DISCLAIMER / HELLO
Zach Goodwin is Creative Director at iStrategyLabs, a full-service digital agency with offices in DC, New York and San Francisco. Crafty Mice Design is Zach’s adorably small design boutique. While iStrategyLabs builds everything from multi-platform marketing campaigns to iPhone applications for Fortune 100 brands, Crafty Mice is devoted to making weird, one-off things, like hand-made posters, custom illustrations, and labor-intensive, lovingly-rendered identity work.
RECENT WORK - HOT OFF THE PRESS!
BIBA iPHONE BACKGROUND
Because every event deserves its own iPhone background, I whipped up a little something for BIBA. Although it was made with BIBA in mind, it’s branding free and really just shows some DC love. To use it, download the image. Next, with your iPhone connected to your computer, browse for the folder that holds your iPhone images. Select the image and update you iPhone. Once the image has been transfered to you phone, find it in your photo albums, and set the image to wallpaper. Within moments, you’ll have a (comically bright) iPhone background to demonstrate your DC pride.
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ILLUSTRATION FOR FORTUNE 100 BRAND
This iStrategyLabs project was essentially a dream come true: illustrate for a major (major!) player in the computing world — and with very limited creative constraints. For the moment, I’m going to leave this Fortune 100 brand unnamed, as the final product is still under wraps, but I’ll share a few illustrations that didn’t make it to the final round (but that I thought we’re pretty neat). I created all of these using a combination of hand drawing, PhotoShop and Illustrator (in case you were curious).
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NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC / DESTINATION DC CAMPAIGN
Last year, iStrategyLabs was asked by National Geographic and DestinationDC — an organization devoted to marketing Washington, DC as a tourist destination — to help build excitement for National Geographic’s newest museum exhibit: for the first time ever, the thousand-year old terra cotta warriors discovered in China were going to be on display in the United States. To generate buzz, iStrategyLabs distributed 800 replicas of the original terra cotta statues throughout public places in New York, Philly, Baltimore and even DC. Each figure had an attached tag that invited the lucky few who spotted one to keep the statue and enter for a chance to win an all-expenses paid trip to see the exhibit.
I handled all of the design for the campaign, including miniature tags placed around each figure, flier’s hyping the campaign and a small microsite where those who found the statues could determine if they had one a free trip to DC.
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JACOBS KOLTON IDENTITY & PRINT COLLATERAL
The Chicago-based law firm approached me to re-design the firm’s identity to reflect the addition of a new partner in March 2010. We began with a new color scheme, typeface and treatment of the firms principal mark. Next, we applied the new work to a full slate of print collateral, including: letterhead, announcements, business cards, envelopes, personal notecards, labels. Thanks to some great work from DigiLink Printers in Northern Virginia, we were able to create a registered emboss out of the image of the Assyrian bull that is central to the firm’s identity. That allowed us to add some very elegant embossing to the letterhead, business cards and notecards for a still-reasonable price.
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ROOT ORANGE IDENTITY
Root Orange, a local DC-start up, makes it possible for businesses across the country to share the same prime URL. For instance, many, many lawyers would like to use www.attorney.com. Root Orange makes that possible by dividing up URLs by geographic area, so a lawyer in San Francisco and a lawyer in Chicago, for example, can both use the same URL. It struck me as a great idea from the first time I heard it — and some big media players have recently agreed. The Washington Post wrote this article about founders Camilo and Frank, and Mashable wrote this glowing review.
I designed the identity seen here. Click ‘See more images’ to see some of the other proposed logos.
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SANDISK WEB TOOL
This iStrategyLabs project was designed to enable vendors to help their customers select the ideal SanDisk memory card for their purposes. It’s basically a nicely skinned database that helps a customer sift through the sometimes overwhelming number of options — and sift through those options either in-store or on the web. From a design perspective, it was a straightforward project. SanDisk has such a tight, well-defined brand, that there wasn’t much mystery about how this tool should look. Zvi Band handled the development — like a rockstar — as always.
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NSCS HOMEPAGE REDESIGN
NSCS came to iStrategyLabs for a redesign of the their homepage. They had a strong brand, a great look-and-feel, and literally hundreds of thousands of members, but their website didn’t match the organization’s essence. They were in search of a look that reflected their seriousness of purpose and commitment to students and scholarship. I created a heavily textured landing page that aimed to match elegance and gravitas with a student-friendly design. Our design work was limited to the homepage itself — the interior of the site is the work of the fine folks at FoamCube. As always, Zvi Band made the coding magic happen. (And, yes, that’s a picture of me, used as an example, on the comp. I didn’t make it to the live site, thankfully.)
