Rodney J. Moore

Christopher Simmons, MINE San Francisco, Fall Forum 07

Despite their five years of collaboration with MINE, The Coalition of Essential Schools was considering looking for a new designer to produce the collateral for their annual education conference. However MINE sold them on the promise that they could bring a lot more thinking, innovation and artistry to the project.
Following their unique design approach, MINE imposed the artificial constraint of using only one typeface. “Because we were learning about what the type could do we became much more experimental and detail-driven than we might otherwise have been,” says Christopher Simmons, principal and creative director. “I think that meticulousness and enthusiasm shows in the work.”
Faced with the challenge of incorporating mounds of copy, Simmons says it was imperative to present the large amount of text in an interesting and engaging way. “To represent the theme of this educational conference, ‘A Principled Stand,’ we wanted to demonstrate a kind of typographic delineation,” says Simmons. “On each element of the system, the type is physically split, requiring the reader to visually engage with how the typography ‘stands’ on the page.”
“This project may not look radical to other designers, but for a non-profit organization focused on education reform it represents a pretty sharp turn form the norm.”

MINE
ART DIRECTOR: Christopher Simmons
DESIGNER: Christopher Simmons
CLIENT: The Coalition of Essential Schools
www.minesf.com



Minh Nguyen, Methodologie, Federal Home Loan Bank of Seattle Annual Report

Methodologie has been working with the Federal Home Loan Bank of Seattle for nearly 10 years on their affordable housing reports. Minh Nguyen, art director, has been designing the reports for the past six years. “They publish this report every year as a summary of the year’s projects, and to detail their involvement and contributions to affordable housing projects,” Nguyen says.
While the process of producing the report might sound simple, Nguyen says it’s not always simple in practice. “Our process is we travel to a few locations, interview all the various people involved, take as many photos as we can, and then design/​organize the book around these photos and stories when we get back into the office. Not quite that simple I guess, but almost.”
“The design isn’t all that revolutionary, but it’s a bit different in the way the photos are allowed to tell the story in a more unconventional way (less copy, more photos),” Nguyen says. “Also, the physical feel of the book (the paper, the dimensions) is more casual and less formal. I guess it is a somewhat atypical document for a banking institution.”

Methodologie
ART DIRECTOR: Minh Nguyen
DESIGNER: Minh Nguyen
CLIENT: Federal Home Loan Bank of Seattle
www.methodologie.com


Mark McDevitt, Mighty Mighty Bosstones Poster

Methane Studios was one of the artists asked to produce a limited edition poster for the Mighty Bosstones special 5-night engagement in Boston. Art director Mark McDevitt says he began by looking at previous posters for the group and decided that he needed to include some of the imagery from past concert posters. “I liked their song title "The Rascal King" and thought I could have a little fun using this as a starting point for a concept,” says McDevitt.
“The skull with the crown was actually a sketch for another band, but fit with the ‘Rascal King’ concept so I used this as well as the whiskey bottle which plays off the boozing Boston Irish and the plaid pattern which is actually based more on a Burberry pattern, but works well here,” McDevitt says. “I originally showed more detail and dimensions of the bottle, but the more I simplified it the more I liked it until I was left with the outline and just the round shape at the top of the bottle.”  
“I think what makes the poster unique is that it is both bold and simple with enough detail on the label to draw in your interest and hold your attention long enough to read the information which is the most important part anyway.”

Methane Studios
ART DIRECTOR: Mark McDevitt
DESIGNER: Mark McDevitt
CLIENT: Mighty Mighty Bosstones
www.methanestudios.com



Eloise Leigh, Chronicle Books, Urawaza

Chronicle Books of San Francisco is known for publishing some pretty off-beat books with great packaging design. Urawaza is no different. Illustrator Eloise Leigh says Urawaza combines humorous writing and illustrations with inventive, practical solutions for common lifestyle problems.
“The book needed to be easily approachable by a wide audience, and honor the Japanese origins behind the content,” says Leigh. Inspiration came from various Japanese pop-culture sources, such as magazines and TV shows, advertising, and even packaging for food or household objects that are involved in many of the urawaza tips. Since traditional Japanese book format includes a belly-band, Leigh used it to reveal graphic elements for a bolder, surprising user experience.
“The message of ‘Do Everything Better!’ is purposefully exaggerated to align with the quirky content and over-the-top silliness often found in Japanese entertainment,” Leigh says. “Because the content is linked so much to discovery and improvement per individual needs, treating the book as a how-to guide seemed most appropriate so tips could be quickly understood and referenced in list and chart layouts.
The design was a careful balancing act between hand-drawn and computerized elements, resulting in a uniquely entertaining book where both information and design are equal parts playful and enlightening.

Chronicle Books
ART DIRECTOR: Eloise Leigh
ILLUSTRATOR: Joel Holland
CLIENT: Chronicle Books
www.chroniclebooks.com

Josh Chen, Chen Design, IDA Awards Book

The International Design Awards is a new, worldwide honor that recognizes excellence across five disciplines of design: product, graphic, architecture, interior, and fashion. The awards primarily exist to recognize, celebrate and promote legendary design visionaries and to uncover emerging talent. Chen Design Associates was asked to develop the IDA’s inaugural branding and identity, which included their awards book design.
“Our work in creating the IDA catalog allows each winning project to shine, while providing a cohesive and engaging framework in which to view them and read about them,” says Chen. “Modern and relevant, the design is both broad and focused enough to appeal to a wide spectrum of designers without being alienating. The clean look and our compulsive attention to design detail bring a sophistication to the book itself that is worthy of the work featured.”
In doing so, Chen says CDA’s desire was not unlike IDA’s mission: to seek out design that motivates all of us to curiosity and has the power to elevate.

