ABOUT:  How do you create a Holiday gala invitation that does not get thrown away? One suggestion: turn it into a hybrid invitation-calendar that celebrates 70 years of a firm’s history.

The design and format of this calendar were carefully considered. The base is small so that it takes up the minimal amount of precious desk space, yet tall enough to stand out over the piles of documents that cover an architect’s desks. The month appears as a large numeral at the top right for quick reference. A timeline depicting major milestones in the firm’s history runs across the claendar’s bottom so that as you progress through the year, you are treated to a little more knowledge. The invitation/calendar was designed to fold up and fit into a transparent vellum policy envelope for easy delivery. I was pleased to see that even after the calendar year ran out, these were still hanging out on people’s desks.

Awards & Honors:

DSVC Professional Show

Graphic Design USA

A few Process Sketches

ABOUT: The Dodger & White Sox spring training home at Camelback Ranch – Glendale, Arizona, is a campus rather than a complex, and a park rather than a facility. The client requested a logo that felt more like a sophisticated spa than a baseball field. The architecture of the site is heavily influenced by Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin home. The concept for the logo is a blending of the Taliesin style and a baseball diamond, which work together to form a monogram for the park.

CLIENT: LA Dodgers & Chicago White Sox

HKS needed to refresh its image in the mind of students, who considered HKS to be a production house rather than a design studio. In order to overcome this perception, we set out to create something that would visually show off some of HKS’s award-winning buildings, as well as be something that students would keep at their desks. After some group brainstorming, we all remembered tacking postcards and clippings of designs we liked to our studio space. So, we turned the buildings into pop-up postcards. After all, every design major always has an X-acto handy. Seeking a way that we could also engage students over social media, we also created a competition where students could draw their vision of a building on a blank card and mail them to us. Those designs were then uploaded to the HKS Facebook page for a little student show-and-tell. From here, the top designs were posted on the HKS website. This also served as a way to find out potential new hires.

CLIENT:  HKS Architects

DIMENSIONS: 6”x4”

PRINT METHOD:  Offset, 4 over 2.

NUMBER OF CARDS:  10

AWARDS/HONORS: DSVC annual awards show, GD USA design annual

In their own words the mission of Center for Advanced Design Research and Evaluation (Cadre) is, “to develop and execute relevant original research in the areas of architectural and engineering design solutions having an impact on: end users, including occupant well-being and user effectiveness; operational performance; and sustainability of the built environment. Dissemination of this new knowledge to end users and the design community is inherent in our organizational intent.”

Whereas the majority of buildings created by the design community constitute a one-of-a-kind outcome, CADRE focuses on informing the design community toward achieving a greater consistency in performance and quality of future building designs.

The concept for the logo focuses on Cadre’s mission to be a center point for disseminating architectural information. They see themselves as a central hub for the spreading of research conducted by them, as well as by other organizations. While talking to Cadre’s founder, he described the organization as a surveyor’s benchmark – where all buildings begin. Each character in the final logo contains a chiseled arrow that points away from the organization. Cadre becomes the center point from which the information is being emitted. The chiseled arrows create an illusion of space, allowing each letter to take on a three-dimensional form that alludes to the architectural side
of their research.

CLIENT: CADRE and HKS

Below are some concept sketches.

Below is a slide show that was created for the home page of the HKS website. It announced the formation of CADRE both internally to HKS employees as well as to HKS’s clients.

AWARD: Accepted into the DSVC professional show

2009 was my second year to tackle this project. In 2008, I had a vision for the book to actually be four different minibooks that were part of a set. This way, each team’s design solution could stand alone, and the fourth book could tell the history of the Fellowship. At the time, I did not have the experience or the relationship with a printer that was needed to pull it off.

On my second attempt – with a little more experience under my belt – I was determined to make the minibook concept work. I designed all four books to fit on a single press sheet that would be printed four over two. Rather than being perfect bound, each book was designed as an accordion fold to allow for the maximum amount of pages while saving cost on trimming and binding. I designed a belly band that would hold the four books together and made sure that it would fit on the same press sheet. Once everything was said and done, I was able to create more books than the previous year for less money. My client was ecstatic.

CLIENT: HKS Design Fellowship

DIMENSIONS: 33.25”x4” unfolded

PRINT METHOD: Offsets

INKS: 4 color process over 2 spot colors

Award: DSVC award show 2009

Canstrutction is an annual event where teams of architects and engineers gather to build large sculptures out of canned food. After the event, all cans are donated to local food banks. This set of posters was designed to recruit team members to build, to ask for donations, and to invite people to the event. The most challenging part of this project was the lack of budget for printing. In order to overcome this, the posters were printed digitally on various recycled paper samples. Because of the texture of the paper, the final prints looked as if they had been screen printed.

Awards:
Print Magazine Regional Design Issue | 09
DSVC Annual Show | 09
Graphic Design USA | 09

Classy Poster

When HKS hired an etiquette expert to come teach a class to its young business professionals to make sure they were brushed up on their manners, they needed a promotional piece for it. I learned a lot about the approval process during this assignment. When I sent out my concept for approval, I copied two people on the e-mail. Had I sent the final to each of my clients separately it would have been approved. Unfortunately, when one person reacted with hesitation, everyone else jumped on the bandwagon. Separately they all liked the idea; but when one person began to question it, every one else followed suit. Lesson learned.

This piece was in the DSVC Annual Awards Show

The design fellowship was started at HKS to bring young designers together and to give them an opportunity to work together and flex their design muscles. The monogram is a continuous flowing form expressing collaboration, camaraderie, speed and energy with a hint of perspective to allude to architecture. The stem completes both the “d” and the “f”. Without design their is no fellowship, and without fellowship there is not design.

Design Fellowship Logo and Colors

Design Fellowship Logo Grid

Design Fellowship Web Graphic

Design FellowshipWeb Banner

Design Fellowship Web Image

Design Fellowship Posters

These posters were hand made by fellows from the Design Fellowship. Because there was such a small budget, I created a system of stencils in various sizes so that the posters could be spray painted. Each person was encouraged to have fun and experiment with the process.

Click to enlarge

This poster was emailed to professors for them to use to promote the Design Fellowship within their universities. I also brought them some printed copies when we visited. Logistically it did not make since to actually spray paint these posters so they are “digitaly” spray painted to keep a coherent look. I love comparing the similarities and differences between the actually spray painted posters and the digitally spray painted posters.

AWARD: The HKS Design Fellowship logo was accepted into the DSVC Professional Show

C & P = Chris Jones (me) and Peter Leong (my good friend). When Peter decided he was going to throw a house warming party for himself and combine it with a birthday bash extravaganza for me I decided it was the perfect opportunity to have some fun. My goal was to make something that represented the elements involved. I started by making the house and party hat icon. Everything else was driven by the idea of forces coming together and creating energy. We used the images on the Facebook event page as well as posting posters around Peter’s house. I kept everything in black and white so I could print large prints for super cheap. I had a tremendous amount of fun working on this personal project.

Retrospect offers the American Institute of Architecture (AIA), Dallas Chapter, the opportunity to introduce architects and architecture to the public with more than 50 display pieces. The exhibit also informs the public of the
many endeavors of AIA Dallas, and the benefits and contributions that quality design has on the built environment and many other aspects of our lives.

During the time I was working on this project, every day on my way to work I would look up at all the construction cranes that dominated the skyline; I felt that despite the recession, the city was still in a period of growth and chose to focus on this as a message of hope.

CLIENT:  American Institute of Architect – Dallas

DIMENSIONS:  24”x36”