Client Spotlight: Emily Griffith

We’ve been working with Emily Griffith for some time now, and have been waiting to properly unveil her whole re-branding effort. Today our featured client is Emily Griffith and her beautiful photography.

The beginning of our involvement in Emily’s projects involved a name change from One Lime Photo to simply Emily Griffith. From there we created a new logo which is meant to be vibrant, original and friendly. Like many of the photographers we work with Emily was looking to make a move into a higher-end clientele, so we kept that idea in mind when creating all of her print pieces. We’ve maintained a sense of Emily’s joyful personality with the bright and bold color palette, but reinforced the idea of smart and sophiiticated with the ample white space and efficient logo.

Emily wanted a special touch on her print pieces, so we embossed the eg logo where appropriate.

Her business cards are some of our favorites in recent memory. Due to the geometric efficiency of her logo, we are able to re-create the e&g with one large and simple embossing. Brilliant!

Here’s the stationery “family photo.” Emily produced only the pieces she used most and made the best impression on potential and current clients.  Shown here are her business cards, thank you card with envelope, and recordable DVDs with cases. The following shots show those pieces in some detail.

As a follow-on to Emily’s identity system, we produced a custom website, with blog functionality and a Wordpress back-end management system. “Woo hoo” for Emily’s easy-to-use, SEO friendly site! Design by Reddoor and programmed masterfully by Thom Meredith Design.

Emily, you’ve been a delight to work with. Thank you for trusting us and being a terrific client.

Visit Emily Griffith:
Emily’s Web Site
Emily’s Twitter
Emily’s Facebook
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Reddoor’s Facebook
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Evolution of a [ b ]rand

Allow me to introduce you to Becker (you probably already know who he is). He is a long-time friend and client of Reddoor Creative. We started work on the [ b ] logo and brand way back in the day. It all began in 1998 and continues to develop to this day. Becker’s business savvy and his ability to capture relaxed portraits, amazing details and real moments for brides and grooms has set him apart as one of industry’s finest. His [ b ] brand has become a standard in the world of wedding photography, and we are proud to be a part of that success. We’ve had the distinct pleasure of working with Becker for the last 12 years, and continually appreciate his business, support, referrals and especially his friendship.

We’ve been talking for a while now about re-visiting all of the old [ b ] ID systems. Well, the wait is over… today is that day. Enjoy a little stroll down the Becker memory lane. But wait, there’s more! (is this an infomercial?) We’re even going to let you in on what his stuff looked like before we got our hands on Becker’s brand. Enjoy.

Feast your eyes on the highly guarded, old school business cards. These pre-date our involvement in Becker’s business, back in the land of pagers and fax machines.

I just tried to page Becker to see where he got this “marble-y” paper, but it looks like he’s canceled his service?

The official [ b ] logo was created in 1998 by Tim Holmes, at the time a college student, now partner of Reddoor Creative. To this day, the only thing that has changed on the logo is the color and the way it is used. A testament to the adage that “something well-designed will stand the test of time.”

Below are a collection of photos we have on hand of Becker’s historical ID systems. They’re in order of oldest to youngest. This first set is circa 2000

Circa 2001

Circa 2003 (our only living evidence of this system is the digital art we sent to the printers)

Becker’s current ID system. 2004-present

The [ b ] School logo and website

And finally a logo for some of Becker’s personal work

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WPPI Promotion Winners

We had a newsletter go out to our “insiders” mailing list at the end of last week soliciting volunteers to be the first to get a behind-the-scenes look at Red by Reddoor. We had a fantastic of group of entries, and have chosen our 3 winners. Each had compelling stories and images. You have to check out their blogs to see what they’ve been shooting.

Katrina Wheeler
Jessica Peterson
Micah Dahlberg

Thanks to all of the other submissions. Be sure to come back often to get the latest news about Red.

Client Spotlight: Davina Fear Photography

We’re proud to share the work we’ve done for an incredible photographer named Davina Fear. When Reddoor opened over three years ago she was one of first clients we helped with a complete branding overhaul. If you haven’t heard of her before, you must check out her work. See the links at the end of this post to do so. We have the pleasure of running into Davina every few years, are regularly inspired by her photography and desire to help other photographers, not to mention her philanthropic work.