You can see the website live and in action at www.nscs.org.
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THE McGLAMERY LAW FIRM IDENTITY / WEB DESIGN
This iStrategyLabs project began about three months ago with a total redesign of the firm brand. Once we had an agreed upon design that reflected the firm’s progressive ethics and specialty in green-related real estate practices, we started comping the site. Working closely with Keith McGlamery, the firm’s founder, we crafted four key messages — which are presented in the rotating slides on the homepage — and site copy. We also staged a photoshoot to capture Keith in his most photogenic element. All in all, a great project. Click on “See More” to see a high-res image.
You can see the site at www.mcglamerylaw.com.
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DIGITAL CAPITAL WEEK IDENTITY
Later this week, Peter Corbett and the iStrategyLabs’ family will be officially announcing Digital Capital Week 2010, which will be a 10-day tech extravaganza in the nation’s capital. I’m not going to spoil anything, but just know that it will be a huge event in June 2010 that will bring together some of DC’s most influential thinkers. Because iStrategyLabs was essentially its own client on this project, I had pretty much total creative freedom. I developed the identity, and Zvi Band I built a WordPress site to act as the central hub for all things DCW. (The website hasn’t launched yet…but soon!) All in all, our main goal was to design an identity that was cool enough to warrant printing stickers. If you click “See More” you can check out some of the logos that didn’t get selected.
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SHARE OUR STRENGTH ANIMATION
Share Our Strength, the nation’s leading non-profit which advocates for childhood hunger issues, came to us looking for a way to share their message in a highly visual, web-friendly fashion. We suggested a short animation that would use compelling music, copy and design to tell their story in a shareable way. The final product was an 2-minute long, HD-resolution After Effects animation. I was responsible for all copy, design and art direction. We had the music composed for the piece by Chicago-based musicians, Richard Thies and Nick Ross. The extremely talented Brock Boyts handled all After Effects work. Since releasing the animation, it’s been seen by over 8,000 people. iStrategyLabs was just awarded an ADDY (a national advertising prize) for our work on the animation.
Watch the animation by clicking here.
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AMERICAN DIABETES ASSOCIATION WIDGET
The American Diabetes Association came to iStrategyLabs a few months ago to create a shareable web application to support their Stop Diabetes campaign. We built them a widget that could both play video and engage users in a multi-question quiz to raise awareness about diabetes. Zvi Band handled all the programming as usual. We used the Clearspring network to distribute the widget. In total, the widget has been viewed more than 200,000 times since launch.
You can check out the widget here.
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MINDS IN THE CLOUD / IDENTITY AND WEB DESIGN
Just this month, iStrategyLabs launched Minds in the Cloud, a campaign we created for Microsoft, Intel and FedScoop. I was responsible to creating the branding, the web design and the associated animation (which is featured in a separate post). Thanks to some truly fantastic clients, and the indomitable Zvi Band, we were able to go from concept to fully functioning website in just about three weeks.
You can check out the website at www.mindsinthecloud.org.
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BIBA BRANDING AND WEB DESIGN
If there’s one thing that iStrategyLabs loves doing, it’s throwing events. Especially events that bring DC’s diverse community of technologists, strategists, and creatives together. Recently, iStrategyLabs put on BIBA — or Big Ideas, Big Action — to do just that. I handled the branding and all associated collateral for the event, and designed the website (development as always was expertly handled by the one and only Zvi Band). You can check out images from the event and collateral by clicking “See More Images” below.
The website we built is viewable at www.gobiba.org.
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CAPITAL AREA FOOD BANK WEB DESIGN
iStrategyLabs re-designed this website for the DC-area-based food bank in 2009. Although they had a website before we took on the project, it hadn’t been updated in many, many years, and it was in need to a full overhaul. We designed the site around a ‘harvest’ color scheme which they felt reflected their warm and approachable identity. We used some beautiful Getty Photograpy as well as some shot by local CAFB volunteers. The site is built on the WordPress platform, making it extremely social-friendly and easily updateable. iStrategyLabs also created a 30-second animation featured on the website (which is covered in another post).
You can visit the website at www.capitalareafoodbank.org.
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BLOOM IDENTITY AND PRINT COLLATERAL
This is an ancient piece, but still worth sharing. In 2007, Jeffrey Bornstein (@jeffreybo), Peter Corbett (iStrategyLabs‘ CEO and vision-quest guide) and I created Bloom during an uneventful day in July. The idea was that Bloom could help create content worth reading for corporate websites throughout the web — with an emphasis placed on daily content creation in the form of blogs posts and video. In the end, we abandoned the Bloom branding, but the project was a worthwhile one as it helped refine iStrategyLabs’ content creation practices and business.
