This past few months we have had the privillege of working with Mike Evans of Ferevo. Mike has an awesome concept for a socially rewarding program that we totally are unable to talk about at this point or we will be in HUGE trouble – just kidding but it is top secret.

Mike is an awesome guy.

He has a fun and happy spirit and that is something that we have tried to incorporate that into his branding. Forevo came to us with a logo that they had thrown together pretty quickly and asked for our help to solidifiy and polish the brand idea and then extend it into other brand touch points, such as business cards and a website and an animation (all currently being worked on by the vada team).

To start off, Michael of Vada created
the Ferevo Monkey – THE KEY to the brand:

A wonderful Character/Mark that will carry the brand, making it memorable and lovable.  The monkey has received great acceptance and love from mike’s circle of friends, investors and partners.  The monkey tries the SKEWER the target market as young iPhone Savy adults and young adults.

Next Michael created the typographic mark that you see above! HOT!  More awesome stuff on this project to come soon!  And other awesome projects coming your way!

Vada has had the awesome opportunity to work with midcentury modern guru Benjamin Alvarez on the rebrand of his decor company, endside modern.  We had the opportunity to do a lot of awesome work for this brand. The work included the brand identity, business cards, pricing tags, ebay store skinning and design, web design, 3D posters, and email newsletter template design.

Ben has been an amazing client to work with.  His company is stationed currently in North Carolina, so a lot of our correspondance was via emails, phone calls, and FedEx.  It has been fun to ship things back and forth and really get some collaberation going.  Some of Ben’s photography of his products even appears in his business cards.

The first thing to tackle with this brand was the logo.  Andrew took his cues from 50s swiss modern design.  The typeface helvetica was selected and from there it was sliced and diced until Andrew found an interesting abstraction of the lowercase ‘e’ in helvetica.  Some of the original modern swiss designers believed that the alphabet should only include lowercase letters – and when the top of the lower case ‘e’ is sliced off it almost resembles an end-table or even a midcentury modern sofa or egg-chair.

After the logo came about, the business cards just seemed to flow out of them.  For the business cards, Andrew and Ben decided to create a subtly changing systems that could present the logo and the type of products that endside sells.  They created square cards with alternating images, abstracted from closeups on midcentury decor.

After that, michael got involved in the project and designed the beautiful 3D sign to be set up at Ben’s booth found below.  Andrew and Michael worked on the idea for a while.  It first started as a flat poster . . . and Michael and Andrew decided to find a more interesting, architectural, almost furniture-like way to present Ben’s information.  They quickly made a mockup and sent it to ben:

Ben loved it!!! With lots of exclamation marks, so Michael ran it off to the printers and we got some awesome boxes (after 3 reprints):

Next michael created tags and rebranded the ebay store.  Anyways . . . long story short, everything was awesome and this has become one of our very favorite projects.  To close up this post, here are some snapshots from Ben’s current store setup in NC.  Enjoy!  (look for our tags!)

Vada is growing everyday – consuming resources and churning out incredible design work like a giant fire-spitting forest monster with a Bachelor’s of Fine Art. We are gaining speed and no one can stop us.

The two newest and finest addition to our collective of creative power are Sean and Michael.

Michael is an ecuadorian design ninja. His skills in typography and composition are superlative in their prowess of awesomeness. He joined our team in August and had brought a lot of maturity and diversity to our style and design. We love him.

Sean is an incredible css, html, php code wizard who hails from Guatemala. Sean has fueled the amazing technical side of the vada machine as it pumps out high quality websites right and left! Sean is super smart, funny and full of incredibly good ideas. He is totally invaluable to our team!

Well those are a few short updates. Until next time. Viva la Vada.

Vada is on the hunt for an awesome, talented, web developer with a cool personality.  This person will need to be able to do the following: Html 5, CSS, PHP, Open Source CMSs, Blog Skinning, Photoshop/Illustrator slicing, etc.

IF you are this awesome person, or know someone who is as awesome as this – PLASE let us know!  This person will become part of a powerful growing team of creative professionals solving intense and important business and corporate branding problems.  Their responsibilities will include coding and creating the back end and front end coding of up and coming brand new websites.

Help us find our man (or woman).
-Thanks

The question might arise among friends and clients – WHAT IS GRAPHIC DESIGN?  The folloing is an awesome article fromt “”American Institute of Graphic Arts” or AIGA defining it.

What is graphic design? from AIGA Career Guide

Suppose you want to announce or sell something, amuse or persuade someone, explain a complicated system or demonstrate a process. In other words, you have a message you want to communicate. How do you “send” it? You could tell people one by one or broadcast by radio or loudspeaker. That’s verbal communication. But if you use any visual medium at all-if you make a poster; type a letter; create a business logo, a magazine ad, or an album cover; even make a computer printout-you are using a form of visual communication called graphic design.