Below is Davina’s current logo. It utilizes an elegant, type solution that would hold it’s own in the world of high-fashion. The letter forms were customized to give it that one-of-a-kind touch. We wanted to balance the the type with a friendly and approachable logo that told her story. Out of all of the inspiration material Davina sent us a phrase emerged that had several layers of meaning: Love. Life. The idea that love blossoms from life itself. The logo, succinctly stated just that. The combination of the logo and the type created a great starting point for executing her identity system.

Current logo

Some of the type solution explorations, each with a distinct feel.

And, a couple logo explorations, that led to her current logo.

With her new logo, we were able to have fun with several patterns, and incorporated them into her ID system.Davina does a terrific job of consistently using the Love. Life. tag line. We’ve seen it grow and develop over the years, and you can see what I mean if you visit her website.

We’ve included the two images below, to show Davina’s brand before her Reddoor re-branding. We made a conscious decision to use only her first name in our solution, so that her warm personality could show through into her branding. We agreed with Davina, that using her last name in her logo, had the potential to hurt more than it helped. So the new brand omitted it.

Since we began work with Davina, she has moved to North Carolina continues to provide great resources, Love Affair workshops and kits for photographers. The kits include:

get your LIFE back. kit.
WEDDING 101. kit.
LAST MINUTE. kit.
CONTRACT. kit.
GTKY.kit.
Check them out here.

To wrap things up, here are some of her most recent and favorite images:

A favorite image of ours, and one we ended up using in a Utah bridal magazine ad. Isn’t the gentleman in the front seat the best?

Follow Davina on Twitter
Davina’s Website
Davina’s Blog
Thirst Relief

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Keep up with us:
Reddoor’s Twitter
Reddoor’s Facebook

Client Spotlight: Pacific Luxury Group

As promised, here is our follow up to the post about the Modern Type category on Monday.

We’re proud to feature Pacific Luxury Group in today’s client spotlight. James Anderson (owner) approached us to develop a luxury real estate brand that would feel familiar to his clientele in the premium market of the Pacific Palisades, CA. There were several goals for the brand, the first was to highlight the personalized service offered to clients. The second was to demonstrate confidence, which is conveyed primarily by the lion and secondarily in the execution of printed pieces and web design. The lion was inspired by the lions of ancient heraldry and coats of arms, but we adapted it to maintain it’s confidence and still appear current. We wanted this brand to be synonymous with luxury hotel brands, and have all of the associations that come with exclusivity. Lastly we wanted to establish that Pacific Luxury Group is an elite real estate agency that specializes in multi-million dollar properties and caters to the buyers and sellers in that niche market.

The words “Pacific Luxury” make use of a modern typeface called Walbaum, which we mentioned in Monday’s Type Categories post. In this case, Walbaum is doing it’s job by communicating high-end, sophisticated and premium.

We’re thrilled to have clients like James, who are willing to go the extra mile with details, production and finishes in order to achieve the desired result for the brand. Here are some great shots of his letterpressed business cards. They’re super thick, beautifully produced, and without a doubt, make a statement when handed to a potential client. James has informed us that he regularly uses the arresting quality of his cards to seamlessly lead into the benefits of his service. Keep up the great work James!

Take note of the card’s edge painting. We think it says “No detail was overlooked in the production of this fine piece of stationery.” Thanks to Studio on Fire, of Minneapolis, for crafting these elegant business cards. See Studo On Fire’s site and blog to learn more about their exceptional process and see some of their recent work.

We have several more great projects that are in-process with James and Pacific Luxury Group. Once we’ve wrapped them up, we’ll be sure to share them with you here on the blog. In the meantime, check out Pacific Luxury Group’s website.

Reddoor Promo: End of 2009

Calling all photographers… If you’ve been considering a new brand for 2010, today is your lucky day. Perhaps you’ve never thought about what kind of message you’re sending to prospective clients? Or maybe you already know that your brand is in need of serious overhaul. Since many photographers busy season is wrapping up, now is the perfect time for you to focus your efforts on your image.

