Objective: When I spoke with Melanie, she was looking for a tool to promote an educational local charity event in its fight against ovarian cancer during Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month. We decided a promo card displayed at prominent locations would work well in conjunction with an email.
Direction/Design: Appropriate for this project was a night out in the city look & feel representing live music, classy and fun. It was important to prominently display the cause and reasons to attend. I chose a fun, attention-grabbing color-scheme that includes blue (the color for ovarian cancer) and incorporated a female representation since since the disease effects women.
I used some key elements to achieve the desired effect: the city skyline, subtle crowd representation, bright orange/coral as pop colors. On the back I included information about the foundation as an educational tool.
Objective: In 2012 Nutrisystem was looking for a fresh, new, user-friendly, inbox experience for diet season to provide customers with a quality welcome kit—that hyped the new program and fell within budget.
Direction/Design: We used the leaf, a key element of the brand, to symbolize our customers as they journey through the program—creating a clean, brand-focused look and feel.
The product is a customized box enclosure housing kit components (resource guide, meal planner and pocket reference card) with a welcome flap.
Objective: When we were engaged my husband and I wanted to create a collaborative wedding invitation that was original woodsy, rustic, bee-themed.
Direction/Design: We decided illustrated trees and bees would fit the theme and we chose to incorporated engagement shoot photos into a design with clever bee-themed copy. Our wedding colors were teal, green and yellow.
Kraft paper, doillies, and a custom stamp give this design a casual rusticity while clean font choices and organized layout provide the level of seriousness that a wedding day commands without being stuffy. The collaboration on the art of this project gave it a personal touch that we are both proud of.
Logo & Website: I created a current, fun and rustic graphic to be treated in stamps, on the invites, save the dates and website. We found a heart-shaped stump to fit the bill. The site contains simple wedding information with an outdoorsy, camp theme.
Objective: Generate sales calls via creative treatment of current program, messaging and promotions through original DR print advertising.
Direction/Design: Each ad was unique and direction varied based on type of media placement, response rate of previous ads and new assets consideration. Logo placement and current positioning were always key.
To produce effective results strong color & font choices with hierarchy placed on most effective elements were crucial in design.
Objective: Being very nature-oriented, I wanted to create a series of vector illustrated creature notecards based on field guide photographs to give as holiday gifts.
Direction/Design: The concept was to closely study the detail of each photograph and simplify to create pseudo realistic vector creatures. Font choices were chosen carefully as appropriate for each creature name.
Exaggerated color and simplified forms were combined with the use of gradients for dimension to create the desired effect. Stylistically the cards hold together as a set.
Objective: Rachel Schwartz wanted a simple, clean, elegant site that would showcase her work. She was looking for a simple type treatment for her logo that would appeal on a corporate, professional level, but still remain approachable and represent her style. The font choice was crucial.
Direction/Design: The intentional minimalist treatment of the homepage allows viewers to wonder what their space could become. The neutral beige and white color scheme allows Rachel's bold, bright whimsical designs to be the hero on the page. Bright pink and orange are utilized for pop and reflect her aesthetic.
A serif font with a rounded feminine style was chosen to reflect her designs. The lotus flower element alludes to her love of patterns and wallpapers.
The site is fully responsive for any format including a mobile menu for phones and small screens.
Objective: R. Noel Shaak needed an edgy artist portfolio site that showcases his surrealistic, detailed work to promote himself to the gallery scene in Philadelphia.
Direction/Design: I created a homepage that resembles a drawing board, highlighting newest work and news and incorporated elements from the artist's work into the site design itself such as custom headers drawn by the artist and some unexpected interactive elements.
Dark earthy colors compliment the artist's earthy work. Hover changes on headers and logo reveal hidden results (symbolic of the hidden aspects of the work itself). Hovers on main navigation of the subpages reveal arms from some of the artist's characters. Accordion menus and lightboxes on the portfolio page help to create a positive user experience as they navigate the work itself.
Objective: Upscale packaging design & logo for a product line of 12 home-delivered meals, created by celebrity chefs — complimenting existing core package design in production.
Direction/Design: Overhead photography on white linen and clean white plates to elevate the brand from the Core line of packaging and retain a similar layout and meal occasion bar for user convenience. Brief bios of the contributing chefs are highlighted on the side panels to further promote the celebrity line concept.
