if you’ve been stuck in any one position too long, shift. move. change: positions. your body. your mind. who knows? your movement might shift: your life. someone else’s life. the world.
you begin to see what happens if you don’t shi f t
design philosophy #33: shift
mark redesign, or remark, for the digital age, a modern face, didot, paired with my favorite sans serif, gill sans, in bold crayon
wordmark, combines the business and low-budget, diy aspects of independent filmmaking, whitewater films (portfolio piece)
label | branding, “untypography” for an “unlabel” for rebranding of budini wines, vine connections
identity and business stationery, here the orange border is both the crossbar at the capline of an uppercase z, the managing partner’s first initial, set in 72 point gill sans light, followed by a full stop, and a visual metaphor for immigration, cammisa markel, pllc (portfolio piece)
wordmark and stationery, arts council of snohomish county (portfolio piece)
wordmark and letterpress printed stationery, six other press and studio6other
wordmark and favicon designs, after sampling this concept in over a dozen typefaces, i selected trebuchet, a sans serif with circles dotting its i’s and with a little hand waving as if to say “here i am, right here in the midst of you,” national center for missing and exploited children (portfolio piece)
design philosophy #4: why not?
some people like to ask why. have you ever noticed how that is usually followed by, “do I have to?” or, “not my job”-?
i prefer to ask: why not? try it. see what happens
logo | slogan, broken island fine foods (portfolio piece)
wordmark redesign and business stationery, name change, snohomish county arts taskforce (portfolio piece)
mark | funding and social awareness campaign, national psoriasis foundation (portfolio piece)
“typehead” personal stationery, inspired by the bold personal style of bay area interior designer orlando diaz-azcuy – with his shaved head and heavy black-framed spectacles – a playful mix of gill sans and adobe garamond for a suite of personal notecards, “full stop,” selected by the designer for his juror’s award, may be customized and ordered at minted.com
mark | branding campaign, dating service focusing on the psychology of human behavior, dba at last (portfolio piece)
business card redesign, emphasizing paper quality; type impression; bright, playful colors; and small press runs, six other press
design philosophy #56: try what you thought you would never do
do something you ordinarily would not. you can come back to the first idea later. if you still want to
“namedrop” suite of personal notecards for an interior designer specializing in clients with modern and postmodern art collections (portfolio piece)
hr database portfolio, designed to the specifications of the academic hr database
electronic holiday card, center for social innovation, graduate school of business, stanford university
“milk for free” save the date, for all those backyard bbqs; for all those dysfunctional family dinners; for aunt gladys, who really means well; for your best buddy steve, who hasn’t had any fun in a really long time; for your dear friend linda, who watches way too much shopping network in your opinion; for all those invites to corporate functions addressed to “and significant other,” for the couple who has been together long enough to have acquired a sense of humor (portfolio piece)
graduation announcement, letterpress printed personal stationery
poster, both print and digital versions, bookbinding workshop
design philosophy #9: i don’t believe in talent
talent conveniently ignores years of training and hours of hard work. the only difference between “good design” and “bad design” is time.
fuck talent
“he said, she said” save the date, definitely not your mother’s save-the-date. but it’s not 1975, and who wants mom’s std, anyway? you know how, when two people are talking, and he is saying one thing, and she is saying another, and their speech is overlapping, and sometimes it seems like they come from two different planets, and other times it’s as if they can read each others’ minds? yeah, like that (portfolio piece)
poster, palouse short film festival, palouse arts council
poster and postcard, letterpress printed wood type, here used as imagery, combined with digital layout, for a series of typesetting and letterpress printing workshops, self-promotion
“fall in love” save the date, for a fall wedding, combines the deep violet of an autumn twilight, the complementary gold of a wedding band, and the motion of love itself – or at least its typographic representation (portfolio piece)
“markmaking” save the date, minimal mark with charcoal against a rough surface for a wedding between an artist and an art lover, to be held at a contemporary art museum (portfolio piece)
“pomo shift” save the date, the shift might represent the shift between any two: art and photography, modern and postmodern, theory and practice, bride and groom – in a sense, the time of engagement is that moment of shift itself, how apropos for a save-the-date card for a wedding between two contemporary art lovers (portfolio piece)
design philosophy #11: begin with where you are
start from where you are. i mean, how can you start from someplace that you are not? then work your way out in concentric circles from there
birth announcements (portfolio pieces)
holiday card, combining the technology of two different centuries: wood type letterpress printed, then scanned and paired with photoshop filters, digital type, and some non-traditional reds and greens for the best of both christmases (portfolio piece)
“ski bums” save the date, save the date for a winter wedding: bring on the cocoa, the baileys, and the fireplace (portfolio piece)
holiday card, tongue-in-cheek greetings of the season (portfolio piece)
holiday card, my copywriting was awarded editors’ pick and available for customization and ordering from minted.com
page layout, even a grading rubric might be a design problem, here a visual grading system encourages college students to think critically about the privileging of alphanumeric systems (full disclosure, i borrowed this concept from one of my college painting profs, though his rubber stamps were different from mine)
art direction, nine stories, front cover and spine for coffee table edition of salinger’s work, designer heidi miller (student work)
art direction, nine stories, book front, spine, back cover, and interior spread, designer alexis roizen (student work)
art direction, bfa show poster (student work), designer sean noyce, illustrator jason ablett, screen printed by erika ledbetter with supervision from justin diggle
art direction, poster advertising a fictive guest lecture after a designer selected from class readings, designer chance munns (student work)
art direction, logotype, mark combining icon and letter, designer chance munns (student work)
art direction, catcher in the rye, front cover and spine for coffee table edition of salinger’s work, designer heidi miller (student work)
Photodocumentation You Have Seen Me series, Ragdoll series, Lolita, Girl, Pale Girl, Girl Laughing, Rich Girl, Negative Norma, Pink Pillbox Hat, and Artist courtesy Patrick J. Finerty, Jr., and photodocumentation Body in the Desert, Desert in the Body, and Golden Plates series courtesy Luis Guerrero.
Grateful acknowledgment also to my former students, for sharing with me not just their work, but also their teaching and learning.
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