JUNE 25 · We’re lucky this summer to have two fabulous design interns in the studio. Jace and Jackie, both undergrads in Graphic Design at RISD, are churning out a bounty of great ideas just in time for summer. These tomatoes popped off the pages of Jace’s sketchbooks recently. Delicious!
MAY 15 · We’ve been spending quite a lot of time at the Providence Athenaeum recently—in the midst of an exciting identity redesign process, which has us combing through the stacks and uncovering all sorts of curiosities. This month, Emily extended that spirit of discovery to her typography students at RISD. Their assignment was to find a letter—any letter inside the Athenaeum, from books to magazines, fliers to signage—to transform it into 3D, and to photograph it situ. They paired those images with a book title of their choosing (beginning with the same letter, of course) to create striking posters which act like mini-advertisements for what’s hidden inside the stacks. Thanks to Kate Wodehouse, Collections Librarian, for welcoming us into the Athenaeum—many for the very first time!
“Hats off to Emily for conceiving such a layered and Ath-centric project and to the students for their beautiful work!” —Robin Wetherill, Communications Manager, Providence Athenaeum
MARCH 23 · Forget the groundhog, you can’t really be sure winter’s over until the Farmers Market moves back outdoors for the season. So from now until that day comes (May 16th to be precise), our poster for the Wintertime Market will be there to remind you that, just a few stops ahead, you can hop off the bus for a bit of spring’s bounty…indoors!
JANUARY 6 · The new year has brought a new addition to our studio. Meet Cleo—soon to be the most popular pup in Hope Artiste Village! Attention all clients, if you’d rather come here for your next project meeting, we understand. (Thanks to Emily & Jesse for sharing the cute!)
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DECEMBER 15 · Every once in a while when we’re visiting the RISD library, we check in on our thesis book to see how it’s holding up. Signs of wear, like these, always make us smile. If you aren’t in the neighborhood to mark up the pages yourself (annotations are always welcome) you can check out a PDF version of the book here.
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OCTOBER 9 · The Rhode Island Council for the Humanities celebrated its 41st anniversary Thursday night at the Biltmore, with the people and projects that make Rhode Island, well….awesome. As with their 40th Anniversary, we designed the logo, invitation, and program for the event. The board of directors surprised us by encasing the event’s logo inside an ice sculpture! So cool. Get the full wrap-up on the event at the Council’s all new website (just launched by yours truly…a’hem).
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OCTOBER 1 · We were glad to be introduced recently to the Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra & Music School (better known simply as, the Phil). Since our first tour of their campus, we’ve made many trips across the river to East Providence—drawn in by the energy of musicians, young and old, buzzing through their rehearsal spaces. This 16-page booklet, hot off the press, is designed to reflect that energy and to share it, in a format that’s both novel and familiar to the Phil’s musicians and its audiences—you guessed it, an accordion! We couldn’t resist.
p.s. for all you registered Rhode Island voters out there, the Phil encourages you to VOTE YES on #5!
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AUGUST 5 · Farm Fresh Rhode Island hosts its annual fundraiser each summer at the height of the growing season, at the idyllic Castle Hill Inn in Newport (when isn’t the sun shining off the water there?). The event brings together Rhode Island farmers, fishermen and food artisans with top chefs from around the state. Our contribution? Helping Farm Fresh look its best for the occasion. In collaboration with the event committee, we designed a suite of print materials to support the event—programs, raffle tags, silent auction materials, signage and wayfinding, gift certificates, and thank you cards. All of it building from the design of this year’s Summer Farmers Market poster. Living up to this posh event, didn’t mean we couldn’t also keep things humble. We produced all of this using one-color printing, on 100{176d5342f51c0889aa47f68a729fae28e4935f86138d8933c256a24867a3e35b} recycled paper stock, and enlisted lots of home-grown help before the event, to trim, fold and assemble the materials at Farm Fresh HQ. When the big day finally rolled around, we were on hand to stage the event….and to sample the grub! Perennial favorites: Tullulah’s Tacos & Pat’s Pastured, and Humble Pie (the pie guy with the lobster tie!).
photo credit (images 2 & 3): Alex Braunstein
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JUNE 17 · We’ll admit, when we produced Volume One of this homegrown rag for the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities, we thought it really was a Special Edition. That “newspaper” was designed as a way to share proposed outcomes of one of the Council’s major grants, Catalyzing Culture. But for a recent series of strategy sessions hosted by the Council (dubbed The Humanities Lab), we rolled out a second volume, and a completely different set of visionary headlines, which related to the proposed areas of the Council’s 2015 Strategic Plan (currently in development). Session participants—Rhode Island scholars, artists, and entrepreneurs—engaged in conversation about the impact of the humanities in Rhode Island, using headlines related to areas such as visual storytelling, the digital humanities, neighborhood renaissance, and innovative partnerships. Together, small groups wrote “the lead” for one headline’s story, which were in turn, shared with the larger group. What can we say, there’s something about putting a vision into print, that makes it all the more real…who doesn’t want to write the story about their own future?
MAY 29 · After an exceedingly long winter, the Summer Farmer’s Market season is finally here! We’ve designed a few variations on the Farm Fresh Rhode Island market poster over the years, but 2014’s has an extra fun twist. While proofing the poster in our studio….we couldn’t help but notice that it also made for some pretty fun coloring. The Farm Fresh staff has been having fun with it too—this impromptu coloring session took place during their most recent staff meeting. So check out the Armory Market today, 3:30-7 (and bring your crayons!).