Deepening the color-scheme from 'Core' packaging and utilizing a serif type-face for meal occasions, along with employing a wood grain background, to drive the custom chef creation element. Vertical orientation and angled table cloths are used for visual differentiation from the 'Core' line packaging.
Logo: The logo was designed to suggest the sideview of a table with red linen. A serif font was chosen to elevate this brand. The leaf was incorporated as a design element for consistency with the Nutrisystem brand.
Objective: A new alternative band needed an identity and t-shirts for promotion.
Direction/Design: I used the symetery in the word "LEVEL" to create a cool band logo. It was important to keep in mind the alternative nature of the band in color choices. Deep browns and bright greens represent this all boy band. Dark green distinguishes them from the typical black t-shirts of other bands, but is still dark enough to be appropriate for the bars they ofter play.
Logo: The letters are filled halfway as a level is showing liquid just slightly swishing off balance. Bubbles ascend from the liquid to create interest and symbolize something tangible distributing into the ether.
Objective: A new seasonal kit highlighting diet tips, coaching and fiber drinks.
Direction/Design: With emphasis upon our new product offerings, I chose a standard direct mail format with bold colors to reduce print costs.
Nutrisystem's leaf green was chosen for branding consistency and orange for pop. The dot pattern is illustrative, representing each person who was a Nutrisystem success. The FlavorFulls fiber drink box packaging design and colors were chosen to conform with the flavors.
Objective: It was time for a fresh, new, self-promotional brand. This was my brand prior to the brand represented on this site.
The Brand: I started thinking about my middle name, Penny. It is unique in that it is tangible, but also a name. I thought about how pennies found on the street can be seen as good luck and that they are often referred to as shiny. I came to "The Inspired Penny" with a tagline of "Designs that shine."
Direction/Design: I didn't want to be overly literal by showing a penny in the logo. The symbol of a shining sun was a bit more subtle and achieved the warmth I was looking for in the brand. I chose a penny color for the font color to allude to the inspiration. Sun spots in varying colors also helped to create warmth and interest. I was sure to include my middle name on my letterhead and business card to also make the connection.
Objective: A self-mailer to promote new menu items and entice customers to join the program with a special offer.
Direction/Design: Employed a vertical roll fold format to unveil the new foods; as each panel is opened another item is revealed. To make the food preeminent, I cropped each presentation on a minimal surface by feathering out the rest of the image. Text surrounds the images (one per panel). Snipes, bars and arrows tease the offer and highlight key content to peek customer interest.
Objective: My neighborhood is going through a period of serious change. Many old, structurally-sound buildings are being destroyed instread of being repurposed or revived. In an effort to preserve the charater of our neighborhood a historic preservation society has formed. The video includes footage midway through of a building the society fought to repurpose being destroyed. I created it to help raise awareness for their cause.
Direction/Design: The song gives the neighborhood a voice and as you hear it you see applicable video that juxtaposes new development and stip malls against the old buildings with character (some of which are being repurposed). The included copy was taken from emails from members of the society.
I shot, edited and produced this video.
Objective: I met with the manager at the Blarney Stone who was looking for a large postcard for local advertisment the promotions for the month of September. I was given free reign on design.
Direction/Direction: Inspired by the decor in the bar and knowing I needed to fit a ton of information in a small space, I thought listing the specials on a chalkboard would create interest and since the Blarney Stone is an irish bar, I went with a green chalkboard. I prominently displayed the logo and name so it would resonnate with the local patrons. I used fun illustrations and chose a handwriting font to keep in theme.
Objective: Alex is a painter and is inspired by Klimt. She provided me with a book of his work and asked that her wedding invitation, while simple, be inspired by a Klimt painting.
Direction/Design: I chose Tree of Life to base her art on. I represented two uniting individuals by drawing 2 unique trees in the style of the drawing and uniting them at their roots with a heart. The black and white design is broken only for the heart which shows in bright red to highlight the love the couple shares. The reply card is a postcard that reverses the image of the trees and also includes a red heart.
The font mimics the swirly style of the trees.
Objective: To create an identity and tag for a knitter looking to potentially sell her work.
Direction/Design: Susan has such a passion for knitting that she quickly finishes projects. She always carries her knitting with her. This gave me the idea to do a logo with the concept, "sweaters that practically knit themselves." I took that literal idea and ran with it.
I wanted this logo to feel organic to represent the natural materials she uses to knit her sweaters. For this reason a hand-drawn approach made the most sense. I illustrated a chunky sweater knitting itself. The font mimics the style of the drawing in its organic hand-written style.