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URBAN ANTELOPES WEB DESIGN
This was a website I built last summer when my obsession with running reached new heights. The idea was that Urban Antelopes would be a running club based in Columbia Heights. In reality, I never got more than two people to run with me. But it was still fun to build. Unlike most of my web projects, I handled the coding instead of just the design (I hadn’t yet met the gifted Zvi Band), so it doesn’t play well in all browsers. And there’s barely any content. But I still think it looks pretty cool.
Check it out at www.urbanantelopes.com.
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PROJECT ULTRA POSTER / THE DOUBLE DOOR SHOW
Project ULTRA, the Chicago-based indie rock band, make some consistently great music. When they have a big show in Chicago (my hometown), I occasionally make a poster for them. This poster was made in advance of their show at the Double Door in 2008. I had just finished designing their CD cover, and had some left over elements that I hadn’t used on the cover — including those starts that I drew with a Sharpie and the clouds I cut out of paper at two in the morning. I mashed it all together and, presto, I had a poster. These have never been professionally printed or sold. But someday I’d love to see this 18 x 24 inches.
You can hear Project ULTRA at www.myspace.com/projectultraband.
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FANGAMB ANIMATION
This iStrategyLabs project was a lot of fun to put together. FanGamb came to us looking to create a short animation to explain their product to possible investors and, of course, visitors to their site. Their target audience (not counting investors) was 18-22 year old beer-drinking, football-watching college students. It was a demographic I felt pretty confident I knew. In the end, I handled all copy writing, design, music selection and art direction. As always, Brock Boyts killed the After Effects work.
You can watch the animation at www.fangamb.com (a site that iSL did not design).
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PETE & J POSTER / MERCURY LOUNGE SHOW
I’ve previously written that I am big fans of Brooklyn-based Harper Blynn (who recently released an album on Baby Jackal Records entitled “Loneliest Generation). What I may not have mentioned is that Harper Blynn used to be known as Pete and J. Back when they were Pete and J, they tapped me to design a poster for their show at the Mercury Lounge in New York City. We’ve been batting around the idea of having a little run of this poster silk screened, so send me an email if you’d be interested in ordering a print.
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ROSS ADVISORS, LLC IDENTITY
I created this identity for Chicago-based consultants, Ross Advisors, LLC. The company helps streamline shipping practices of major companies, and they wanted an identity that reflected the centerpiece of their business: boxes. They actually chose an identity other than the ones I’m showing here, but these are my favorites.
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CAPITAL AREA FOOD BANK ANIMATION
This iStrategyLabs project was done in concert with the web redesign last year. Much like the SOS animation, Capital Area Food Bank wanted an easily shareable, highly visual way of communicating their message. The animation was designed to be featured on the very front of the homepage, so we also wanted it to be shorter than many of our animations. In total, this animation was just 30 seconds long. I handled all design, copy and art directi0n. The remarkable Brock Boyts did the After Effects magic.
You can see the animation on the website or here on YouTube.
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PETE AND J POSTER / BOWERY BALLROOM SHOW
Like I’ve said a bunch, I’m pretty into making posters. Especially for bands I love. For this poster, I started by making vectors out of an etching of two old-timey-looking gents and then started working on the background. This poster has, unfortunately, never been silk-screened — it’s pretty much only lived digitally — but I have a plan to do a small run of these.
You can check out the band at: www.myspace.com/harperblynn
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HOLIDAY IN THE HEIGHTS POSTER
Every now and again — by which I mean pretty much all the time — I make something just because I really like to make things. This is particularly true of posters. There’s really nothing I enjoy more that a fastidiously crafted poster. To make this poster, I created a still life composed of (full) PBR cans, actual candy canes (of which I ate many), and wrapping paper and ribbon purchased from Target. Next, I took out my fancy camera, and took a photo of my still life while standing on my desk. After I had the basic background, I scuffed it up a little bit and started working on the type. All in all, it took way too long. But a fun way to spend the afternoon.
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WE LIVE IN PUBLIC WIDGET
Ondi Timoner, the award-winning documentary filmmaker, approached iStrategyLabs for help with creating a widget to advertise her newest movie, We Live in Public (which was well received at Sundance in 2009). Zvi Band handled the Flash work — which included streaming video directly into the widget — and I handled all design and art direction. We distributed the widget through the Clearspring network, and it has since been seen nearly 40,000 times.
