Anura.io: An ad fraud SaaS solution for performance marketing pros.

Dana has been a client since 2011, when we rebranded and created a new website that changed the trajectory of his business: Dana Sound Research Inc. Dana Sutcliffe is a Master Luthier, who provides the highest level of guitar/instrument repair and restoration to musicians and museums globally.

In 2011, when I first met Dana, he was one of the top luthiers in the country, but lacked professional branding and an accessible website. He provided services to local musicians out of a guitar shop, and had an amateurish logo and a flash website inaccessible to mobile phones. However, Dana had laid the groundwork for a successful web presence with a blog and an original logo, almost two decades prior — but had been steered away from it. Dana’s name was well known in the guitar community due to his success in 1992 with the Alvarez Dana Scoop electric guitar. His original logo was used on the guitar headstock and pickups and was instantly recognizable and iconic. You would not have even known that this was the same Dana — in fact, I didn’t — until after he became a client. And, as a guitarist, I was very familiar with the iconic “Dana” logomark. So, the first order of business was to reconnect him to his previous identity.

Our goal was to give Dana a professional appearance, and make him visible to the rest of the world on the internet. I proposed that we rebrand his identity using a modified version of the old, recognizable logo. After identifying the font that was used for his original logotype, I refined the typography, the overall shape, and shadow. We also restored many of his old blog posts, within a new HTML based WordPress website. The website design was intended to bring the tactile physical nature of these instruments into the digital realm by featuring tiled woodgrains. I created these graphics from actual photos I took of chunks of Rosewood and Birdseye Maple, that Dana had laying around. These graphics were incorporated into his brand identity, and have been used on the website, marketing materials, and ads.

The strategy for his site was to relate to a wide ranging audience: from acoustic musicians, metal electric guitar guys, the classic vintage group, to bluegrass banjo and mandolin players. We appealed to these different groups by targeting the very instruments they use, with several photoshoots of beautiful instruments that Dana had in his queue and that were featured at the top of the home page, along with a testimonial quote. This tactic uses the visual nature of these instruments to appeal to audiences that are separated by the nature of the different instrument. For example, a bluegrass picker sees a banjo and a testimonial and thinks: this guy is for me, I need work done on my banjo.

The website home page would serve as an all-in-one landing page, allowing a user to instantly find the contact information, understand detailed bullet points about the services, and also make an appointment through a contact form.

The first iteration of this website was launched in 2011, and has been a massive success. We have since launched several additional iterations. Since working together, Dana’s business has grown significantly. While I am awaiting final statistics, I can confidently write several statements about Dana’s growth.

• Expanded operations to an entire floor of a multiple suite studio — from originally working out of a small music shop.
• Employs a team of master and apprentice luthiers — from originally being a single-man operation.
• Clientele has grown significantly, from all over US, to many countries worldwide — from originally working only locally.
• Type of clientele has expanded, as he now works regularly with museums, and production companies.

Working with Dana has been the most rewarding relationship I have had in this business. Having a client in an industry of which I am passionate was wonderful, but witnessing how an incredible service provider can flourish when given the proper circumstances is truly meaningful. This case study is an excellent example of how a great client + great work = great success. This case was also unique in that he already had a successful identity to fall back on, and just needed the proper guidance to bring it back. To me, it was a no-brainer, but unusual to not have to design a new logo. Dana continues to be a client to this day, and we are in the process of updating his site again, to support his expanded needs for 2022.

Baiada was rebranded to communicate to clients having higher end weddings and events, who care about having beautiful documentation photography. The modern icon juxtaposed with the traditional logotype and filigree provides a contemporary identity with all the classicism of a wedding. The website is a custom Flash site, utilizing SlideShowPro Director, allowing them to easily make updates. The front-end is an ActionScript 3.0 built interface, which interacts with Director. The mobile version uses HTML5 slideshows from Director, and a WordPress HTML custom theme. The Baiada Photography website was the winner of SlideShowPro’s website of the month in March 2010.

