The RGB (Over 16 million strong) and CMYK (Dots on a mission.) stickers have arrived! They are the first “official product” of the Design Rangers. YAY!

In the next few weeks I hope to set up an online ordering system (to-do list!) but until then we are kickin’ it old-school with the self addresses stamped envelope plan. Check!

UPDATE: We now have a e-commerce site set up for ordering the stickers!

Click here to head on over to that site.

Also, we’d love to see your stickers in action by posting your photos to our Facebook page!

Design Rangers volunteered to design this years ADDY program and I found myself taking the lead as Chris was/is wrapped up in several big web projects. Carleen Clearwater, the ADDY chair, provided me with the cover artwork and then pretty much just set me loose. Her main objective was to make it cool and make it different, way different, than any program ADDY attendees had seen before.

I did lots of online research for inspiration and found a certain poster for “The Public Theater” by the amazing Paula Scher particularly inspiring. I had forgotten how much fun it was to work with type and this poster reminded me of just that.

Using the cover artwork as the base, I did several sketches and mock layouts and then got to work on the real thing. Since the design relied 100% on typography, I knew it had to be bold & interesting – one way to accomplish that was to use different font sizes, font colors and font directions.

Cover artwork:

A portion of the program’s interior:

Many thanks to Carleen for trusting Design Rangers with the program and for helping rekindle my love of typography. I can’t wait to see the final printed piece at the ADDYs this Saturday night!

In the fall, Tammy sent us an email with the business name – StellarEngine. I immediately fell in love and became super excited to work on her identity. The crazy thing is, after presenting her with 12 different type-only logos, she chose the one I “saw” in my head the very first time I heard the name StellarEngine.

The next step was the business cards. I wanted to inject a little bit of color since the logo was black and gray. I also wanted the card holder to have to interact with a card a bit, having to flip it over to see the entire logo.

Tammy’s business card:

Ehren’s business card:

And here’s what Tammy has to say about her new brand:
“The Design Rangers have done it again!  When I launched my freelance writing business several years ago, the Design Rangers developed a creative, pitch-perfect logo and identity that has never failed to turn heads.  I couldn’t wait to work with them on StellarEngine, and challenged them to develop a look-and-feel that reflected rationality and strength without being cold or static.  I’m thrilled about the result, and can’t wait to launch my new website with them!”

StellarEngine’s new website will be coming in the Spring – but for now Tammy has a fancy holding page, or if you want to keep up with what’s new in the world of StellarEngine stop by the Facebook page.

Thanks again Tammy for trusting Design Rangers with your image, it means the world to us!

One tip Justin presented was about service, quoting from his life kearning blog post…  “Serving: Do you want to change the way you run your life, your firm, and your perspective on the world? Then start to serve. Not just with your work, but with your time and your team. Even if you are a team of one. I guarantee your life will be better for it.”

We took Justin’s advice to heart and started to actively look for a non-profit who’s mission was close to our hearts and needed our creative help.

Fast forward to mid-December; while participating in the Indy Give! campaign we found Kids on Bikes. We knew a little about Kids on Bikes and their mission, Keagan had participated in one of their summer rides at Bear Creek Park earlier that year.

The Indy Give! page taught us more – since 2005, they have provided more than 700 bicycles to children in need, through programs that inspire a healthy lifestyle, independence and achievement, AND right there on the Indy Give! page it also listed, very serendipitously, that they were looking for graphic design help. Chris and I both knew right away that this was definitely a cause close to our hearts and I contacted Kids on Bikes the very next day!

Design Rangers are pleased to announce that we are now working with Kids on Bikes – we will be helping them redesign some of their marketing materials and supplying them with a marketing “tool-kit” that will help them produce cohesive, professional looking materials as their need arises.

We are happy and our creative hearts are full. Thank you to Kids on Bikes for letting us serve you and your amazing mission!

P.S. – We would love it if you would drop by www.kidsonbikes.net to learn more about them. Maybe you are in the position to give them a donation & bring the joy of owning a brand new bike to very deserving children… It will help to fill your heart, and a full, balanced heart is a happy heart!

What happened is: Chef Corey Wilson began to use what he knows about food and apply it to his life. He began cooking himself up lots of amazing, fresh, healthy meals – backed by a dedication to working out on a regular basis and wallah! Corey has lost 60+ pound to date. What an amazing life transformation!

Chef Corey is now taking what he knows about food – and what he has learned on his journey – and providing nutritious and budget friendly in-home cooking services in the greater Colorado Springs area. His customized and fully prepared meals provide clients with a healthier and affordable alternative to eating out. You can save time and eat well – am I in Heaven? (Chris and I have had the pleasure of taste testing a few of Chef Corey’s creations. One word: YUM.) BONUS: He also provides cooking classes (in the form of FUN) and dinner parties.

