Favourite projects and work of 2011
2011 has been a very productive year, both from my point of view and with EAOM. EAOM is now roughly 6 months old and the team keeps growing, we have produced some nice work in those 6 months and I want to pick out my personal favourite pieces and talk briefly about them.
Galaxy Football
I think my favourite piece was the galaxy football web site, I worked on it personally from design to front end build, and, being a keen footballer and fan I found it easy to relate to the subject. This was one of the first sites with which we used Google Fonts for certain headings and we plumped for 'Arvo' a slab serif font that was bold and strong. I decided to use a full size background image with this site, and ended up taking a hand full of shots of the inside of my Saturday league teams changing rooms, they're old and used, and have real character which gave the site a real grass roots feel. In the end I think it was a good site for EAOM to launch to show our creative flair, Galaxy were fantastic in giving us a creative licence throughout the site.
YouGarden branding exercise
As a team when a branding job arrives we each (as a team of 3) approach it with our own ideas, each of us providing a different spin, we then present all our ideas to the client, explain the rationale behind them and let them narrow it down to what they like best. With YouGarden all three idea where massively different. I plumped with an idea that used the negative space of the 'U' and replaced the counter with an exaggerated pitch fork illustration, the brand name 'you garden' then appeared in an oblong box with a rough, choppy edge, this a nod to a cross section of soil or the rough edges of a lawn. In the end the design wasn't chosen and it'll be forever condemned to the creative graveyard, but I enjoyed the process and exploring different outcomes, from initial pencil sketches of wheelbarrows and watering cans, scanned in and tinkered with, to realising the idea I wanted to develop and seeing it as a finished article.
PinUp Tattoo Supplies
PinUp was 1 of 3 websites for Powerline tattoo supplies, this particular site specialising in the PinUp brand of products. Whilst the other two sites were quite rigid in what the client wanted to achieve, the PinUp site had a lot more creative licence, they had an idea of a route the wanted to go down but ultimately left it to me to forge the style. They wanted a touch of Americana with a grungy edge to it, as I said I was given a bit of a creative licence and so wanted to do the best job I could, the site is still in production but around 95% complete and it's starting to take shape, I think I achieved what they wanted with the Americana/grungy/1950s style graphics and overall it's another design piece EAOM can be proud of.
EAOM branding and site conceptualisation
As EAOM was being formed we naturally had to look at the branding and site development for this new division. As a team we all looked into how we wanted to be perceived, we liked the idea of a mark, something abstract, but the best marks in the world have been built overtime and are recognisable without the brand name appearing with it. The idea that 4 shapes acting as the letters could be abstract yet still understandable was appealing. The site followed, and with a simple template we laid out what we wanted to display, a rotating carousel displaying new work, offers et al, keeping it simple and easy to navigate in the process, we employed some quirky JavaScript with the slide out tray for the quick message feature, but otherwise kept it simple. I think the brand could work well as a stand alone mark once it's been built will become recognisable.