This project was completed during my employment at Barclaycard. My role was Lead Designer, and I worked with the Choice Privileges Brand team, in addition to their separate legal team. I was guided through the process by our in-house Creative Director. I re-designed the credit card, and saw the entire process through to production. I worked alongside the credit card printing company, participating in several proof tests, and on-site approval of the final press check. The entire process resulted in the successful printing of over 100,000 cards.

The catalyst for this project was the re-design of Choice Privileges brand identity (which was done by Choice, in-house). Because they had a new logo and style rules, a new credit card needed to be designed. Using the brand style guide, I created dozens of card designs making mock-ups in Illustrator and Photoshop. The colors of the identity are reflected in the orange core of the card, the pearlescent white top, that features a spot gloss varnish. The card bottom features a metallic coating with a matte finish. The sub-brand logos, of all hotel chains that make-up the Choice Privileges network, are screened in white set within the curve of the front. And on the back, each sub-brand logo is printed in full color.

The sub-brand logos were a particularly challenging point for this design problem. We had to find a delicate compromise between Choices’ brand team, and their legal team. The brand team, accordingly to the new guidelines required the sub-brand logos not be displayed on the front of the card (their old card had them displayed on the front). However, the legal team required the exact opposite — they needed the logos on the front. My solution was to display the logos on the front, but in a textural manner. The logos are small, screened in white, set within a visual element. These logos read more as visual texture and less as brand logos. The full color sub-brand logos were printed on the back of the card — the first time we had ever printed full color on the back of a card. This was a clever solution to this problem, and satisfied the legal and brand requirements.

This was a unique design project because I had never worked within this medium before. The challenge of solving a unique problem by finding a compromise between two different clients (Choice brand team, Choice legal team). Working with the credit card manufacturer was particularly interesting because I was able to learn about the unique process of producing credit cards. The approval sign-off of the credit cards determined the success of 100,000’s of cards — so, it had to be absolutely final and perfect. It was. The whole process was very rewarding and educational. Although I don’t typically work on designing credit cards — the medium isn’t important — this project was all about problem solving, and working with disparate teams to find compromise.

Woodin + Associates is a land developing and engineering firm in Middletown, Delaware whose main business is land surveying. In 2011, we revised their brand identity including their logo, signage, vehicle graphics, and redesigned their website.

Goals:
– Modernize the existing logo, making it look cleaner and more modern.
– Keep the general shape and aesthetic of the existing logo.
– Communicate the vernacular of the Construction industry, with the audience being industry professionals.
– New logo and colors must be able to be used alongside the existing logo and colors, during a transition between logos.
– Website contains various pages and projects sections.

The logo was redesigned from their original mark, which appeared dated and was geometrically uncomfortable. Using one of their tools of the trade: a land-surveying device, called a Philadelphia Rod Target Vernier device, I drew inspiration and developed several logo concepts that merged their existing logo with the aesthetic of the device. The “+” from their name was strategically placed to represent the crosshairs of this device. Because it was placed directly in the center of the oval, it creates a geometrically sound shape that is solid and stable. The old logo has the “+” to the right due to the sizes of the type, and makes it appear unstable and wonky. The new typography uses a very modern, futuristic looking face that has letters consistent in size. This allowed me to place the “+” in the center, which resulted in a balanced geometric logo.

Pearce & Moretto is a civil engineering company located in Middletown, Delaware. They hired me to revise their logo without changing what it actually was. While open to ideas for ways of modernizing the mark, they wanted to keep the typographic bulldozer they had been using for years. This original logo was well established in their industry, and was used on signage, vehicles, and marketing materials. The goal of the new logo was to be cleaner, more modern, and look a bit more aggressive to properly fit within their industry. While undergoing this rebranding effort, the client was only interested in changing one thing at a time and did not wanting sweeping changes across everything. Therefore, this new logo needed to work alongside their existing logo – as that would still be used on their vehicles. The vehicle graphics used a different color red, from the original style guide logo, which had been defined by the color vinyl that they had previously chosen. It was decided prior to my involvement, that this was the color they wanted to be used consistently across everything.