Objective: Versatile tradeshow booth display to showcase the brand.
Direction/Design: Leaf motif to showcase the logo leaf while graphically creating movement in this asymetrical design. Content highlighting the ease of the program and how it works. The content achieves this goal through a quote from a satisfied customer, a copy block and iconic bullet points about the program itself.
Leaf element used to separate content sections — but did not adhere to the restrictions of each panel. By crossing dividers, the booth feels more open and cohesive. Leaf green and bright orange were used as pop colors. Each icon was designed as a quick takeaway of the key program points.
Objective: Generate sales calls via creative treatment of current program, messaging and promotions through original DR direct mail.
Direction/Design: Each piece was unique and direction varied based on audience, response rate of previous direct mail pieces and new assets consideration. Logo placement and current positioning were always key. Different versions of a piece were created to speak directly to each audience segment.
Strong color & font choices with hierarchy placed on most effective elements were crucial in design.
Objective: As part of my web design MFA I took a flash class where we learned to use Actionscript 3. Our midterm project was to create a site showcasing some of our favorite songs and built entirely in Flash.
Direction/Design: As I thought about the best design to showcase these songs I realized an old jukebox would be the perfect format and I branded it with my personal brand at the time. Complete with button sounds this jukebox will take you to two unique themed sections, each containing four songs. There is custom animation in the background of each theme that only begins when the music plays.
Objective: Nutrisystem's product packaging hadn't changed in 5 years. With a new logo in the mix, they were looking for a modern, clean design that could traverse all product types, retain existing food photography and highlight the meal occasions for customers.
Direction/Design: Given extreme differentiation in packaging for the various products, I employed a bar with logo and meal occasion to highlight both and grant space for the photography. Colors for each meal occasion were changed from the previous neon hues. Fonts were simplified for a more clean look. Food images clipped and assigned faded neutral backgrounds to align the images and retain divergent styles of photography as charged. Templates for core product packaging types were designed first, keeping in mind that the more high-end frozen packaging would need to be elevated in design.
My designs were surveyed amidst 5 others by a pool of customers and were the clear winners. I designed the templates, ran production with an outside agency, proofed and art directed food photography for future product shoots.
Objective: St. Joseph's Preparatory School needed for a high-end brochure to promote their school and to reach out to alumni for donations to support the school.
Direction/Design: The theme was "United We Prep", so a unified image of current students was chosen for the cover. The brochure opens to a panel asking for gifts. To envoke a response from the alumni I chose and image of the cathedral where graduation is held. The use of this image gives the idea that you can help a child attend and graduate from the shcool. Two panels were used for this message and image to give it power and hierarchy. The one-color donation card was redesigned to match the brochure. The Prep Fund maroon and grey colors were used in all collaterals.
Objective: A holistic health counselor was looking for an identity package that would set her business apart.
Direction/Design: Many health counselors opt for neutral earthy colors, however Alexandra is a huge fan of bright colors. We talked and agreed that she needed a logo that speaks to her energy and the vibrance she hopes people feel when eating well...not one that will get lost in neutrals. A girl in a seated heart-opening pose emerging from a lotus flower was the perfect image. Lotus flowers are said to signify life. They are beauties that grow from the mud. The logo is symetrical to represent balance in life, energy and nature.
"Sarah understood me, not just as a friend, but as a client. Her ability to match what I had in mind, or what I hadn't conceived of yet was adept and inspired. She has a great sense of color and vibrance in her designs that also maintain authenticity and simplicity. Sarah is a gifted designer, and she understands her craft well."
-Alexandra Difilippo, Certified Holistic Health Counselor
Objective: A direct mail piece to entice potential customers to utilize a special offer.
Direction/Design: Showcased success stories in their target demographic and suggested different life events as motivators for weight loss. Yellow graphics resembling post-its highlight main motivators and quotes and stories offer more detail. 'Before images' are shown next to 'after images' to visually pop individual weight loss on program.
Strong offer panel with bullet icons to explain how the program works. Teasers are highlighted in bars and snipes on the two outside panels.
Objective: Andrea is a copywriter with an eye for detail and a candid style. She also has a cool last name—"Fine". She was looking for an identity package to help her with networking.
Direction/Design: Since her style is candid a black and white solution made sense. I treated her name in a simple sans-serif with a bold first name and a light last name to highlight "Fine" in meaning. To represent her eye for detail I highlighted all dots in the lettering in red. Then to symbolize that she stands out in the crowd I used a single red dot in a sea of black dots.
