Revised crest, simplified to one-color

Onyx
Purchase gifts from an animal shelter online store like theanimalrescuesite.com.

Zane
Bring a “Cookie Jar” when visiting friends. Fill a decorative jar with the ingredients of your favorite cookies and attach the recipe with a ribbon.

Stephanie
Make your friends and your town merry by shopping local!

Heidi
Make spiked eggnog floats (using spiced Rum and Vanilla ice cream) and gather in front of the fire for some board game fun! My choice: Monopoly.

Jo
Cuddle under a soft blanket and watch favorite old Christmas movies: “Miracle on 34th Street”, “White Christmas” and “It’s A Wonderful Life”.

John
Make a really small New Year’s resolution that you can actually keep.

Tara
Sweatpants.

Chris
Get snowed in with some friends and a box of Chinese food; the friends are optional.

Ok that’s not entirely how it happened. I wasn’t strutting MY stuff around, but I did attend a fascinating photo shoot for beautiful Westminster Canterbury Richmond. [Read my previous post for details.]

Well the final product of that photo shoot is finally here! The photos were beautiful! They were cropped, resized, edited; you name it. They really look great.

Here is one ad we made using one of the photos. [More to come as we get farther into 2012!]

I also had the pleasure of attending another shoot, only this time it was with the great people of NBC 12! We shot footage for “Live Life Well” Minutes which will air during the Today Show on NBC.

Talk about an awesome experience. We interviewed 6 different employees at Westminster Canterbury, all of which were from different departments around the WCR community. After we shot the footage, NBC went back and edited what they shot, and sent us the compiled videos.

Dr. Kevin Fergusson

Reverend Ray Inscoe

What do you think?!

**A BIG thank you to Michael Park and Victor Nash!

When J H I was asked to develop an identity for the “Shockoe Design District,” I nearly jumped out of my skin. As a Richmond native, I’ve enjoyed all of Shockoe’s offerings…from fresh tomatoes at the Farmer’s Market in the summer to a cup of hot chocolate at the Grand Illumination in the winter. So the chance to add yet another feature to the area’s allure was a challenge we accepted with verve.

The end product is the Shockoe “S”. While directly referencing design, with its use of simple shapes and bold colors, it also encompasses a few of the District’s landmarks. The curve of the S represents the Canal Turning Basin where the Shockoe District begins, and the 3 squares in the middle represent Richmond’s triple crossing .

You can see the Banner (pictured below) hanging across 15th St. for yourself when you attend Shockoe Design Day! (Nov. 5th, 12PM–8PM at 14th & Virginia St.)

Shockoe Design District

I was recently given the opportunity to tag along to a photo shoot for Westminster Canterbury Richmond. I thought we would take a few pictures, go to another location, take a few pictures, and be done by lunchtime. WRONG. We had 5 locations, 4 different models, 3 different exposures, a million thoughts going into each picture, and one goal: to portray the vision of our client in the most accurate way possible. Believe me, it’s hard not to want channel your inner Tyra Banks when attending these photo shoots. But of course, I just stood in the background in awe over the limitless amount of possibility when it comes to photography. Moving a chair an inch to the left can make or break a shot. It’s incredible.

After the photo shoot, we receive the photos from the photographer and look at each one very carefully. We look for photos that give us the same visceral feeling as they did when they first came through the lens.  Here are a few from the shoot (soon to be seen in advertisements, direct mail, online….)

Photos courtesy of Richard Boyd

We are pleased to unveil one of our latest branding campaigns! Introducing Project:Homes, formerly Elder Homes. This was a complete rebrand, from a new brand position and clearer definition of services to a new name—which emerged from many J H I brainstorms—to a new logo. It was critical for the new name and look to be grounded in the ElderHomes Brand DNA while enabling the organization to move beyond misperceptions of being solely about “senior” housing services. The new brand position also became the new tagline: improving lives by improving homes. Project:Homes can now deepen its services and expand its capabilities while remaining firmly rooted in its true core strengths and unique approach. Click here to download a PDF of our strategic recommendation for Project:Homes and get a glimpse into the ground work that goes into a new identity.

Let us know what you think! Twitter us @jhigoodidea or click here to tell us on Facebook!

Our “On to Richmond” Civil War & Emancipation 150^th campaign
for the Richmond Metropolitan Convention and Visitor’s Bureau
has now made its way into the National spotlight. RMCVB received
a great opportunity to promote Richmond as a “must see” Civil War destination with a full page ad in USA Today on Monday, April 11. “Path to Freedom” looks fiery hot at the size of a small poster!
(We’d also love to see it as a backlit diorama in the airport, in
case anyone would like to donate the space…)

It is time again for one of the most prestigious design award shows in the Richmond area, the Greater Richmond Awards for Design Excellence, better known as GRADE! Entries are due March 7-11, and the award ceremony for GRADE 6 will be held April 28th at the Virginia Historical Society. Start getting those entries ready! Click for more info on GRADE.

This year, AIGA asked J H I to take on the design of the promotional pieces for GRADE and we couldn’t have been more flattered. We created the theme of the “winning formula” and used a vintage apothecary look (with a little mystery à la Alice in Wonderland thrown in for good measure) to create labels for bottles which contain the elements of good design. See more of the work, and the incredible photography by Tyler Darden (Click here for more of Tyler’s work), after the jump!

Special thanks to AIGA, Tyler Darden, and our model/new intern, Zane!