10th Avenue Productions
Chuck from 10th Avenue Productions recently contacted me about attempting a redesign for a website for their client. He had contacted other designers as well and was going to present our work together to the client, the design the client liked best got the gig. That was me. So now I’m working on an on-going freelance project for the Southwest Center for Law and Policy via 10th Avenue Productions. SWCLAP’s clients typically have dial-up connections and are from an older generation so my initial redesign isn’t going to be implemented entirely as it’s a bit too flashy for dial-up. Oh well. I’ll keep you posted as more updates roll in. Here’s the redesign I came up with for the win:
Optive Marketing
My father (R.I.P) used to run a company called Optive Marketing. He dealt primarily with licensing, dealing with musicians and their marketing collateral i.e. t-shirts, posters, hats, etc. One day he acquired a license for The Kinks and needed a bunch of old T-shirt designs, that were created long before the advent of computer technology, re-created in vector format for scaling and printing.
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I couldn’t find the originals for these two:
Ionfaction
Jarryd Schmidt is a friend of mine who moved to Los Angeles and started a promotion company called Ionfaction. I developed his brand identity to reflect the stylings of his specifications as well as the trends in promotional agencies at the time. This is what I came up with for his logo and business card:
Jarryd eventually organized a show at The Lounge in Minneapolis. He needed a poster for it and this is what I came up with:
The poster incorporates my photograph for a backdrop, and I created smooth vector imagery for the rest of the content.
SGA Group Inc.
After working with Graham Sones with Extreme Playgroundz, Graham brought me on as a freelancer to design his brand identity for SGA Group Inc. Working with Graham over a course of about a month we narrowed it down to something that would reflect professionalism, and maintain a color scheme relative to landscaping. Here is the revision process for his business card beginning to end:
Initial Attempt
He wasn’t digging that look so I switched it up.
Likes the layout but not the colors.
Almost…
Boom! There we have it, the back of the card.
The front was a bit easier:
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And that’s that!
Extreme Playgroundz
Extreme Playgroundz is what I would consider my first freelance gig. Now, it didn’t pay well (or at all) but it presented an opportunity to display my skills and be a part of something very, very cool. My buddy Jeff, a snowboarder, one day decided that the midwest had fallen very far behind when it came to board park design in comparison to resorts out west as well as out east.
I snapped this photo of Jeff on the bunny hill which is the only groomed slope at Telemark.
I got a better angle on this one. Get some Jeff!
Being a snowboarder myself, I agreed with his position as I’d seen the footage coming out of these resorts and how awesome their board parks were. Jeff is the owner of a local landscaping company and he asked a few of his colleagues and friends if they’d be interested in hopping on the EP train. He recruited Graham Sones; a Landscape Architect, Pip Longley; a Construction Contractor, and myself. Somehow Jeff managed to get in touch with the owner of Telemark Resort in Cable, Wisconsin.
Telemark is a ski hill that has been out of operation for a while now, although, 20 years ago, it was booming with neon colored skiiers. Telemark still has a huge cross-country skiing community and is home to the American Birkebeiner, one of the largest annual cross-country ski competitions in the nation. So with high hopes we rolled out to Cable to meet with the owner of the Telemark Lodge and propose a business plan that would turn Telemark into the go-to destination for snowboarders in the midwest. I had devised a logo and brand identity which i felt was appropriate for the snowboarding scene and had these flyers to go with our presentation: 
As you can see the EP logo is meant to reflect a ramp or jump structure. Along with these flyers we also had a trail-map created by Graham which I modified, unfortunately I cannot find the final version but here’s an initial draft: eptrailmap. We also had posters as well:
Jeff had talked with chairlift manufacturers, created quotes, and devised drafts for rails, boxes, and jumps, but ultimately the owner decided to focus on cross-country skiing and did not want to invest in our project. All in all, it was a great experience and Extreme Playgroundz LLC is still waiting for another chance at becoming the lead board-park designers in the midwest.
