DanoCreative

The Bush School events

Dano — Wed, 02 May 2012 02:46:12 +0000

As a person that generally rejects the use of clip art, I appreciate it when a client values custom illustration. I love it when I can pull out my pencils, pens, and paints — and get creative! The Bush School likes an artsy approach to their projects when it’s appropriate. Here are a couple projects that I’ve designed for The Bush School that incorporate custom hand-drawn illustrations and textures.

The Bush School Partners In Learning Event invitation (finish size: 5.5" x 5.5"). Responsible for design, layout, illustration, and coordination.

The Bush School Tea And Tour Postcard (5" x 7"). Responsible for layout, design, coordination.

Free First Class Stamp Vector Art

Dano — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 02:38:21 +0000

I designed these distressed vector images with the intention of using them in a future direct response fundraising campaign. This art is free for you to use in your projects. The file is saved as an Illustrator 8 EPS, and it includes 5 objects total. The vector images include two unique styles of First Class postal stamps, plus two teaser stamps that read “Postmaster: Address Service Requested” and “Time Sensitive Open Immediately.”

Download Illustrator 8 EPS Vector Art

Free Art Download featuring 5 objects including two different styles of First Class postal stamps

Warm Beach Camp website

Dano — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 20:42:35 +0000

In 2010, Warm Beach Camp was ready for a new website. Their site was about 6 years old, difficult to maintain, and inflexible. Warm Beach Camp needed a customizable, easy to update, and scalable, enterprise-level site.

In my first year working as Marketing Manager at Warm Beach Camp, I built a new site using the content management system Joomla!. For the overall design, I customized a RocketTheme template in compliance with Warm Beach Camp’s branding. I was responsible for the content migration process — populating and customizing the layout of over 100 pages.

Joomla! is the perfect solution for the Warm Beach Camp site. It is a robust open-source CMS system that offers user friendly content management and site maintenance capabilities, plus a variety of free or inexpensive plugin applications for added functionality. The best part is, the new Warm Beach Camp site is scalable and flexible, and can grow as their needs change.

Warm Beach Camp website design

The Lights of Christmas website design

Northwest Commercial Electric

Dano — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 19:47:24 +0000

I worked collaboratively with Northwest Commercial Electric to develop their brand image. Their logo incorporates two primary concepts: a mountain, which represents the Pacific Northwest area; and a star burst, which symbolizes solar energy and power.

Northwest Commercial Electric logo

Northwest Commercial Electric Collateral

Missing Link Consulting

Dano — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 17:47:00 +0000

When the client asked me to help develop their branding, all we had was a name, Missing Link Consulting (MLC). I worked collaboratively with MLC to develop their brand image, collateral, and website.

The logo mark represents business synergy. Notice that that the rhomboid-shaped negative space between the two polygons is the same shape as the dot in the “i” in Link. The rhomboid shape represents MLC’s solutions. Fonts are all lower-case, which communicates the company’s down-to-earth persona.

The “roadmap” brochure was designed to be a tool that consultants could use when meeting with a potential client for the first time. It’s purpose is to help provide some quick value and introduce them to MLC.

I also delivered a company website and a blog for MLC. The company website is a Flash template that I customized to comply with the MLC branding. The Road to Success blog was built in WordPress.

Missing Link Consulting Logo

Missing Link brochure and business cards

Missing Link Consulting Website

Missing Link Consulting Blog – "The Road to Success"

The Bush School Reunion Weekend

Dano — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 16:34:58 +0000

This is an invitation that I designed for The Bush School 2010 class reunion.

The Bush School Reunion Weekend 2010 invitation

The Bush School Reunion Weekend 2010 save the date card

Big Red Barn Art Festival

Dano — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 15:19:05 +0000

In 2009, I developed a small marketing campaign for the Big Red Barn Art Festival, an event at Countryside Meadows in Arlington, WA. I was responsible for the copy-writing, design, PR and coordination on this project. Working with a limited budget, I delivered a 8.5″ x 11″ poster which was displayed in the local storefront businesses in the area. I also provided a postcard version that the artists could use to promote to their own constituencies. I also wrote a short press release that was submitted to local newspapers and on event websites.

Big Red Barn Art Festival logo

Big Red Barn Art Festival poster and postcard

CRISTA Camps Fusion Retreat

Dano — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 14:25:50 +0000

When I joined CRISTA Ministries in 2008, CRISTA Camps was facing a precipitous decline in summer camp attendance. Marketing research revealed that CRISTA Camps had a unique growth opportunity, what later became the Fusion Retreat program. We discovered an under-served group of youth pastors and youth leaders who value the camp experience, but lack the time and resources to plan their own program. The opportunity: Fusion Retreats provide the programming, facilities and food service, which frees up youth leaders to do what they do best, connect with kids.

As part of our strategy, I promoted a speaker series luncheon. The intent of the speaker series was to deliver something of value to youth leaders, while having the side benefit of introducing them to the Fusion Retreat program. I segmented a list of church leaders and pastors, targeting the best prospects with an invitation, whereas the rest were mailed a cheaper postcard version. I also helped build unique landing pages which collected the online registrations. All the events were well attended, and resulted in an increase in warm leads for group sales.

CRISTA Camps Youth Ministry Speaker Series postcard and invitation

CRISTA Speaker Series Growing the Team invitation and postcard

Landing pages for Fusion Retreats and the Youth Ministry Speaker Series

CRISTA Camps Fusion Retreat self-mailer

SAMBICA Retreat Center Hospitality

Dano — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 02:50:27 +0000

When I was hired at SAMBICA in 2005, my goals included boosting summer camp attendance and growing seasonal group rental business — the latter being especially critical to the financial health of the organization. I utilized direct mail to target a list of church leaders in the Pacific Northwest. Marketing materials highlighted the improved retreat facilities and superior food service. I successfully boosted off-season cash flow, and grew annual gross revenue from $800,000 to $1.2 million in three years.

SAMBICA Retreat Center Hospitality self-mailer (finish size: 7.75" x 9.25")

SAMBICA Spring Mailer (6" x 11.5")

SAMBICA Hospitality Mailer (6" x 11.5")

SAMBICA brand refresh

Dano — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 23:49:19 +0000

The strongest aspect of the SAMBICA brand is the name. The SAMBICA name, an amalgam of Sammamish Bible Camp Association, is well known in the Seattle/Bellevue area.However, SAMBICA had a few challenges with their branding. First, the logo is an unconventional lying-down “L” shape, which makes it very hard to use from a design aspect. Second, the use of brand colors are undisciplined; and at its worst, the logo features an aesthetically unappealing color combination of maroon and teal. And last but not least, there’s the logo mark, which features two people with alien shaped heads under a broken tree. To top it all off, SAMBICA didn’t have a vector based logo, therefore the logo looked pixelated when used in a large format.

My approach was to refresh the branding, rather than a drastically re-design it. The logo mark was discarded completely. I re-created the logo from scratch in Adobe Illustrator, delivering a refined vector-based version that could be used at any size. SAMBICA is best known for being a watersports camp, therefore I chose the color blue. For the correspondence collateral and summer camp brochure, I incorporated water-like wave design elements into the designs, which represent the water of Lake Sammamish.

SAMBICA logo before and after

SAMBICA letterhead, business card, and envelope

SAMBICA Summer Camp 2008 tri-fold self-mailer brochure (finish size: 6" x 8.5")