A local food truck vendor was in need of graphics and an identity before she hit the streets. With the visual chaos that can sometimes be the urban scene, I wanted to create a disruptive system with color while allowing the graphic system to be very structured.

I’m terribly forgetful when it comes to gift purchasing. This is why I’ve opted to design and produce wedding invitations for some of those closest to me. Indeed, they are a bear when you’re in the thick of it but I’ve had the opportunity to create some nice pieces on a shoestring budget. The invite for my sister’s upcoming nuptials proved to be no different. When initially considering the project, I had a nagging feeling that the traditional A7 white envelope wasn’t the right fit… but I’d not yet determined what was. If it came down to it, I could whip together something nice, albeit removed from the characteristics that make this couple unique.

At the 11th hour, it was their love of live music that gave this invite serious wheels. It couldn’t be anything other than a show poster… screen printed with a simple and elegant image symbolizing the biggest day in their relationship up to that point. Several messages exist including the notion of an overlapping of lives. Yet they face different directions because at the end of the day, we are all unique and it’s important to be so. I’ve written about such things before. The RSVP and directions were as part of the entire poster which was printed magnificently at Southpaw Prints. It was then hand-perfed, wrapped in tissue paper to prevent off-setting, sealed with a sticker and sent out via mailing tubes. I used a custom stamp with black ink for the return address on the backside of the RSVP in lieu of paying for the hit on the backside of the poster. I wanted this piece to live on. The intent was that you could frame it and hang it long after the wedding day.

In all, it was a ton of work but well worth it. The invite tells a great story and that’s about as much as you can ask for.

My family (in a roundabout way) runs a tavern in my hometown that has been serving up food and drinks for a long long time now. Nearly 100 years. That same hometown happens to lie on Interstate 75 which makes its exits particularly valuable for chain restaurants… and as evidence would indicate makes hole-in-the-wall local joints fall to the wayside. But a few years back, the great-grandson of the guy that started it all would head home on the weekends, make up a bunch of dough and bake up some pretty extraordinary pizzas on Monday night. It was inspiring what this one contribution had accomplished so I felt compelled to mock up some t-shirts so they could put them on hangers and possibly make a little extra money in the process.

Initially, this had all the earmarks of an “opportunity” to do something for your family that ends up taking way too much time and getting the desired result is so stressful that you swear off helping anyone ever again. And then, it was different. After all, I couldn’t let them put a crappy granite lighthouse on top of my grandparents. Collaboratively with a sculptor in Logan, the final piece came together seamlessly. Aside from type limitations, there was a considerable amount of freedom in the design of the stone. So much, in fact, my final sketches were able to become reality. The overall shape suggests an infinite love. Several smaller messages exist that only family might pick up on such as the St. Christopher medallion inserted into the foot of the stone.