A Peek Into the Future…Well, Actually, It’s Here…
iPad Magazine Art Direction from Brad Colbow on Vimeo.
Creativity No Matter Where You Work
We have had the pleasure of working with the Visual Arts Center of Richmond for several years. Recently they introduced an amazing new program, Creativity at Work. It’s a twice yearly, intensive workshop that brings together artists and business leaders (present and future) to explore the creative process and apply it to workplace challenges. In today’s global marketplace, the ability to bring fresh thinking and innovative ideas to the table will be critical for success. As one of the area’s leading creative resources, VisArts is helping to shape business leaders – and the future of our community. Pretty cool, huh? To learn more about it, go to www.visarts.org.
Branding ideas…from squid?
Needless to say, technology has changed the landscape of marketing and design. We’ve all had to re-evaluate existing brands and rethink new ones, beyond print, beyond web, and beyond social media. So when Jo brought in a great article about Google’s brand last week it really got me thinking. Their logo, which is fairly unremarkable in itself from a design standpoint, has completely bucked brand tradition. Last year, Aol jumped on board and rebranded with a logo that not only changes color, but also changes texture and imagery. So what, or who, is next? All of this was fresh in my mind when I came across this article that uses squid (of all things) to bring up some really interesting ideas on the future of branding and marketing. Good food for thought!
Worth a Thousand Words
Great photography is such an important part of any finished piece, printed or online. And usually, we focus on the finished product of our work, the brochures, magazines, and advertisements that we complete for our clients. However, in recent weeks we’ve been given the opportunity to capture the right photo to speak for our clients. Here are a few photos from behind the view finder of our latest photo shoots at Randolph Macon College and Carpenter Co. Finished products coming soon!
J H I Goes to Washington!
We recently completed an exciting project in collaboration with Virginia Tourism Corporation and our friends at Richmond Metropolitan Convention & Visitor’s Bureau (RMCVB) and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. With the main goal to promote the Grand Opening of the VMFA museum expansion on May 1, we created a special edition of the “History” campaign that will be installed in the Gallery Place station in the DC Metro.
Brilliance
For the past couple of years, we’ve been designing St. Catherine’s School’s catalog for their popular summer program, Cat’s CAP. This year, things are a bit different as Cat’s CAP is now part of an expanded summer program called Brilliant Summer. It will continue to offer all of the greatness the community has come to expect, but now with even more offerings from sports and dance to academic enrichment courses. As always, it was a pleasure working with the folks over at St. Catherine’s School and the result was a beautiful and newly designed catalog (with spot gloss varnished cover!).
Beyond Borders
We had the exciting opportunity to work with Rutherfoord on their 2009 Year in Review. Rutherfoord continues to grow as one of the nation’s largest insurance brokerage and risk management firms. The theme for the publication was “beyond borders” and our objective was to highlight Rutherfoord’s strength in venturing beyond the familiar – removing barriers, uncovering opportunities, opening possibilities and taming risk on behalf of their clients.
Breaking New Ground
For over 20 years, Better Housing Coalition has been changing lives and transforming communities through high quality affordable housing. BHC is nationally recognized for its innovative approach, from building green to providing support services that help each neighborhood flourish. In 2009, BHC launched its annual leadership awards, to honor those whose leadership inspires positive change in the greater Richmond community (and to raise money, in case you’re looking for a worthy cause to support). In 2010, BHC decided to name the event/awards Groundbreakers, and asked JHI to develop a logo that would be an extension of the BHC brand (which JHI also developed). The final choice was a colorful constellation of shovels, illustrating the endless and wonderful possibilities that can happen when we all dig in and help.
Good Ideas + Good Thinking
J H I teamed up with Hamilton Beach to create a series of print and online ads to promote 2 fabulous Hamilton Beach products: the Stay or Go Slow Cooker and the Brewstation. We refined their existing look to create 6 online ads and 2 print ads that ran in national publications such as Martha Stewart Living and Everyday with Rachel Ray. See the results below the jump!
History. Open For All.
At J H I, we have the pleasure of working with many clients across various industries. You can imagine why we love our jobs – it never gets stale! We have a long standing relationship with the Richmond Metropolitan Convention and Visitor’s Bureau (RMCVB) and developed their current “History” advertising campaign.
Our clients at RMCVB recently approached us with a new demographic to target – the GLBT community. We immediately got to work on the new ad concept, “History. Open for all.” We used Richmond residents as our models and had the photo shoots in Carytown and at Stronghill Dining Company (which is delicious too!).
