Essex National Heritage Folder and Stationary

After working on this project off-and-on for over a year, the new pocket folder for the Essex National Heritage Commission has finally released and printed. The design work itself did not take that long, but the revisions and the approval process was long and involved. Final selection of photos that would be representative of all aspects of the Essex National Heritage Area  took the longest. I am very happy to have finally completed the work!

front of folder

 inside of folder

3 versions of the stationary

Jennifer Evans: The Last Cheap Hotel Promotional Package

I have been working for the last several months through New Arts Collaborative on a promotional package for folk singer Jennifer Evans. This included updating the look of her website and designing the cover for her new CD, “The Last Cheap Hotel.”

Evans’ elegant mezzo, her insightful phrasing and her warm connection with audiences make her a spellbinding performer and balladeer. The stories she tells with song — some of the most memorable composed by her brother Griff —  deliver us into the throes of joy, love, loss, remembrance and hope. The design of the materials was determined partly by the singer's personal preferences, but also by the mood and social conscience of the music. 

The first thing was to develop a mood board. One of Jennifer's music heroes and influences was folksinger Woody Guthrie. This seemed to call for a visual style that would capture something of the period in which he was singing, 1930's depression-era Americana. I started looking at a lot of depression-era artwork including Edward Hopper, to try to come up with a look and feel for the package. I developed some "theme boards" comprised of images from that period.
Working with Jennifer,  New Arts Collaborsative principal Rae Francoeur and photographer Kathy Tarantola scouted locations on the north shore and tried to pin down a wardrobe for the shoot. They eventually found a large Victorian house to serve as a backdrop/setting in Jennifer's hometown of Danvers. Although not a "cheap hotel" it had the proper kind of run-down gentility that we were looking for.

They tried numerous poses, and several different outfits before we all agreed on one that we liked.
Once the main images and style were set, I began designing the CD packaging.  We decided to go with Oasis Disc Manufacturing http://www.oasiscd.com as the vendor, and after exploring several options for packaging, decided to use one of their environmentally-friendly CD-UD100 digipaks.
This went through many many rounds of changes and revisions on image, type and configuration until we arrived at this design for the CD package.

 This is the front and back cover layout, and a sample spread for the 16-page insert booklet.

We decided to go with a solid-color design for the CD itself.

Once the CD print packaging was completed, the next step was to redesign Jennifer's website to more closely reflect the new album . This is the homepage for the old website. It was perfectly functional, but had not been updated in several years.

Using iWeb and some third-party applications for customization, I developed a design for a new, quick, inexpensive and easy-to-maintain, 6-page website that would include links to social media, sites where you could listen to and purchase the music, download the lyrics and press photos, and generally reflect the new branding of the CD packaging.  Below are three sample pages from the new site. http://jennifer-evans.com
As of this posting it is still being updated, and revised.

In addition to the CD packaging, as we approached the actual release of the album, I designed and produced a number of other print collateral pieces that were either sent to Radio stations and promoters, were included with the CD at performances, or appeared as PDFs on the website for download.
These included a Q&A document:

A description of the tracks on the album.

A press release.

A lyric sheet.

Neil Plumbing Logo

I recently developed a logo for local plumber and friend Jonathan Neil. He is a Christian and was looking for a logo that would not only speak to his new plumbing business, but would also reflect his values and belief that his excellence as a plumber not only serve the customers needs, but honor God.
With plumbing we knew that there would be water imagery, but we wanted to avoid the usual images of pipe wrenches,  drains, sinks, toilets or bathtubs. Jon and I discussed Bible stories and images that involved water vessels and service. I looked at water-related images ranging from Aquarius symbols to images of ancient middle-eastern water vessels. One image that caught my attention was a painting illustrating the Biblical story of Rebekah at the well.

I liked the feeling of the image, but realized it was too complex to make an effective logo, however after seeing this album cover for Come to the Living Water.

I decided that focusing on the hands would be the key. The client liked the idea and I produced a sketch in pencil and marker.

The client liked the sketch of the hands pouring water from a simple wooden bowl. It was a simple strong image which represented plumbing in a masculine, un-clichéd way but also referenced a biblical tradition of service. I proceeded with redrawing it in Illustrator, trying some different styles and colors, however when I refined the sketch in Illustrator it lost some of it's energy.

After reviewing these Jon and I decided that the original sketch, although it had a less refined line, had a rugged quality that we actually liked better. I went back to the original sketch and I re-did the drawing careful to keep the rougher, wood-cutty look of the original sketch.
I produced what ended up being very close to the final version of the logomark.

Then it was on to incorporating the logomark with text and laying out the actual business card. There was some discussion of what to call the company, at first it was Jonathan Neil Plumbing, but we decided his first name seemed unnecessary. So then it was just Neil Plumbing. I developed this simple lock-up with the type, a clean, strong, bold, sans-serif face.

Then he decided it should say plumbing and heating. Then there was the finalizing the exact color blue for the final card. Blue was a given from the client from the start, but what shade? We went with a Pantone 285, a kind of softer, pastel blue.  After some minor tweaks, this is the design I came up with for the final card. It was printed on uncoated stock with rounded corners. So far the reaction from the client and his customers has been positive.

Front of card

Back of card

Rockport Music Postcards for Summer 2013

More postcards designed for the Rockport Music Association, based at the Shalin Liu Performance Center in Rockport, Ma. Produced through the New Arts Collaborative and printed at Cricket Press in Manchester, Ma.

Rockport Music Postcards

A series of postcards designed for the Rockport Music Association through the marketing firm New Arts Collaborative. These postcards promote different programs in the upcoming 2013 season, covering Flamenco, Vocal and Classical performances at the Shalin Liu Center in Rockport, MA. The goal was to have each postcard have a distinctive look, while staying within the overall branding. The final postcards were printed at Cricket Press in Manchester, MA.