Project Design & Logos
These are projects for which I designed thematic elements such as the overall color scheme/palette, the general graphic identity, or multiple formats, as well as ones in which I directed the production of consistent products.
“Roots & Branches” CD series
CD packaging (Illustrator CS3)
October–November 2009 | client: Northwest Folklife
What’s shown here is the inaugural release of Northwest Folklife’s new “Roots & Branches” series of recordings from their Folklife Festivals (held at Seattle Center each Memorial Day weekend). I produced this design in Bellingham, in conjunction with producer Kelli Faryar in Seattle, with series-long elements framing release-specific artwork and information. We were extremely fortunate to have the superb tree illustration by Nathan Goldman to use as both the kickoff art (adapted from the 2009 festival’s poster) and as the series-spanning background elements. My design for this was actually more richly colored than appears here: somehow in the printing process the spot inks used came out much more pale than was intended, so I’ve adjusted the digital thumbnail here to match. As for the rest of the design, the typeface used for the tracklists and credits wasn’t my choice, as it’s too thin-bodied to be reliably readable, but thankfully it printed crisply enough (at least in its white form, which is the hardest to align precisely in a four-ink printing).
Al Ain Wildlife Park and Resort (متنزّه العين للحياة البرية) Materials Illustrations
illustrative renderings (Photoshop CS2)
April 2009 | client: EDSA (for Jones & Jones)
Perhaps these illustrations aren’t quite appropriately categorized here, but I’m putting them on this page because it was a series of consistent renderings produced with a tricky palette under very rapid-fire circumstances. For the most part I was working on them with just one other person (usually an architect who would supply me with AutoCAD output and then discuss and refine with me the effects being implemented). We were working to some mighty tight deadlines on these, producing a series of what was initially described as a few but eventually exploded into an array of 27 illustrations, each to be printed at up to 36" width, and I was doing it all from Bellingham with colleagues in Seattle. In that sense it was an excellent example of how telecommuting can totally work…especially as I could be working on one architect’s illustration while talking through a rendering assignment with another on the phone; on-site, in person, it’s actually harder to multi-task productively than it is this way. And I am great at multitasking responsibly and with superb organization and accountability.
Azerbaijan National Zoo
draft logo
September 2007 | client: Jones & Jones
The design of this logo got to about this state before the project’s priority shifted to presenting the client (the government of Azerbaijan, via an intermediary company in London) rich simulations of a few key proposed buildings that would drive the zoo’s design. I’ve always felt disappointed that I didn’t get to return to the refinement of the logo, because although it was well on its way it still needs better color uniformity and readability; but we determined right away that although using the Azeri national colors was tacitly approved they didn’t work well for the three animal forms (tahr, jaguar, and ibex) I was using in the logo—they clashed vividly—so I shifted to a “greener” palette and was contemplating options for the text block when the project moved on, so this is effectively what was used on all the simulation boards that were presented. I’d still like to revisit this one….
E2 Beauty
logo
November 2005 | client: Elizabeth Lindquist & Elizabeth Finan
The two Elizabeths asked me to help them establish a corporate identity for a glamour/beauty-application business they were concocting jointly; we met, we doodled, we talked a lot, and we had copious libations and bitched about everything and everyone, and over a few days I provided them with some design concepts which we discussed via email. In the end they went for a form of my logo design I wasn’t thrilled with, instead of the one I thought was Just Right; I provided it and immediately erased it from my mind, so even now I’m not sure which of the “final” versions they finally went with, and as a result I’m only showing the one I preferred above all. (I know the version they chose featured a bottom eyelash which had appeared in an early draft, but I felt it weakened the design terribly.)
Balboa Park Land Use, Circulation, and Parking Study
8.5" x 11" report, 43 pages (PageMaker 6.5)
8.5" x 11" flyers + 6" x 4" postcards (FreeHand 10)
30" x 42" presentation boards + 11" x 17" handouts (Photoshop 7 & FreeHand 10)
website
October 2003 | client: City of San Diego Park & Recreation Department (for Jones & Jones)
The second White Paper produced for Jones & Jones’s Balboa Park study fairly well embodied the style of the design I had created in April for the overall project. The elements I established for the Study included reports, meeting-announcement flyers and postcards, presentation boards, and a website; the logo/crossed-rectangles structural theme was jointly developed with architect Nate Cormier. I also produced all of the conceptual site plans at this stage, alternately in Freehand 10 and Photoshop 7 as the Principal-in-Charge required different effects to be implemented. The most recent report produced for this Study, the “Preliminary Final Draft,” involved a layout of 171 pages; the design has now been converted to InDesign 2.01 format.
Tropical America Program Document, website, and plan colorization
8.5" x 11" report, 160 pages (PageMaker 6.5)
website
42" x 30" panels (PageMaker 6.5)
July 2003 | client: Miami Metrozoo (for Jones & Jones)
I designed the 160-page Program Document’s color scheme and wayfinding elements to facilitate easy navigation through the massive content. After the report was delivered to the client, I produced a website version of it, which was later transformed into a resource page to show the client Jones & Jones’s current project status and products before being retired when the project was completed; the website retained the navigation scheme of the original document.
Ice Age Floods Alternatives Study
logo, website, and visual identity
March 1999 | client: National Park Service (for Jones & Jones)
Once it was decided that the Ice Age Floods study, facilitated by Jones & Jones, should have a sort of “corporate identity” of its own to help catch the public’s attention for what might otherwise seem an academic or specialized project, I designed the logo and set the color palette and titling font which all defined the project’s public look all the way through to the final report which was delivered to the U.S. Secretary of the Interior in September of 2001. I also created the Study’s initial-phase website, which at the conclusion of the Study was replaced with a site presenting the Final Report in webpage form (which I also built). As Graphic Designer I was one of the recepients of the ASLA Honor Award for Communications the project team was given in 2001.
RST Enterprises
logo, website, and visual identity
1999 | client: Rob Thomas
My friend Rob asked me to design a corporate logo that would convey the sense of powerful remote-control centralization that a product he was developing would have. I rather liked the result, as did he.
Retailer Direct, Wizards’ Vitae, Piece of the Action, and Tap! newsletters
8.5" x 11" newsletters (QuarkXPress)
1995-1996 | client: Wizards of the Coast
In January of 1995 I was tasked by this international game publishing company’s Public Relations Director with creating an entire corporate newsletter effort, producing monthly newsletters targeting gamers, retailers, and company shareholders, and doing so as quickly as possible. I started with Retailer Direct, because there was at the time an urgent need to reassure retailers of the Magic: The Gathering™ products that the recent oversupply of product didn’t mean the end of the boom, and at the same time we wanted to establish a connection with them and give them a monthly supply of reliable news about the company and its products. From the start I wrote and edited copy, coordinated publication schedules, and (after the initial issue) did the layout for Retailer Direct, eventually producing around 15 issues during my time at Wizards.
As the initial crisis faded and time permitted, I then created the in-house monthly newsletter Wizards’ Vitae, for which I wrote much of the content and directed with great vigor. When I was at last given some actual staff to assist me in this newsletter effort, I developed two more newsletters, targetting player associations in the case of Tap! and company shareholders with Piece of the Action, in close collaboration with two new team members, and after the first issue of each I pretty much stepped back to let them run it, filling essentially an advisory role thereafter.
My biggest regret with Retailer Direct is that I wasn’t much of a graphic designer at the time and therefore didn’t have a very good masthead, so that damned ugly one stayed on the newsletter for my whole Wizards tenure.
Comments © 2009 Mark Ellis Walker, except as noted, and no claim is made to source imagery noted.