James: In Your Face

This is a theme for a sermon series I designed recently for a church in Southern California. Here's a peek at what the promo materials look like:

Project: James Series
Client: FLOOD @ Pomona First Baptist

MSWC 2011: ENGAGE Brochure

Finally, here is the brochure for the GHCC Middle School Winter Camp. It opens as a gate-fold from the middle, which really allows the two worlds imagery of the cities to really stand out. For more info about the camp, visit www.engagecamps.com (Designed by Kyle Stillman).

Project: Middle School Winter Camp Brochure Design
Client: GHCC 180 Ministries
Details: 5"x14.5" Gate Fold Brochure

HSWC 2011: ENGAGE Brochure

Here is the High School ENGAGE brochure, as promised. As I explained in the logo post, the theme for this camp was based on a Fallout 3 style and the metaphor of emerging from a fallout shelter to take on the world. For more info about the camps, visit www.engagecamps.com (designed by Kyle Stillman).

Project: High School Winter Camp Brochure
Client: GHCC HSM
Details: 16"x5" Tri-Fold Brochure

HSWC 2011: ENGAGE

GHCC High School Winter Camp 2011 is also called ENGAGE in an effort to bring a consistent message to all the youth that go. Despite the theme being the same name-wise, we wanted to bring a unique identity to the themes.

The idea behind the High School version is a takeaway from the Fallout videogame franchise. In Fallout 3, specifically, the main character emerges from a lifetime living in a fallout shelter to go into the real world and explore the Wasteland, which is a corrupted and dangerous place. The concept is one that has great symbolism for the Winter Camp theme, in which the students will be challenged to engage their culture with Christ. Time to get out of the shelter and engage the real world. I'll make sure to post the brochure for this one too.

Project: GHCC High School Winter Camp 2011
Client: GHCC HSM

MSWC 2011: ENGAGE

GHCC Middle School Winter Camp 2011 is called ENGAGE. The theme explores the answers to the questions of "What are we searching looking for in the world?" and "What do we do when we find what we're searching for?"

ENGAGE is all about taking hold of truth and not waiting for someone else to step up. The two cities in the the logo (one destroyed and one alive) represent the two sides of the world: those dead and those alive in truth. The call is for the students to get up and engage the culture around them with the help of Christ...rather than sitting and waiting for the culture to engage them. I'll make sure to post the brochure on here in the coming days.

Project: Middle School Winter Camp 2011
Client: GHCC One-Eighty Ministries

Coexist

I was recently asked to assist in the design of some themes for a Youth Ministry in Southern California. The first theme is called "Coexist" and the purpose is to discuss how Christians can interact with, relate to, and build relationships with other religions. Here's a peek at the theme:

Project: Coexist Theme Design
Client: Flood @ Pomona First Baptist Church

My Darling Sunshine

My friend Renata Gandha has started a new blog titled "My Darling Sunshine" and I highly suggest you check it out if you have an interest in Graphic Design and need some inspiration. She just has her first post up so you can jump on the bandwagon right from the beginning and not miss a single post! Renata does amazing work and I'm sure you'll appreciate her creativity and inspirations.

Follow the LINK

GAP Update

Well it has not even been a week yet and Gap has already abandoned ship. The company ditched their new logo and went back to their old one after massive outcry from design critics and customers. GAP admits they made a "mistake" and that they should have gotten more customer input before launching a new brand with no explanation (or they could have just not launched a bargain-bin logo in the first place, but whatever).

I am happy to see they were willing to admit defeat instead of forcing us to view that logo from here on out. Now most people will never even know there was a change. GAP now takes the top spot on my list of brand mis-fires, previously held by Tropicana (who also went back to their old brand after massive outcry, only it was not as quick of a retreat as GAP).

All is right with the world again, until some other company makes a bone-headed decision and screws up their brand.

Here's an article about the retraction: LINK

Why GAP? WHY!?

Change is not always a good thing. Taking a world-class brand and changing it is very risky.

The new GAP logo is horrible. It is a completely new direction for the brand to the point where the GAP brand is unrecognizable. The logos are not even in the same ballpark in terms of quality, and the class and charm of the longstanding classic is now a no-creativity gradient bore-fest. Some things should just be left alone.

In fact, response to this eyesore has been so bad in the design world and in GAP's customer circles, I wouldn't be surprised if there was a retraction along the lines of Tropicana's brand recall from a couple years ago.