Graphic designers work with drawn, painted, photographed, or computer-generated images (pictures), but they also design the letterforms that make up various typefaces found in movie credits and TV ads; in books, magazines, and menus; and even on computer screens. Designers create, choose, and organize these elements-typography, images, and the so-called “white space” around them-to communicate a message. Graphic design is a part of your daily life. From humble things like gum wrappers to huge things like billboards to the T-shirt you’re wearing, graphic design informs, persuades, organizes, stimulates, locates, identifies, attracts attention and provides pleasure.

Graphic design is a creative process that combines art and technology to communicate ideas. The designer works with a variety of communication tools in order to convey a message from a client to a particular audience. The main tools are image and typography.

Image-based design
Designers develop images to represent the ideas their clients want to communicate. Images can be incredibly powerful and compelling tools of communication, conveying not only information but also moods and emotions. People respond to images instinctively based on their personalities, associations, and previous experience. For example, you know that a chili pepper is hot, and this knowledge in combination with the image creates a visual pun.

In the case of image-based design, the images must carry the entire message; there are few if any words to help. These images may be photographic, painted, drawn, or graphically rendered in many different ways. Image-based design is employed when the designer determines that, in a particular case, a picture is indeed worth a thousand words.

Type-based design
In some cases, designers rely on words to convey a message, but they use words differently from the ways writers do. To designers, what the words look like is as important as their meaning. The visual forms, whether typography (communication designed by means of the printed word) or handmade lettering, perform many communication functions. They can arrest your attention on a poster, identify the product name on a package or a truck, and present running text as the typography in a book does. Designers are experts at presenting information in a visual form in print or on film, packaging, or signs.

When you look at an “ordinary” printed page of running text, what is involved in designing such a seemingly simple page? Think about what you would do if you were asked to redesign the page. Would you change the typeface or type size? Would you divide the text into two narrower columns? What about the margins and the spacing between the paragraphs and lines? Would you indent the paragraphs or begin them with decorative lettering? What other kinds of treatment might you give the page number? Would you change the boldface terms, perhaps using italic or underlining? What other changes might you consider, and how would they affect the way the reader reacts to the content? Designers evaluate the message and the audience for type-based design in order to make these kinds of decisions.

Image and type
Designers often combine images and typography to communicate a client’s message to an audience. They explore the creative possibilities presented by words (typography) and images (photography, illustration, and fine art). It is up to the designer not only to find or create appropriate letterforms and images but also to establish the best balance between them.

Designers are the link between the client and the audience. On the one hand, a client is often too close to the message to understand various ways in which it can be presented. The audience, on the other hand, is often too broad to have any direct impact on how a communication is presented. What’s more, it is usually difficult to make the audience a part of the creative process. Unlike client and audience, graphic designers learn how to construct a message and how to present it successfully. They work with the client to understand the content and the purpose of the message. They often collaborate with market researchers and other specialists to understand the nature of the audience. Once a design concept is chosen, the designers work with illustrators and photographers as well as with typesetters and printers or other production specialists to create the final design product.

Symbols, logos and logotypes
Symbols and logos are special, highly condensed information forms or identifiers. Symbols are abstract representation of a particular idea or identity. The CBS “eye” and the active “television” are symbolic forms, which we learn to recognize as representing a particular concept or company. Logotypes are corporate identifications based on a special typographical word treatment. Some identifiers are hybrid, or combinations of symbol and logotype. In order to create these identifiers, the designer must have a clear vision of the corporation or idea to be represented and of the audience to which the message is directed.

Graphic Design: A Career Guide and Education Directory
Edited by Sharon Helmer Poggenpohl
Copyright 1993
The American Institute of Graphic Arts

See full article here.

I’m a working stiff.  This month Vada has seen a crazy influx of business that is totally amazing.  Here is a brief list, just for us all to gawk at the sheer verticality of our current clientelle:

- STRIVE

- Play Theory

- Kanon Foundation

- Walden School of Liberal Arts

- TNT

- endsidemodern

- Munch

- German Week

- White & Yellow

- Yellow Cloud

- Pig’s Revenge

- UPR

And More!  It has been awesome to see the new guys in the company bring in business and help Vada to grow to the next level of awesomeness!  Last week we did 3 identities!  THREE! That is a lot.  Yet some how amongst all the push and the rush we are able to make pretty awesome work.  Here is an identity (you’lll see 2 full concepts) that we are currently working on, for “STRIVE teen and parent counseling”.

Here is a little smattering of photos I took this afternoon to share our new Vada office in Provo with everybody. It is a pretty awesome space. One of our walls is a window out to some inspirin’ greenery. The space is big and cool and beautiful and makes working and collaberating and meeting clients awesome.

Enjoy the photos>>

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We hired a new amazing mystery designer.  Who could it be?  Due to our hugely large influx of work, and the expansion we are experiencing here at vadaland, we decided that expanding our team was the only thing to do.  Through a serious and intense searching and combing of design magicians, we came accross one amazing man.
Here is some of his amazing work so far!

Concept for Client Ebay Store

Web Form for Advance Insurance

Web Banner for Advance

Logo Concept for TNT

He’s going to make a completely awesome addition to the Vada Universe.  Look forward to more awesome designs by the Mystery Designer!