Posted on Tuesday, Mar 22nd, 2011
Please excuse me while I rant for a moment, but this is something everyone should know. Do not use the font Papyrus. I don’t often bold text like this, but I feel this is necessary. Let me explain.
Typography is like any other skill set. It takes knowledge, experience, and a natural knack in order to master it. There are masters, and there are rookies. Now, I don’t expect the average person to know all the fashion faux pas of typography, but there is one crime that stands above the rest in my eyes and that is Papyrus. This font is used everywhere. Even if you aren’t familiar with it by name, you have surely seen it around. The problem is, people use it as a skeleton key font. More…
Tags: Design, fonts, logo, papyrus, Print
Posted in All Posts, Logos, Print Design, Tasty Eye Candy | Leave a Comment
Posted on Monday, Mar 21st, 2011
A while back, we had the honor of helping a great charity, Chains for Chains. This is such a cool charity run by a great guy. Carter Kendall started chains for chains as a way to help free women from the sex trade. If you have a few extra bucks to spare, please visit his site and help out.
Carter had shown us some examples of websites he liked, which were very well designed, hip, full screen sites. We always love when clients provide us with examples that they like. It can give us a very solid insight into what the client likes visually. We do not copy work, but it is always great for inspiration.
We knew we were going to need some high quality photos for the background of any design we came up with, and Carter was quick to respond with some amazing photos. More…
Tags: Design, development, Web, Web Design, Web Development
Posted in All Posts, Recent Work, Web Design, Web Development | Leave a Comment
Posted on Wednesday, Feb 16th, 2011
Wikimedia Commons
From time to time, I like to pick a topic I am familiar with and re-research it. It’s always good to make sure you understand things like you think you do. After all, this stuff changes faster than you can learn it, so staying up-to-date is critical. Recently, I started looking into SEO. SEO, if you aren’t familiar with the bazillion acronyms floating around the internet, is Search Engine Optimization. Basically, making sure your website fairs well in the competitive world of internet searches.
Now, we don’t tout ourselves as “SEO experts” but we do keep SEO in mind when we build our websites. There are specialists for that very thing, and they charge a pretty penny to make sure your website is at the top of a search! During my search, however, I noticed something striking. These SEO experts aren’t at the top of the searches! More…
Tags: SEO, Web Design, Web Development
Posted in All Posts, Tasty Eye Candy, Web Design, Web Development | Leave a Comment
Posted on Tuesday, Feb 15th, 2011
Jentry designed some wedding reception invitations for her friends, Mike and Kim. They decided to host their invitation a few months after the wedding. This presented a unique opportunity for Jentry because she got to photograph the wedding, and then use those photos on the invites for the reception. More…
Tags: Design, development, logo, Photography, Print
Posted in All Posts, Illustration, Logos, Print Design, Recent Work | Leave a Comment
Posted on Friday, Sep 3rd, 2010
This is a design that we did for Bad Monkey Merchandise, a t-shirt for Nathaniel Rateliff. Before starting the design, we went to Nathaniel’s website for some inspiration before starting my design. We listened to his music, then saw his mustache and BAM – we instantly knew what to do. Working around the hat and mustache element, I randomly decided to throw in some vintage feeling vines and leaves..and the weathered texture ties it all together. Enjoy!
Tags: Design, development, illustration, logo
Posted in All Posts, Illustration, Logos, Recent Work | Leave a Comment
Posted on Monday, Aug 30th, 2010
M Dryden Photography is anxious to photograph any action sport. Just look at this photo of a dirt bike rider taken deep in the Nevada Desert
Two of my biggest passions outside of web development are photography and snowboarding; it is only natural that I merged the two. Action sport photography has become an obsession of sorts for me. This is one of my hobbies. I recommend everyone keep at least one of their passions as a hobby. Too many people try to get rich off their hobbies these day. Turning all your hobbies into work is a sure way to get old fast. More…
Tags: Design, development, Photography, Web, Web Design, Web Development
Posted in All Posts, Personal Work, Recent Work, Web Design, Web Development | Leave a Comment
Posted on Saturday, Aug 28th, 2010
Bad Monkey Merchandise Home Page
We just completed building Bad Monkey’s new website! Bad Monkey is a merchandise company for clients in the music industry. It’s some really cool stuff! They get to do business with all sorts of bands from John Mayer to Kenny G! Their designers are, and I quote, “Badass”. More…
Tags: Design, development, Web, Web Design, Web Development
Posted in All Posts, Recent Work, Web Design, Web Development | Leave a Comment
Posted on Friday, Aug 27th, 2010
My friend Maurice is an incredible DJ based in Carson City, NV. He travels to Reno often to DJ at all sorts of cool night clubs. He wanted a logo that characterized him, that was cool and had a high-tech feeling. At first, he mentioned that he wanted something similar to the Voltron logo (let’s give it up for 80′s anime!!) – so I said I would try to conjure that feeling. However, it wasn’t really HIS style. So I took that high-tech feel and applied it to his own character. We ended up with something very cool, that fits into the nightclub DJ market and that ALSO matches Maurice’s personality.
Tags: Design, logo
Posted in All Posts, Logos, Recent Work | Leave a Comment
Posted on Thursday, Aug 26th, 2010
Instrument Laboratory North is a distribution company based out of San Jose, CA. They specialize in instrumentation, sales, service & engineering. They sell temperature controls and electrical components for manufacturing companies in the Western United States.
Instrument Laboratories North home page
This was an upgrade to the outdated site that ILN had before. They felt their site was lacking style, imagery, and up-to date content. We replaced their site with a site that allows clients to view and learn about products, which has had a direct impact by increasing sales.
Tags: development, Web, Web Design, Web Development
Posted in Recent Work, Web Design, Web Development | Leave a Comment
Posted on Thursday, Aug 26th, 2010
Knowhere was a really fun website to design. Knowhere is an itinerary printing company located in Santa Monica, CA. They wanted something funky…a little out of the norm for design/printing companies. Their target audience is Tour Managers and security people for touring acts (we’re talking Lady Gaga all the way to The Wiggles and back around to the Rolling Stones, here), so we knew we could create something with a little jazz and pizazz, rather than making your standard corporate-style website.
Knowhere Itineraries home page
The design process with this project was extremely fun. It started with a bus, then a city, then some swirly elements…and finally, some universe. It also started out orange and black (the colors of the logo) – but as you can see, we veered very far away from such a simple color scheme. In the end, I think this is a really cool website, aimed at helping the target audience remember what an awesome profession they are in. Can you imagine touring the world with some of these acts? What a cool gig that must be!
Tags: development, Web, Web Design, Web Development
Posted in All Posts, Recent Work, Web Design, Web Development | Leave a Comment