Harvest Carnival Posters

The annual Harvest Carnival at GHCC is a Halloween alternative in the sense that it allows whole families to come together to play games and get candy, without the kids having to go around door to door in the dark. It is a safe, wholesome place that provides a lot of fun — and candy. I developed the new identity for this event last year, and wanted to continue that look and feel to develop a sense of continuity.

Project: GHCC Harvest Carnival Posters
Client: GHCC Children's Ministry
Details: 11"x17" Poster

Alternate Type Tutorial @ Media Militia

One of my favorite sites, MediaMilitia.com has an awesome tutorial and article about type ligatures & alternate characters that can bring life to any typography project. I highly recommend checking it out if you have any interest in typography and graphic design. The tips they provide were incredibly helpful. Visit Media Militia's site here.

Immerse Posters

HSM's 2010–2011 Theme is called Immerse. For their promotional posters, I decided to keep it simple with just showing images of things immersed. Fish immersed in water, car immersed in snow, bug immersed in amber. I think the final result is eye-catching but also intriguing as students try to figure out what the images mean and how they apply to the theme of immerse. See the other two posters after the jump.

Absorb

The theme for One-Eighty (Middle School) Ministries this semester is "Absorb". The purpose of the theme is to stress the importance of hiding God's Word in our hearts. This identity will carry the students through the rest of the year and a new theme will be launched in the winter.

Client: One Eighty, GHCC Middle School Ministries

Identity Design: Teleios

Teleios is a Greek word that means "complete in various applications of labor, growth, mental and moral character, etc." It is also the new name of the Internship and Leadership Training implemented by the Youth Department at GHCC. The logo is an abstraction of paths going the same direction, with one path branching off to go its own way. Since the young adults involved in Teleios have said they want to go a different route than their peers and really take their service and commitment to Christ to the next level, this seemed an appropriate symbol for that idea.

Project: Teleios Logo
Client: GHCC Youth Department

Revelation Poster

Here's a poster for an upcoming study series at GHCC about the Book of Revelation. Rather than take the concept of looking up to the sky, like many Revelation series justifiably do, I instead decided to take the opposite angle of looking down on the earth with an "apocalyptic" feel. The series focuses on how Revelation applies to current events, so it seemed appropriate to have the focus on the ground and the people.

Project: Revelation Poster
Client: Adult Ministries, GHCC
Details: 17x6" poster

New Hope Recovery

New Hope is a recovery program to help those in need of healing from addictions and painful situations. They wanted a new identity to embody their mission: to come alongside those is need of recovery and help them on their recovery journey. I incorporated their mission idea into their new identity.

Project: New Hope Identity Re-design
Client: New Hope Recovery Ministries

United in Freedom Poster

Here's a poster I just did for a Single's Group and their summer theme. The theme is "United in Freedom". I started thinking through concepts for freedom and started off with a lot of ideas of chain breaking and things like that...but then I had the idea of something escaping to freedom. And then I had the vision of fish escaping a fish bowl and getting to open water. Of course, the theme is "united" in freedom, so I made it a group effort. I am very happy with the results, I think the concept comes through the way I intended.

Client: SingleFocus
Details: 11x17" Poster

Design Inspiration: Nicole Berman Design

My friend Nicole Berman recently graduated from the Academy of Art University and she has some killer work in her portfolio. Among my favorites are her redesign of the Anchor Steam Beer brand and packaging, her redesign of the Kmart brand and their packaging, and her integration of the (RED) brand into a custom lamp. Check out some pictures of these projects after the jump, and be sure to visit her website at www.nicoleberman.com to see more.

Website Revision

After a few months I have switched my website over to Cargo Collective and redesigned my official website. I now also have a contact page and my full portfolio available for viewing. If you want to check it out, it is still at tyleradamsdesign.com.

As for Cargo, they do a good job over there. The registration is by invitation only, so it helps keep the sites on there limited to the target group they envisioned. I think I am going to be happy with my new home.

Identity Design: Deep

Posting the Solstice logo reminded me of the logo I did back in 2008 for the 180 yearly theme called "Deep". This was one of my favorite logos that I have done because of the fact that the final solution reads the same rightside up or upside down.