Where Design Rangers come in: Corey asked us to design his logo, business cards and web site. He wanted to feel to be friendly (he is also known as “A Personable Chef“), fun, affordable, and healthy. Here is what we cooked up…

Logo: Lots of “Chef-y” research led us to the fork icon – because really, it all comes down to eating!

Business Card: After a great photo shoot with Joel Strayer we were inspired to incorporate a photo on the back of the business card. The problem was there were so many great shots – which one to choose? Decided it was better NOT to choose and designed 4 different cards for Chef Corey – each with a different fork color that complements the photo on the back. Here are a couple of our favorites:

Yellow

Red

Designing chefcoreywilson.com is the next step – but in the meantime check out facebook.com/chefcoreywilson and twitter.com/ChefCoreyWilson!

Your next step: Consider hiring Corey to cook you up some amazing meals to throw in your freezer -it might change your life too!

Design can be used to enhance the visual appeal of a product or service. It can be used to organize complex information or give meaning to abstract concepts. Sometimes design is used to make a bold statement or to evoke a specific emotion.

Design can do all of those things and more, but the underlying quality always remains the same — to strengthen clear communication.

When USA Cycling approached us with the opportunity to design their High Performance Plan (HPP) presentation, clear communication was the driving force behind the entire project. The HPP weighs in at around 135 pages of information ranging from high-level to technical, broken into 15 sections. We were told that the bulk of the content had changed little from year to year. Our challenge? To make it easy for the reader to digest and quickly grasp the key concepts within the plan. Past attempts had been too busy and not consistent with the USA Cycling brand.

Our first step was to ensure that the base content provided a solid foundation for the design. We had our talented copywriter Tammy Oler collaborate with USAC to edit the existing plan. Throughout the process, Tammy kept the visuals in mind, suggesting modifications that would allow for better communication.

While the copy was being developed, Design Rangers worked to create a high-impact cover design and an interior layout built to let readers find information quickly. The idea was to illustrate the power and passion behind the athletes and their goals.

With final content and the base design in place, we got down to business – creating common visual cues in each section along with a variety of text styles to create consistency and to increase readability. Graphics and charts in each section were re-designed using icons and stylized elements.

The physical appearance of the piece makes just as much of an impact as the contents contained within it. We worked with a local printer to develop a package that would stand out from the rest. Custom 3-ring binders with the new cover and spine graphics were produced to allow for content additions as needed. The binder was constructed with a lay-flat design, a business card window and a pocket in the back to house additional materials. The tabs feature an easy-to-browse design and are reinforced at the hole locations and tabs themselves. The interior is was printed in full digital color on a premium stock. Design rangers also provided a matching PowerPoint template to help ensure consistency.

The final result? A clean, comprehensive guide built to inform and educate. Every aspect of the design and content were refined to make the communication stronger, and USAC is poised to present their plan with confidence.

What an amazing message and a big, bold statement. We often push our clients to make the big, bold statements. It takes guts though and not all clients are willing to put it all on the line. I’m proud of Coleman and their marketing guts. Errr… I was proud until I did some research.

Strike #1 –Web Site. This morning, after I had decided to write a blog on Coleman and the awesomeness of  “The Original Social Networking Site” campaign, I was super excited to go to coleman.com and see how their web site integrated the messaging of the campaign. You should have seen my sad face when the site loaded and… nope. Nothing. After some digging around I finally found mention of the social networking press release and a page titled “Social Networking” which shows the advertisements.

Strike #2 – Print Ads. According to a Coleman press release, the T.V. spots began running in May 2009. They are/were also running print ads, but until I did a little bit of research on Coleman, I wasn’t aware of them. We subscribe to Outside magazine and are exposed to several other “outdoorsy” publications – seems like I would have seen one in there (Chris says he *thinks* he may have seen one in Outside, maybe I missed that page… in that one issue?). My family is their market. They have definitely not reached us.

Strike #3 – Consistency. As designers, one of our favorite things is consistency. In our dream world, the ads, the web site, and the marketing materials all have a similar look-and-feel, similar messaging. Coleman could have really taken this campaign and ran with it. Instead, they are just left with a disappointed consumer.

What we can learn from Coleman’s mistakes. Don’t disappoint your market with an inconsistent message. As much as you may think your customers won’t notice that your web site uses a different logo than your business cards, you are using several different color palettes, inconsistent fonts, etc – they will. You want current and potential customers to see your company’s marketing materials and recognize them as yours – every time, everywhere. This is especially important now that there are so many ways for consumers to find you out in the world ie: Facebook, Twitter, Google search.

Final thoughts. Be bold, be brave, be consistent!

