In working with a variety of folks, you start to realize that everyone has a different level of priority they assign to printed material. Sometimes that level changes with the amount of exposure one gets, all I need is to be stuck without cards once. As a designer, that is not just professionally embarrassing, but a deal-breaker in some situations. Allegheny Image Factory is basically a one-horse business, Feast of the Seven Fishes, and are constantly in need of small things here and there, which is great for me. (more…)

This is a gallery of the fine Jewelry Photography that I have been recently created for our family business. I have the great fortune to be surrounded by beautiful antique and contemporary pieces, so I try to take every opportunity to photograph them. These pieces are becoming part of the Anderson’s Corner Web Site as well as a few mail pieces for the Holiday season. I am constantly taking new Jewelry Photographs, hopefully I will be adding more soon.

After years of dodging web design and focusing on print design, my wife and I gave up on Charleston and moved to my hometown. What does that have to do with web design? Well, my family business is Jewelry & Gifts. Time and again my Mother has asked me to build a viable, interesting website for the business. As we are in Romney now, I thought it would be a good time to give it some attention. Web design is like quicksilver, always moving, changing, and very hard to nail down. There are some constants like CSS, and there are some waypoints like A List Apart, so the basics were pretty clear. 3 books and constant printing of site after site and I felt I was ready to get started. (more…)

The Book ’n’ Bean is one of those trendy, indie coffee shops that hosts an open mic once a week where postmodern angst flows like wine. I miss that place so much. I was working at a sign business when the owners needed a new sign in front of the business. I was more than happy to not only develop a highly visible identity, but provide a full suite of identity materials. A suite that once delivered, was adapted by the staff as Stamps, Stickers and a host of other improvised identity pieces.

This is one of those projects that I like coming back to with fresh ideas. This flier was one of those, just to help out a bit. All of the art is original and my creation using Adobe Illustrator. It was inspired by both the air brush poster art of the Object Poster and a nod to Movietone news graphics. There has been a recent revival of this type of work in the Gevalia advertising in posters and magazines. I think it is a response to the complexity of much modern design, using abstraction to simplify and elucidate the message.

The Living & the Dead is a Graphic Novel that was written by Bob Tinnell and Todd Livingston and was Illustrated By Micah Farritor. At the request of Bob, I developed the logo, the look and feel based on Victorian Horror paperback cover styles. The Cover art was fantastic to work with and all I had to do was get out of the way.

I was responsible for the interior design, including using pieces of art created by Micah for the book. There were several pieces that I liked very much, but I used this for the primary title page. I also added an “aged” look to the pages and used an unusual typeface for the text. For most of the project, we wanted to eschew the typical comic look for something a bit more classic, while maintaining a darkness. To view the Flash trailer I designed for it, go here… and click on the “view the exclusive trailer.”

The Feast is a Collected web comic (link) that was written by Bob Tinnell. Bob was a recent client of mine when he approached me about collecting a web comic into a hardbound book. I checked out the comic and in the beginning I was taken a bit off-guard. It seemed a bit to psuedo-metal for me, but I was wrong. By the last day, I was a fan and was sorry that it was over. Bob came with a real challenge; create a book design that didn’t get in the way of the comic, but added to it and represented it with an exceptional cover. I like it anyway, the idea was to make it homey and it is. (more…)