Chen Design Associates
ART DIRECTOR: Joshua Chen
CLIENT: International Design Awards
www.chendesign.com
 


David Turner, Head of Design, Turner Duckworth, Coke Aluminum

“Coca-Cola is probably the most iconic brand in the world so it was flattering to be asked to work on it,” says David Turner, head of design at Turner Duckworth. “We felt our job was one of stewardship in a way more than of expressing ourselves as designers.”
Turner says the aluminum bottles were a very early project for Coca-Cola. After Turner Duckworth submitted conceptual designs for the bottles, they were awarded the full identity project.
“I think the reason the aluminum bottle has been such a success is that all we did really was said you need red because you’re Coke and you need that beautiful logo and the one thing we’re going to do is make that logo almost too big for the package. And there’s something about that it’s a bit like when you just feel great, you just feel exuberant and that logo is almost bursting off the pack. And I think that somehow captured for everybody, it didn’t feel like marketing or any kind of pretense of anybody trying to sell anything, it was just a little bottle that was happy to be Coke.”
Turner Duckworth
ART DIRECTOR: David Turner
CLIENT: Coca-Cola
www.turnerduckworth.com


Ellen Bruss, Ellen Bruss Design, Self-promotion (CD)

Three years ago, Ellen Bruss of Ellen Bruss Design (EBD) decided to start a new holiday tradition. Instead of sending a self-promotion at the holidays, she waits until the new year to send hers. And for three years in a row, EBD has sent music. Bruss curates the music, buys it on iTunes and designs the custom packaging. The CD picks up their identity by using a palette of brown, gray and white and stripes. The typeface is Gotham, which you might recognize as the “Obama font.”
Since EBD is known for using special techniques, the piece was designed to highlight some of their capabilities. “We tend to do work that is deceptively simple, but complicated to produce, and that was the hallmark of this piece,” Bruss says. “The design looked great on the screen—the complication was in figuring out the right paper, which foil colors and the overlapping of the foils. We used letterpress, brown and silver foil for the patterns, and overlapping of the foils for some cool transparencies. The shape of '08 gave us a great pattern of circles to work with, especially when combined with the stripes from our identity palette.”

Ellen Bruss Design
ART DIRECTOR: Ellen Bruss
DESIGNER: Ellen Bruss
CLIENT: Ellen Bruss Design
www.ebd.com


Clif Stoltze, Stoltze Design, HOW Design Poster

The original poster designed by Stoltze Design for the 2007 HOW Design Conference featured blues against and orange background and was used as an insert to HOW Magazine. Stoltze also produced a limited edition numbered version that featured blue, orange, and yellow on a white background which was sold during the conference.
Princial Clifford Stoltze says the process began with the decision to use Boston as the dominant focus since the conference didn’t have a specific theme. “We used the word ‘discover’ as a allusion to both the conference experience and also to Boston’s rich history as well as it’s reputation for cutting edge research and technology development,” Stoltze says.
After the main direction was chosen from a number of different concepts, the Stoltze team of designers created and gathered scores of line art images representing Boston and what the conference had to offer.
“These line art images were pieced together in a complex mosaic using close shades of colors to add some visual interest,” says Stoltze. “The eclectic typographic treatment of the word ‘discover’ also speaks to the themes of variety and diversity, and Boston’s freedom trail was used as an armature for the different tracks the conference offers.”

Stoltze Design
ART DIRECTOR: Clifford Stoltze
CLIENT: HOW Magazine
www.stoltze.com

Victor Mingovits, Mingovits Design, Idris Kahn catalog

For the catalog that accompanied the Idris Kahn exhibition at Yvon Lambert New York, art director Victor Mingovits began by getting to know the artist. He printed out samples and tacked them up around the studio, moving them around in different arrangements. Once the show comes down, the catalog becomes the record of the exhibition so Mingovits considered how viewers encountered the work in the gallery and explored corresponding configurations for the book.
“For example, we created gatefolds for a triptych and polyptych to convey the proper sense of scale,” Mingovits says. “Since the artwork is mostly black and white, we worked with neutral tones—the warm grays of the raw book board, black binding tape on the spine, white matte foil on the cover and spine, a cement-gray uncoated paper for the essay—punctuated with rich blue accents.” 
“We bound the book using uncovered board. Trimming the edges gave us a great rough texture, and we liked the inconsistency of the material. Since book board is intended to be covered, the surface and tone of the board are irregular.”

Mingovits Design
ART DIRECTOR: Victor Mingovits
PHOTOGRAPHER: Thierry Bal, Stephen Brayne
CLIENT: Yvon Lambert New York
www.mingovits.com


Michael Ian Kaye, Mother Design, SVA Senior Library 2007

For the past seven years, the School of Visual Arts has produced an annual publication that showcases the portfolio work of graduating students. Each year, a different faculty member is assigned as creative director of the project. There is very little in the way of restrictions except for the physical dimensions of the book: it must measure seven inches by ten inches and be packaged in a slipcase.
According to the 2007 art director, senior portfolio instructor Michael Ian Kaye, that’s precisely what makes the book so challenging. “Such an open-ended brief can make any project daunting,” Kaye says. “There are 4,000 pieces of work to be considered from the portfolios of students from programs in advertising, graphic design, 3-D design, and motion graphics.”
Kaye is perhaps most proud of making the book useful and responsible. “I wanted to create a book that was understated and had a reduced environmental footprint,” says Kaye. “This led me to the idea of using a corrugated cardboard case with a cutout insert to contain loose pages held together by a D-ring binder that enables users to move pages around as they like.”

Mother Design
ART DIRECTOR: Michael Ian Kaye, Senior Portfolio Instructor & Creative Director, Mother Design
CLIENT: School of Visual Arts
www.sva.edu