It’s also a genuinely awesome movie — I highly recommend you check it out. Here’s a brief summary of the plot from Ondi’s IMDB bio: “On the 40th anniversary of the Internet, WE LIVE IN PUBLIC tells the story of the effect the web is having on our society as seen through the eyes of “the greatest Internet pioneer you’ve never heard of”, visionary Josh Harris. Award-winning director, Ondi Timoner (“DIG!”), documented his tumultuous life for more than a decade, to create a riveting, cautionary tale of what to expect as the virtual world inevitably takes control of our lives.”
You can see and share the widget we designed and built here.
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MINDS IN THE CLOUD ANIMATION
As part of the campaign that iStrategyLabs created for Microsoft and Intel for Minds in the Cloud, I designed a short, introduction animation. Working with the esteemed Brock Boyts, we made a eye-catching (and somewhat trippy) 20-second animation that proceeded all of the HD video content that Peter Corbett produced for the campaign. In the end, the creative for the web design was so distinctive that translating it to an animation was an easy (and seriously fun) process. Brock and I storyboarded, designed and animated the piece in under three weeks.
See the animation at www.mindsinthecloud.org.
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HARPER BLYNN POSTER / BOWERY BALLROOM SHOW
Harper Blynn, the Brooklyn-based rock band, is far and away my favorite band that I know on a first-name basis. While I’m a little biased, I can tell you with out any equivocation that they put on one of the most technically astounding live shows I’ve ever heard. They really play rock and roll with an exactitude that’s rare in the indie-rock world. They also write some incredible, melody-driven songs. When they asked me to create a poster for their big show at the Bowery Ballroom in NYC — which is pretty much the indie-rock equivalent of Madison Square Garden — I obviously jumped at the chance. The poster itself is composed of some vintage photography and some hand-scanned typography from a wood type collection. We’re having a run of these printed for sale at their shows, so look out for the band if you want one.
You should check them out at www.myspace.com/harperblynn.
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PROJECT ULTRA IDENTITY & STAMP
This piece was part of a larger project for Chicago-based indie rock band, Project ULTRA. They needed an identity — in advance of the release of their first EP — and they needed the identity applied to a few pieces of collateral. One of the most fun parts was creating this: a design for a custom-made stamp which they had laser cut. Definitely the only stamp I’ve ever designed.
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SNOW DAY 2010 POSTER
I can’t think of an event that doesn’t deserve it’s own poster. To celebrate the ridiculous torrent of snow that DC received in February — including literally 20+ inches over the span of a single night — I whipped up a little poster. And then we got some friend together, drank a lot and went sledding. Pretty much the best day ever. For those who are interested, the poster was also an opportunity to use some sweet new fonts from House Industries, one of my favorite foundaries for hand-rendered-looking type. You can snag some of their (ridiculously expensive) fonts here.
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JEFFREY BORNSTEIN IDENTITY / BUSINESS CARDS
Jeffrey Bornstein, recent graduate from Georgetown University’s graduate school and a member of the iStrategyLabs family, needed a personal brand and business cards to go with it. He was looking for something versatile, modern and bold. I had just finished watching the documentary Helvetica — a film about the world’s most famous sans serif typeface created by Swiss typeface designer Max Miedinger in 1957 — and I was dying to make something that reflected 1950s modernism. The cards were offset printed by ABC Imaging in Washington, DC.
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BEN’S CHILI BOWL CONTEST SITE
If you’ve lived in DC for more than 12 minutes — or even just visited — you’ve likely been to Ben’s Chili Bowl. It is a delicious piece of DC history that has served all manner of celebrities — most famously, President Obama. Since everyone has taken iStrategyLabs’ lead in the wake of Apps for Democracy, we thought it would be fun to hold a slightly more light-hearted contest: Apps for Ben’s Chili Bowl. The concept: get some of the city’s best developers to build a mobile app related to Ben’s Chili Bowl; choose a winner; make the winner famous by putting their picture on the wall. Simple, elegant and awesome.
We built the site in about 8 hours. Check it out here: http://apps4bens.com.
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COMMUNICLIQUE IDENTITY / COLLATERAL
In 2008, iStrategyLabs oversaw the redesign of CommuniClique, a VA-based telecom company. I handled the branding, which included the illustration of those adorable monkeys. I worked on a few hand-drawn versions, but the client eventually selected the Adobe Illustrator-rendered version. The company has since changed their name to Speek — but they’ve kept the monkey.