The names of the beers are pretty sweet as well.

Who knew jarred goods could be so cool?

Check out these cool new packaging designs done by Remo Caminada for Globus Switzerland and Andreas Caminada, Swiss Chef of the Year 2008. It’s for their jarred products. Click on the pics below to check out more. These two are a couple of my favorites.

I don't know whats in the jar, but the illustration is awesome!

Is this Dragon Jelly maybe?

I love the pixellated style of the illustrations, and the consistency of the style for each product. I’m not too found of the font choice, but it’s in swiss…so maybe it’s a language barrier? Overall, I think this is fantastic, simple effective design.