This past fall, I had the opportunity to attend ArtPrize in my hometown of Grand Rapids, MI. As defined on their website, ArtPrize® is an open, independently organized international art competition that is hosted by over 200 venues throughout downtown Grand Rapids. It is the world’s largest art competition, and 2016 marked its 8th year in existence. This Read the full article »
One of the annual events of Phoenix Design Week is PechaKucha night. PechaKucha.org—Japanese for “chit-chat”—is a roughly 6 1/2-minute talk with a rigid framework of 20 slides that auto-advance after 20 seconds. As the translation alludes to, the purpose of the format is to force a talk that is delightfully light and brief—more like an Read the full article »
This post has been three months in the making. Back in July the 2015 Method + Madness conference was initially announced, and I approached the event chairs about getting involved. Phoenix Design Week (PHXDW) and the Method + Madness conference has played a critical role in my life, and I really wanted to find a Read the full article »
As the owner of a business or startup, the subject of branding has probably come up in one or more conversations. If you’re like most people, the meaning of the word “brand” is fuzzy, and you might find yourself asking “what is a brand?” or “do I need a brand?” Despite the fact that the Read the full article »
As a brand designer I notice examples of good and bad branding everywhere. In fact, I recently watched the classic movie Breakfast at Tiffany’s and noticed a scene that stuck out to me as a good example of how important it is to be purposeful in developing your brand. If you haven’t seen the movie, let me give Read the full article »
A couple of weeks ago, Michigan-based artist and illustrator Troy Deshano reached out to me about participating in his new side project entitled FUTURALBUM. The concept was simple: redesign an album cover of my choosing using an image from the Flickr Book Archive and the typeface Futura for any text. The project sounded like so much Read the full article »
Strong Design was conceived in a small bedroom in Grand Rapids, Michigan back in 2001. The original concept behind our studio was to create concept-based design that performs with the strength of a weightlifter. Since that time, we’ve went through a heck of an evolution. This is our story. 2002 During my senior semester at Read the full article »
Leap into the new year with a wallpaper version of the John Burroughs quote featured on our 2015 New Year notebooks. Available in desktop, iPad, iPhone 6 or iPhone 6+ sizes. Download the right size using the links below: Download “Leap” desktop wallpaper Download “Leap” iPad wallpaper Download “Leap” iPhone 6 wallpaper Download “Leap” iPhone Read the full article »
Understanding all of the terms that are used throughout a design project isn’t always easy, yet it is hard to fully engage in the process if you aren’t understanding all of the terms. To help clarify them, we compiled this little design dictionary with some brief descriptions that will help you understand some of the Read the full article »
We recently decided to take a little foray into designing and printing a few t-shirts and wanted to share the process and the results. Before going gung-ho with t-shirt printing, we used a stencil and Lumi light-sensitive dye to print a few prototypes (see this handy tutorial for how to create a stencil using freezer paper), Read the full article »