Concept / Harvest is a personal project, in collaboration with Michael Taylor. We wanted to create a personal cookbook to document our favorite recipes that we use on a daily basis.
Background / This book functions just as much as a scrapbook as a functional cookbook. It is full of quotes, lifestyle photos, as well as our favorite recipes. Both Michael and I are very passionate about photography, and this was an opportunity to showcase our work. The typography and branding was intentionally very simple to emphasize the photograpy. The second component of the project was simple packaging for goods like shortbread, granola, and honey that we used as gifts. The recipes in this book are for personal use only, and are borrowed from some of our favorite sources such as Tartine and Nopa.
Concept / Enso is a conceptual skincare line inspired by the Zen Buddhist concept of Wabi-Sabi (finding beauty in raw and imperfect). In Zen Buddhism, the word Enso symbolizes minimalism and elegance.
Background / Wabi-Sabi provides a means to live life through the senses and better engage in life as it happens, rather than be caught up in unnecessary thoughts. I wanted this idea to translate into the marketing of the product as well. The goal for this project was to create a line of skincare that downplays the branding, focusing instead on the forms and materials. The goal was for the brand to represent the highest quality materials, without any gimmick. I designed the bottle shapes in CAD using sacred geometry to dictate scale relationships. I then cut the bottles by hand on the wood lathe, and hand painted them.
Concept / Auger + Ore is the first iteration of Totem. It is a collection of home goods and jewelry, inspired by nature & folk art, available online and in select shops in San Francisco.
Background / A+O started as a packaging and identity project and grew into a cohesive brand over the course of two years. The goal was to create a brand of high quality goods that reflect a lifestyle of voluntary simplicity and a respect for the natural world. Auger + Ore has served as an outlet for me to explore an interest in brand development, product and packaging design as well as others interests like ceramics, weaving, and beekeeping.
Concept / For this special project, Adobe asked Michael Taylor and I to create the next Creative Cloud Student Identity. In this month-long project, we were partnered with Jamie Calderon from Tolleson Design and the Adobe studio to create a series of 10 installations, re-envisioning the Creative Cloud logo in a variety of forms.
Background / During the planning process, the theme of partnership kept coming up. Partnership between Adobe and Tolleson, between the artist and their tools, between Michael and I, etc. Using this as our inspiration, we created a series of installations reflecting the idea of synthesis. As a set, the pieces tell the story of experimentation and learing. The structure of the project was very loose, and we wanted to include the widest range of materials and mediums possible. The final list included: welding, a colored powder cloud, plant wall, tapestry, digital animation, neon, paint, contortionist, yarn structure, sand labyrinth, set design, mechanical drawing machine, and even a piñata. Utilizing the creative cloud throughout the process, we used technology to present our work in an analog space.
Concept / Salt is a digital publication and app featuring surf forecasting, tide charts, and bookmarking of locations.
Background / Growing up outside of Santa Cruz, surfing is close to my heart. I wanted to create a project that reflected my love of the ocean and the Northern California surf culture. I used clean type and moody, stark photography to convey the power of the ocean, keeping the layouts as straightforwad as possible. This project was an opportunty to combine two of my greatest passions: editorial photography and the West Coast!
Concept / The objective for this project was to revitalize an existing brand of beer. I chose Russian River for their core values: small batch beer, environmentalism, and a strong connection to the community.
Background / Russian River has a unique approach to beer. Their tone is sophisticated, yet accessible and quirky. I used a powder coated gradient to command attention, and set the brand apart from competitors. Their marketing is imbued with humor, and they are known for their biblical themed craft brews, something I wanted to play up in this project. Each bottle has a unique illustration and color code. One key factor in this project was sustainability. The carrier was designed using CAD to require minimal materials, and assembly. It is constructed from 4 pieces of interlocking MDF (a recycled material), held together by a single metal bar. The bottom of the carrier has an interlocking detail, to allow stacking. All of the fabrication for this project I did at Tech Shop: powder coating, screen printing, and laser cutting.
Concept / This conceptual identity project consists of a postcard set and poster series for underground folk artist Michael Hurley, promoted by Folk Yeah.
Background / Michael Hurley has had a cult following in the folk community since he started performing in 1964. His music is an eclectic, witty, and often bizarre twist on traditional folk. For this postcard set, I used an unpolished aesthetic, with broad color swashes and hand-drawn illustrations to reflect his quirky character.
Concept / Drift is an experimental typography book and website that explores the power of chance through the intersection of technology and fine art.
Background / This conceptual project uses the idea of synthesis to communicate the importance of play and experimentation. Working in collaboration with programmer Mouse Reeve, we designed a computer program to randomly generate compositions, emphasizing the idea of chance. The book reads more like an editorial, with collections of essays, poems, and short stories about the powder of randomness. Many traditional design principles are broken in this project, but maintaining the concept was more important to me, so I chose to keep the layouts unpolished to accentuate the accidental nature of the piece. A century ago, the Dadaists used collage to break down the limiting structures of ìhigh artî. The message of this book is similar, not to take life too seriously.
Concept / The Mec mural was inspired by Islamic geometric patterns, and painted for Cafe Mec at Haight + Central.
Background / The pattern was designed using tessellating modules that nest together to repeat. The piece was painted over the course of a weekend with the help of Michael Taylor and Caitlin Barker. We established the grid with a chalk line, then created a stencil for each color with Frog Tape. The Mec pattern is also available in a screen print, here.
Cafe Mec will be opening in June of 2015, Interior design by Courtney Trump.
Concept / Catharsis is an experimental typography book, exploring the human condition through the subconscious.
Background / My goal was to communicate the feeling of absurdity through heavy tension, fractured typography, and blurry and distorted photography. The book is also a personal story of my experiences with a sleep disorder. Each graphic detail is an abstraction of the data from several sleep studies. Although it may seem dark, the message is positive: the importance of getting in touch with your subconscious, and harnessing emotions to channel into creativity. The intent of the project is to shake up our perception of the world, emphasizing the importance of not becoming too comfortable or complacent. The ultimate feeling of the book is represented by catharsis: an emotional release, or a purge of repressed emotion.