Project: Deep Theme Logo
Client: One-Eighty, GHCC Middle School Ministries

Identity Design: Solstice

The Summer Theme for One-Eighty (the Middle School group at GHCC) is "Solstice". Solstice is a word used to describe the time when the earth is closest to the sun in the summer. I designed the logo to incorporate the white space around the O as the sunrays. The orange arrows imply pointing towards the sun or getting close to the sun, which is the definition of the word in the context of this summer theme.

Project: Solstice Logo
Client: One-Eighty (GHCC Middle School)

Centurion Pasta Co.

One of my school projects was to design a fictitious pasta company's identity and packaging. I created Centurion Pasta Co, an authentic Italian family company. I patterned the look of the identity off ancient Roman carvings and architecture. More after the jump.

New Google

So I went on Google today, as I pretty much do everyday. And something looked...different. Now, Google is known for being creative with their logo on their homepage by switching things up for holidays and special events, but this logo was not that. It was the normal logo...almost.

The Google brand is one of the biggest and most successful brands in recent memory, despite not having the most beautiful or conventional brand mark in the world. To change anything about the monster search engine and their logo must have been a huge issue of debate within the company and one that went through a lot of trial and error. The final result seems almost simple. Many casual observers may not even realize something is different or even be able to tell what is different. But Google has made a permanent change, not a daily holiday gimmick change. Goodbye, drop shadow. Hello simplicity.



The changes are subtle, but for a company of Google's stature, this is a huge change. In addition to the drop shadow disappearing, the embossing has been refined. The overall effect makes the colors feel brighter. This is the perfect example of how a drop shadow can hurt a design. Funny how everyone thinks a drop shadow is always a good thing. Losing the shadow is a step up. They have made changes without sacrificing the trademark white homepage, which would have been devastating.

The purpose behind the change, as I found out, was to coincide with the new engine functions and look. Changing the logo to be sleeker and simpler was a bold move to tell people that something is different about Google. I think this is a big improvement, even though it takes some getting used to. But I have to give Google credit for taking a bold step, when they could have stood still and no one would have cared. As for the new search toolbar on the left of my favorite search engine, I'll have to get back to you on that.

Google Blog

Camping Trip Flyer

I'm Back! Here is a brand-new, hot-off-the-press design promoting an upcoming camping trip for Kairos, the Young Adult group at GHCC. I am really happy with how this turned out, it feels "campy"(in a good way).



Client: Kairos, GHCC Young Adult Ministry
Details: 11x4.25" double-sided flyer

Excuse Me

It's been a while since I posted, but I have a good reason. My wife gave birth to our first child on March 21st, so things have been a bit crazy! When they settle down I will be posting some new work samples and hopefully some great inspiration as well. Thanks for reading!

Book Design: Fallout

One of my projects was to design a 100-page book on a scientific topic. While digging through some old papers from someone's attic at a garage sale, I came across an old Fallout Shelter manual from the 1940s. I thought it would be an interesting idea to create a modern-day version of it with scientific research on nuclear and biological warefare, along with sections for how to survive attacks of that nature. I made much of the style of the design to reference the old manual I found and the book turned out to be a pretty interesting compilation. See more pictures after the jump.

What They Don't Teach in Design School:

I wanted this blog to not only be a log of what I have been working on, but also a place where I share my design inspirations.
Identityworks.com has a great new article up (written by Paula Scher, creator of the famous Citi logo) about what you learn and don't learn at Design School and what you don't learn from blogs. It is an interesting read, especially for someone like me who went and learned a lot from design school.

I never knew a designer that got hundreds of thousands of dollars to design a logo. Mostly, designers get paid to negotiate the difficult terrain of individual egos, expectations, tastes, and aspirations of various individuals in an organization or corporation, against business needs, and constraints of the marketplace. This is a process that can take a year or more. Getting a large, diverse group of people to agree on a single new methodology for all of their corporate communications means the designer has to be a strategist, psychiatrist, diplomat, showman, and even a Svengali. The complicated process is worth money. That’s what clients pay for. The process, usually a series of endless presentations and refinements, persuasions and proofs, results, hopefully, in an accepted identity design.

Read the full article here on Identity Forum.

New Website Up

So I launched round one of my new website today. It allows you to view many of my favorite projects from my portfolio in one place as photoalbums, rather than searching through the pages of blog-o-sphere. It's being hosted at wix.com for now, so the URL is a little strange. Maybe when cash isn't so tight I will pony up to have them host tyleradamsdesign.com.

