Avery Smith | Design and Insights » advertising

Seasoned Greetings logo design process

Avery Smith — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 22:49:32 +0000

Seasoned Greetings is a collective for sharing and discovering unique recipes. Made possible by Ypartnership, it was initially created for the holiday season but it has the potential to grow far beyond.

Defining the essentials
Every holiday season, Ypartnership engineers an interactive ‘holiday card’. This year, they wanted to make something that gave people the ability to contribute and celebrate different cultures and backgrounds through the tradition of food preparation.

We began by outlining a wire-frame of the website, which defined basic functionality and an early navigation.

Developing the look
We wanted the aesthetics to be warm and friendly with an simple interface. Below are a couple pages from my sketchbook in which I work out some kinks with the navigation and experiment with logo ideas.

Creating the logo
After settling on a twisting banner for the logo type background, I looked to Requiem Ornaments for inspiration. Vista Sans OT had the right proportions and the personality I was looking for, so I decided to use it for the logo type and the main navigation of the website.

After this I added vertical decorations to balance the horizontal logo type and to offset the linear banner. The credits and subhead were also incorporated at this stage. The color palette of the logo and website needed to be familiar yet festive. I chose a cool stone-blue for the majority of the palette with a deeper blue as an alternative (roll-over, selected items, etc…) and a rich orange as a highlight color.

The finished product
I won’t get into the finer points of the web design process :) but all-in-all the site took about 3 weeks to get up and running. And that includes us shooting an intro video for the landing page (written by Danielle Lillig and directed by Mark Sunderland) and the Ypartnership Interactive team handling the back-end. So I’d recommend giving it a look for yourself. If you have some cool or unique recipes (yes, drinks included), please share the love!

Seasoned Greetings | Recipe Collection
Ypartnership | Worldwide Marketing and PR

“New logo design for twitter” Design Contest

Avery Smith — Fri, 15 May 2009 21:46:40 +0000

The good folks over at ANTREPO are holding a little design competition to design a new twitter logo. The prizes include “our Movie Poster Set+Container Color System Poster set+Citycab Poster Set+Sans serif Poster set (19 posters, limited edition, hand signed) Also maybe twitter [will] see our effort and they may want to use one of them.” Not too mention a chance to flex your logo muscle a litle and have some fun.

Deadline: May 27, 2009
International voting begins: June 1, 2009

Milton Glaser: To Inform & Delight

Avery Smith — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 21:28:23 +0000

To Inform and Delight is a great film that takes a close look into the beginnings, process and philosophy of Milton Glaser. It’s refreshing to see how a designer who has impacted the world tremendously, still finds so much fun in his work. What makes him unique for me is his ability to capture the feeling of a generation, a time period or culture in his work.

I recommend checking out the film, which I found through the good people at Arthouse Films (an independent production and distribution label based in NY and LA) and learn why Milton chose a small office near a playground, how he developed his skills an illustrator & designer and exactly how much money he received for the “I ♥ NY” project (I know I was surprised). The film is due for public release May 22nd.

The film will be released alongside a new book by Milton, ‘Drawing is Thinking,’ which Arthouse Films will be raffling off along with a signed poster by Milton Glaser himself!

You can also find Art & Copy (formerly ‘The Alchemists’ by the One Club) on the Arthouse Films website, which I’m deffinatly going to grab up myself.

Posadas Spring/Summer Promo Concept – beta

Avery Smith — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 22:48:01 +0000

‘We know what you’re thinking. It’s impossible.
You can’t take perfection and add 35% more perfection.
Actually, you can. We did it.
See how at fiestamericana.com/springsummer.’ – Mark Sunderland

Swatrick Payze’s animation

Avery Smith — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 22:17:56 +0000

brillso thrillso – new trainers

brillso brothers – best, brilliant breakfast

Brilliantly funny animation by SwatPaz from Glasgow. He writes, draws, voices and animates all of his work. And if you act now, you can take advantage of his £1 off voucher available on his website. I recommend checking out Brillso Brothers.

SwatPaz.net

House Industries presents Neutraface

Avery Smith — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 20:53:29 +0000

I haven’t visited House Industries in a good while and was pleasantly surprised when I came across this beauty. This typeface is bold, proud yet not conceited – a face that wears expensive vintage boots and form-fitting leisure jackets but still invites you to catch up over a cup of cappuccino.

view neutraface in action

read neutraface history

‘A Short History of Marketing’ by Scholz & Friends

Avery Smith — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 18:14:14 +0000

First saw this video on my buddy Marc Rapp’s blog. A short animated film comparing the market reality of today and the good ol’ days.