Such was the case when USA Cycling asked us to create a new look for their National Championships race series. These premier events cover 18 cities and 5 cycling disciplines – road, mountain, track, cyclo-cross and BMX. The races and locations are diverse and full of personality, and the graphics that defined each race had become so too. USAC was worried that their image had become too segmented and that people often didn’t know that the events were part of the series, or held by USA Cycling at all!

To date, the marketing team had been using a combination of different logos, text and images at each race year-to-year. To make things more complicated, each venue had been developing their own signage and materials to promote their events. In addition to creating an identity crisis, the growing number of graphic files and signage made it nearly impossible to manage the entire National Championships campaign.

After brainstorming with the USA Cycling team, we proposed building a “graphic toolkit” that would help them to get things under control and create a solid foundation for the National Championships brand. The toolkit would include a new brandmark for the series along with a set of guidelines and graphic files that could be used internally or by race coordinators. The goal was to create a design that captured the spirit and professionalism of the USAC while allowing room for expansion and the addition of venue specific information.

After sketching out many potential designs, we narrowed down the field to 4 distinct concepts. The final ideas were presented as mock-ups with modular elements that could be re-configured to allow for integration of event names and sponsor logos. Designs were presented in color and black-and-white to ensure that the look could be reproduced effectively in a variety of formats.

Concept #1:

Concept #2:

Concept #3:

Concept #4:

The four designs were narrowed-down to two finalists, both of which were integrated into a variety of situations to show how they would work vertically, horizontally and with additional typography and graphics. The final design uses the USA Cycling logo, letting the flag flow into a strong typographic treatment and 5 stars, representing each of the cycling disciplines. The open design allows similar elements to flow around the text while keeping the main focus on the National Championships at all times.

Final Design:

Now that the foundation for the look had been established, the rest of the “toolkit” was constructed. Key elements included:

• Color palette with breakdown of colors for web and print uses
• Logo files – color, black and white, single-color and reversed
• Signage templates
• Logo files with event names and venues integrated
• Online advertising templates
• Merchandising templates
• Style guide outlining guidelines and best practices for using the graphics

All files were provided in an online download area and on CD-ROM for easy access.

True to their original vision, USA Cycling now has a flexible graphic toolkit that they can use to help define the National Championships brand. The files and guidelines can be provided to partners and race coordinators to help them create their own materials while the internal marketing team can focus on promoting awareness and membership.

Want to see the new look first-hand? Check out the 2010 National Championships schedule.

Have you had a situation where a set of graphics elements or tools helped you? Maybe you have something that could use one now? Let us know in the comments.

WOW! What a night. Not only did we receive a gold Addy for the bearski bath & body logo, Design Rangers also won the Best of Print category! We are so happy that Jessica was there with us – she loves that logo as much as we do! We have to admit, it was a bit of an Oscar moment… “did they actually just say our name. what? really? collect yourself. stand up. walk. speak.”

I have to say almost 2 weeks later it still feels a bit like a dream. We are honored and humbled by the award. Really. There was a LOT of great print work submitted to this year – a beautiful promotional kit designed by Sandia for Flying Horse and the Rio Welcome Kit by David C. Cook was amazing. That’s the humbling part – our little ol’ logo. Best of Print. We are proud parents to say the least!

When Jessica offered to write up a press release (yes folks, not only is she a soap chef, she is a wife, a mom, an amazing writer and PR professional!) we immediately said PLEASE! She did an awesome job – please keep your eye out for our little article coming to a newspaper near you!

Jessica, Jenny and Chris heading off to the Addy's

Bearski’s skin-loving products are high-quality, handmade, yet affordable.  Jessica and Christian were looking to give Bearski a hip, cool, and fun personality.  They gave us a lot of great input and ideas – bubbles and lower-case text were kicked around – then… they let us have at it!

Ultimately, a logo should reflect the persona of the company while being engaging and memorable. Sometimes, the design process meanders on it’s way to the ultimate design, and other times, you just get a “Yes, THIS is IT!” moment. After completing one logo concept in particular – we knew we had done it. We felt the logo really had it all – contrast, personality, sweetness, not to mention bubbles AND lower case type. We were thrilled when Jessica and Christian loved it just as much as we did.

SIDE NOTE: We were also thrilled to find out just a few days ago that the Bearski logo has won an ADDY award

After many rounds of high-fives about the logo, we let the logo begin its new life in Bearski’s business cards, product label template and a custom e-commerce web site:

Not only were we passionate about this project, we’re passionate about what Jessica and Christian are doing with Bearski Bath & Body. We are crazy about their products – here are links to our favorites, the coffee soap and Goat Milk TLC. Feel free to list your favorites in the comments or visit Bearski and pick up a future favorite.

Thanks Bearski for trusting us with your image – creating it was truly good, clean fun!