LOGO
The most integral part of A Capella in initial research was absolutely its location. The Little Five Points district in Atlanta is the stronghold of the inner-perimeter bohemian culture. Along the strip are ecclectic cafes and storefronts with independent designer boutiques and small homegrown coffee houses. This corridor of Atlanta is unique because of the modernity of the city - an urban monster that seems to regenerate itself every twenty years, with very little preserved architectural history from one era to the next. Little Five is unique in that it houses some of the oldest brick shop fronts, artfully graffittied, in the entire city. Just next door is the Inman Park suburb, which calls Little Five its cultural center - filled with Victorian style bungalows that have been colorfully remodeled, some dating back to the 1890s. One thing was certain, the community and immediate neighborhood had to be kept in mind, developing an identity that spoke to the creative and thoughtful nature of store patrons while fitting elegantly in its well-established surroundings.

STATIONARY
In its pre-re-branded state, A Capella suffered from a significant lack of cohesion, especially for a small operation. One of the duties I took was to bring out the sense originality of the store and create something witty and colorful that patrons could truly associate with - while giving A Capella a solid, consistent medium to with which to communicate. However, I wanted to make the look intelligent and bring out a sense of whimsy and thoughtful humor. The decision was made to use a series of rough-cut illustration styles to draw to light the one-of-a-kind nature of the shop and to also allow the illustrations to act as a vehicle for the humorous narrative that would later be played in advertising.

ADVERTISING
Paramount to A Capella’s strength is its small quaint space mixed with the “fuzzy feeling” kind of atmosphere that the owner fosters. I wanted to capture this in the advertising scheme with the use of color, while playing to the unthreatening, home-grown feel with witty humor based narrative illustrations. The advertisements follow the same vein as the stationary with variation in the actual style, allowing for a less intimate reading situation - in passing in a magazine or on a local advertisement board. The colors are warm and bold with emphasized illustrations - all while retaining a classic wit that plays on the intelligence and the sensibilities of the store patrons.

LOGO
Real Heat Personal Chef Services has its foundations in health-conscious alternative meal options. With a strong focus on vegetarian meal options and intimate service settings, Real Heat lent itself to a fun brand that retained a centered sense. The proprietor, Hilary Yarbrough, wanted something that spoke to her personality as well with her quick-witted jabs of healthfood derived humor, but with a professional sensibility.

STATIONARY
The stationary in this branding scheme really needed to play off the logo to create an absolutely cohesive brand. In the world of personal chefs, once everything is eaten there is no remaining tangible product and often there is no walk-up storefront. This is where a good brand can remind everyone just who you are, without question. The stationary employees a lot of the same simple vector styling as the logo and has a crisp, yet industrial feel.

MENU MAILER
As a small business without a typical storefront, Real Heat needed a solution that would provide low cost mailing to targeted neighborhoods. The sample menu mailer was born, keeping the same styling as the letter stationary and providing consultation and menu information in a self-contained no envelope application.

WEB SITE
The Real Heat web site is a definite departure from the staionary. It takes a much more photorealistic approach but still uses the simplicity of form through using just basic ingredients to form the navigation and clean set type with no mystery navigation (all navigation is supplemented by text based links as well). The web site was designed to be the central information hub for Real Heat because, again, there is no storefront. But it was also created to not be dry or boring. The owner's primary concern was to avoid being contrived like so many other personal chef websites. She wanted to avoid shots of prepared dishes or restaurant style photos because her service offers full nutritional solutions instead of prepackaged meals. Because of this, a more conceptual approach using basic ingredient building blocks was used.

PRINT DEVELOPMENT
Sweet Pockets is a cupcake shop based just east of downtown Atlanta in the heart of the Old Fourth Ward neighborhood. Situated in a co-op market space filled with ecclectic art, boutique jewelers and folk artists, the owner wished to remain clean and well designed while playing to her own original style. Her preexisting center blue dot logo was to be the centerpiece of all branding. Various print campaigns were developed and produced for the small cupcake bakery.

WEDDING PROMOTION
The owner of Sweet Pockets was about to undertake her largest expansion to date - breaking out into the competitive wedding market with a non-traditional alternative to a full scale wedding cake. She wanted something absolutely crisp and clean that emphasized the concept of a white wedding except in cupcakes. To accomplish this ideal I employed large scale photography coupled with serif typefaces for clean legibility along with very neutral colors aside from spot of her signature blue. I employed her blue-dot logo as a base for a great deal of the design to reinforce her brand image, while attempting to not create a design based on circles. The end product - a 16 page wedding promotion that communicates cleanly and directly while maintaining the class fit for a special, picturesque wedding.

EMULATION STUDY
Ed Fella was a bauhaus trained designer who was only brought to recognition after he abandoned all straight lined practices in favor of using a rough knibbed pen and an photostat machine. In this emulation study, a cover was commissioned for a compilation of Fella’s body of work - creating a something that is memorable and recognizable as Fella’s key style.