My Graphic/Web Design History » Graphic Design

DanEllison.com (2010)

John — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 06:27:12 +0000

Following Dan’s success in his run for City Commission, I suggested we repurpose the campaign site and continue to use it for a conduit for communicating with the citizens of Helena. The campaign site received over 36.6k unique page views between July and December ‘09. I “realigned” the design from the campaign site using the same customized theme, updated the logo, and implemented it on the new domain.

As with the campaign site I continue to manage all aspects of this site, including content creation.

Ellison For City Commission (2009)

John — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 05:20:18 +0000

When a good friend of 10 years informed me he was running for Helena City Commission, naturally I jumped at the chance to help him out. This was a quick effort and I was able to implement this site very quickly and inexpensively.

I started by designing his logo (also used on business cards, brochures and other collateral items), incorporating it into a modified stock free theme called “Fusion” that Dan and his wife Jane picked out. I formatted the content and integrated the blog with his Twitter and Facebook accounts, coaching Dan on how and when to update each. When he created a commercial for local TV, I hosted it with Vimeo and pulled that into the site as well. I’m also performed various other administrative tasks like managing the domain(s) (9 of them, all variations), email accounts (through Google Accounts), keeping Wordpress, the theme and plug-ins updated, and everything else behind the scenes having to do with the hosting (with Dreamhost.com). Nothing I did on the site required custom programming. I wanted to insure that it remained easy to update with WordPress’ automatic updating functionality for itself, the themes and the plug-ins.

The future of the site, now that he won one of the two available seats in the election, is to convert the site from WordPress to static HTML pages and keep it online as an archive of the campaign, at least while Dan serves out his term. I’ve molded this campaign web site into a new form, with new content and a new logo, at DanEllison.com.

Helena Association of Realtors® (2008)

John — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 03:51:00 +0000

Quick logo for the a local Realtor’s® association. Used on stationery and their web site (that I didn’t do).

Asian Arts Festival (2006)

John — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 23:05:29 +0000

One thing that drives me crazy is stereotypical design (I’m sure I haven’t avoided it completely). There are many martial arts and Asian design themes that have been done to death: the yin-yang symbol, the Japanese flag, Chinese dragons, etc. I pride myself on finding a fresh take on an old concept. Clean. Simple. “Less is more.” This logo and flier I designed for the event, epitomize this concept.

This was a project for a friend.

ProVira Products (2009)

John — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 22:06:11 +0000

Early 2009 my cousin contacted me about designing some labels for his cleaning products. Rather than just phone that in I started asking questions. The result is more than just some labels, it’s a unified branding strategy, starting with a logo for the Blue Crush product line.

These products are not sold to consumers directly but rather automotive dealers and detailers. They are delivered in 1, 5 and 50 gallon bottles, buckets and barrels. I wanted consistency across all the products but also wanted the end user to be able to differentiate the products at a glance, and not just via the text. Backgrounds for each label were chosen to reinforce that product’s usage.

The labels will be printed and put into use in early 2010.

Western Border Logo (2007)

John — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 01:01:20 +0000

Eventually the Radio Project expanded from Montana to Canada. This was another quicky logo. No time or budget to come up with custom flag artwork. But really there was no need to. Sometimes clip art can work. There, I said it. Still, the American flag on the left weirds me out. I probably violated some flag guidelines and this is a worse offense than burning it.

Interoperability Montana (2006)

John — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 00:47:36 +0000

Okay, I’ll admit this design is not going to win any awards but it was what the client asked for and it did end up on a buttload of shirts. I’m working on getting a picture of an actual shirt or swatch (I could swear they gave me one but I can’t find it). The only reason the logo is black and blue is the embroiderer needed a two color layout. Didn’t matter what those colors were. This way they could change the thread colors depending on what color shirt they decided to use.

Ah yes, the project. After we participated in several very successful regional radio interoperability projects around the state, there was a larger effort to in turn tie each of those regions together. Now a sheriff in Wibaux can jump on the radio and talk to a cop in Missoula. Pretty slick if you ask me. I didn’t have anything to do with the actual project besides creating this “patch” and several proposal covers and CD labels that were just too hideous to include here. The client loved them and that’s all that mattered.

Carroll College Football (2008)

John — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 23:15:15 +0000

Days before Carroll College was set to attempt to repeat their NAIA Championship from 2007 (immortalized on the cover of Sports Illustrated), Northrop Grumman was offered the opportunity to place a very special ad on the front page of the Helena Independent Record. The ad area was a narrow strip along the bottom of the page, well “below the fold.” With very short notice I had to come up with two ads, congratulating them on their win or their loss. I post both here for review and posterity. We were able to obtain photographs of the Saints in action, and with approval of the head of the athletic department, I created what you see here, including re-creating the Carroll College logo from scratch in Adobe Illustrator because a suitable version with decent resolution could not be found quickly.

Unfortunately they lost. Unfortunate for me because I liked the “win” ad better.

(click the image at left for a larger version)

Economic Impact Summary (2007)

John — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 23:07:29 +0000

Northrop Grumman in Helena publishes a summary of how our company and group of employees effects the local economy. It includes everything from education information to home remodeling dollars spent here. Most years I’ve designed a cover for the document, usually involving a theme of growth or partnership with Montana. After the purchase of TRW by Northrop Grumman in 2003 there were a more stringent set of guidelines for designing any corporate materials.

This version is my attempt to break out of the corporate design standard just a little without abandoning it completely. We are still focusing on kids as in (a) previous version(s). I will shamelessly admit my web design experience creeping in with the gradients, the oversize text elements and the reflection effect. Nothing like a little cross-pollination.

Chamber of Commerce Ad

John — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 23:00:37 +0000

Since 1998 I have created countless advertisements for local publications with public relations, community involvement and marketing in mind. This is one such ad. The copy has changed little over the years, except for the number of years. Every few years I try to redesign the ad. Before this it was the eclipse theme, “Defining the future.” At left is an example of the current theme as of this writing, with more of a focus on children and families. I’ve probably made a dozen variations on this design due to the varying size constraints in different publications. I won’t be posting all of them here.