Goals:
– Modernize the existing logo, making it look more aggressive, and cleaner.
– Existing concept of a typographic bulldozer must be maintained.
– New logo must be able to be used alongside the old logo, during a lengthy transition between logos.
– Vinyl color red from the vehicle graphics to be used as the consistent color for the identity.
– Create multiple size logos to be used on business cards to large signage.
– Create a style guide with vehicle signage guides for future vehicles.

The process for this project started by redrawing the old logo from scratch in Adobe Illustrator, since the client did not have a vector logo file. The tread shape shape that houses the tagline was refined to a perfect pill shape, and the tread marks were distributed evenly. The shape of the scoop was drawn to match up with the tread, and the lines were emboldened to add weight. The most dramatic change was the typography, and because this mark is a mostly typographic solution, it was the most important part. We mocked up dozens of fonts, and eventually settled on an italic square font that is very masculine and fits within the construction industry. I set the typography tightly, and combined the t’s. I set the top line on the angle of the italic, so that the alignment of the two lines form a forward moving dozer. Finally, contrasting the “Inc.” mark and tagline in all caps, and setting in grayscale gave the mark hierarchy and depth.

After successfully designing the new logomark, I needed to define the color to be used on all materials. Because we had the starting point of the vinyl red, I obtained a sample and worked backwards from vinyl to RGB, and CMYK. In addition, they required a tiny black logo to be used on ultra tiny materials. For this mini version, I stripped away the tagline and emboldened the tread to compensate for the visual weight. A styles guide was also designed, and contains a breakdown of all versions, files and additional rules for vehicle graphics.

The Legal Workplace brand was developed for a legal based workplace study, targeting legal administrators as its’ main target audience. The brand name communicates who this is for, and the tagline describes what it is. The logo icon and logo type present clean, professional graphics that tie together a legal column and bar chart.

Perhaps my favorite project I have ever worked on was this one: for Rob McIver, a very creative photographer that specialized in music and band photography. Rob is a full-time photographer, and also a professional vocalist for The US Army choir. In addition, he became the band photographer for the US Army band. He also photographed lots of children, and personal photographs for couples; anniversaries, etc. His unique blend of talents and perspective, attribute to his style as an artist.

We designed his logo and identity at the same time of this website, and the most important goal was to be minimal, and let the photographs speak for themselves. I tried to speak his unique, often fun and silly, vernacular with a typographic play on his name: “ROB” across the front of a camera — the “R” and flipped “B” mimic the shape of human fingers gripped the camera from behind, and the “O” forms the shape of the camera lens. This play on type and human characteristics made it instantly communicable that: 1. he was a photographer, 2. he was fun, 3. his name was Rob.

The logo was designed a gray color, or white against a dark background — but the “O,” which represents the camera lens, where the magic happens, is the center of the logomark, and also the center of his literal name. Because there were many levels of metaphor here, and we really wanted to push the boundary of uniqueness, I programmed the logo in Adobe Flash to display a focal point (and color) of whatever photograph the logo was accompanied by. If the photo had a pink detail, then that pink detail was shown in the center of the logo. If the photo was orange, the logo was orange. This was a very fun way to visually represent: the magic from the photograph, displayed through the camera lens, displayed through the logo, displayed through Rob’s name. Our initial goal of letting the photographs speak for themselves was also maintained with this convention because there was never more than one competing photograph. The photo seen through the logo was a highlight of that photo, and therefore it highlighted it, and did not compete.

Of course, this was only able to be represented in certain circumstances, where Adobe Flash could be used. And, as of this writing in 2021, Flash is no longer available. So, the rules for the logo color still apply, and are mainly used in print media. When displayed in static web form, a standard color was chosen: pink or orange.

In addition to the brand identity, we built a custom Flash website using SlideShowPro — a back-end slideshow software that was a management system for slideshows. The main site was Flash based, and for his blog I designed and developed an accompanying HTML WordPress website that matched the style of the main site. This job also included various business cards with several photographs on the back, and matching logo on the front.