They had an outdated logo that was a very detailed drawing of a building crane and wanted something much simpler. They had lots of high quality photographs of men on the job, and the sheer size of the pipes they installed dwarfed the men inside them. If a pipe were to burst under the freeway, this is the company the city calls to fix it.

So I’m thinking: Big. Pipes. Underground. Drilling. Water. Construction.

They tell me the only caveat is that orange should be in the color palette as they already had this color on much of their equipment. The logo should be readable really small and also really big. On the side of the freeway big. I rolled up my sleeves and started drawing.

Here is a selection of some of the designs I presented.

This first design really spells out that this company drills holes in the ground, and makes use of the type itself. The next design is more abstract, and could give the feeling of being either below the surface, in a trench, or in a dugout area.

This design drew heavily on a pattern that I saw on the front of one of the drills I photographed. Though abstract, it conveys a sense of strength and toughness.

This logo takes a bird’s eye view of a pipe, and the outer shape was taken directly from a pipe I saw in one of their photographs. The configuration with the logo in the center of the type gives it a more formal appearance.

This version takes a more illustrative approach, giving a three-quarter view of a pipe. I’ve also utilized gradients, which is a less traditional, but very contemporary approach.

This next logo is my personal favorite, as it is involves simple shapes, but gives a sense of perspective and also of equipment/construction. The client liked it, but wanted something simpler still.

I took it one step further toward simplicity, and gave the orange more priority.

In the end, the client opted for the utmost in simplicity, a drilling down of sorts in their quest for visual representation of their field, and asked for a plain circle. They liked their previous typeface, Bauhaus, but wanted an update, so I chose Utopy, which is very similar to Bauhaus, but has breaks in the letterforms. The lowercase “b” feels somewhat pipelike, and they were very happy with the finished mark.

Here’s a logo I did for a new basketball team in Pittsburgh, PA. They wanted something with an old train and a basketball in it that could be embroidered onto shorts and jerseys and provided me with the color palette.

The logotype was loosely inspired a bit by the Allman Bros. script, and they wanted something that would also work as a monogram. After some experimenting, I decided to keep it fairly simple, and dropped the swash from the final “E”.

While looking over old album covers from the 70s, I came across some script from an old Crosby Still & Nash album that servied as the inspiration for the photo styling. Coincidentally, the lead guitarist had a giant Malamute dog, but since we weren’t doing a parody of the cover, it wasn’t a consideration.

They didn’t have the budget to fly to Austria for the photo shoot, so I worked remotely art directing the photographer. This group of musicians was extremely low-key, and no elaborate styling was going to work.

Above is the original photograph I received from the photographer. You will notice that in addition to the color toning, I added a burlap texture, and did some touch-up on each member, including adding the monogram I created on a t-shirt.

On the inside of the package, I wanted to continue the wood texture, which ended up on the CD itself, and for the booklet I added more color and imagery inspired from the song lyrics.

For the style of the illustration I wanted the simplicity of a woodcut but wanted it to be modern looking and scale down well and still be recognizable at a small size. One of the reason I chose the mountain “range” as part of the image as it is often used in designs related to the San Gabriel Valley, where the City of Monrovia is located.
I chose the Syracuse font because of it’s Arts and Crafts feeling. Here is a formal description of the font: “Syracuse is a font inspired by the typefaces of the “Arts & Crafts” designers of the early 20th Century. As such, it has a distinct “hand” look. In “Syracuse” you will find hints of Dard Hunter’s work at the Roycrofters in East Aurora, New York, a little of the Art Nouveau style of 1900 Vienna, even a touch of Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s design ideas in Glasgow, Scotland. The font was named for the city in New York where Gustav Stickley produced his Craftsman furniture.”

The logo also had to be able to accommodate the names of three stations, and so I created an area below the image that could change according to which station they needed it for. I also did color variations for each station, but they decided to keep the colors of all of them identical.

Following the approval of the logo, I was commissioned to design a business card and letterhead, and then a website. The station wanted the website to convey both television and coordinate with the newly established branding. They also wanted to maintain the site themselves, and have it be easy for people to scroll through the most recent videos.

I created the new website on the Wordpress platform, and kept with a look consistent with the new logo and color palette. Visit the KGEM-TV website.

The logo has now changed into a globe shape, so this will no longer be possible to do, but it was a fun discovery!

I wanted to create letterforms that felt like the ocean waves, or like seaweed, coursing through her whole name. To add a playful element to the identity, I used an ornament that evoked both shells and sea creatures.

I also created letterhead and envelopes utilizing the same pattern I had created from the ornament.

For Shana’s website, I continued the ocean theme and used various moving shades of blue for the opening. The ornaments “swim” horizintally until the page opens up to reveal her slideshow. The site was created entirely in Flash. Visit Shana Cassidy on the web.