The What:

serve is a Discord management bot that is currently under development by a international team of designers, web developers and programmers that are volunteering their time to develop it. I was asked to help with the UI and branding design in late 2017, and have been working on many minor elements in my free time.

Recently, I have been making web UI mockups for a metrics tracker for the web interface portion of the bot. Neither Discord nor any bots have a user-friendly metrics system that server owners can utilize, so I feel that having a good and comprehensive metrics feature is something that many server administrators may welcome.

serve is currently in private pre-alpha testing. Once it becomes public I will update this page.

The How:

In creating the dashboard, I recognized that admins would want to see in a quick and easy way the most important bits of information in a clear and direct manner, and if they needed to better understand anything they would then go to a specific page. So I threw up the most useful and most general information in a clear and easy to read way, using bright colors to distinguish data from overall dark tone of the page. While the majority of the colors are meaningless, I used the orange and red only in places where the statistics could be a negative or nearly negative value to the admin.

The What:

The Vermont Animation Festival is an annual festival hosted by Lyndon State College and Catamount Arts for both local and traveling animators to filmmakers to show their work. The festival takes place late in the fall in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. I was approached originally in 2015 to design a logo for the festival, and then asked in late 2017 to work on a full brand design based on the logo.

The Why:

The logo works to represent the concept of animation, motion, and change by taking three abstract leaf shapes in the process of transformation not just through their motion from one side of the logo to the other, but also by the changing of colors from a healthy and young green to a terminal orange-red. The soft forms and playful colors are contrasted by bold and modern logo type.

When producing a monochromatic version of the logo, I had to create a version that was still recognizable without the color or opacity that is so powerful in the original version. This was done with two small cut-outs that give the impression of separation between the leaves. While the monochromatic logo should be used only when necessary, it still faithfully carries the brand identity of the original.

One unique request was an award “badge” that the festival could pass to featured films and award winners to place on media. I took the leaf forms and used them to create a unique twist to a common trend.

The What:

Simply Spice was based off an idea presented in an XKCD comic in which a simple and minimalist package design would stand out among flashy and highly-detailed package design that is all so common in the industry. I created a conceptual brand based off this idea that was all about simple ingredients and no hidden garbage.

The Why:

Using simple colors that accentuate the spices within, and bold yet neutral typography that said exactly what it was without adding any flair, I made a set of very utility-based jar labels that granted a large amount of open glass space for a customer to inspect the contents easily. Furthermore, I added a label for the lid, allowing the customer to store their spice jars at any angle.

The What:

While working at Lyndon State College’s Office of Communications and Marketing, I was tasked with the creation of a rack-card that would advertise our new combined institution that we were in the process of re-branding ourselves into, Northern Vermont University. This would be a condensed version of our view-book, which was a magazine sized booklet that covered everything there was to say about the NVU experience while showcasing brilliant photography of the campuses and surrounding region.

THE HOW:

While following NVU brand guidelines, which was still in a state of flux at the time of creation, I created something that would tell a story in the order in which a reader interacted with it. First of all, it would display the programs of study available at each campus, which to many potential students is a make-or-break factor for a college. If they don’t teach what I want to learn, there is no point in looking further. If they are interested, they can then learn about the things to do both on campus and off campus, featuring photography showing impressive buildings to study in and amazing mountain ranges to explore. Finally, on the last panel, a breakdown of costs and related information, shown only after the reader sees all the other information.

The what:

The Lyndon Cultural Festival is a yearly event in which a week of cultural programming is offered around campus featuring a wide range of topics and activities.

The Why

Knowing that the poster would need to hold a lot of information, and wanting to avoid the trend of other years in which multiple pieces of paper would be taped together, I decided to keep graphics minimal and in the background. I choose a picture of people casting off paper balloons to link into the cultural theme, and re-colored it. I then added a contrasting color to the font to stand out from it.

The What:

Gasp is a premium infant and toddler clothing and supply retailer. They wanted a full brand that accurately represented their values of premium quality, as well as blissful and nurturing sleep. However, they wanted to avoid anything similar to brands like Pampers and Huggies.

I lead a team of designers to create this brand and it’s branding manual. In addition to being a team leader, I created the original
logo design, stationary, and wrote the branding manual.

The Why:

For the logo to convey the feeling of a premium product while keeping a soft touch, I used a slim and narrow typeface cast in a royal purple, and I gave the lettering plenty of space to breath. I then cradled the type in a slim yellow moon, with the stem of the “h” aligning with the tips of the moon.

The branding manual needed firm language that was forward thinking of any and all possible use or misuse of the brand. Furthermore, the design of the manual itself needed to be a prime example of the brand in action. Premium colors, and space for content to breath were key here.

The full manual can be found here.

The What:

This logo design came from a two-week long design competition hosted on a public art and design Discord server. While I have lost the original prompt, it went a little something like this:

Gasp is an architectural design agency focused around environmentally sustainable and conscious urban development, with a goal of getting organic plant life back into the concrete jungle. They want a logo that speaks not only to their core values but also to the concept of the word Gasp.

After being a runner up in the contest, I followed up by making other related branding materials.

The Why:

When I started working on the logo design, I thought a lot about what it meant to live in nature. One of the first things I thought about were tree-houses, like a truly spectacular one from something like The Swiss

Family Robinson or Codename: Kids Next Door. I then took that concept and abstracted it further, thinking about what a literal tree-house would be like. (Perhaps something carved into a mighty Sierran Redwood?) And with that, I had a concept for the iconography of the logo.

The logo-type was pretty straight-forward. I wanted something modern to match with the tree-house, and I also wanted it to be open to the air. Sansation proved to be the perfect font for my needs.

When making the letterhead for the company, I also wanted to reflect their morals in a practical way. To achieve this, I used a very minimal header and gave wide margins for the type to minimize the need for multiple pages. Along with a note at the bottom to encourage recycling of documents, this would be the most echo-friendly letterhead I could develop. However, to make it painfully clear the origin of the letterhead even from a distance, I placed a faint yet large watermark on the side of the page.

The What:

Marakzoya is a biotech research and development think tank that is focused on extending the human lifespan and increasing long-term quality of life. Markozoya (μακροζωία) is greek for “long life” as the group is located in Greece. However, to appeal to an international audience, they wanted a english-centric rebrand.

This was a conceptual project, in which I wanted to focus on using subtle details to enhance a design.

The How:

I first looked for a good and modern font with minimal serifs that had multi-lingual support. I then took the phonetic pronunciation “Markozoya” and added greek characters that appeared similar to english ones, allowing for a direct link between the english-readable name to the greek origin.

For the iconography I added a two-tone heart, with harsh edges at the top to link to the logotype, while featuring a subtle curve at the bottom to relate to the softness and frailty of the human condition.

The What:

Matt Peake is a character from the gaming and comedy YouTube channel FunHaus. With all the loud, excited, and off the wall comics on the channel, Matt Peake is the ultimate no-nonsense straight man with a never ending deadpan to balance out the cast with his simple desire to “get back to work.” The fanbase took a liking to him for some reason, and decided to hail him as some kind of hero, often posting in forums and livestreams a pair of slashes to symbolize a mountain’s peak, as a play on his last name. I decided I must elevate him further.

THE HOW:

Adopting both the FunHaus branding colors and a soviet-style propaganda look, I made a series of three semi-connected posters depicting Matt Peake as some kind of Stalin-esque leader. The first poster is a call to arms, the second serves to remind the followers of Peake the importance hard work, and the third just bares his double-slash-mark symbol.