We don’t want to you to use the economy as an excuse to neglect your branding. So, we’re doing our part to help you succeed. Consider this offer the Reddoor stimulus package for 2009:

- We have room for TWO spots in our schedule for new clients before the end of the year… there were three spots, but one has already been snatched up this week! Way to go Justin & Melanie
- 20% off our normal photographer package branding rates
- First come, first serve basis. Your spot will be held by a verbal commitment, followed by a down payment
- Discount applies to all packages. This offer will last only until the spots are filled.

If you’re seriously interested, we’re happy to send you pricing and package info. Email us at info@reddoorLA.com

A sampling of Reddoor clients:

Client Spotlight: Shootsac

Today’s client spotlight is on everybody’s favorite lens bag company: Shootsac!

We’ve had the good fortune of working with the amazing gals (and a guy) at Shootsac for the past several years. They began as a lens bag company and we’ve had the distinct pleasure of watching them grow before our very eyes. It’s been such a privilege to work with the Shootsac team on all kinds of print, web, branding, packaging, product design and other various projects.

If you haven’t seen their latest product, the Hip Slip, you have to check one out. The Hip Slip is a self-professed “laptop sleeve with benefits.” It’s the best way we know to transport our laptops. It’s simple, well-designed and completely functional.

Let’s talk branding… The Shootsac by Jessica Claire called for bold color and distinguishable patterns that would differentiate the product from the world of boring black camera bags. The classic “baroque” has become one of the Shootsac signatures, along with the vibrant lime green. The distinct logo that helped start it all is shown above. We developed this simple and modern logo to represent the functionality and utility of the Shootsac itself. Take a look below, at a few of the Shootsac and Hip Slip projects from the past couple years.

Shootsac Packaging (who knew corrugated cardboard could look so sexy?)

2009 WPPI Tradeshow booth

Hip Slip glamour shots

Putting my Reddoor bias aside, I will say that almost every wedding I attend these days I see a photographer with a Shootsac. The last wedding I was at in San Diego, I asked the photographer about her Shootsac, and she said something to the effect of “everybody has one of these, duh.”

Follow Shootsac on Twitter
Shoosac’s Facebook Page

Client Spotlight: Alex MacAulay Photographers

Over the past three years we’ve been so fortunate to work with some incredible photographers. Alex MacAulay and his wife Kate are no exception. Alex was actually one of the first photographers to hire us when we opened back in October of 2006. Since then, we’ve worked on several projects with him, including a redesign of his logo and branding. We’ll be taking a closer look at that today, along with a little bit of the background for the project. Alex and his team of talented photographers are based in Halifax, NS in Canada. For those who don’t know (I didn’t) that’s off the North East tip of Maine.

We begin all client relationships with a thorough get-to-know you phase. Once armed with everything we need to know about the business we move into the actual creative process. Our first presentation is the most time consuming, and includes the “big ideas” or concepts. These Ideas are all meant to address the communication goals of the brand, but each in a different way. Shown below are some of the sketches that were used in the process of developing the Alex MacAulay signature logo and brand elements.

We had several things we needed to communicate in the creation of this brand:
- Professionalism. This was addressed in the color palette, logo composition, and the type selection. Things were kept simple and clean to reference sophistication and quality.
- Passionate. Alex and his team are have an intense passion for their art. We used the deep crimson and the the hand-drawn letter forms to evoke passion.
- Creative. The custom drawn “signature” addresses the one-of-a-kind nature of their work, and related nicely to the emotion and personality that is so often seen in their images.

Here is their current logo:

Old logo and logotype:

Reddoor created the elements of the brand along with design for several printed pieces. Alex and the very talented guys at Infinet Design carried out the execution of his website while staying very true to the spirit of the brand. Great work Infinet!

You can meet the whole team of Alex’s talented photographers here. Listening to vinyl records, a baby girl, squirrel attacks, and playing wii are just a few of the high points you can find in the bio section. Here are a several of Alex MacAulay Photographers latest and greatest images. Keep up the amazing and inspiring work guys!