My Graphic/Web Design History » Marketing

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.

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.

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.

TRW On the Move (1999)

John — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 22:45:23 +0000

At the start of 1999 TRW was located in two separate buildings, one downtown and one in the Northgate shopping center. In October of that year, both offices moved to one location on the east side of town, occupying the first floor of a newly built, state-owned building. I was asked to create a moving announcement for publication the local paper.

I kept if fairly simple. Naturally I used the TRW Roadshow images. In my recollection, however, I seem to recall this ad having a this architectural rendering of the building fading into a real picture, one I took of the finished building from about the same angle. I’ll look for it. I may have published that image only in the employee newsletter.

FYI, we are still in the same building 10 years later.

Update: Found it…

Best Kept Secret in Helena (1999)

John — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 22:00:22 +0000

This ad, created in my second year at TRW, was the start of a move to publicize the company in the local community with some mild PR. I was able to have some fun with it and inject a bit of whimsy. It appeared in the Helena Independent Record.

Economic Impact Summary (2006)

John — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 20:42:47 +0000

Again, a rather plain design. This year they said, “Do something with children.” Make sense as we create a lot of systems that cater to the needs of children, mostly child support enforcement and welfare related.

Economic Impact Summary (2005)

John — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 20:40:18 +0000

I debated including this example because it really isn’t a design. Management said, “I don’t know, come up with something ‘techy’.” This is the photo I came up with, given my limited budget and available materials. Some times just just have to fish or cut bait.