For now the site is www.wix.com/Violinguy72/TylerAdamsDesign

Head over and check it out. Let me know what you think.

HSM Posters

Here is a set of 5 posters used to promote 5 different series of messages in the High School Department at GHCC. Each had a very different theme, but I used similar simple typography and layout to tie them all together since they were all promoting the same thing, one after another. See the final 4 posters after the jump.

Identity Design: OneFiftySeven Logo

Client: One Eighty, GHCC Middle School Ministry
Details: Logo for OneFiftySeven, the GHCC Middle School Leadership Team. Here is the alternate logo:

Home Depot Skin Care

One of my projects at the Academy of Art was to create a skin care line for a company that currently does not have one. I decided on "O" for Men, a line for Home Depot. The O stood for "Orange", Home Depot's trademark color. The Skin care is designed to meet the needs of the everyday working man. Working outside all day in the yard? Construction job leaving your hands feeling calloused and dirty? Get cleaned up with Home Depot "O" for Men. All bottles and the display were built at Californa Model and Design and this was one of my favorite projects to work on from my tenure at school. For more pictures, click "read more".

Nemesis Brochure

Here's the brochure for GHCC High School Winter Camp 2010, as promised. It opens from the middle, showcasing the light and dark opposites to imply "nemesis". This weekend is going to be great, I wish I could go!

Client: HSM, GHCC High School Ministry
Details: 6.5x5" brochure (folded size)

Nemesis: HSWC 2010

GHCC High School Winter Camp is also coming up and I designed the identity system for that as well. The theme is Nemesis, an exploration into the causes of us being unable to get close to God. I will try to post the brochure art soon.

Client: HSM, GHCC High School Ministry

Sofia: MSWC 2010

GHCC Middle School Winter Camp is coming up and I have put together the identity system for it. The theme is Sofia, a Greek word meaning Wisdom. I incorporated the Greek characters into the design. See the official Sofia website @ www.findsofia.info (site designed by Kyle Stillman).

Client: One-Eighty, GHCC Middle School Ministry

Identity Design: GHCS

Client: Golden Hills Christian School

Leaping Horse Wine

Leaping Horse Vineyards was the first vineyard to begin growing in Lodi, California — a location that is becoming more and more popular. The problem is that Leaping Horse's labels and identity were behind the times and did not stand out in a crowded market. As a project for the Academy of Art I redesigned the labels to be more metaphorical, with a horseshoe as the main image rather than the obvious leaping horse that they currently featured. The horseshoe is the base from which the horse leaps, and therefore became a great mark for the new line of labels. More pictures after the jump.

Serving the Master

Every year, Golden Hills Community Church launches a small group campaign that involves the writing and producing of their own small group devotional materials. This year's theme is "Serving the Master", with an emphasis on our role in God's Kingdom. The goal is for everyone to realize that they are an important piece of the overall puzzle and that through community we can do great things for God.

Client: Golden Hills Community Church
Details: 8.5x11" Book

Identity Design: One-Eighty

One-Eighty is the Middle School Ministry at Golden Hills Community Church. They wanted a new logo that had more meaning than their previous one. The new design features a lock-up with the two "E"s mirroring each other around the cross. This gets across the meaning intended by the name: that lives are changed and students can do a complete "180" at the cross.

Client: One-Eighty, GHCC Middle School Ministry

Identity Design: Kairos

Kairos is the Young Adult group at Golden Hills Community Church. They recently went through a complete overhaul of their identity: changing name, logo, promo materials, even meeting day and time. Kairos is an ancient Greek word meaning "the right or opportune moment". They wanted the young adults to realize that this time in their life is the "right moment" for God to use them. They don't need to wait until they are out of school or working full time. The logo incorporates this idea with the timeline running through the name, meeting at the scope/compass in the "O".

Client: Kairos, GHCC Young Adult Ministry

Identity Refresh: Verge Global, Inc.

Verge Global is a ministry organization who helps groups organize short-term missions trips all over the world. They approached me about refreshing their current logo, which involved tweaking the type, color, and shape enough to give it a professional and bold presence.

Client: Verge Global, Inc.

Welcome!

Hello! My name is Tyler and this is my new blog. I am a Graphic Designer and this is the place where I want to let you into my world of what I do.

Begin.