"Sarah designed business letterhead and cards for me. I picked her, having
seen and really admired her commercial work. I wanted something that was
individual and distinctive, something different than the more traditional
design I had before. Sarah spent time with me, listening to my thoughts,
asking good questions. I was really pleased with the result, which
incorporated everything she and I had talked about. She delivered on
schedule, and her prices were competitive. I would definitely choose her
again and would recommend her wholeheartedly."
—Andrea Fine, Copywriter
Objective: Susan & Bill were having a wine-themed wedding and were looking for a simple, elegant custom design. Their colors were purple, green and pink.
Direction/Design: I chose an elegant serif font and highlighted their names in the sea of copy. I created a tab with the date, so it was prominently displayed for the guests. I thought the colors and theme were perfect for a custom vector illustration of grapes to use as the main theme. Faint grape vines trail in the background and help to create an atmosphere. A custom menu was designed for their guests as well.
"Working with Sarah on print media design projects for major client's marketing campaigns is always predictably smooth. Sarah is not only a superb listener at initial concept engagement, she is extremely efficient at crystallizing what clients envision and designing finished presentations—minimizing the reiterative process to acceptance."
-William D. Busch, William D. Busch, Inc.
Objective: Serac Solutions is an IT company that designs custom software for pharmaceutical companies. They were looking to update their brand with a polished, clean and modern feel that would set them apart.
Direction/Design: Since their focus is on solving problems, I started to think about the concept of the missing puzzle piece...the one the completes the challenge and lets you see the full picture. I designed custom lettering for the first part of the name that included the "E" as a puzzle piece. I then continued the theme moving puzzle elements around on the business cards and letterhead to show matches and symbolize that they are the perfect fit for your IT needs.
Objective: We were asked to use After Effects to create a short kinetic type animation.
Direction/Design: I was a childhood fan of the Rock Biter in the Neverending Story and decided that his monologue had many opportunities for visual representation. Each phrase moves in a manner appropriate to what it says.
Objective: Whalen's Greenhouses is a family business and they were looking for an updated logo using a leaf motif to represent their trade.
Direction/Design: I chose an organic looking serif font for their name and manipulated each character slightly to fit the design. I was inspired by the family name "Whalen's" and wanted to treat the leaves subtly to resemble water coming out of a blow hole. The colors are dark and earthy greens and the leaves are intentionally non-descript. A natural linen stock represents the industry well.
"We have been working with Sarah for years and her creativity and attention to detail amazes us every time. She took our company logo and transformed it into a masterpiece that we are proud to put on all of our products. We can always count on Sarah to create any point of purchase needed quickly, with stunning results."
-John Whalen, Whalen's Greenhouses
Objective: Promote medical channel, Nutrisystem D (diabetic program). Print ads for placement in medical magazines, showcasing clinical studies and promoting the program benefits. Created educational brochures in the form of direct mail to educate customers.
Direction/Design: Many considerations were involved with collaterals promoting Nutrisystem D. The target audience in this arena cares much more about health than vanity and clinical information about blood sugars and A1Cs is essential to communication. Our relationship with the American Diabetes Association influenced the language used and it was necessary to work closely with our legal department to ensure compliance with medical publishing regulations. The brand colors were blue and yellow and we used the orange and green from our direct business concept for pop.
Objective: R. Noel Shaak is an artist and illustrator who was breaking into the gallery scene in Philadelphia. He needed an identity package that would showcase his work and aesthetic.
Direction/Design: The artist was looking to turn a sketch of his identity symbol (seen in the O) into a versatile logo. A complementary, strong and sketchy font and an earthy, mustard yellow were incorporated to create the final logo.
I took one of his drawings and chose sections to display on his business cards and letterhead. The map seemed appropriate for the business card where contact information is displayed because of it's nod to location. I was careful to match position of the drawing of the front and back of the card so they align as you turn the card over. The logo includes a mustard yellow seen in the drawing itself. The letterhead uses the top and bottom of the same map drawing at the top and bottom of the page.
"Sarah's designs for my website and business stationary went far beyond my
creative expectations. The continual compliments I receive on my stationary
logo alone always bring a smile. Her attention to detail and open-mindedness
made her work interactive and fun, while her promptness and professionalism
left me at ease."
—R. Noel Shaak, Artist/Illustrator
