A selection of recent freelance work.
THE COLLEGE NOTEBOOK VISUAL IDENTITY
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The College Notebook is a Substack newsletter about all things college football and basketball. The vision for this identity was a simple, fun cartoon mascot that could represent college sports with a few key details, coupled with a complementary wordmark. I created several logos, including the full mascot, the standalone head that lends itself well to profile pictures, and lockups, all in one- and two-color options. The color palette comprises several tints of a collegiate blue, evoking team colors and the pale lines on notebook paper, which is incorporated to the brand language as an occasional backdrop to the logos. I don't get to do character-related work often so this project was a blast and a learning experience!
NOM DE PLUME VISUAL IDENTITY
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Nom de Plume is a floral studio providing flowers for individual arrangements, weddings, and events. For the wordmark, I crafted an original lettering style that is at once refined, down-to-earth, and youthful, and paired it with an engraving-style poppy symbol that implies growth and innovation. The brand palette was chosen to complement the voice of the logo and allow for practical application, drawing its colors from some of Ragan’s favorite stems to work with. In total I created multiple color options for the symbol, wordmark, and lockups, some guidelines on color usage, and a business card design.
THE BUS STATION VISUAL IDENTITY
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The Bus Station is a budding collective of independent artists that celebrates words, visual art, and music. I experimented with Lego Dots typography in a printmaking class one semester and took a similar approach when creating the Bus Station logo, so this first variant is taken directly from a scan of a textured “Legopress” print. From there, I used the scan as a guide to construct a clean, grid-based digital version without the imperfections and texture that can complicate usage of the first logo. Finally, I created solid lettering from the digital tile logo to improve legibility and scalability, breaking the original grid to fix kerning issues and create a better hierarchy involving the “the” part of the logotype. The resulting logo trio is full of personality and motion. Introducing The Bus Station, “a place to come and go!”
HARP RECITAL POSTERS
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I have been hired by harpist Margaret Anne Gunter three times to create posters advertising an upcoming recital at the University of North Texas. For each project, I was concerned with grabbing the attention of passers-by using bold, carefully combined color and striking compositions. My visual reference for the first poster consisted primarily of Art Deco magazine covers, and the final composition seamlessly coupled the shapes of an abstracted harp with complementary type set in Emigre’s Modula typeface.
I was already in the middle of a cut paper illustration project when the second poster was commissioned, so I decided to use my developing skills and create a quirky, nostalgic visual to pique viewers’ curiosity and bring them in closer to examine the details of the performance, which are set in varying weights of Antique Olive, complementing the fluidity, organic form, and funkiness of the paper shapes. Arcadia is used for the performer’s name, its lines and high stroke contrast recalling musical notation and the verticality of harp strings.
Finally, the third poster represented the culmination of the harpist’s time at UNT, as it advertised her senior recital. I kept the design type-based to keep things clean and professional, creating a background texture with the performer’s name. I chose a strong green reminiscent of the university’s own color to cover the most surface area, a deep periwinkle to vibrate against the green and create texture, and a soft butter yellow for primary typography to contrast and complement the blue and green. The names of each performer are set in Emigre’s quirky typeface Boks and paired with capitalized Bauhaus, which share a surprising amount of formal qualities. The finishing touch was a custom logo for the location based on the architecture of a UNT concert hall.
AMPLY ENERGY BRAND REFRESH
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Amply Energy is a software startup that exists to simplify the process of complete home electrification, and after a refocus of brand strategy the next step was a simple yet impactful new logo. We landed on a solution that featured a dual house-capital A symbol with a lightning bolt chimney, in a stand-alone form or as part of a logotype and lockup. My work for Amply included the three logo forms, as well as a style guide detailing the use of logos, color, and type, and outlining an extended color palette for use in internal company communications.
LANCE DAWE ALBUM COVERS
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I was hired to create the cover art for Lance Dawe’s first music release in October 2023, a collection of soft piano covers and original ideas called My Traveler, She Walks a Lonely Road. I built upon some photographic experimentation for an academic project from my junior year, creating an original composition of two blended photographs of small toys and game pieces and adding a purple tint—creating an air of surrealism and otherworldliness using familiar building blocks.
The theme continued with my design for Dawe’s next collection of songs, Only in Dreams (stylized as only in dreams), where I used a similar approach to create a busier and more colorful composition for the December 2023 release. Dreams marked the artist’s foray into a wider variety of sounds and higher number of original ideas, which is embodied by the increased maximalism of the cover art. Here I have visualized each cover in physical vinyl sleeve form.