Portfolio - Brand Identity
Brand identity is the heart of design.
To wrap up an entire company in a simple, unique and original mark is a fine challenge. I believe the iterative creative process should result in a mark that is irrefutably valid to client and customer. If not, keep working, keep refining, keep asking questions. Every client is different. Designers can be tempted to let their own style dominate, but it is more important to let the character of the client be revealed.
New Commander
New Commander is a Washington D.C. consulting firm. The founder of the firm's grandfather worked to produce crates for the U.S. government in the 1940's under the company name "Commander". To come up with this identity we researched WWII documentaries with old planes and soldiers, mud and cold, and ammunition crates. We tried to stay loyal to the family history while providing a new direction by choosing a black eagle in flight over options that portrayed the more cliché American eagle. The bird is rendered with vectors that took over 100 hours to get just right. Click to see the detail.
Highwater Foundation
I worked closely with this non-for-profit to develop this identity in 2010. Highwater can be described generally as hedge fund folks interested in scholarships/education. The key stakeholder is a fan of the American southwest, particularly southern Utah.
Line charts are a daily staple of the alternative investment industry, the Wall Street Journal, Time and other new outlets with chart-love.
We fused the outdoor experience-of-the-mind with the daily grind of finance, romanticizing in the benevolent and timeless nature of a charitable foundation. Supergraphic water-sky ambiguity, past and present highwater marks, and cycles of change are represented.
Further, for hedge fund managers who can't make money unless their fund is above the "hightwater mark", it represents a very high bar that constantly keeps going up and is setting ever higher bars to achieve. The earning and the learning must never stop no matter the environmental factors. The highwater mark demands excellence. It also seems to enjoy rock climbing, dirt biking and boating.
Swing
This identity was developed for a bar in Chicago with a big band/swing music theme. Sadly the funding fell through and the place never opened. We tried to capture the late night, smoke-filled, vivacious and classy feel of jazz in 1930's America.
As Is Realty
As Is Realty specializes in buying distressed properties, quickly renovating and selling for a profit. The idea behind the brand is that there is no negotiating. The properties are sold "as is" in their newly improved state, at a below-market cost.
Group Fox
Group Fox is an apartment rental firm in Chicago. I helped them to modernize their long-established brand. Starting by refining their logo our journey led us through brochures, photography, maps, signage, stationary, advertising and a website. When that project started to wrap up we decided to do it all again with a subsidiary Barrington Lakes Apartment Homes. More..
Barrington Lakes Apartment Homes
A subsidiary of Group Fox, Barrington Lakes Apartment Homes is an expansive complex in Hoffman Estates, IL. I worked with management to create and produce this identity which then became the theme for a project that included several printed pieces. "Comfortable Living" More..
Ravenswood Billboard Factory
A large event space in the Ravenswood neighborhood of Chicago, IL. Weddings, corporate events, large parties, etc. Back before digital printing was invented this place was home to a company that made billboards the old fashioned way. The towering atrium featured in the logo was used for the large scale machinery needed for this lost craft.
Great Smiles
An identity for dentist Curt Lang DSS with offices in Chicago and Crete, IL.
BlackBox
This logo is for a software application that, as you can tell by the logo, is very exciting, yet mysterious in its function. We did ultimately settle on a literal representation of a box, but could not resist avoiding the color black entirely. The delicious cherry red rounded box became the basis of a system of branding for a line of software products.
Frankfort Township
After helping the campaign of Joe Kral C.A.I.O. win the seat of Assessor of Frankfort Township it was time to turn a page in the branding of the assessor's office. Joe won as a independent write-in candidate and took the seat with 59.4% of the vote. We researched the history of the area and learned that is was founded around a train stop in the mid-1800's. The grain elevator built in 1857 is also featured.
Fire & Water Fish and Chop House
I seized the opportunity to design this logo for the restaurant at the Marriott - Victoria Inner Harbour in British Columbia. I had been working on a website for Marriott as the restaurant was just coming into existence. They wound up going with another similar logo but this was my favorite to come out of the experience.
Take II Financial
Take II Financial is a sister company to As Is Realty. They help to finance single family homes for second-chance borrowers. Leveraging rent-to-own and custom taylored lending programs their mission is to help people who have generally had financial struggles in the past to get a second change for home ownership.
Promet Host
Chicago-based hosting and web development firm. The company name is based on name Promethius, who, in Greek mythology stole fire from Zeus and gave it to the mortals.
Stuckey Construction
Stuckey Construction - Identity for a general contractor.
Theresa Beran Kulat & Associates. P.C.
Theresa Beran Kulat & Associates is a family law office. They specialize in un-contested divorce cases. The logo represents the client, in the center, navigating all the facets of life spreading out in every direction and the external fabric of life weaving around. Through an exhaustive series of renderings, we actually were drawn to this composition that is based on a crop circle to help illustrate an element of spirituality and other-worldly external factors. The complex and emotional journey of the client warranted this dynamic mark.